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 PRINTEO INU.S A. 
 
 i^""^^ University Library 
 HM^iS.?' Charles Dickens. 
 
 PR 4581.F73 1873 
 
 3 1924 013 473 768 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis bool< is in 
 tlie Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013473768 
 
THE LIFE 
 
/ 
 
 
 
 
 D Maclise, R A 
 
 R Craves A R.A 
 
 CMAIEILIES BHCKE: 
 
THE LIFE 
 
 OF 
 
 CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 BY JOHN FOESTER. 
 
 VOLUME THE FIRST. 
 1812—1842. 
 
 FIFTEENTH THOUSAND. 
 
 LONDON : 
 CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193, PICCADILLY. 
 
 1874. 
 
 [TKe Right of Translation wnd Reproduction is reserved,] 
 
A. 111)0 
 
 1 
 
 LONDON : 
 BRADBUKY, AGNEW, iSe CO., PRJMTElta, WHlTEFJtlARS. 
 
 
TO THE DATJGHTEBS OP CHARLES DICKENS, 
 
 MY GODDAUGHTER MARY 
 
 AKD 
 
 HER SISTER KATE, 
 
 THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED BY THEIE FRIEND, 
 AHD THEIR PATHEK'S FRIEND AND EXECUTOR, 
 
 JOHN FORSTER. 
 
NOTE TO THE PRESENT EDITION. 
 
 StrOH has been the rapidity of tie demaDd for successive impressions of this 
 book, that I have found it impossible, until now, to correct at pages 11, 66, and 
 76 three errors of statement made in the former editions ; and some few other 
 mistakes, not in themselyes important, at pages 75, 80, and 81. I take the 
 opportunity of adding, that the mention at p. 62 ia not an allusion to the 
 ■well-known ' Penny ' and ' Saturday ' magazines, but to weekly periodicals of 
 some years' earlier date resembling them in form. One of them, I hare since 
 found from a later mention by Dickens himself, was presumably of a leas whole- 
 some and instructive character. 'I used,' he says, ' when I was at school, to 
 'take in the TerHfic Register, making myself unspeakably miserable, and 
 ' frightening my very wits out of my head, for the small charge of a penny 
 ■ weekly ; which, considering that there was an illustration to every number 
 ' in which there was always a pool of blood, and at least one body, was cheap.' 
 An obliging correspondent writes to me upon my reference to the Fox-under- 
 the-hill, at pp. 42—3 : ' Will you permit me to say, that the house, shut up 
 ' and almost ruinous, is stiU to be found at the bottom of a curious and most 
 ' precipitous court, the entrance of which is just past Salisbury-street. . . . 
 ' It was once, I think, the approach to the halfpenny boats. The house is 
 ' now shut out from the water-side by the Embankment. ' 
 
 Palace Gate House, Kensington, 
 23rd December, 1871. 
 
 Since the above-mentioned edition went to press, a published letter has 
 rendered necessary a brief additional note to the remarks made at pp. 133-4. 
 
 iSzi January, 1872. 
 
ILLUSTEATIONS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Autograph of C. D. (1837) ' . . Fly-leaf 
 
 C. D. Kt. 27. From Macliae's Painting, by Graves, A.E.A. . Title page 
 
 The house at Landport where Charles Dickens was born . . . 
 
 Reverse of this page 
 [From a photograph by Mr. H. Robins of Landport, who thus writes : 
 ' It is now occupied by members of the same family to whom it belonged at 
 * the birth of Charles Dickens, whose father was a tenant of their father. *~\ 
 
 Facsimile of Letter written in Boyhood 59 w 
 
 OutUne of the Maclise Painting of 1839. Engraved by Jeens . . 156 
 
 Apotheosis of Grip the Eaven, by Maclise, K.A 213 (/ 
 
 Facsimile of C. D.'s autograph signature Boz (1841) . . . . 251 , 
 
 Facsimile of Invitation to the Public Dinner in New York, with 
 
 the signatures 285 u 
 
 Facsimile of Invitation to the Public Ball in New York, with the 
 
 signatures 288 i 
 
 FacsimUe of the Bill of the Private Play in Canada . . . 397 ^ 
 
BIKTHPLACB OF CHABLES DICKENS. 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTEE I. 1812-1822. 
 Pages 1-26. 
 
 Childhood. Mi. 1-10. 
 
 Birth at Landport In Portsea 
 Family of John Dickens . 
 Powers of observation in children 
 Two years old . 
 
 In London, xt. 2-3 
 In Chatham, set. 4-9 
 Vision of boyhood 
 The queer small child 
 Mother's teaching 
 Day-school in Kome-lane , 
 Ketrospects of childhood 
 David Copperfield and„_Charies 
 
 Dickens . 
 Access to small but good library 
 Tragedy-writing 
 Comic-song singing 
 Cousin James Lamert 
 First taken to theatre . 
 At Mr. Giles's school 
 Encored in the recitations 
 Boyish recolleetiona 
 Birth-place of his fancy 
 Last night in Chatham . 
 In London . 
 First impressions . 
 Bayham-street, Camden-town 
 Faculty of early observation 
 His description of his father 
 
 PAGE 
 
 1 
 1 
 2 
 2 
 
 4 
 6 
 6 
 7 
 
 7 
 
 8 
 9 
 10 
 U 
 11 
 11 
 12 
 13 
 13 
 14 
 15 
 16 
 16 
 16 
 17 
 18 
 
 PAOB 
 
 Small theatre made for him . . 18 
 
 Sister Fanny at royal academy of 
 
 music. . . . .19 
 
 Walks about Loudon . . . 19 
 
 Biography and autobiography . 20 
 At his godfather's and his uncle's. 21 
 
 First efforts at description . . 22 
 
 ' Kes Augusta Domi ' . . . 22 
 
 Mother exerting herself . . 23 
 
 Father in the MarshaJsea . . 23 
 
 Visit to the prison . . .24 
 
 Captain Porter . . . . 24 
 
 Old friends disposed of . .25 
 
 At the pawnbroker's . . . 26 
 
 i CHAPTER 11. 1822-1824. 
 
 Pages 27-50. 
 
 Hard Experiences in Boyhood. 
 Ml. 10-12. 
 
 Mr. Dilke's half-crown . . 27 
 
 Story of boyhood told . . . 28 
 D. C. a nd^^. ... 28 
 
 "Enterprise of the cousins Lamert . 29 
 
 First employment in life . . . 30 
 
 Blacking warehouse . . .30 
 
 A poor little drudge . . . 31 
 
 Bob Fagin and Poll Green . .32 
 
 ' Faoilis Descensus ' . . . 32 
 
 Crushed hopes . . . .33 
 
 hi 
 
nu 
 
 TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 The homo in Gower-atreet . . 33 
 Regaling alamode . . .34 
 
 Home broken np . . . . 3i 
 
 AtMrs. Koylance'sinCamden-town 35 
 Sondaja in prison . . .35 
 
 Padding-shops and coffee-shops . 36 
 
 What was and might have been . 37 
 
 Thomas and Harry . . . . 38 
 
 A lodging in Lant-street . . 39 
 
 Meals in the Marshalsea . . . 39 
 
 C. D. and the Marchioness . . 40 
 
 Originals of G^arland family , . 40 
 
 Adventure with Bob Fagin . . 41 
 
 Saturday-night shows . . . 41 
 Appraised officially . . .42 
 
 Publican and wife at Cannon-row . 43 
 
 Marshalsea incident in Copperfietd 44 
 
 Incident as it occurred . . 45 
 
 Materials for Pickwick . . . 46 
 
 Sister Fanny's musical prize . 47 
 From Hungerf ord-stairs to Chandos- 
 
 street 47 
 
 Father's quarrel with James 
 
 lamert . . . .48 
 Quits the warehouse . . . 49 
 Bitter associations of servitude . 49 
 What became of the blacking busi- 
 ness 50 
 
 CHAPTER in. 1824-1830. 
 
 Pages 51-74. 
 
 ScHOOia Days and Start in Lipb. 
 Ml. 12-18.- 
 
 Outcome of boyish trials . 
 Disadvantage in later years 
 
 Next move in life 
 Wellington-house academy 
 Revisited and described 
 Letter from a schoolfellow 
 
 51 
 52 
 63 
 54 
 55 
 56 
 56 
 
 faob 
 
 C. D. 'b recollections of school . 57 
 Schoolfellow's recollections of C. D. 57 
 Fac-simile of schoolboy letter . 59 
 
 Daniel Tobin 60 
 
 Mother schoolfellow's recollections 61 
 
 Writing tales and getting up plays 62 
 
 Master Beverley scene-painter . 63 
 
 Street-acting 63 
 
 The schoolfellows after 40 years , 64 
 
 SmaUness of the world . . 65 
 
 In attorneys' offices . . . 66 
 At minor theatres , . .67 
 
 The father on the son's education . 68 
 
 Studying shorthand . . . 69 
 
 In British-museum reading-room . 69 
 
 Preparing for the gallery , . 70 
 
 D. C. for C.JD , . . . , 70 
 A real Dora in 1829 . . . 71 
 The same Dora in 1855 . . . 72 
 Dora changed into Flora . . .73 
 Ashes of youth and hope . . 74 
 
 ' CHAPTEE rV. 1831-1835. 
 
 Pages 75-85. 
 
 Eeportbks' Gallery and Newspapbk 
 Literature, ^t. 19-23. 
 
 Reporting for True Sun . 
 First seen by me . 
 Reporting for Mirror and Chronicle 
 First published piece . 
 Discipline and experiences of re 
 
 porting . 
 Life as a reporter 
 John Black . 
 Mr. Thomas Beard 
 A letter to his editor 
 Incident of reporting days . 
 The same more correctly told 
 Origin of " Boz " ^ 
 Captain Holland . 
 
 75 
 75 
 76 
 76 
 
 77 
 
 78: 
 
 79 
 
 80. 
 
 81 
 
 81 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 Mr. Oeorge Hogaith . 
 Sketches in Evening Chronicle 
 0. D.'s first hearty appreciator 
 
 PAGE 
 
 . 84 
 . 84 
 . 85 
 
 I OHAPTEE V, 1836. 
 Pages 86-95. 
 First Book, and Okioin of Piok- 
 
 WIOK. ^T. 24. 
 
 Sketches ly Boz . . . . 86 
 Fancy-piece by N. P. Willis : a poor 
 
 English author . . .86 
 
 Start of Pickwick . . . . 87 
 
 Marriage to Miss Hogarth . . 87 
 First connection with Ohapmanand 
 
 HaU 88 
 
 Mr. Seymour's part in Pickwick . 88 
 
 Letters relating thereto . . 89 
 
 C. D.'s own accoiint . . . 89 
 False claims refuted . . .90 
 Pickwick's original, his figure and 
 
 his name . . . . 91 
 
 First sprightly runnings of genius 92 
 
 The Sketches characterized . . 93 
 
 Mr. Seymour's death . . . 94 
 
 New illustrator chosen . . 94 
 
 Mr. Hablot K. Browne . . . 94 
 
 C. D. leaves the gallery . . 95 
 Strange Gentleman and Village 
 
 Coquettes . , . . 95 
 
 i OHAPTEE VI. 1837. 
 / 
 
 Pages 96-119. 
 
 ■Writino the Pickwick Papers. 
 ^T. 25. 
 
 First letter from him . . . 96 
 
 As he was 35 years ago . . 96 
 
 Mrs. Carlyle and Leigh Hunt . 97 
 
 Birth of eldest son . • . 97 
 
 his 
 
 Prom Fumivars-inn to Doughty. 
 
 street 
 A long-remembered sorrow . 
 I visit bJTTi 
 
 Hasty compacts with publishers 
 Self -sold into quasi-bondage . 
 Agreements for editorship and 
 
 writing 
 Mr. Macrone's scheme to re-issue 
 
 Sketches 
 Attempts to prevent it 
 Exorbitant demand 
 Impatience of suspense 
 Purchase advised . 
 Oliver Twist . ' . 
 Characters real to himself 
 Sense of responsibility for 
 
 writings . 
 Criticism that satisfied him 
 Help given with his proofs 
 Writing Pickwick, Nos. 14 and 15 
 Scenes in a debtors' prison . 
 A recollection of SmoUett 
 Keception of Pickwick . 
 A popular rage 
 
 Mr. Carlyle's ' dreadful ' story 
 Secrets of success 
 Pickwick inferior to later books 
 Exception for Sam WeUer and 
 
 Mr. Pickwick . 
 Personal habits of C. D. 
 Beliefs after writing . 
 Natural discontents 
 The early agreements . 
 
 Tale to follow Oliver Twist v 
 Compromise with Mr. Bentley 
 Trip to Flanders 
 First visit to Broadstairs 
 Piracies of Pickwick . 
 A sufferer from agreements . 
 First visit to Brighton 
 What he is doing with 
 
 Tvnst . i 
 
 118 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 Beading De Foe 
 ' No Thoroughfare ' 
 Proposed help to Macready 
 
 PAGE 
 
 118 
 119 
 119 
 
 CHAPTER Vn. 1837 and 1838. 
 
 Pages 120-129. 
 
 Between Piokwiok and Nioklebt. 
 *T. 25-26. 
 
 Edits lAfe of Grimaldi . , . 120 
 
 His own opinion of it . . 120 
 
 An objection answered . . . 121 
 His recollections of 1823 . ,121 
 
 Completion of Pickwick . . 122 
 
 A purpose long entertained . 123 
 
 Relations with Chapman 4; Hall . 123 
 
 Payments made for Pickwick . 124 
 
 Agreement for Nicholas NickUby 124 
 
 Oliver Twist characterized • ••'. . 125 
 Keasous for acceptance with every 
 
 class .... 125 
 
 Nightmare of an agreement . . 126 
 
 Letter to Mr. Bentley . . 126 
 
 Proposal as to £arndby Budge . 127 
 
 Eesultofit 127 
 
 Birth of eldest daughter . .128 
 Toang Gentlemen and Toung 
 
 Ccmples . ... 128 
 First number of Nicholas Nichle- 
 
 ly 129 
 
 Second of April 1838 . . . 129 
 
 CHAPTER Vni. ,1838. 
 
 Pages 130-142. 
 
 Outer Twist. &i. 26. 
 
 Interest in characters at close of 
 
 Oliver . .'-' . . . 130 
 
 Writing of the last chapter . 131 
 
 Cruikshank illustrations . . 131 
 
 Etchings for last Tolume . 
 
 How executed 
 
 Slander respecting them exposed 
 
 Falsehood ascribed to the artist 
 
 Reputation of the new tale , 
 
 Its workmanship 
 
 Social evils passed away 
 
 Living only in what destroyed 
 
 them 
 Chief design of the story 
 Its principal figures . 
 Comedy and tragedy of crime 
 Bfiply to attacks . 
 Le Sage, Gay, and Fielding 
 Likeness to them . 
 Again the shadow of BarnaJry 
 Appeal to Mr. Bentley for delay 
 A very old story 
 ' Sic vos non vobis ' 
 Bamaby given up by Mr. Bentley 
 Resignation of Miscellany 
 Parent parting from child 
 
 FAGS 
 
 132 
 132 
 133 
 133 
 134 
 134 
 135 
 
 135 
 136 
 136 
 137 
 137 
 138 
 138 
 139 
 139 
 140 
 140 
 141 
 141 
 142 
 
 CHAPTEE IX. 1838-1839, 
 
 Pages 143-156. 
 Nicholas Nioklebt. ^t. 26-27, 
 
 Doubts of success dispelled 
 Realities of English life 
 Characters self -revealed 
 Miss Bates and Mrs. Nickleby 
 Smike and Dotheboys 
 A favourite type of humanity 
 Sydney Smith and Newman Noggs 
 Kindliness and breadth of humour 
 Goldsmith and Smollett . 
 Early and later books . 
 Biographical not critical , 
 Characteristics 
 Materials for the book 
 Birth-day letter . . 
 
 143 
 144 
 144 
 145 
 145 
 146 
 146 
 147 
 147 
 148 
 148 
 149 
 149 
 150 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 
 PAGE 
 
 / CHAPTER XI. 1839 
 
 . 
 
 A difficiilty at starting 
 
 150 
 
 f 
 
 
 Never in advance -vritli NichUby 
 
 151 
 
 Pages 168-176. 
 
 
 Always with later books . 
 
 161 
 
 New Literary Project. Mi. 
 
 27-28. 
 
 Enjoying a play . 
 
 152 
 
 
 PAGE 
 
 At the Adelphi 
 
 152 
 
 Thoughts for the future 
 
 168 
 
 Writing Mrs. Niokleby's love 
 
 
 Doubts of old serial form 
 
 168 
 
 scene .... 
 
 153 
 
 Suggestion for his publishers 
 
 169 
 
 Sydney Smith vanquished . 
 
 153 
 
 My mediation with them . 
 
 169 
 
 Winding up the story . 
 
 154 
 
 Proposed weekly publication 
 
 170 
 
 Parting from creatures of hi 
 
 i 
 
 Design of it . 
 
 170 
 
 fancy 
 
 155 
 
 Old favourites to be revived 
 
 
 The Nioklehy dinner . 
 
 155 
 
 Subjects to be dealt with 
 
 
 Persons present 
 
 155 
 
 Chapters on Chambers 
 
 
 The Maclise portrait 
 
 156 
 
 Gog and Magog Kelaxatious . 
 
 
 
 
 Savage Chronicles 
 
 
 
 
 Others as well as himself to writ 
 
 s 172 
 
 ,' CFAPTEE X. 1838-lJ 
 
 39. 
 
 Travels to Ireland and America in 
 
 
 
 view .... 
 
 172 
 
 Pages 157-167. 
 
 
 Stipulation as to property and 
 
 DuBXira and after Niokle 
 
 BY. 
 
 payments . 
 
 173 
 
 Mr. 26-27. 
 
 
 Great hopes of success . 
 
 173 
 
 
 
 Assent of his publishers 
 
 174 
 
 The cottage at Twickenham 
 
 157 
 
 No planned story . 
 
 174 
 
 Daniel Maclise .. 
 
 157 
 
 Terms of agreement . 
 
 175 
 
 Ainsworth and other friends . 
 
 158 
 
 Notion for his hero 
 
 175 
 
 ^T. Stanley of Alderley . 
 
 158 
 
 A name hit upon 
 
 . 176 
 
 Petersham cottage 
 
 . 159 
 
 Sanguine of the issue . 
 
 176 
 
 Cliildish enjoyments . 
 
 159 
 
 
 
 Writes a farce for Covent-gardei 
 
 1 160 
 
 
 
 Entered at the Middle-temple 
 We see Wainewxight in Newgate 
 
 160,^ 
 160 
 
 4 CHAPTER Xli. 1840-1841. 
 
 Oliver Twist and the Quwrterly 
 
 161 
 
 Pages 177-193. 
 
 
 Hood's Up the Bldne . 
 
 161 
 
 
 
 
 The Old Curiosity Shop 
 
 
 Shakespeare-society . 
 Birth of second daughter 
 
 162 
 162 
 
 Ml. 28-29. 
 
 
 House-hunting . 
 
 163 
 
 Visit to Walter Landor 
 
 . 177 
 
 Bwmaby at his tenth page . 
 
 163 
 
 First thought of Little Nell . 
 
 . 177 
 
 Letter from Exeter . 
 
 163 
 
 Hopeful of Master Humphrey 
 
 . 178 
 
 A landlady and her friends . 
 
 164 
 
 A title for the child-story . 
 
 178 
 
 A home for his father and mothe 
 
 • 165 
 
 First sale of Master Bumplirey' 
 
 s 
 
 Autobiographical 
 
 165 
 
 Clock .... 
 
 . 179 
 
 Visit to an upholsterer 
 
 166 
 
 Its original plan abandoned 
 
 . 179 
 
 Visit from the same . 
 
 167 
 
 Reasons for .this 
 
 . 179 
 
lU 
 
 TABLE OP CONTENTS. 
 
 To be limited to one story 
 Disadvantages of weekly pnblica 
 
 tion .... 
 A fayourite description . 
 In Bevis-marks for Sampson Brass 
 At Lawn-bouse, Broadstairs 
 Dedication of his first volome to 
 
 Chapters 43-45 . 
 
 Dick Swiveller and tbe Mar- 
 
 cbioness . . . 
 Masterpiece of kindly firn 
 Closing of tbe tale 
 Effect upon tbe writer . 
 Making-believe very mucb . 
 The end approaching . 
 Tbe realities of fiction 
 Death of Little Nell . 
 My share in the close 
 A suggestion adopted by bim 
 Success of tbe story 
 Useful lessons . 
 Its mode of construction 
 Character and characteristics 
 Tbe art of it . 
 A recent tribute . 
 Harte's ' Dickens in Camp ' 
 
 PAGE 
 
 180 
 
 180 
 181 
 181 
 182 
 
 182 
 183 
 
 183 
 184 
 184 
 185 
 185 
 186 
 186 
 187 
 187 
 188 
 188 
 189 
 189 
 190 
 190 
 191 
 192 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 1840. 
 
 Pages 194-207. 
 
 Devonshire Tekraoe and Broad- 
 STAIRS. Ml. 28. 
 
 A £" 3d saying 
 
 Landor mystified 
 
 The mirthful side of Dickens . 
 
 Extravagant flights . 
 
 Humorous despair 
 
 Biding exercise . 
 
 First of the Havens 
 
 The groom Topping . . 
 
 194 
 194 
 195 
 195 
 196 
 197 
 197 
 197 
 
 The smoky chimneys . . . 198 
 
 Juryman at an inquest . .198 
 
 Practical humanity . . . 199 
 
 Publication of Clock' a first number 199 
 
 Transfer of Swrnaby settled . . 200 
 
 A true prediction . . . 200 
 
 Kevisiting old scenes . . . 201 
 
 C. D. to Chapman and HaU . 201 
 
 Terms of sale of Bamdby . . 202 
 
 A gift to a friend . . . ' 202 
 
 Final escape from bondage . . 203 
 
 Published libels about bim . 203 
 
 Said to be demented . . . 204 
 
 To be insane and turned Catholic . 204 
 
 Begging-letter-writers . . . 205 
 
 A donkey asked for . . . 205 
 
 Mr. Kindheart . . . . 205 
 
 Friendly meetings . . . 206 
 
 Social talk 206 
 
 Eeconciling friends . . . 207 
 
 Hint for judging men . . . 207 
 
 '/ CHAPTEE XIV. 1841. 
 
 Pages 208-223. 
 
 Babnabt Kudos, ^t. 29. 
 
 Advantage in beginning Barndby 208 
 Birth of fourth child and second 
 
 son 209 
 
 Tbe Eaven 209 
 
 A loss in tbe family . . .210 
 Grip's death . . . . 210 
 
 0. D. describes bis illness . . 211 
 Family mourners . . . . 212 
 Apotheosis by Maclise , .218 
 Grip tbe second . . . , 214 
 Tbe inn at Chigwell . . . 21 4 
 A Clock dinner . . . . 21 5 
 Lord Jeffrey in London . .215 
 Tbe Lamplighter . . . . 216 
 The Pic Nic Papers . . . 216 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Character of Lord George Gordon 
 
 216 
 
 A doubtful fancy . . . . 
 
 217 
 
 Interest in new labour 
 
 218 
 
 Constraints of weekly publication 
 
 218 
 
 The prison-riots . . . . 
 
 219 
 
 A serious illness 
 
 219 
 
 Close of Bamdby . . . . 
 
 219 
 
 Character of the tale . 
 
 220 
 
 Defects in the plot . . . 
 
 220 
 
 The No-Popery riots . 
 
 221 
 
 Descriptive power displayed . . 
 
 221 
 
 Jjeading persons in story . 
 
 222 
 
 Mr. Dennis the hangman . . 
 
 223 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 1841. 
 
 Pages 224-237. 
 
 PtiBLio Dinner in Edinbckgh. 
 .all. 29. 
 
 His son Waiter Landor 
 
 . 224 
 
 Dies in Calcutta (1863). 
 
 . 224 
 
 C. D. and the new poor-law 
 
 . 225 
 
 Moore and Eogers 
 
 . 225 
 
 Jeffrey's praise of Little Nell 
 
 . 226 
 
 Resolve to visit Scotland 
 
 . 226 
 
 Edinburgh dinner proposed 
 
 . 227 
 
 Sir David Wilkie's death 
 
 . 227 
 
 Peter Eobertaon 
 
 . 228 
 
 Professor WUson . 
 
 . 228 
 
 A fancy of Scott 
 
 . 229 
 
 Liouization made tolerable 
 
 . 229 
 
 Thoughts of home 
 
 . 230 
 
 The dinner and speeches 
 
 . 230 
 
 His reception . 
 
 . 231 
 
 Wilson's eulogy . 
 
 . 231 
 
 Home yearnings 
 
 . 232 
 
 Freedom of city voted to him 
 
 . 232 
 
 Speakers at the dinner 
 
 . 233 
 
 Politics and party influences 
 
 . 233 
 
 Whig jealousies 
 
 . 234 
 
 At the theatre 
 
 . 234 
 
 rAOE 
 
 236 
 235 
 235 
 236 
 236 
 237 
 
 Hospitalities . 
 
 Moral of it all 
 
 Proposed visit to the Highlands 
 
 Maclise and Macready . 
 
 Guide to the Highlands 
 
 Mr. Angus Fletcher (Kindheart) 
 
 / CHAPTER X¥I. 1841. 
 
 Pages 238-251. 
 
 Adventures in the Hiqhlambs. 
 Mt. 29. 
 
 A fright 238 
 
 Fletcher's eccentricities . . 238 
 
 The Trossachs .... 239 
 
 The travellei's' guide . . . 239 
 
 A comical picture . . . 240 
 
 Highland accommodation . . 240 
 
 Grand scenery .... 241 
 
 Changes in route . . . . 241 
 A waterfall . . .242 
 
 Entrance to Glencoe . . . 242 
 
 The pass of Glencoe . . . 243 
 
 Loch Leven ..... 243 
 
 A July evening . . . 244 
 
 Postal service at Looh-earn-head 244 
 
 The maid of the iim . . . 245 
 
 Impressions of Glencoe . . . 245 
 
 An adventure .... 246 
 
 Torrents swollen with rain . . 246 
 
 Dangerous travelling . . 247 
 
 Incidents and accidents . . 247 
 
 Broken-down bridge . , . 248 
 
 A fortunate resolve . . . 248 
 
 Post-boy in danger . . . 249 
 
 The rescue 249 
 
 Narrow escape .... 249 
 
 A Highland inn and inmates . 250 
 
 English comfort at Dalmally . . 250 
 
 Dinner at Glasgow proposed . 251 
 
 Eagerness for home . . . 251 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 1841. 
 
 Pages 252-258. 
 
 
 AOAIN AT BROABSTAIKg. Ml. 
 
 29. 
 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Peel and his party . 
 
 252 
 
 Getting very radical . • ■ 
 
 252 
 
 Thoughts of oolonizing 
 
 253 
 
 Political squib by CD. . . 
 
 253 
 
 Fine old English tory times 
 
 254 
 
 Mesmerism 
 
 254 
 
 Metropolitan prisons 
 
 255 
 
 Book by a workman 
 
 265 
 
 An August day by the sea . 
 
 255 
 
 Another story in prospect . . 
 
 256 
 
 Cloeh discontents 
 
 256 
 
 New adventure . . . . 
 
 257 
 
 Agreement for it signed 
 
 257 
 
 The book that proved to be Ghuz- 
 
 
 zUwit 
 
 258 
 
 Peel and Lord Ashley 
 
 258 
 
 Yislons of America . . . 
 
 258 
 
 CHAPTEE XTin. 1841. 
 
 Pages 259-266. 
 
 Ete of the Visit to Ambkioa. 
 &i. 29. 
 
 Greetings from America . 
 
 259 
 
 Keply to Washington Irving . . 
 
 259 
 
 Difficulties in the way 
 
 260 
 
 Resolve to go . . . . 
 
 260 
 
 Wish to revisit scenes of boy- 
 
 
 hood .... 
 
 261 
 
 Proposed book of travel . . 
 
 261 
 
 Arrangements for the journey . 
 
 261 
 
 Impatience of suspense . . . 
 
 262 
 
 Resolve to leave the children 
 
 263 
 
 Mrs. Dickens reconciled . . 
 
 263 
 
 A grave illness .... 
 
 263 
 
 Domestic griefs . . . . 
 
 264 
 
 The old sorrow .... 
 
 264 
 
 paoh 
 At Windsor . . . . 265 
 
 Son Walter's christening . . 265 
 At Liverpool with the travellers . 266 
 
 CHAPTBB. XIX. 1842. 
 
 Pages 267-290. 
 
 First Impressions Off Amekioa. 
 ^T. 30. 
 
 Bough passage .... 267 
 
 A steamer in a storm . . . 267 
 
 Resigned to the worst . . 268 
 
 Of himself and fellow-travellers . 268 
 
 The Atlantic from deck . . 269 
 
 The ladies' cabin . . . 269 
 
 Its occupants . . . . 270 
 
 Card-playing on Atlantic . . 270 
 
 Ship-news . ... 271 
 
 A wager ..... 271 
 
 Halifax harbour . . . . 272 
 
 Ship aground .... 272 
 
 Captain Hewitt . . . . 273 
 
 Speaker of house of assembly . 273 
 
 Ovation to 0. D. . . . 274 
 
 Arrival at Boston . . . . 274 
 
 Incursion of editors . . . 275 
 
 At Tremont-house . . . 275 
 
 The welcome .... 276 
 
 Deputations. . . . . 276 
 
 Dr. Channing to CD. . . 277 
 
 Public appearances . . . 27r 
 
 A secretary engaged . . . 278 
 
 Bostonians . . . . . 278 
 
 General characteristics . . 279 
 
 Personal notices . . . . 279 
 
 Perils of steamers . . . 280 
 
 A home thought . . . . 280 
 
 American institutions . . 281 
 
 How first impressed . . . 281 
 
 Reasons for the greeting . . 282 
 
 What was welcomed in C D. . 282 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 XT 
 
 
 PAOE 
 
 CM world and New world . 
 
 283 
 
 Daniel Webster as to C. D. . 
 
 283 
 
 Channing as to 0. D. 
 
 284 
 
 Subsequent disappointments . 
 
 284 
 
 New York invitation to dinner 
 
 285 
 
 Facsimiles of signatures 
 
 286 
 
 Additional facsimiles . 
 
 287 
 
 New York invitation to ball 
 
 288 
 
 Facsimiles of signatures 
 
 289 
 
 Additional facsimiles . 
 
 290 
 
 CHAPTEE XX. 1842. 
 
 Pages 291-315 
 
 
 Second Impkessions 
 
 OF 
 
 Ameeioa. 
 
 ^T. 30. 
 
 
 
 Second letter . 
 
 
 . 291 
 
 International copyright 
 
 
 . . 291 
 
 Third letter 
 
 
 . 292 
 
 The dinner at Boston 
 
 
 . . 293 
 
 Worcester, Springfield, and Hart- 
 ford 293 
 
 Queer travelling . . . . 293 
 Levees at Hartford and New- 
 haven 294 
 
 At Wallingford . . .294 
 
 Serenades ..... 295 
 Cornelius C. Felton . . .295 
 Payment of personal expenses 
 
 declined . . . . 296 
 At New York . . . .296 
 Irving and Golden . . . 296 
 ■ Description of the ball . . 297 
 Newspaper accounts . . . 298 
 A phase of character . . . . 298 
 Opinion in America . ' . . 299 
 International copyright . . 299 
 American authors in regard to it 299 
 Outcry against the nation's guest 300 
 Declines to be silent on copy- 
 right . . . .300 
 
 paqb: 
 
 Speech at dinner . . . . 301 
 
 Irving in the chair . . . 301 
 
 Chairman's breakdown , . . 302 
 
 An incident afterwards in London 302 
 
 Eesults of copyright speeches . 303 
 
 A bookseller's demand for help . 303 
 
 Suggestion for copyright memorial 304 
 
 Henry Clay's opinion . .304 
 
 Life in New York . . , 305 
 
 Distresses of popularity . . 305 
 
 Intentions for future . . . 306 
 
 Refusal of invitations . .306 
 
 Going south and west . . . 306 
 
 As to return .... 307 
 
 Dangers incident to steamers . 307 
 
 Slavery ,308 
 
 Ladies of America . . . 308 
 
 Party conflicts . . . . 309 
 
 Non-arrival of Cunard steamer . 309 
 
 Copyright petition for Congress . 310 
 
 No hope of the Caledonia . . 310 
 
 A substitute for her . . . 311 
 
 Anxiety as to letters . . . 311 
 
 Of distinguished Americans . . 312 
 
 Hotel bills . . . .312 
 
 Thoughts of the children . . 312 
 
 Acadia takes Caledonia's place . 313 
 
 Letter to C. D. from Carlyle . 313 
 
 Carlyle on copyright . . .314 
 
 Argument against stealing . . 314 
 
 Rob Roy's plan worth bettering . 315 
 
 C. D. as to Carlyle . . . 315 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 1842. 
 
 Pages 316-338. 
 
 Philadelphia, Washihsiok, and ths 
 South. &v. 30. 
 
 At Philadelphia 
 
 Rule in printing letters . . 
 
 Promise as to railroads . . 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 Experience of them . . • 
 Railway oars . . • • 
 Cliarcoal stoves . . • • 
 Ladies' cars . . • • 
 
 Spittoons 
 
 Massachusetts and New York 
 Police-celis and prisons 
 House of detention and inmates . 
 Women and boy prisoners . . 
 Capital punishment . 
 A house of correction . . . 
 Four hundred single cells . . 
 Comparison with English prisons 
 Inns and landlords . . ■ 
 At Washington .... 
 Hotel extortion . . . . 
 Philadelphia penitentiary . 
 The solitary system . . . 
 Solitary prisoners 
 Talk with inspectors . . . 
 Bookseller Gary 
 
 Changes of temperature . . 
 Henry Clay .... 
 Proposed joumeyings . . . 
 Letters from England 
 Congress and Senate . . . 
 Leading American statesmen 
 The people of America 
 Englishmen ' located ' there . . 
 ' Surgit amari aliquid ' . , 
 The copyright petition . . . 
 At Richmond .... 
 Irving appointed to Spain . . 
 Experience of a slave city . 
 Incidents of slave-life . . . 
 Discussion with a slave-holder . 
 Feeling of South to England 
 Levees at Richmond . . . 
 One more banquet accepted 
 My gift of ShaJeespeare , . 
 
 Home letters and fancies . 
 Self-reproach of a noble nature . 
 Washington Irving's leave-taking 
 
 PAGE 
 
 OHAPTEE XXn. 184! 
 
 i. 
 
 317 
 
 
 
 318 
 
 Pages 339-361. 
 
 
 318 
 
 Cahai Boat Jottenbts : boumd 
 
 Fab 
 
 318 
 
 West. Mt. 30. 
 
 
 319 
 
 
 PAGE 
 
 319 
 
 Character in the letters . . 
 
 339 
 
 320 
 
 The Notes less satisfactory . 
 
 339 
 
 321 
 
 Personal narrative in letters . . 
 
 340 
 
 322 
 
 The copyright differences . 
 
 340 
 
 323 
 
 Social dissatisfactions . . . 
 
 341 
 
 323 
 
 A fact to he remembered . 
 
 341 
 
 324 
 
 Literary merits of the letters . . 
 
 342 
 
 324 
 
 Personal character pourtrayed . 
 
 342 
 
 325 
 
 On board for Pittsburgh . 
 
 343 
 
 325 
 
 Choicest passages of Notes . . 
 
 343 
 
 325 
 
 Queer stage-coach 
 
 344 
 
 326 
 
 Something revealed on the top . 
 
 344 
 
 326 
 
 At Harrisbnrgh 
 
 345 
 
 327 
 
 Treaties with Indians . . . 
 
 345 
 
 327 
 
 Local legislatures 
 
 346 
 
 328 
 
 A levee 
 
 346 
 
 328 
 
 Morning and night in canal-boat 
 
 347 
 
 328 
 
 At and after breakfast 
 
 347 
 
 329 
 
 Making the best of it . . . 
 
 348 
 
 329 
 
 Hardy habits .... 
 
 348 
 
 330 
 
 By rail across mountain . . 
 
 349 
 
 330 
 
 Mountain scenery 
 
 349 
 
 331 
 
 New settlements . . . . 
 
 350 
 
 331 
 
 Original of Eden in Chwszhwit . 
 
 350 
 
 332 
 
 A useful word .... 
 
 351 
 
 332 
 
 Party in America . . . . 
 
 352 
 
 332 
 
 Home news .... 
 
 352 
 
 333 
 
 Meets an early acquaintance . . 
 
 353 
 
 334 
 
 'Smallness of the world' . 
 
 353 
 
 334 
 
 Queer customers at levees . . 
 
 354 
 
 384 
 
 Our anniversary 
 
 354 
 
 335 
 
 The Cincinnati steamer . . 
 
 355 
 
 335 
 
 Frugality in water and linen 
 
 355 
 
 336 
 
 Magnetic experiments . . . 
 
 356 
 
 336 
 
 Life preservers . . . . 
 
 357 
 
 337 
 
 Bores 
 
 357 
 
 337 
 
 Habits of neatness . . 
 
 358 
 
 338 
 
 Wearying for home . , . 
 
 358 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 xvU 
 
 Another solitary prison 
 New teiTor to loneliness 
 Arrival at Cincinnati 
 Two judges in attendance 
 The city described . 
 On the pavement . 
 
 PAGE 
 
 359 
 359 
 360 
 360 
 361 
 361 
 
 CHAPTEE XXin. 1842. 
 
 Pages 362-387. 
 
 Thb Far Wesi : to Niasaka Falis. 
 Ml. 30. 
 
 Descriptions in letters and in 
 
 Notes . 
 
 . 362 
 
 Outline of westward travel. 
 
 . 363 
 
 An Arabian-Night city . 
 
 . 363 
 
 A temperance festival 
 
 . 363 
 
 A party at Judge Walker's 
 
 . 364 
 
 The party from another view 
 
 . 364 
 
 Mournful results of boredom 
 
 . 365 
 
 Young lady's description of C 
 
 D. 365 
 
 Down the Mississippi 
 
 . 366 
 
 Listening and watching 
 
 . 366 
 
 A levee at St. Louis 
 
 . 367 
 
 Compliments . 
 
 . 367 
 
 Lord Ashburton's arrival 
 
 . 368 
 
 Talk with a judge on slavery 
 
 . 368 
 
 A negro burnt alive 
 
 . -369 
 
 Keeling of slaves themselves 
 
 . 369 
 
 American testimony 
 
 . 370 
 
 Pretty little scene 
 
 . 370 
 
 A mother and her husband 
 
 . 371 
 
 The baby .... 
 
 . 372 
 
 St. Louis in sight . 
 
 . 372 
 
 Meeting of wife and husband 
 
 . 373 
 
 Trip to a prairie . 
 
 373 
 
 On the prairie at sunset . 
 
 . 374 
 
 General character of scenery 
 
 . 374 
 
 The prairie described 
 
 . 375 
 
 Disappointment and enjoymei 
 
 it . 375 
 
 SoirSe at Planter's-house-inn 
 Good fare . .... 
 No grey heads in St. Louis. 
 
 Duelling 
 
 Mrs. Dickens as a traveller 
 S'rom Cincinnati to Columbus 
 What a levee is like . 
 From Columbus to Sandusky . . 
 The travellers alone . . 
 A log-house inn . . . . 
 Making tidy .... 
 A monetary crisis . . . 
 
 Americans not a humorous people 
 The only recreations . . . 
 From Sandusky to Buffalo . 
 On Lake Erie . . . . 
 Keception and consolation of a 
 mayor ..... 
 From Buffalo to Niagara . 
 Nearing the Falls . . . 
 
 The Horse-shoe 
 
 Effect upon him of Niagara . . 
 The old recollection . 
 Looking forwmJ . , . . 
 
 PAGE 
 
 376 
 376 
 377 
 377 
 378 
 378 
 379 
 379 
 380 
 380 
 381 
 381 
 382 
 382 
 383 
 
 384 
 384 
 385 
 385 
 386 
 386 
 387 
 
 CHAPTEE XXIV. 1842. 
 
 Pages 388-398. 
 
 Niagara ahd Mohtkeal. Mt. 30. 
 
 Last two letters 
 Dickens vanquished 
 Obstacles to copyright 
 Two described 
 Value of literary popularity 
 Substitute for literature 
 The secretary describei) 
 His paintings 
 
 The lion and . . 
 
 Toryism of Toronto 
 Canadian attentions . . 
 
 388 
 388 
 389 
 389 
 390 
 391 
 391 
 392 
 392 
 393 
 394 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 Proposed theatricals 
 Last letter 
 
 The private play . . 
 Stage manager's report 
 
 PAGE 
 
 394 
 395 
 395 
 895 
 
 The lady performei-3' . 
 Bill of the performance 
 A touch of Crummies . 
 HoMB 
 
 PAOE 
 
 396 
 397 
 398 
 
THBi 
 
 LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 CHILDHOOD. 
 
 1812—1822. 
 
 Charles Dickens, the most popular novelist of the Poktsea. 
 
 century and one of the greatest humourists that England '— 
 
 has produced, was born at Landport in Portsea on Friday 
 the seventh of February, 1812. 
 
 His father, John Dickens, a clerk in the Navy-pay 
 office, was at this time stationed in the Portsmouth 
 dockyard. He had made acquaintance with the lady, 
 Elizabeth Barrow, who became afterwards his wife, 
 through her elder brother, Thomas Barrow, also eno-aeed 
 on the establishment at Somerset-house ; and she bore 
 him in all a family of eight children, of whom two died 
 in infancy. The eldest, Fanny (born 1810), was followed 
 by Charles (entered in the baptismal register of Portsea 
 as Charles John Huffham, though on the very rare Family of 
 occasions when he subscribed that name he wrote Dickens. 
 Huffam) ; by another son, named Alfred, who died in 
 childhood ; by Letitia (born 1816) ; by another daughter, 
 
 VOL. I. B 
 
2 THE LIFE OF CHAELES DICKEISrS. ^cha^wb 
 
 PoKTSEA : Harriet, who died also in childhood ; by Frederick (born 
 -^^^^ 1820) ; by Alfred Lamert (bom 1822) ; and by Augustus 
 (bom 1827) ; of all of whom only the second daughter 
 now survives. 
 
 Walter Scott tells us, in his fragment of autobiography, 
 speaking of the strange remedies applied to his lameness, 
 that he remembered lying on the floor in the parlour of 
 his grandfather's farm-house, swathed up in a sheepskin 
 warm from the body of the sheep, being then not three 
 years old. David Copperfield's memory goes beyond this. 
 He represents himself seeing so far back into the blank 
 of his infancy, as to discern therein his mother and her 
 servant, dwarfed to his sight by stooping down or kneel- 
 ing on the floor, and himself going unsteadily from the 
 one to the other. He admits this may be fancy, though 
 he believes the power of observation in numbers of very 
 young children to be quite wonderful for its closeness and 
 accuracy, and thinks that the recollection of most of us 
 can go farther back into such times than many of us 
 David Cop- suppose. But what he adds is certainly not fancy. ' If 
 
 perfieldZoj. . J J 
 
 ' it should appear from anything I may set down in this 
 ' narrative that I was a child of close observation, or that 
 ' as a man I have a strong memory of my childhood, I un- 
 'doubtedly lay claim to both of these characteristics.' 
 Applicable as it might be to David Copperfield, this 
 was simply and unafi'ectedly true of Charles Dickens. 
 
 He has often told me that he remembered the small 
 
 front garden to the hoase at Portsea, from which he. was 
 
 ffitat. 2. taken away when he was two years old, and where, 
 
 watched by a nurse through a low kitchen-window almost 
 
FIH9T,] CniLDHOOD. 3 
 
 level -with the gravel- walk, he trotted about with some- Poktsea: 
 
 thing to eat, and his little elder sister with him. He ^ 
 
 was carried from the garden one day to see the soldiers 
 exercise ; and I perfectly recollect, that, on our being at 
 Portsmouth together while he was writing NicJdeby, he 
 recognized the exact shape of the military parade seen by 
 liim as a very infant, on the same spot, a quarter of a 
 century before. 
 
 When his father was again brought up by his duties London : 
 
 1814-16 
 
 to London from Portsmouth, they went into lodgings in 
 
 Norfolk- 
 Norfolk-street, Middlesex-hospital ; and it lived also in street, 
 
 ,,.,,, 1111 f T% Middlesex- 
 
 the child s memory that they had come away from rortsea hospital. 
 
 in the snow. Their home, shortly after, was again changed, 
 
 on the elder Dickens being placed upon duty in Chatham 
 
 dockyard ; and the house where he lived in Chatham, Chatham : 
 
 which had a plain-looking whitewashed plaster-front and 
 
 a small garden before and behind, was in St. Mary's-place, 
 
 otherwise called the Brook, and next door to a Baptist 
 
 meeting-house called Providence-chapel, of which a Mr. 
 
 Giles to be presently mentioned was minister. Charles 
 
 at this time was between four and five years old ; * and 
 
 here he stayed till he was nine. Here the most durable 
 
 of his early impressions were received ; and the associations 
 
 that were around him when he died, were those which at 
 
 the outset of his life had affected him most strongly. 
 
 « <i 
 
 ' I shall cut this letter short, for they are playing Masaniello in the drawing- C. D. 
 ' room, and I feel much as I used to do when I was a small child a few miles . ° 
 ' off, and Somebody (who I wonder, and which way did SJie go, when she died) 
 ' hummed the evening hymn to me, and I cried on the pillow — either with the 
 ' remorseful conscionsness of having kicked Somebody else, or because still 
 ' Somebody else had hurt my feelings in the course of the day." From Gads- 
 
 b2 
 
4 THE LIFE OF CHAKLES DICKENS. [Chapter 
 
 Chatham : Tbe house called Gadshill-place stands on the strip of 
 
 '- highest ground in the main road between Eochester and 
 
 Gravesend. Often had we travelled past it together, years 
 and years before it became his home ; and never without 
 some allusion to what he told me when first I saw it in 
 his company, that amid the recollections connected with 
 his childhood it held always a prominent place, for, upon 
 first seeing it as he came from Chatham with his father, 
 and looking up at it with much admiration, he had been 
 promised that he might himself live in it, or in some 
 such house, when he came to be a man, if he would only 
 ■work hard enough. Which for a long time was his ambi- 
 tion. The story is a pleasant one, and receives authentic 
 confirmation at the opening of one of his essays on 
 travelling abroad, when as he passes along the road to 
 Canterbury there crosses it a vision of his former self. 
 A vision of ' So smooth was the old high road, and so fresh were 
 
 boyhood at , , i ,. t i • • i 
 
 Gadshill. the horses, and so fast went i, that it was midway 
 'between Gravesend and Rochester, and the widening 
 ' river was bearing the ships, w^hite sailed or black-smoked, 
 ' out to sea, when I noticed by the wayside a very queer 
 ' small boy. 
 
 ' " Holloa !" said I, to the very queer small boy, " where 
 ' " do you live ?" 
 
 ' " At Chatham," says he. 
 
 ' " "What do you do there ?" says I. 
 
 ' " I go to school," says he. 
 
 'I took him up, in a moment, and we went on. Pre-, 
 
 hill, 24 Sep. 1857. ' Being here again, or as much here as anywhere in 
 ' particular. ' 
 
FmsT.] CHILDHOOD. 5 
 
 ' sently, the very queer small boy says, " This is Gads-hill Chatham : 
 
 1816-21 
 
 ' " we are coming to, where Falstaff went out to rob those — - 
 
 ' " travellers, and ran away." 
 
 ' " You know something about Falstaff, eh ?" said I. 
 
 ' " All aboLit him," said the very queer small boy. " I ^- ^- ^°1- 
 ' " am old (I am ninej, and I read all sorts of books. But 
 ' " do let us stop at the top of the hill, and look at the 
 ' " house there, if you please !" 
 
 ' " You admire that house ? " said I. 
 
 ' " Bless you, sir," said the very queer small boy, " when 
 ' " I was not more than half as old as nine, it used to be a 
 ' " treat for me to be brought to look at it. And now I am 
 ' " nine, I come by myself to look at it. And ever since I 
 ' " can recollect, my father, seeing me so fond of it, has 
 ' " often said to me. If you were to be very persevering and 
 ' " were to work hard, you might some day come to live in 
 '"it. Though that's impossible!" said the very queer 
 ' small boy, drawing a low breath, and now staring at the 
 ' house out of window with all his might. 
 
 ' I was rather amazed to be told this by the very queer 
 ' small boy ; for that house happens to be my house, and 
 ' I have reason to believe that what he said was true.' 
 
 The queer small boy was indeed his very self. He The queer 
 
 small boy. 
 
 was a very little and a very sickly boy. He was subject 
 to attacks of violent spasm which disabled him for any 
 active exertion. He was never a good little cricket- 
 player. He was never a first-rate hand at marbles, or 
 peg-top, or prisoner's base. But he had great pleasure in 
 watching the other boys, of&cers' sons for the most part, 
 at these games,"reading while they played ; and he had 
 
6 THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. [Chapteb 
 
 Chatham : always the belief that this early sickness had brought to 
 
 1816-21. ■' , , ■!../■ 
 
 himself one inestimable advantage, in the circumstance ot 
 
 his weak health having strongly inclined him to reading. 
 It will not appear, as my narrative moves on, that he owed 
 much to his parents, or was other than in his first letter 
 to Washington Irving he described himself to have been, 
 a 'very small and not-over-particularly-taken-care-of boy ; ' 
 but he has frequently been heard to say that his first desire 
 for knowledge, and his earliest passion for reading, were 
 awakened by his mother, who taught him the first rudi- 
 ments not only of English, but also, a little later, of Latin. 
 She taught him regularly every day for a long time, and 
 taught him, he was convinced, thoroughly well. I once 
 put to him a question in connection with this to which he 
 replied in almost exactly the words he placed five years 
 C. D. later in the mouth of David Copperfield. ' I faintly 
 
 to 
 
 J. F. ' remember her teaching me the alphabet ; and when I 
 'look upon the fat black letters in the primer, the 
 'puzzling novelty of their shapes, and the easy good 
 ' nature of and S, always seem to present themselves 
 ' before me as they used to do.' 
 
 Then followed the preparatory day-school, a school 
 for girls and boys to which he went with his sister 
 Fanny, and which was in a place called Rome (pronounced 
 Room) lane. Revisiting Chatham in his manhood, and 
 looking for the place, he found it had been pulled down 
 to make a new street, ' ages ' before : but, out of the dis- 
 tance of the ages, arose nevertheless a not dim impres- 
 sion, that it had been over a dyer's shop ; that he went 
 up steps to it ; that he had frequently grazed his knees 
 
FiBBT.] CHILDHOOD. 7 
 
 in doing so ; and that in trying to scrape the mud off a Chatham : 
 very unsteady little shoe, he generally got his leg over ^^^^'"^^^ 
 the scraper* Other similar memories of childhood have 
 dropped from him occasionally in his lesser writings; 
 ■whose readers may remember how vividly portions of 
 his boyhood are reproduced in his fancy of the Christmas- 
 iree, and will hardly have forgotten what he says, in his 
 thoughtful little paper on Nurse's-stories, of the doubtful 
 places and people to which children may be introduced 
 before they are six years old, and forced, night after night, 
 to go back to against their wills, by servants to whom 
 they are entrusted. That childhood exaggerates what it 
 sees, too, has he not tenderly told ? How he thought the 
 Eochester High-street must be at least as wide as Regent- Rochester 
 
 reTisited. 
 
 street, which he afterwards discovered to be little better 
 than a lane ; how the public clock in it, supposed to be 
 the finest clock in the world, turned out to be as moon- 
 faced and weak a clock as a man's eyes ever saw; and 
 how, in its town-hall, which had appeared to him once 
 so glorious a structure that he had set it up in his mind 
 as the model on which the genie of the lamp bmlt the 
 
 * ' The mistress of the establishment holds no place in our memory ; Tbut, School in 
 ' rampant on one eternal door-mat, in an eternal entry long and narrow, is a Kome-lane. 
 'puffy pug-dog, with a peraonal animosity towards us, who triumphs over 
 'Time. The bark of that baleful Pug, a certain radiating way he had of 
 * snapping at our undefended legs, the ghastly grinning of his moist black 
 'muzzle and white teeth, and the insolence of his crisp tail curled like a 
 ' pastoral crook, all live and flourish. From an otherwise unaccountable asso- 
 ' elation of him with a iiddle, we conclude that he was of French extraction, 
 ' and his name Fidele. He belonged to some female, chiefly inhabiting a back 
 ' parlour, whose life appears to us to have been consumed in sniffing, and in 
 ' wearing a brown beaver bonnet. ' — JReprinted Pieces, 287. (In such quota- 
 tions as are made from his writings, the Charles Dickens Edition wiU be used. ) 
 
8 THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. [Chapter 
 
 Chatham: palace for Aladdin, he had painfully to recognize a mere 
 mean little heap of bricks, like a chapel gone demented. 
 
 Yet not so paihfully, either, when second thoughts wisely 
 came. ' Ah ! who was I that 1 should quarrel with the 
 ' town for being changed to me, when I myself had come 
 'back, so changed, to it? All my early readings and 
 'early imaginations dated from this place, and I took 
 ' them away so full of innocent construction and guilelesf 
 'belief, and I brought thfem back so worn and torn, so 
 ' much the wiser and so much the worse!' 
 
 And here I may at once expressly mention, what 
 already has been hinted, that even as Fielding desscribed 
 himself and his belongings in Captain Booth and 
 Amelia, and protested always that he had writ in his 
 books nothing more than he had seen in life, so it may 
 be said of Dickens in more especial relation to David 
 Relation of Copperfield. Many guesses have been made since his 
 perfield to death. Connecting David's autobiography with his own ; 
 Dicker. accounting, by means of such actual experiences, for the 
 so frequent recurrence in his writings of the prison-Hfe, 
 its humour and pathos, described in them with such 
 wonderful reality; and discovering, in what David tells 
 Steerforth at school of the stories he had read in his 
 childhood, what it was that had given the bent to his 
 own genius. There is not only truth in all this, but k 
 will Aiery-ehortly be -seen- that the identity went deeper 
 than any had supposed, and covered experiences not less 
 startling in the reality than they appear to be in the 
 fiction. 
 
 Of the ' readings ' and ' imaginations ' which he describes 
 
FmsT.] CHILDHOOD. J 
 
 as brought away from Chatham, this authority can tell Chatham: 
 
 1816-21 
 
 us. It is one of the many passages in Gopperfield which !_ 
 
 ai-e literally true, and its proper place is here. 'My 
 'father had left a small collection of books in a little A small 
 
 but good 
 
 'room upstairs to which I had access (for it adjoined library. 
 
 'my own), and which nobody else in our house ever 
 
 'troubled. From that blessed little room, Roderick 
 
 'Random, Peregrine Pickle, Humphrey Clinker, Tom, 
 
 ' Jones, the Vicar of Wakefield, Don Quixote, Gil Bias, 
 
 ' and Robinson Crusoe came out, a glorious host, to keep 
 
 ' me company. They kept alive my fancy, and my hope 
 
 'of something beyond that place and time, — they, and 
 
 ' the Arabian Niglds, and the Tales of the Genii, — and 
 
 ■ did me no harm ; for, whatever harm was in some of D. C. 
 
 for 
 
 ' them, was not there for me ; / knew nothing of it. It c. D. 
 ' is astonishing to me now, how I found time, in the midst 
 ' of my porings and blunderings over heavier themes, to 
 'read those books as I did. It is curious to me how I 
 ' could ever have consoled myself under my small troubles 
 ' (which were great troubles to me), by impersonating my 
 'favorite characters in them. ... I have been Tom Jones 
 '(a child's Tom Jones, a harmless creature) for a week 
 'together. I have sustained my own idea of Eoderick 
 'Random for a month at a stretch, I verily believe. I 
 'had a greedy relish for a few volumes of voyages and 
 ' travels — I forget what, now — that were on those shelves ; 
 •and for days and days I can remember to have gone 
 ' about my region of our house, armed with the centre- 
 ' piece out of an old set of boot-trees : the perfect realisa- 
 'tion of Captain Somebody, of the royal British navy, 
 
10 THE LIFE OF CHAKLES DICKENS. [Chameb 
 
 Chatham : ' in danger of being beset by savages, and resolved to sell 
 
 — 'his life at a great price. . . . When I think of it, the 
 
 Summer ' picture always rises in my mind, of a summer evening, 
 
 evening ^ ^ . . 
 
 picture. ' the boys at play in the churchyard, and I sittmg on my 
 ' bed, reading as if for life. Every barn in the neighbour- 
 'hood, every stone in the church, and every foot of the 
 ' churchyard, had some association of its own, in my mind, 
 ' connected with these books, and stood for some locality 
 'made famous in them. I have seen Tom Pipes go 
 ' climbing up the church-steeple ; I have watched Strap, 
 ' with the knapsack on his back, stopping to rest himself 
 'upon the wicket-gate; and I know that Commodore 
 ' Trunnion held that club with Mr. Pickle, in the parlor 
 ' 'of our little village alehouse.' Every word of this 
 personal recollection had been written down as fact, some 
 years before it found its way into David Copperjield; 
 the only change in the fiction being his omission of the 
 name of a cheap series of novelists then in course of 
 publication, by which his father had become happily the 
 owner of so large a lump of literary treasure in his small 
 collection of books. 
 
 Tragedy- The usual result followed. The child took to writinar, 
 
 wilting. T • -in 1 1 c ^ 
 
 himself; and became famous in his childish circle for 
 having written a tragedy called Misnar, the Sultan of 
 India, founded (and very literally founded, no doubt) 
 on one of the Tales of ike Genii. Nor was this his only 
 distinction. He told a story offhand so well, and sang 
 small comic songs so especially well, that he used to be 
 elevated on chairs and tables, both ,at home and abroad, 
 for more effective display of these talents; and when he 
 
FiKST,] CHILDHOOD. H 
 
 first told me of this, at one of the twelfth-night parties Chatham: 
 on his eldest son's birthday, he said he never recalled it 
 
 that his own shrill little voice of childhood did not again singing, 
 tingle in his ears, and he blushed to think what a horrible 
 little nuisance he must have been to many unoffending 
 grown-up people who were called iipon to admire him. 
 
 His chief ally and encourager in these displays was a Cousin 
 
 Lamert. 
 
 youth of some ability, much older than himself, named 
 James Lamert, stepson to his mother's sister and therefore 
 a sort of cousin, who was his great patron and friend in 
 his childish days. Mary, the eldest daughter of Charles 
 Barrow, himself a lieutenant in the navy, had for her first 
 husband a commander in the navy called Allen ; on whose 
 death by drowning at Eio Janeiro she had joined her 
 sister, the navy-pay clerk's wife, at Chatham ; in which 
 place she subsequently took for her second husband 
 Doctor Lamert, an army-surgeon, whose son James, even 
 after he had been sent to Sandhurst for his education, 
 continued still to visit Chatham from time to time. He 
 had a turn for private theatricals; and as his father's 
 quarters were in the ordnance-hospital there, a great 
 rambling place otherwise at that time almost uninhabited, 
 he had plenty of room in which to get up his entertain- 
 ments. The staff-doctor himself played his part, and his 
 portrait will be found in PickwicJc. 
 
 By Lamert, I have often heard him say, he was first First taken 
 
 to theatre. 
 
 taken to the theatre at the very tenderest age. He could 
 hardly, however, have been younger than Charles Lamb, 
 whose first experience was of having seen Artaxeraxs when 
 six years old; and certainly not younger than Walter 
 
12 THE LIFE OP CHARLES DICKENS. [Chaptek 
 
 Chatham : Scott, who was only four when he saw As Tou IdJce It 
 
 1816-21. ■' ^ , , , . J 
 
 — on the Bath stage, and remembered having screamed 
 
 out, Ain't they brothers? when scandalised by Orlando and 
 Oliver beginning to fight* But he was at any rate old 
 enough to recollect how his young heart leapt with terror 
 as the wicked king Richard, struggling for life against 
 the virtuous Richmond, backed up and bumped against 
 the box in which he was ; and subsequent visits to the same 
 sanctuary, as he tells us, revealed to him many wondrous 
 secrets, ' of which not the least terrific were, that the 
 'witches in Macbeth bore an awful resemblance to the 
 'thanes and other proper inhabitants of Scotland; and 
 'that the good king Duncan couldn't rest in his grave, 
 ' but was constantly coming out of it, and calling himself 
 ' somebody else.' 
 
 At Mr. During the last two years of Charles's residence ao 
 
 Giles's /-(111 
 
 eeLool. Chatham, he was sent to a school kept in Clover-lane by the 
 young Baptist minister already named, Mr. William Giles. 
 I have the picture of him here, very strongly in my mind, 
 as a sensitive, thoughtful, feeble-bodied little boy, with an 
 unusual sort of knowledge and fancy for such a child, 
 and with a dangerous kind of wandering intelligence that 
 a teacher might turn to good or evil, happiness or misery, 
 as he directed it. Nor does the influence of Mr. Giles, 
 such as it was, seem to have been other than favourable. 
 Charles had himself a not ungrateful sense in after years 
 that this first of his masters, in his little cared for child- 
 
 * 'A few weeks' residence at home conTinced me, who had tiU then been an 
 
 • only child in the house of my grandfather, that a quarrel between brothers 
 
 • wais a very natural event. '—Lookhart's Life, i. 30. 
 
First. CHILDHOOD. 13 
 
 hoodj had pronounced him to be a boy of capacity ; and Chatham: 
 
 when, about half-way through the publication of Pickwick, '—'- 
 
 his old teacher sent a silver snuff-box with admiring' 
 inscription to 'the inimitable Boz,' it reminded him of 
 praise far more precious obtained by him at his first 
 year's examination in the Clover-lane academy, when 
 his recitation of a piece out of the Humourist's Miscellany Encored 
 about Doctor Bolus, had received, unless his youthful Bolus, 
 vanity bewildered him, a double encore. A habit, the 
 only bad one taught him by Mr. Giles, of taking for a 
 time, in very moderate quantities, the snuff called Irish 
 blackguard, was the result of this gift from his old master ; 
 but he abandoned it after some few years, and it was 
 never resumed. 
 
 It was in the boys' playing ground near Clover-lane 
 in which the school stood, that, according to one of his 
 youthful memories, he had been, in the hay-making time, 
 delivered from the dungeons of Seringapatam, an immense 
 pile '(of haycock),' by his countrymen the victorious 
 British ' (boy next door and his two cousins),' and had 
 been recognized with ecstacy by his affianced one ' (Miss 
 ' Green),' who had come all the way from England 
 ' (second house in the teiTace),' to ransom and marry 
 him. It was in this playing-field, too, as he has himself Boyish re- 
 recorded, he first heard in confidence from one whose 
 father was greatly connected, ' being under government,' 
 of the existence of a terrible banditti called the radicals, 
 whose principles were that the prince-regent wore stays ; 
 that nobody had a right to any salary; and that the 
 army and navy ought to be put down ; hoiTors at which 
 
14 THE LIFE OP CHAELES DICKENS. [Chapter 
 
 Chatham: he trembled in bis bed, after supplicating that the 
 
 '- radicals might be speedily taken and hanged. Nor -was 
 
 it the least of the disappointments of his visit in after 
 life to the scenes of his boyhood that he found this play- 
 field had been swallowed up by a railway station. It was 
 gone, with its two beautiful trees of hawthorn; and where 
 the hedge, the turf, and all the buttercups and daisies 
 had been, there was nothing but the stoniest of jolting 
 roads. 
 Quitting He was not much over nine years old when his father 
 
 Chatham ; 
 
 1821. was recalled from Chatham to Somerset-house, and he 
 had to leave this good master, and the old place endeared 
 to him by recollections that clung to him afterwards all 
 his life long. It was here he had made the acquaintance 
 not only of the famous books that David Copperfield 
 specially names, of Roderick Random, Peregrine Pickle, 
 Humphrey Clinker, Tom, Jones, the Vicar of Wakefield, 
 Bon Quixote, Gil Bias, Robinson Crusoe, the Arabian 
 Nights, and the Tales of the Genii, but also of the 
 Spectator, the Tatler, the Idler, the Citizen of the World, 
 and Mrs. Inchbald's Collection of Farces. These latter had 
 been, as well, in the little library to which access was 
 open to him ; and of all of them his earliest remembrance 
 was the having read them over and over at Chatham, not 
 for the first, the second, or the third time. They were a 
 host of friends when he had no single friend ; and in 
 leaving the place, I have often heard him say, he seemed 
 to be leaving them too, and everything that had given his 
 Birthplace ailing little life its picturesqueness or sunshine. It was 
 fancy. the birth-place of his fancy; and he hardly knew what 
 
First.] CHILDHOOD. 15 
 
 store he had set by its busy varieties of change and scene, Chatham : 
 
 1821 
 
 untU he saw the falling cloud that was to hide its pictures '- — 
 
 from him for ever. The gay bright regiments always 
 going and coming, the continual paradings and firings, 
 the successions of sham-sieges and sham-defences, the 
 plays got up by his cousin in the hospital, the navy-pay 
 yacht in which he had sailed to Sheerness with his 
 father, and the ships floating out in the Medway with 
 their far visions of sea — he was to lose them all. He was 
 never to watch the boys at their games any more, or see 
 them sham over again the sham-sieges and sham-defences. 
 He was to be taken to London inside the stage-coach 
 Commodore; and Kentish woods and fields, Cobham park 
 and hall, Eochester cathedral and castle, and all the won- 
 derful, romance together, including the red-cheeked baby 
 he had been wildly in love with, were to vanish like a 
 dream. 'On the night before we came away,' he told Last night 
 me, 'my good master came flitting in among the ^ ^ 
 ' packing-cases to give me Goldsmith's Bee as a keepsake. *» 
 'Which I kept for his sake, and its own, a long time 
 'afterwards.' A longer time afterwards he recollected 
 the stage-coach journey, and said in one of his published 
 papers that never had he forgoHen, through all the inter- 
 vening years, the smell of the damp straw in which he 
 was packed and forwarded like game, carriage-paid. 
 ' There was no other inside passenger, and I consumed C D. loq. 
 ' my sandwiches in solitude and dreariness, and it rained 
 'hard aU the way, and I thought life sloppier than I 
 ' expected to find it.' 
 
 The earliest impressions received and retained by him 
 
1(5 THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. [Ohapteb 
 
 London : in London, were of his father's money involvements ; and 
 
 1821 2 
 
 1J_ now first he heard mentioned 'the deed,' representing 
 
 that crisis of his father's affairs in fact which is ascribed 
 in fiction to Mr. Micawber's. He knew it in later days to 
 have been a composition with creditors ; though at this 
 earlier date he was conscious of having confounded it with 
 parchments of a much more demoniacal description. One 
 result from the awful document soon showed itself in 
 enforced retrenchment. The family had to take up its 
 abode in a house in Bayham-street, Camden-town. 
 
 Bayham- Bayham-street was about the poorest part of the 
 
 street, 
 
 Camden- London suburbs then, and the house was a mean small 
 tenement, with a wretched little back-garden abutting 
 on a squalid court. Here was no place for new acquaint- 
 ances to him : no boys were near with whom he might 
 hope to become in any way familiar. A washerwoman 
 lived next door, and a Bow-street officer lived over the way. 
 Many many times has he spoken to me of this, and how he 
 seemed at once to fall into a solitary condition apart from 
 all other boys of his own age, and to sink into a neglected 
 state at home which had been always quite unaccountable 
 C. D. to him. ' As I thought,' he said on one occasion very 
 
 to 
 
 J. p. bitterly, ' in the little back-garret in Bayham-street, of 
 ' all I had lost in losing Chatham, what would I have given, 
 ' if I had had anything to give, to have been sent back to 
 ' any other school, to have been taught something any- 
 ' where ! ' He was at another school already, not knowing 
 it. The self-education forced upon him was teaching him, 
 all unconsciously as yet, what, for the future that awaited 
 him, it most behoved him to know. 
 
KiteT.] CHILDHOOD. 17 
 
 That he took, from the very beginning of this Bayham- London : 
 street life, his first impression of that struggling poverty 1- 
 
 which is nowhere more vividly shown than in the 
 commoner streets of the ordinary London suburb, and 
 which enriched his earliest writings with a freshness of 
 original humour and quite unstudied pathos that gave 
 them much of their sudden popularity, there cannot be 
 a doubt. 'I certainly understood it,' he has often said First im- 
 to me, ' quite as well then as I do now.' But he was not fi-om 
 conscious yet that he did so understand it, or of the gtr^g^™' 
 influence it was exerting on his life even then. It seems 
 almost too much to assert of a child, say at nine or ten 
 years old, that his observation of everything was as close 
 and good, or that he had as much intuitive understanding 
 of the chaxacter and weaknesses of the grown-up people 
 around him, as when the same keen and wonderful faculty Faculty of 
 
 . early obser- 
 
 had made him famous among men. But my experience vation. 
 of him led me to put implicit faith in the assertion he 
 unvaryingly himself made, that. he had never seen any 
 cause to correct or change what in his boyhood was his 
 own secret impression of anybody, whom he had had, as 
 a grown man, the opportunity of testing in later years. 
 
 How it came, that, being what he was, he should now 
 have fallen into the misery and neglect of the time about 
 to be described, was a subject on which thoughts were 
 frequently interchanged between us ; and on one occasion 
 he gave me a sketch of the character of his father which, 
 as I can here repeat it in the exact words employed by 
 him, will be the best preface I can make to what I feel 
 that I have no alternative but to tell. ' I know my father 
 
18 
 
 THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. [Chapter 
 
 LowBOH : 
 1821-2. 
 
 Bayham- 
 Etreet. 
 
 His own 
 description 
 of his 
 father. 
 
 A sTadil 
 •theatre 
 made for 
 him. 
 
 ' to be as kindhearted and generous a man as ever lived 
 'in the world. Everything that I can remember of his 
 ■conduct to his wife, or children, or friends, in sickness 
 ' or affliction, is beyond all praise. By me, as a sick child, 
 ' he has watched night and day, unweariedly and patiently, 
 ' many nights and days. He never undertook any business, 
 ' charge or trust, that he did not zealously, conscientiously, 
 'punctually, honourably discharge. His industry has 
 ' always been untiring. He was proud of me, in his way, 
 ' and had a great admiration of the comic singing. But, 
 'in the ease of his temper, and the straitness of his 
 "means, he appeared to have utterly lost at this time 
 ' the idea of educating me at all, and to have utterly put 
 ' from him the notion that I had any claim upon him, in 
 'that regard, whatever. So I degenerated into cleaning 
 'his boots of a morning, and my own ; and making myself 
 'useful in the work of the little house; and looking after 
 'my younger brothers and sisters (we were now six in all); 
 ' and going on such poor errands as arose out of our poor 
 'way of living.' 
 
 The cousin by marriage of whom I have spoken, James 
 Lamert, who had lately completed his education at Sand- 
 hurst and was waiting in hopes of a commission, lived now 
 with the family in Bayham-street, and had not lost his 
 taste for the stage,_ or his ingenuities in connection with 
 it. Taking pity on the solitary lad, he made and painted 
 a little theatre for him. It was the only fanciful reality 
 of his present life; but it could not supply what he missed 
 most sorely, the companionship of boys of his own age, 
 with whom he might share in the advantages of school, 
 
FinsT.] CHILDHOOD. iQ 
 
 and contend for its prizes. His sister Fanny was at about London : 
 this time elected as a pupil to the royal academy of _i^!ll?l_ 
 music ; and he has told me what a stab to his heart it was, ftreet"^" 
 thinking of his own disregarded condition, to see her go 
 away to begin her education, amid the tearful good wishes 
 of everybody in the house. 
 
 Nevertheless, as time went on, his own education still 
 unconsciously went on as well, under the sternest and 
 most potent of teachers ; and, neglected and miserable as 
 he was, he managed gradually to transfer to London all 
 the dreaminess and all the romance with which he had 
 invested Chatham. There were then at the top of 
 Bayham-street some almshouses, and were still when he 
 re-visited it with me nearly twenty-seven years ago ; and to 
 go to this spot, he told me, and look from it over the dust- 
 heaps and dock-leaves and fields (no longer there when we ' 
 saw it together) at the cupola of St. Paul's looming through St. Paul's, 
 the smoke, was a treat that served him for hours of vague 
 reflection afterwards. To be taken out for a walk into the 
 real town, especially if it were anywhere about Covent- 
 garden or the Strand, perfectly entranced him with 
 pleasure. But, most of all, he had a profound attraction 
 of repulsion to St. Giles's. If he could only induce whom- st. Giles's, 
 soever took him out to take him through Seven-dials, he 
 was supremely happy. ' Good Heaven ! ' he would exclaim, 
 • what wild visions of prodigies of wickedness, want, and 
 ' beggary, arose in my mind out of that place ! ' He was 
 all this time, the reader will remember, still subject to 
 continual attacks of illness, and, by reason of them, a very 
 
 small boy even for his age, 
 
 o 3 
 
him. 
 
 20 THE LIFE OF CHAELES DICKENS. [Chapter 
 
 LoHDOK : That part of his boyhood is now very near of which, 
 
 '-^ when the days of fame and prosperity came to him, he felt 
 
 Set!"" the weight upon his memory as a painful burthen until 
 he could lighten it by sharing it with a friend ; and an 
 accident I will presently mention led him first to reveal it. 
 There is, however, an interval of some months still to be 
 described, of which, from conversations or letters that 
 Desire that passed between us, after or because of this confidence, 
 write of and that akeady have yielded fruit to these pages, I can 
 supply some vague and desultory notices. The use thus 
 made of them, it is due to myself to remark, was contem- 
 plated then ; for though, long before his death, I had ceased 
 to believe it likely that I should survive to write about 
 him, he had never withdrawn the wish at this early time 
 strongly expressed, or the confidences, not only then but 
 to the very eve of his death reposed in me, that were to 
 enable me to fulfil it.* The fulfilment indeed he had 
 
 C. D. * The reader ■will forgive my quoting from a letter of the date of the 22iid 
 
 to April, 1848. ' I desire no better for my fame, "when my personal dustiness 
 
 ■'• ■ ' shall be past the control of my love of order, than such a biographer and such 
 ' a critic' * You know me better,' he wrote, resuming the same subject on 
 the 6th of July, 1862, 'than any other man does, or ever will.' In an entry 
 of my diary during the interval between these years, I find a few words that 
 not only mark the time when I first saw in its connected shape the autobio- 
 graphical fragment which will form the substance of the second chapter of this 
 biography, but also express his own feeling respecting it when written. 
 ' 20 January, 18i9. The description may make none of the impression on 
 ' others that the reality made on him. . . . Highly probable that it may nevCT 
 ' see the light. No wish. Left to J. F. or others.' The first number of 
 David Copperjidd appeared five months after this date ; but though I knew, 
 even before he adapted his fragment of autobiography to the eleventh number, 
 that he had now abandoned the notion of completing it under his own name, 
 the 'no wish,' or the discretion left me, was never in any way subsequently 
 modified. "What follows, from the same entry, refei-s to the manuscript of the 
 fragment. ' No blotting, as when writing fiction ; but straight on, as when 
 ' writing ovdinaiT letter. ' 
 
First.] CHILDHOOD. 21 
 
 himself rendered more easy by partially uplifting the London : 
 veil in David Gcypper field. 
 
 The visits made from Bayham-street were chiefly to street. 
 two connections of the family, his mother's elder brother, 
 and his godfather. The latter, who was a rigger, and mast, 
 oar, and block-maker, lived at Limehouse in a substan- 
 tial handsome sort of way, and was kind to his godchild. 
 It was always a great treat to him to go to Mr. Huff- At his god- 
 
 father's. 
 
 ham's ; and the London night-sights as he returned were 
 a perpetual joy and marvel. Here, too, the comic-singing 
 accomplishment was brought into play so greatly to the 
 admiration of one of the godfather's guests, an honest 
 boat-builder, that he pronounced the little lad to be a 
 ' progidy.' The visits to the uncle who was at this time 
 fellow-clerk with his father, in Somerset-house, were nearer 
 home. Mr. Thomas Barrow, the eldest of his mother's 
 family, had broken his leg in a fall ; and, while laid up 
 with this illness, his lodging was in Gerrard-street, Soho, 
 in the upper part of the house of a worthy gentleman 
 then recently deceased, a bookseller named Manson, 
 father to the partner in the celebrated firm of Christie 
 and Manson, whose widow at the time carried on the 
 business. Attracted by the look of the lad as he went 
 upstairs, these good people lent him books to amuse him ; 
 among them Miss Porter's Scottish Chiefs, Holbein's 
 Dance of Death, and George Colman's Broad Grins. 
 The latter seized his fancy very much ; and he was so 
 impressed by its description of Covent-garden, in the Stolen 
 
 visit to 
 
 piece called the Elder-brother, that he stole down to the Covent- 
 market by himself to compare it with the book. He 
 
22 THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. [Chapter 
 
 London: rememliered, as he said in telling me this, snuffing up 
 
 ■ — the flavour of the faded cabbage-leaves as if it were the 
 
 ftreet™" very breath of comic fiction. Nor was he far wrong, as 
 comic fiction then and for some time after was. It was 
 reserved for himself to give sweeter and fresher breath to 
 it. Many years were to pass first, but he was beginning 
 already to make the trial. 
 
 His uncle was shaved by a very odd old barber out of 
 Dean-street, Soho, who was never tired of reviewing the 
 events of the last war, and especially of detecting Napo- 
 leon's mistakes, and re-arranging his whole life for him 
 on a plan of his own. The boy wrote a description of this 
 old baVber, but never had courage to show it. At about 
 the same time, taking for his model the description of the 
 First efforts canon's housekeeper in Gil Bias, he sketched a deaf old 
 
 at descrip- 
 tion, woman who waited on them in Bayham-street, and who 
 
 made delicate hashes with walnut-ketchup. As little did 
 he dare to show this, either; though he thought it, 
 himself, extremely clever. 
 
 In Bayham-street, meanwhile, affairs were going on 
 badly ; the poor boy's visits to his uncle, while the latter 
 was still kept a prisoner by his accident, were interrupted 
 by another attack of fever ; and on his recovery the mys- 
 terious ' deed ' had again come uppermost. His father's 
 resources were so low, and all his expedients so thoroughly 
 exhausted, that trial was to be made whether his mother 
 might not come to the rescue. The time was arrived for 
 His motlier her to exert herself, she said ; and she ' must do some- 
 herself. ' thing.' The godfather down at Limehouse was reported 
 to have an Indian connexion. People in the East Indies 
 
First.] CHILDHOOD. 23 
 
 always sent their children home to be educated. She Lohdoh: 
 
 1822 
 
 would set up a school. They would all grow rich by it. '■ — 
 
 And then, thought the sick boy, ' perhaps even I might 
 ' go to school myself.' 
 
 A house was soon found at number four, Gower-street Gower- 
 north; a large brass plate on the door announced Mes. north. 
 Dickens's Establishment ; and the result I can give in 
 the exact words of the then small actor in the comedy, 
 whose hopes it had raised so high. ' I left, at a great C. D. 
 ' many other doors, a great many circulars calling attention j. f. 
 
 • to the merits of the establishment. Yet nobody ever 
 ' came to school, nor do I recollect that anybody ever 
 ' proposed to come, or that the least preparation was 
 ' made to receive anybody. But I know that we got on 
 
 ' very badly with the butcher and baker ; that very often — 
 
 • we had not too much for dinner ; and that at last my 
 
 ' father was arrested.' The interval between the sponging- His father 
 house and the prison was passed by the sorrowful lad in 
 running errands and carrying messages for the prisoner, 
 delivered with swollen eyes and through shining tears ; 
 and the last words said to him by his father before hp was 
 finally carried to the Marshalsea, were to the effect that 
 the sun was set upon him for ever. ' I really believed at 
 ' the time,' said Dickens to me, ' that they had broken my 
 ' heart.' He took afterwards ample revenge for this false 
 alarj^/ by making all the world laugh at them in David 
 Copperfield. 
 
 The readers of Mr. Micawber's history who remember 
 David's first visit to the Marshalsea prison, and how upon 
 seeing the turnkey he recalled the turnkey in the blanket * 
 
24 THE LIFE OF CHAELES DICKENS. [Chapteb 
 
 London : in Roderick Random-, will read with curious interest what 
 
 ~ follows, written as a personal experience of fact two or 
 
 street three years before the fiction had even entered into his 
 
 thoughts. 
 
 Visit to his ' My father was waiting for me in the lodge, and we 
 
 prison.™ ' went up to his room (on the top story but one), and 
 
 ' cried very much. And he told me, I remember, to take 
 
 ' warning by the Marshalsea, and to observe that if a man 
 
 ' had twenty pounds a-year, and spent nineteen pounds 
 
 ' nineteen shillings and sixpence, he would be happy ; 
 
 ' but that a shilling spent the other way would make him 
 
 C. D. loq. ' wretched. I see the fire we sat before, now ; with two 
 
 ' bricks inside the rusted grate, one on each side, to pre- 
 
 ' vent its burning too many coals. Some other debtor 
 
 ' shared the room with him, who came in by-and-by ; and 
 
 ' as the dinner was a joint-stock repast, I was sent up to 
 
 ' " Captain Porter " in the room overhead, with Mr. 
 
 ' Dickens's compliments, and I was his son, and could he, 
 
 ' Captain P, lend me a knife and fork ? 
 
 Prison ' Captain Porter lent the knife and fork, with his com- 
 
 inmates. 
 
 ' pliments in return. There was a very dirty lady in his 
 ' little room ; and two wan girls, his daughters, with shock 
 ' heads of hair. I thought I should not have liked to 
 ' borrow Captain Porter's comb. The Captain himself was 
 ' in the last extremity of shabbiness ; and if I could draw 
 ' at all, I would draw an accurate portrait of the old, old, 
 ' brown great-coat he wore, with no other coat below it. 
 ' His whiskers were large. I saw his bed rolled up in a 
 ' comer ; and what plates, and dishes, and pots he had, on 
 'a shelf; and I knew (God knows how) that the two girls 
 
First.] CHILDHOOD. 2 
 
 ' with the shock heads were Captain Porter's natural Londoit: 
 
 1822 
 
 ' children, and that the dirty lady was not married to 
 
 ' Captain P. My timid, wondering station on his threshold, street 
 ' was not occupied more than a couple of minutes, I dare """^ ' 
 ' say ; but I came down again to the room below with all A child- 
 
 otiS6rv6r 
 
 ' this as surely in my knowledge, as the knife and fork 
 were in my hand.' 
 How there was something agreeable and gipsy-like in 
 the dinner after all, and how he took back the Captain's 
 knife and fork early in the afternoon, and how he went 
 home to comfort his mother with an account of his visit, 
 David Copperfield has also accurately told. Then, at home, 
 came many miserable daily struggles that seemed to last 
 an immense time, yet did not perhaps cover many weeks. 
 Almost everything by degrees was sold or pawned, httle 
 Charles being the principal agent in those sorrowful trans- 
 actions. Such of the books as had been brought from 
 Chatham, Peregrine PicJde, Roderick Random, Tom 
 Jones, Humphrey Clinker, and all the rest, went first. 
 They were carried off from the little chiffonier, which his 
 father called the library, to a bookseller in the Hampstead- 
 road, the same that David Copperfield describes as in the 
 City-road ; and the account of the sales, as they actually Disposes of 
 occurred and were told to me long before David was born, 
 was reproduced word for word in his imaginary narrative. 
 ' The keeper of this bookstall, who lived in a little house 
 'behind it, used to get tipsy every night, and to be 
 ' violently scolded by his wife every morning. More than 
 ' once, when I went there early, I had audience of him in 
 ' a turn-up bedstead, with a cut in his forehead or a black 
 
26 THE LIFE OP CHARLES DICKElSrS. [Oh. x. 
 
 London: 'eye, bearing witness to his excesses over night (I am 
 
 1822 . . • 1 
 
 .! ' afraid he was quarrelsome in his drink) ; and he, with a 
 
 str^T' ' shaking hand, endeavouring to find the needful shillings 
 
 north. , -^ ^j^g jjj, Q^jjQj. Qf tiie pockets of his clothes, which lay 
 
 ' upon the floor, while his wife, with a baby in her arms 
 
 'and her shoes down at heel, never left off rating him. 
 
 D. 0. ' Sometimes he had lost his money, and then he would 
 
 loq. ' ask me to call again ; but his wife had always got some 
 
 ' (had taken his, I dare say, while he was drunk), and 
 
 ' secretly completed the bargain on the stairs, as we went 
 
 ' down together.' 
 
 The same pawnbroker's shop, too, which was so well 
 known to David, became not less familiar to Charles ; and 
 a good deal of notice was here taken of him by the pawn- 
 broker, or by his principal clerk who officiated behind the 
 counter, and who, whUe making out the duplicate, liked 
 of all things to hear the lad conjugate a Latin verb, and 
 At the translate or decline his musa and dominus. Every thing 
 broker's. ^'^ ^^i® accompaniment went gradually ; until at last, even 
 of the furniture of Gower-street number four, there was 
 nothing left except a few chairs, a kitchen table, and 
 some beds. Then they encamped, as it were, in the two 
 parlours of the emptied house, and lived there night and 
 day. 
 
 All which is but the prelude to what remains to be 
 described. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 HARD EXPERIENCES IN BOYHOOD, 
 1822—1824. 
 
 The incidents to be told now would probably never Losdoh: 
 
 ^ ■' 1822. 
 have been known to me, or indeed any of the occurrences 
 
 Gfower- 
 
 of his childhood and youth, but for the accident of a street 
 question which I put to him one day in the March or 
 April of 1847. 
 
 I asked if he remembered ever having seen in his boy- 
 hood our friend the elder Mr. Dilke, his father's acquaint- 
 ance and contemporary, who had been a clerk in the 
 same office in Somerset-house to which Mr. John Dickens 
 belonged. Yes, he said, he recollected seeing him at a 
 house in Gerrard-street, where his uncle Barrow lodged 
 during an illness, and Mr. Dilke had visited him. Never 
 at any other time. Upon which I told him that some one 
 else had been intended in the mention made to me, for 
 that the reference implied not merely his being met 
 accidentally, but his having had some juvenile employ- 
 ment in a warehouse near the Strand ; at which place Mr. 
 Dilke, being with the elder Dickens one day, had noticed Mr. DaWn 
 
 half-crown, 
 
 him, and received, in return for the gift of a half-crown, 
 a very low bow. He was silent for several minutes ; I felt 
 
28 THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. [Chapteb 
 
 London : tbat I had unintentionally touched a painful place in his 
 
 '- — memory ; and to Mr. Dilke I never spoke of the subject 
 
 street again. It was not however then, but some weeks later, 
 
 ^°'^ ' that Dickens made further allusion to my thus having 
 struck unconsciously upon a time of which he never could 
 lose the remembrance while he remembered anything, and 
 the recollection of which, at intervals, haunted him and 
 made him miserable, even to that hour. 
 Tells tte Very shortly afterwards, I learnt in all their detail the 
 
 story of Ms . 
 
 boyhood. incidents that had been so painful to him, and what then 
 was said to me or written respecting them revealed the 
 story of his boyhood. The idea of David Oopperjield, 
 which was to take all the world into his confidence, had 
 not at this time occurred to him; but what it had so 
 startled me to know, his readers were afterwards told with 
 only such change or addition as for the time might suffi- 
 D. 0. ciently disguise himself under cover of his hero. For, the 
 C. D. poor little lad, with good ability and a most sensitive 
 nature, turned at the age of ten into a ' labouring hind ' 
 in the service of ' Murdstone and Grinby,' and conscious 
 already of what made it seem very strange to him that he 
 could so easily have been thrown away at such an age, 
 was indeed himself. His was the secret agony of soul at 
 finding himself ' companion to Mick Walker and Mealy 
 ' Potatoes,' and liis the tears that mingled with the water 
 in which he and they rinsed and washed out bottles. It 
 had all been written, as fact, before he thought of any 
 other use for it; and it was not until several months 
 later, when the fancy of David Oopperjield, itself sug- 
 gested by what he had so written of his early troubles, 
 
Second] HARD EXPEEIENCES IN BOYHOOD. 29 
 
 began to take shape in his mind, that he abandoned his London : 
 first intention of writing his own life. Those warehouse ~ — 
 
 experiences fell then so aptly into the subject he had street 
 chosen, that he could not resist the temptation of imme- "'" "' 
 diately using them ; and the manuscript recording them, 
 which was but the first portion of what he had designed to 
 write, was embodied in the substance of the eleventh and 
 earlier chapters of his novel. What already had been sent 
 to me, however, and proof-sheets of the novel interlined 
 at the time, enable me now to separate the fact from 
 the fiction ; and to supply to the story of the author's 
 childhood those passages, omitted from the book, which, 
 apart from their illustration of the growth of his character, 
 present to us a picture of tragical suffering, and of tender 
 as well as humorous fancy, unsurpassed in even the wonders 
 of his published writings. 
 
 The person indirectly responsible for the scenes to be James and 
 described was the young relative James Lamert, the Lamert. 
 cousin by his aunt's marriage of whom I have made fre- 
 quent mention, who got up the plays at Chatham, and 
 after passing at Sandhurst had been living with the family 
 in Bayham-street in the hope of obtaining a commission 
 in the army. This did not come until long aftei-wards, 
 when, in consideration of his father's services, he received 
 it, and relinquished it then in favour of a younger brother; 
 but he had meanwhile, before the family removed from 
 Camden-town, ceased to live with them. The husband 
 of a sister of his (of the same name as himself, being 
 indeed his cousin, George Lamert), a man of some pro- 
 perty, had recently embarked in an odd sort of com- 
 
30 THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. [Chapteb 
 
 London : mercial speculation ; and had taken him into his office, 
 1822-4. ^ ' . . 
 and his house, to assist in it. I give now the fragment 
 
 At Hunger- . r- T^• i 
 
 ford-stadrs. 01 the autobiography of Dickens. 
 
 C. D. log ' This speculation was a rivalry of " Warren's Blacking, 
 ' " 30, Strand," — at that time very famous. One Jona- 
 ' than Warren (the famous one was Robert), living at 30, 
 ' Hungerford-stairs, or market, Strand (for I forget which 
 'it was called then), claimed to have been the original 
 'inventor or proprietor of the blacking recipe, and to 
 ' have been deposed and ill-used by his renowned relation, 
 ' At last he put himself in the way of selling his recipe, 
 'and his name, and his 30, Hungerford-stairs, Strand 
 ' (30, Strand, very large, and the intermediate direction 
 ' very small), for an annuity ; and he set forth by his agents 
 ' that a little capital would make a great business of it, 
 ' The man of some property was found in George Lamert, 
 ' the cousin and brother-in-law of James. He boug-ht this 
 ' right and title, and went into the blacking business and 
 ' the blacking premises. 
 
 '■ — In an evil hour for me, as I often bitterly thought. 
 ' Its chief manager, James Lamert, the relative who had 
 ' lived with us in Bayham- street, seeing how I was em- 
 ' ployed from day to day, and knowing what our domestic 
 ' circumstances then were, proposed that I should go into 
 ' the blacking warehouse, to be as useful as I could, at a 
 ' salary, I think, of six shillings a week. I am not clear 
 'whether it was six or seven. I am inclined to believe, 
 'from my uncertainty on this head, that it was six at 
 'first, and seven afterwards. At any rate the offer was 
 'accepted very willingly by my father and mother, and 
 
secokd.] hard experiences in boyhood. 31 
 
 • on a Monday morning I went down to the blacking London : 
 ' warehouse to begin my business life. 
 
 ' It is wonderful to me how I could have been so easily ford-stefn." 
 ' cast away at such an age. It is wonderful to me, that, ^- ^- % 
 ' even after my descent into the poor little drudge I had 
 ' been since we came to London, no one had compassion 
 ' enough on me — a child of singular abilities, quick, eager, 
 delicate, and soon hurt, bodily or mentally — to suggest 
 ' that something might have been spared, as certainly it 
 'might have been, to place me at any common school. 
 ' Our friends, I take it, were tired out. No one made any 
 ' sign. My father and mother were quite satisfied. They 
 ' could hardly have been more so, if I had been twenty 
 ■years of age, distinguished at a grammar-school, and 
 ' going to Cambridge. 
 
 ' The blacking warehouse was the last house on the Tte black, 
 'left-hand side of the way, at old Hungerford-stairs. It tous™™ 
 ' was a crazy, tumble-down old house, abutting of course 
 ' on the river, and literally overrun with rats. Its wain- 
 ' scotted rooms, and its rotten floors and staircase, and the c 
 
 'old. grgy rats swarming down in the cellars, and the 
 'swaifd of their squeaking and scuffling coming up the 
 • stairs at all times, and the dirt and decay of the place, 
 'rise up visibly before me, as if I were there again. The 
 'counting-house was on the first floor, looking over the 
 ' coal-barges and the river. There was a recess in it, in 
 ' which I was to sit and work. My work was to cover the A poor 
 'pots of paste-blacking; first with a piece of oil-paper, dmdge. 
 'and then with a piece of blue paper; to tie them round 
 ' with a string ; and then to clip the paper close and neat, 
 
32 THE LIFE OF CHAELES DICKENS. [Chapteb 
 
 London : ' all round, until it looked as smart as a pot of ointment 
 
 ^ ' from an apothecary's shop. When a certain number of 
 
 tt^Btefrs." ' grosses of pots had attained this pitch of perfection, I was 
 C. D. lo<i. ' to paste on each a printed la;bel ; and then go on again 
 ' with more pots. Two or three other boys were kept at 
 ' similar duty down stairs on similar wages. One of them 
 ' came up, in a ragged apron and a paper cap, on the first 
 'Monday morning, to show me the trick of using the 
 Bob Fagin. ' string and tying the knot. His name was Bob Fagin ; 
 'and I took the liberty of using his name, long after- 
 ' wards, in Oliver T'wist. 
 
 ' Our relative had kindly arranged to teach me some- 
 
 ' thing in the dinner-hour ; from twelve to one, I think it 
 
 ' was ; every day. But an arrangement so incompatible 
 
 ' with counting-house business soon died away, from no 
 
 ' Pacilis ' fault of his or mine ; and for the same reason, my small 
 
 Descensus.' 
 
 'work-table, and my grosses oi pots, my papers, stnng, 
 'scizzorSj paste-pot, and labels, by little and little, 
 'vanished out of the recess in the counting-house, and 
 ' kept company with the other small work-tables, gro.sses 
 ' of pots, papers, string, scizzors, and paste-pots, downstairs. 
 ' It was not long, before Bob Fagin and I, and another boy 
 ' Poll ' ' whose name was Paul Green, but who was currently 
 'believed to have been christened Poll (a belief which I 
 'transferred, long afterwards again, to Mr. Sweedlepipe, 
 'in Martin Chuzzlewit), worked generally, side by side. 
 'Bob Fagin was an orphan, and lived with his brother- 
 ' in-law, a waterman. Poll Green's father had the addi- 
 'tional distinction of being a fireman, and was em- 
 ' ployed at Drury-lane theatre; where another relation 
 
Second.] HAED EXPERIENCES IN BOYHOOD. 33 
 
 ' of Poll's, I think his little sister, did imps in the panto- London : 
 
 1822-4. 
 
 ' mimes. 
 
 < TvT 1 !• T T ^^ Hunqer- 
 
 JN words can express the secret agony 01 my soul as i ford-stairs. 
 ' sunk into this companionship ; compared these every day ^- ^- %• 
 ' associates with those of my happier childhood ; and felt 
 ' my early hopes of growing up to be a learned and distin- 
 ' guished man, crushed in my breast. The deep remem- 
 ' brance of the sense I had of being utterly neglected and Crushed 
 
 -r,. 1- .. [• ^ hopes and 
 
 'hopeless; of the shame I lelt m my position; of the recolleo- 
 
 ' misery it was to my young heart to believe that, day 
 
 ' by day, what I had learned, and thought, and delighted 
 
 ' in, and raised my fancy and my emulation up by, was 
 
 'passing away from me, never to be brought back any 
 
 'more; cannot be written. My whole nature was so 
 
 ' penetrated with the grief and humiliation of such con- 
 
 ' siderations, that even now, famous and caressed and 
 
 ' happy, I often forget in my dreams that I have a dear 
 
 ' wife and children ; even that I am a man ; and wander 
 
 ' desolately back to that time of my life. 
 
 'My mother and my brothers and sisters (excepting The family 
 ' Fanny in the royal academy of music) were still encamped, street, 
 'with a young servant-girl from Chatham-workhouse, in 
 ' the two parlours in the emptied house in Gower-street 
 ' north. It was a long way to go and return within the 
 'dinner-hour, and, usually, I either carried my dinner 
 ' With me, or went and bought it at some neighbouring 
 'shop. In the latter case, it was commonly a saveloy 
 ' and a penny loaf ; sometimes, a fourpenny plate of beef 
 ' from a cook's shop ; sometimes, a plate of bread and 
 ' cheese, and a glass of beer, from a miserable old public- 
 
 VOL. I. " 
 
34 
 
 THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 [Chapteb 
 
 tOKDOU : 
 1822-4. 
 
 At Hunger- 
 ford-stairs. 
 
 C. D. loq. 
 
 Eegaling 
 alamode. 
 
 Saturday 
 night's 
 journey 
 home. 
 
 Home 
 broken up. 
 
 'house over the way: the Swan, if I remember right, or 
 'the Swan and something else that I have forgotten. 
 ' Once, I remember tucking my own bread (which I had 
 'brought from home in the morning) under my arm, 
 ' wrapped up in a piece of paper like a book, and going 
 'into the best dining-room in Johnson's alamode beef- 
 ' house in Clare-court, Drury-lane, and magnificently 
 ' ordering a small plate of alamode beef to eat with it. 
 'What the waiter thought of such a strange little 
 ' apparition, coming in all alone, I don't know ; but I 
 ' can see him now, staring at me as I ate my dinner, and 
 'bringing up the other waiter to look. I gave him a 
 ' halfpenny, and I wish, now, that he hadn't taken it.' 
 
 I lose here for a little while the fragment of direct 
 narrative, but I perfectly recollect that he used to describe 
 Saturday night as his great treat. It was a grand thing 
 to walk home with six shillings in his pocket, and to look 
 in at the shop windows, and think what it would buy. 
 Hunt's roasted corn, as a British and patriotic substitute 
 for coffee, was in great vogue just then; and the little 
 fellow used to buy it, and roast it on the Sunday. There 
 was a cheap periodical of selected pieces called the Port- 
 folio, which he had also a great fancy for taking home 
 with him. The new proposed 'deed,' meanwhile, had 
 failed to propitiate his father's creditors ; all hope of 
 arrangement passed away; and the end was that his 
 mother and her encampment in Gower-street north broke 
 up and wont to live in the Marshalsea. I. am able at 
 this point to resume his own account. 
 
 ' The key of the house was sent back to the landlord, 
 
Second.] HARD EXPEEIENCES IN BOYHOOD. 35 
 
 ■ who was very glad to get it ; and I (small Cain that I London : 
 
 1 822 4- 
 
 ' was, except that I had never done harm to any one) was 
 
 ' handed over as a lodger to a reduced old lady, long iiXS.' 
 ' known to our family, in Little-college-street, Camden- C. D. fog. 
 ' town, who took children in to board, and had once done 
 ' so at Brighton ; and who, with a few alterations and 
 ' embellishments, unconsciously began to sit for Mrs. 
 ' Pipchin in Dombey when she took in me. 
 
 ' She had a little brother and sister under her care then ; At Mra. 
 'somebody's natural children, who were very irregularly in Camden- 
 ' paid for ; and a widow's little son. The two boys and I °™"' 
 ' slept in the same room. My own exclusive breakfast, of 
 ' a penny cottage loaf and a pennyworth of milk, I pro- 
 ' vided for myself I kept another small loaf, and a quarter 
 ' of a pound of cheese, on a particular shelf of a particular 
 ' cupboard ; to make my supper on when I came back at 
 ' night. They made a, hole in the six or seven shillings, I 
 ' know well ; and I was out at the blacking- warehouse 
 ' all day, and had to support myself upon that money all 
 ' the week. I suppose my lodging was paid for, by my A cast-a- 
 ' father. I certainly did not pay it myself ; and I certainly 
 ' had no other assistance whatever (the making of my 
 ' clothes, I think, excepted), from Monday morning until 
 ' Saturday night. No advice, no counsel, no encourage- 
 ' ment, no consolation, no support, from any one that I can 
 ' call to mind, so help me God. 
 
 ' Sundays, Fanny and I passed in the prison. I was at Sundays in 
 
 . prison. 
 
 ' the academy m Tenterden-street, Hanover-square, at 
 ' nine o'clock in the morning, to fetch her ; and we walked 
 ' back there together, at night. 
 
 d2 
 
36 THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. [Chapter 
 
 LosDON : ' I was SO vounsr and childish, and so little qualified — 
 
 1822-4. J <= _ •,,,11 
 
 ' how could I be otherwise ? — to undertake the whole 
 
 ford-stairs. ' charge of my own existence, that, in going to Hungerford- 
 C. D. loq. ' stairs of a morning, I could not resist the stale pastiy 
 ■ put out at half-price on trays at the confectioners' doors 
 ' in Tottenham-court-road ; and I often spent in that, the 
 ' money I should have kept for my dinner. Then I went 
 ' without my dinner, or bought a roll, or a slice of pudding. 
 ' There were two pudding shops between which I was 
 ' divided, according to my finances. One was in a court 
 ' close to St. Martin's-church (at the. back of the church) 
 A choice of ' which is now removed altogether. The pudding at 
 
 puddings. 
 
 ' that shop was made with currants, and was rather a 
 ' special pudding, but was dear : two penn'orth not being 
 ' larger than a penn'orth of more ordinary pudding. A 
 ' good shop for the latter was in the Strand, somewhere 
 ' near where the Lowther-arcade is now. It was a stout, 
 ' hale pudding, heavy and flabby ; with great raisins in it, 
 ' stuck in whole, at great distances apart. It came up hot, 
 ' at about noon every day ; and many and many a day did 
 ' I dine off it. 
 
 ' We had half-an-hour, I think, for tea. When I had 
 ' money enough, I used to go to a coffee-shop, and have 
 ' half-a-pint of coffee, and a slice of bread and butter. 
 ' When I had no money, I took a turn in Covent-garden 
 ' market, and stared at the pine-apples. The coffee-shops 
 ' to which I most resorted were, one in Maiden-lane ; one 
 ' in a court (non-existent now) close to Hungerford- 
 ' market ; and one in St. Martin's-lane, of which I only 
 ' recollect that it stood near the church, and that in the 
 
 Places of 
 resort. 
 
Second.] HARD EXPERIENCES IN BOYHOOD. 37 
 
 • door there was an oval glass-plate, with coffee-room London : 
 
 1822-4- 
 
 • painted on it, addressed towards the street. If I ever 
 
 ' find myself in a very different kind of coffee-room now, ford-^fre." 
 ' but where there is such an inscription on glass, and read ^- ^- ^2- 
 
 * it backward on the wrong side MOOE-EEFFOC (as I often 
 ' used to do then, in a dismal reverie), a shock goes 
 ' through my blood. 
 
 ' I know I do not exaggerate, unconsciously and unin- 'What 
 
 really wag : 
 
 ' tentionally, the scantiness of my resources and the difS- 
 ' culties of my life. I know that if a shilling or so were 
 ' given me by any one, I spent it in a dinner or a tea. I 
 ' know that I worked, from morning to night, with 
 ' common men and boj's, a shabby child. I know that I 
 
 * tried, but ineffectually, not to anticipate my money, 
 ' and to make it last the week through ; by putting it 
 ' away in a drawer I had in the counting-house, wrapped 
 ' into six little parcels, each parcel containing the same 
 ' amount, and labelled with a different day. I know that 
 ' I have lounged about the streets, insufiSciently and un- 
 
 ' satisfactorily fed. I know that, but for the mercy of wtat easily 
 
 miglit have 
 
 ' God, I might easily have been, for any care that was been. 
 ' taken of me, a little robber or a little vagabond. 
 
 ' But I held some station at the blacking warehouse 
 ' too. Besides that my relative at the counting-house did 
 ' what a man so occupied, and dealing with a thing so 
 ' anomalous, could, to treat me as one upou a different 
 ■ footing from the rest, I never said, to man or boy, how it 
 ' was that I came to be there, or gave the least indication 
 ' of being sorry that I was there. That I suffered in 
 ' secret, and that I suffered exquisitely, no one ever knew 
 
38 THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. [Chapthi 
 
 London : ' but I. How much I Suffered, it is, as I have said already, 
 
 '— ' utterly beyond my power to tell. No man's imagination 
 
 ford-stolra.' ' can overstep the reality. But I kept my own counsel, 
 
 C. D. lo^. ' and I did my work. I knew from the first, that if I 
 
 ' could not do my work as well as any of the rest, I could 
 
 ' not hold myself above slight and contempt. I soon 
 
 ' became at least as expeditious and as skilful with my 
 
 ' hands, as either of the other' boys. Though perfectly 
 
 ' familiar with them, my conduct and manners were 
 
 ' different enough from theirs to place a space between hs. 
 
 ' They, and the men, always spoke of me as " the young 
 
 The fore- ' " gentleman." A certain man (a soldier once) named 
 
 thecarmaji. ' Thomas, who was the foreman, and another named 
 
 ' Harry, who was the carman and wore a red jacket, used 
 
 ' to call me " Charles " sometimes, in speaking to me ; but 
 
 ' I think it was mostly when we were very confidential, 
 
 ' and when I had made some efforts to entertain them 
 
 ' over our work with the results of some of the old 
 
 ' readings, which were fast perishing out of my mind. 
 
 ' Poll Green uprose once, and rebelled against the " young 
 
 ' " gentleman" usage; but Bob Fagin settled him speedily. 
 
 '.My rescue from this kind of existence I considered 
 
 ' quite hopeless, and abandoned as such, altogether ; 
 
 ' though I am solemnly convinced that I never, for one 
 
 'hour, was reconciled to it, or was otherwise than 
 
 Remon- ' miserably unhappy. I felt keenly, however, the being 
 
 ■with Ms 'so cut off from my parents, my brothers, and sisters; 
 
 ' and, when my day's work was done, going home to such 
 
 ' a miserable blank ; and that, I thought, might be cor- 
 
 ' rected. One Sunday night T remonstrated with my father 
 
 father. 
 
Second,.] HAED EXPEMENCES IN BOYHOOD. 
 
 39 
 
 ' on this head, so pathetically and with so many tears, that London : 
 
 'his kind nature gave way. He began to think that '-^ 
 
 'it was not quite right. I do believe he had never ford -stairs." 
 
 ' thought so before, or thought about it. It was the first C. D. loq. 
 
 ' remonstrance I had ever made about my lot, and perhaps 
 
 'it opened up a little more than I intended. A back- 
 
 ' attic was found for me at the house of an insolvent-court 
 
 'agent, who lived in Lant-street in the borough, where 
 
 ' Bob Sawyer lodged many years afterwards. A bed and A lodging 
 
 ' bedding were sent over for me, and made up on the floor, street. 
 
 ' The little window had a pleasant prospect of a timber- y 
 
 ' yard ; and when I took possession of my new abode, I 
 
 ' thought it was a Paradise.' 
 
 There is here another blank, which it is however not 
 difScult to supply from letters and recollections of my own. 
 What was to him of course the great pleasure of his 
 paradise of a lodging, was its bringing him again, though 
 after a fashion sorry enough, within the circle of home. 
 From this time he used to breakfast ' at home,' in other Breakfast 
 
 and supper 
 
 words in the Marshalsea; going to it as early as the gates in Mar- 
 were open, and for the most part much earlier. They 
 had no want of bodily comforts there. His father's income, 
 still going on, was amply sufficient for that ; and in every 
 respect indeed but elbow-room, I have heard him say, the 
 family lived more comfortably in prison than they had 
 done for a long time out of it. They were ^vaited on still 
 by the maid-of-all-work from Bayham-street, the orphan 
 girl of the Chatham workhouse, from whose sharp little 
 worldly and also kindly ways he took his first impression 
 of the Marchioness in the Old Curiosity Shop. She also 
 
40 THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKEJfS. [Chapteb 
 
 London: had a lodging in the neighbourhood that she might be 
 
 1822-4 o o o 
 
 early on the scene of her duties ; and when Charles met 
 
 ford-sfairs. lier, as he would do occasionally, in his lounging-place by 
 London-bridge, he would occupy the time before the gates 
 opened by telling her quite astonishing fictions about the 
 
 C. D. and wharves and the tower. ' But I hope I believed them 
 
 the Mar- 
 chioness. ' myself,' he would say. Besides breakfast, he had supper 
 
 also in the prison ; and got to his lodging generally at 
 
 nine o'clock. The gates closed always at ten. 
 
 I must not omit what he told me of the landlord of 
 
 this little lodging. He was a fat, good-natured, kind old 
 
 gentleman. He was lame, and had a quiet old wife ; and 
 
 he had a very innocent grown-up son, who was lame too. 
 
 Landlord's They were all very kind to the boy. He was taken with 
 
 family m . . 
 
 Lant-street one of his old attacks of spasm one night, and the whole 
 three of them were about his bed until morning. They 
 were all dead when he told me this, but in another form 
 they live still very pleasantly as the Garland family in the 
 Old Curiosity Shop. 
 
 He had a similar illness one day in the warehouse, 
 
 C. D. loq. which I can describe in his own words. ' Bob Fagin was 
 ' very good to me on the occasion of a bad attack of my 
 ' old disorder. I suffered such excruciating pain that 
 'time, that they made a temporary bed of straw in my 
 ' old recess in the counting-house, and I rolled about on 
 ' the floor, and Bob filled empty blacking-bottles with hot 
 ■ water, and applied relays of them to my side, half the 
 ' (lay. I got better, and quite easy towards evening ; but 
 • Bob (who was much bigger and older than I) did not 
 'like the idea of my going home alone, and took me 
 
Second.] HAED EXPERIENCES IN BOTHOOD. 41 
 
 under his protection. I was too proud to let him know London: 
 
 ' about the prison ; and after making several efforts to L-L_ 
 
 'get rid of him, to all of which Bob Fagin in his good- ^feT 
 
 • uess was deaf, shook hands with him on the steps of a c. D. foj. 
 ' house near Southwark -bridge on the Surrey side, making 
 
 ' believe that I lived there. As a finishing piece of reality 
 'in case of his looking back, I knocked at the door, I Adventure 
 'recollect, and asked, when the woman opened it, if Fagin. 
 ' that was Mr. Robert Fagin's house.' 
 
 The Saturday nights continued, as before, to be precious C. D. %. 
 to him. ' My usual way home was over Blackfriars-bridge, 
 ' and down that turning in the Blackfriars-road which 
 ' has Rowland Hill's chapel on one side, and the likeness 
 ' of a golden dog licking a golden pot over a shop door on 
 'the other. There are a good many little low-browed old Home to 
 
 , . 1 I I ■ n 1 Lant-street, 
 
 ' shops m that street, of a wretched kind ; and some are 
 ' unchanged now. I looked into one a few weeks ago, 
 ' where I used to buy boot-laces on Saturday nights, and 
 ' saw the corner where I once sat down on a stool to have 
 ' a pair of ready-made half -boots fitted on. I have been 
 
 • seduced more than once, in that street on a Saturday 
 ' night, by a show- van at a corner ; and have gone in, 
 ■ with a very motley assemblage, to see the Fat-pig, the 
 
 ' Wild-indian, and the Little-lady. There were two or Saturday. 
 
 night 
 
 'three hat-manufactories there, then (I think they are shows, 
 there still) ; and among the things which, encountered 
 'anywhere, or under any circumstances, will instantly 
 ' recall that time, is the smell of hat-making.' 
 
 His father's attempts to avoid going through the 
 court having failed, all needful ceremonies had to be 
 
42 THE LIFE OF CHAELES DICKENS. [Chapiek 
 
 London : undertaken to obtain the benefit of the insolvent debtors' 
 
 1822-4 
 
 act; and in one of these little Charles had his part to 
 
 ford-sbm-s! pl^J- ^^^ Condition of the statute was that the wearing 
 C. D. loc[. apparel and personal matters retained were not to exceed 
 twenty pounds sterling in value. ' It was necessary, as a 
 ' matter of form, that the clothes I wore should be seen 
 ' by the official appraiser. I had a half-holiday to enable 
 ' me to call upon him, at his own time, at a house some- 
 ' where beyond the Obelisk. I recollect his coming out to 
 ' look at me with his mouth full, and a strong smell of 
 ' beer upon him, and saying good-naturedly that " that 
 Appraised ' " would do," and "it was all right." Certainly the hardest 
 
 officially. "^ 
 
 ' creditor would not have been disposed (even if he had 
 ' been legally entitled) to avail himself of my poor white 
 ' hat, little jacket, or corduroy trowsers. But I had a fat 
 ' old silver watch in my pocket, which had been given me 
 ' by my grandmother before the blacking days, and I had 
 ' entertained my doubts as I went along whether that 
 ' valuable possession might not bring me over the twenty 
 ' pounds. So. I was greatly relieved, and made him a bow 
 ' of acknowledgment as I went out.' 
 
 Still the want felt. most by him was the companionship 
 of boys of his own age. He had no such acquaintance. 
 Playing on Sometimes, he remembered to have played on the coal- 
 bargea. barges at dinner time, with Poll Green and Bob Fagin ; 
 but those were rare occasions. He generally strolled 
 alone, about the back streets of the Adelphi ; or explored 
 the Adelphi arches. One of his favourite localities was a 
 little public-house by the water-side called the Fox-under- 
 the-hill, approached by an underground passage which we 
 
Second.] HAED EXPEEIENCES IN BOYHOOD. 43 
 
 once missed in looking for it together ; and lie had a vision London : 
 ■which he has mentioned in Copperfield of sitting eating 
 
 something on a bench outside, one fine evening, and looking ford-stairs, 
 at some coal-heavers dancing before the house. ' I wonder d. c. 
 ' what they thought of me,' says David. He had himself c. D. 
 already said the same in his fragment of autobiography. 
 
 Another characteristic little incident he made after- 
 wards one of David's experiences, but I am able to give 
 it here without the disguises that adapt it to the fiction. 
 ' I was such a little fellow, with my poor white hat, little 
 'jacket, and corduroy trowsers, that frequently, when I 
 ' went into the bar of a strange public-house for a glass of 
 ' ale or porter to wash down the saveloy and the loaf I 
 ' had eaten in the street, they didn't like to give it me. 
 ' I remember, one evening (I had been somewhere for my 
 'father, and was going back to the borough over West- 
 ' minster-bridge), that I went into a public-house in 
 ' Parliament-street, which is still there though altered, at PiWican 
 
 ° and wife at 
 
 ' the corner of the short street leading into Cannon-row, CaEnon- 
 
 row. 
 
 ' and said to the landlord behind the bar, " What is your 
 ' " very best — the VERY best — ale, a glass 1 ' ' For, the occasion 
 ' was a festive one, for some reason : I forget why. It 
 ' may have been my birthday, or somebody else's. " Two- 
 ' " pence," says he. " Then," says I, "just draw me a glass 
 ' " of that, if you please, with a good head to it.'' The 
 ' landlord looked at me, in return, over the bar, from head 
 ' to foot, with a strange smile on his face ; and instead 
 ' of drawing the beer, looked round the screen and said 
 ' something to his wife, who came out from behind it, with 
 ' her work in her hand, and joined him in surveying me. 
 
44 THE LIFE OF CHAJJLES DICKENS. [CniprEB 
 
 LoNBOB : ' Here we stand, all three, before me now, in my study in 
 
 1822-4- 
 
 ' Devonshire-teiTace. The landlord, in his shirt sleeves, 
 
 ford-stems. ' leaning against the bar window-frame ; his wife, looking 
 C. D. hci. ' oygj. the little half-door ; and I, in some confusion, looking 
 • up at them from outside the partition. They asked me 
 ' a good many questions, as what my name was, how old I 
 ' was, where I lived, how I was employed, &c. &c. To all 
 ' of which, that I might commit nobody, 1 invented appro- 
 ' priate answers. They served me with the ale, though I 
 ' suspect it was not the strongest on the premises ; and 
 'the landlord's wife, opening the little half-door and 
 ' bending down, gave me a kiss that was half-admiring 
 ' and half-compassionate, but all womanly and good, I am 
 ' sure.' 
 A Marshal- A later, and not less characteristic, incident of the true 
 
 seaincident 
 
 in Copper- story of this time found also a place, three or four years 
 after it was written, in his now famous fiction. It preceded 
 but by a short time the discharge, from the Marshalsea, of 
 the elder Dickens ; to whom a rather considerable legacy 
 from a relative had accrued not long before ('some 
 ' hundreds ' I understood), and had been paid into court 
 during his imprisonment. The scene to be described arose 
 on the occasion of a petition drawn up by him before 
 he left, praying, not for the abolition of imprisonment for 
 debt as David Copperfield relates, but for the less dignified 
 but more accessible boon of a bounty to the prisoners to 
 drink his majesty's health on his majesty's forthcoming 
 birthday. 
 The inoi- ' I mention the circumstance because it illustrates, to 
 
 oMurred. ' 1"^, my early interest in observing people. When I went 
 
Sboond,] hard experiences IN BOYHOOD. 45 
 
 ' to the Marshalsea of a night, I was always delighted to London : 
 
 . . 1822-4. 
 
 ' hear from my mother what she knew about the histories 
 
 At Hunger- 
 
 ' of the different debtors in the prison ; and when I heard ford-stairs. 
 
 • of this approaching ceremony, I was so anxious to see ^- ^- ^"2- 
 
 ' them all come in, one after another (though I knew the 
 
 ■ greater part of thera already, to speak to, and they me), 
 
 ' that I got leave of absence on purpose, and established 
 
 ' myself in a corner, near the petition. It was stretched 
 
 ' out, I recollect, on a great ironing-board, under the 
 
 ' window, which in another part of the room made a 
 
 ' bedstead at night. The internal regulations of the place, 
 
 ' for cleanliness and order, and for the government of a 
 
 ' common room in the ale-house ; where hot water and ^^^^ expe- 
 rience in 
 ' some means of cooking, and a good fire, were provided MarshaJ- 
 
 ' for all who paid a very small subscription ; were ex- 
 
 ' cellently administered by a governing committee of 
 
 ' debtors, of which my father was chairman for the time 
 
 ' being. As many of the principal officers of this body as 
 
 ' could be got into the small room without filling it up, 
 
 'supported him, in front of the petition; and my old 
 
 'friend Captain Porter (who had washed himself, to do 
 
 ' honour to so solemn an occasion) stationed himself close 
 
 ' to it, to read it to all who were unacquainted with its 
 
 ' contents. The door was then thrown open, and they 
 
 ' began to come in, in a long file ; several waiting on the 
 
 ' landing outside, while one entered, affixed his signature, 
 
 • and went out. To everybody in succession. Captain 
 ' Porter said, " Would you like to hear it read ? " If he 
 ' weakly showed the least disposition to hear it, Captain 
 
 * Porter, in a loud sonorous voice, gave him every word of 
 
46 
 
 THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 [Chapter 
 
 Loudon : 
 1S22-4. 
 
 At Hunger- 
 ford-stairs. 
 
 Early_ in- 
 terest in 
 observing 
 people. 
 
 ' it. I remember a certain luscious roll he gave to such 
 'words as "Majesty — gracious Majesty — your gi-acious 
 '"Majesty's unfortunate subjects — your Majesty's well- 
 C. D. hci. ' " known munificence," — as if the words were something 
 ' real in his mouth, and delicious to taste : my poor father 
 ' meanwhile listening with a little of an author's vanity, 
 'and contemplating (not severely) the spikes on the 
 ' opposite wall. Whatever was comical in this scene, and 
 ' whatever was pathetic, I sincerely believe I perceived 
 ' in my corner, whether I demonstrated or not, quite as 
 ' well as I should perceive it now. I made out my own 
 'little character and story for every man who put his 
 ' name to the sheet of paper. I might be able to do that 
 ' now, more truly : not more earnestly, or with a closer 
 ' interest. Their diiferent peculiarities of dress, of face, of 
 ' gait, of manner, were written indelibly upon my memory. 
 'I would rather have seen it than the best play ever 
 ' played ; and I thought about it afterwards, over the pots 
 ' of paste-blacking, often and often. When I looked, with 
 'my mind's eye, into the Fleet-prison during Mr. Pick- 
 ' wick's incarceration, I wonder whether half-a-dozen men 
 ' were wanting from the Marshalsea crowd that came filing 
 ' in again, to the sound of Captain Porter's voice ! ' 
 
 When the family left the Marshalsea they all went to 
 lodge with the lady in Little-college-street, a Mrs. Roy- 
 lance, who has obtained unexpected immortality as Mis. 
 Pipchin ; and they afterwards occupied a small house in 
 Somers-town. But, before this time, Charles was present 
 with some of them in Tenterden-street to see his sister 
 Fanny receive one of the prizes given to the pupils of the 
 
 Materials 
 for Piclc- 
 viick. 
 
Second.] HAED EXPERIENCES IN BOYHOOD. 47 
 
 royal academy of music. ' I could not bear to think of London : 
 
 1822-4 
 
 ' myself — beyond tbe reach of aU such honourable emula- 
 
 ' tion and success. The tears ran down my face. I felt ford-stairs. 
 ' as if my heart were rent. I prayed, when I went to bed ^- D- foj- 
 ' that night, to be lifted out of the humiliation and neglect 
 'in which I was. I never had suffered so much before. 
 'There was no envy in this.' There was little need that 
 he should say so. Extreme enjoyment in witnessing the 
 exercise of her talents, the utmost pride in every success 
 obtained by them, he manifested always to a degree other- 
 wise quite unusual with him ; and on the day of her His sister 
 funeral, which we passed together, I had most affecting 
 proof of his tender and grateful memory of her in these 
 childish days. A few more sentences, certainly not less 
 touching than any that have gone before, wiU. bring the 
 story of them to its close. They stand here exactly as 
 written by him. 
 
 ' I am not sure that it was before this time, or after it, ^e black- 
 ing house 
 'that the blacking warehouse was removed to Chandos- removed. 
 
 ■ street, Covent-garden. It is no matter. Next to the ' ' *' 
 
 'shop at the corner of Bedford-street in Chandos-street, 
 
 'are two rather old-fashioned houses and shops adjoining 
 
 ' one another. They were one then, or thrown into one, 
 
 ' for the blacking business ; and had been a butter shop. 
 
 'Opposite to them was, and is, a public-house, where I 
 
 • got my ale, under these new circumstances. The stones 
 
 'in the street may be smoothed by my small feet going 
 
 ' across to it at dinner-time, and back again. The esta- 
 
 ' blishment was larger now, and we had one or two new 
 
 ' boys. Bob Fagin and I had attained to great dexterity 
 
48 
 
 THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 [Chapteb 
 
 London : 
 1822-4. 
 
 At Chan- 
 dos-street, 
 Covent- 
 garcleu. 
 
 C. D. Jog. 
 
 street wan- 
 derings. 
 
 Father's 
 qnarrel 
 with James 
 Lamert. 
 
 ' in tying up the pots. I forget how many we could do, in 
 ' five minutes. We worked, for the light's sake, near the 
 ' second window as you come from Bedford-street; and we 
 ' were so brisk at it, that the people used to stop and look 
 ' in. Sometimes there would be quite a little crowd there. 
 ' I saw my father coming in at the door one day when we 
 'were very busy, and I wondered how he could bear it. 
 
 ' Now, I generally had my dinner in the warehouse. 
 ' Sometimes I brought it from home, so I was better off. 
 ' I see myself coming across Eussell-square from Somers- 
 'town, one morning, with some cold hotch-potch in a 
 'small basin tied up in a handkerchief I had the same 
 'wanderings about the streets as I used to have, and 
 ' was just as solitary and self-dependent as before ; but I 
 ' had not the same difiSculty in merely living. I never 
 ' however heard a word of being taken away, or of being 
 'otherwise than quite provided for. 
 
 ' At last, one day, my father, and the relative so often 
 ' mentioned, quarrelled ; quarrelled by letter, for I took 
 'the letter from my father to him which caused the 
 ' explosion, but quarrelled very fiercely. It was about me. 
 ' It may have had some backward reference, in part, for 
 'anything I know, to my employment at the window. 
 ' All I am certain of is, that, soon after I had given him 
 'the letter, my cousin (he was a sort of cousin, by 
 ' marriage) told me he was very much insulted about me ; 
 ' and that it was impossible to keep me, after that. I 
 ' cried very much, partly because it was so sudden, and 
 • partly because in his anger he was violent about my father, 
 'though gentle to me. Thomas, the old soldier, comforted 
 
Second.] HARD EXPERIENCES IN BOYHOOD. 4,9 
 
 ' me, and said he was sure it was for the best. With a London : 
 
 1822-4. 
 
 'relief so strange that it was like oppression, I went home. 77-- 
 
 'My mother set herself to accommodate the quarrel, <los-street, 
 
 ' and did so next day. She brought home a request for garden. 
 
 ' me to return next morning, and a high character of me, ' ''^' 
 'which I am very sure I deserved. My father said, I 
 
 ' should go back no more, and should go to school. I do Quits the 
 
 warekouse. 
 
 'not write resentfully or angrily : for I know how all these 
 'things have worked together to make me what I am: but 
 'I never afterwards forgot, I never shall forget, I never can 
 ' forget, that my mother was warm for my being sent back. 
 
 ' From that hour until this at which I write, no word A silence of 
 ' of that part of my childhood which I have now gladly a century : 
 ' brought to a close, has passed my lips to any human being. 
 'I have no idea how long it lasted ; whether for a year, 
 ' or much more, or less. From that hour, until this, my 
 ' father and my mother have been stricken dumb upon it. 
 ' I have never heard the least allusion to it, however far 
 ' off and remote, from either of them. I have never, until broken by 
 ' I now impart it to this paper, m any burst ot confadence 
 ' with any one, my own wife not excepted, raised the 
 ' curtain I then dropped, thank God. 
 
 'Until old Hungefford-market was pulled down, until 
 'old Hungerford-stairs were destroyed, and the very 
 nature of the ground changed, I never had the courage 
 ■ to go back to the place where my servitude began. I 
 'never saw it. I could not endure to go near it. For 
 ' many years, when I came near to Eobert Warren's in Associa- 
 ' the Strand, I crossed over to the opposite side of the servitude, 
 'way, to avoid a certain smell of the cement they put 
 
 VOL. I. K 
 
50 
 
 THE LIFE OF CHAELES DICKENS. 
 
 [Ch. II. 
 
 182i. 
 
 End of 
 autobio- 
 graphical 
 fragment. 
 
 What he- 
 came of the 
 business. 
 
 ■ upon the blacking-corks, which reminded me of what I 
 ' was once. It was a very long time before I liked to go 
 'up Chandos-street. My old way home by the- borough 
 ' made me cry, after my eldest child could speak. 
 
 ' In my walks at night I have walked there often, since 
 ' then, and by degi'ees I have come to write this. It does 
 ' not seem a tithe of what I might have written, or of what 
 ' I meant to write.' 
 
 The substance of some after-talk explanatory of points 
 in the narrative, of which a note was made at the time, 
 may be briefly added. He could hardly have been more 
 than twelve years old when he left the place, and was still 
 unusually small for his age ; much smaller, though two 
 years older, than his own eldest son was at the time of 
 these confidences. His mother had been in the blacking 
 warehouse many times ; his father not more than once 
 or twice. The rivalry of Eobert Warren by Jonathan's 
 representatives, the cousins George and James, was carried 
 to wonderful extremes in the way of advertisement ; and 
 they were all very proud, he told me, of the cat scratching 
 the boot, which was their house's device. The poets in 
 the house's regular employ he remembered, too, and made 
 his first study from one of them for the poet of Mrs. 
 Jarley's wax-work. The whole enterprise, however, had 
 the usual end of such things. The younger cousin tired 
 of the concern ; and a Mr. Wood, the proprietor who took 
 James's share and became George's partner, sold it 
 ultimately to Eobert Warren. It continued to be his at 
 the time Dickens and myself last spoke of it together, 
 and he had made an excellent bargain of it. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 SCHOOL-DATS AND START IN LIFE. 
 1824—1830. 
 
 In what way these strange experiences of his boyhood londor : 
 
 affected him afterwards, this narrative of his life must ^— 
 
 show : but there were influences that made themselves 
 felt even on his way to manhood. 
 
 What at once he brought out of the humiliation that Outcome 
 had impressed him so deeply, though scarcely as yet quite trfaiT'' 
 conggiously, was a natural dread of the hardships that 
 might still be in store for him, sharpened by what he 
 had gone through ; and this, though in its effect for the 
 present imperfectly understood, became by degrees a 
 passionate resolve, even while he was yielding to circum- 
 stances, not to he what circumstances were conspiring to 
 make him. All that was involved in what he had suffered 
 and sunk into, could not have been known to him at the 
 time ; but it was plain enough later, as we see ; and in 
 conversation with me after the revelation was made, he 
 used to find, at extreme points in his life, the explana- 
 tion of himself in those early trials. He had derived 
 great good from them, but not without alloy. The fixed Effect in 
 and eager determination, the restless and resistless energy, '^ "' ^^^^^' 
 
 E 2 
 
52 
 
 THE LIFE OP CHAELES DICKENS. 
 
 [Chapter 
 
 LONDOH : 
 1824. 
 
 Disadvan- 
 
 ■which opened to him opportunities of escape from many- 
 mean envii-onments, not by turning off from any path of 
 duty, but by resolutely rising to such excellence or dis- 
 tinction as might be attainable in it, brought with it 
 some disadvantage among many noble advantages. Of this 
 he was himself aware, but not to the full extent. What it 
 was that in society made him often uneasy, shrinking, 
 and over-sensitive, he knew ; but all the danger he ran 
 in bearing down and over-mastering the feeling, he did 
 not know. A too great confidence in himself, a sense that 
 everything was possible to the will that would make it so, 
 laid occasionally upon him self-imposed burdens gi'eater 
 than might be borne by any one with safety. In that 
 direction there was in him, at such times, something even 
 hard and aggressive ; in his determinations a something 
 that had almost the tone of fierceness ; something in his 
 nature that made his resolves insuperable, however hasty 
 the opinions on which they had been formed. So rare 
 were these manifestations, however, and so little did they 
 prejudice a character as entirely open and generous as 
 it was at all times ardent and impetuous, that only very 
 infrequently, towards the close of the middle term of a 
 friendship which lasted without the interruption of a day 
 for more than three and thirty years, were they ever 
 unfavourably presented to me. But there they were ; 
 and when I have seen strangely present, at such chance 
 intervals, a stern and even cold isolation of self-reliance 
 side by side with a susceptivity almost feminine and the 
 most eager craving for sympathy, it has seemed to me as 
 though his habitual impulses for everything kind and 
 
Thikd.] SCHOOL-DATS AND STAET IN LIFE. 53 
 
 gentle had sunk, for the time, under a sudden hard Lohboh 
 
 and inexorable sense of what fate had dealt to him in ^^ 
 
 those early years. On more than one occasion indeed 
 
 I had confirmation of this. ' I must entreat you,' he C. D. to 
 
 T F 
 
 wrote to me in June 1862, 'to pause for an instant, and (i862.) 
 ' go back to what you know of my childish days, and to 
 ' ask yourself whether it is natural that something of the 
 'character formed in me then, and lost under happier 
 ' cii'cumstances, should have reappeared in the last five 
 'years. The never to be forgotten misery of that 
 ' old time, bred a certain shrinking sensitiveness in a 
 'certain ill-clad ill-fed child, that I have found come 
 'back in the never to be forgotten misery of this later 
 ' time.' 
 
 One good there was, however, altogether without draw- Advan- 
 
 tages. 
 
 back, and which claims simply to be mentioned before my 
 narrative is resumed. The story of his childish misery 
 has itself sufficiently shown that he never throughout 
 it lost his precious gift of animal spirits, or his native 
 capacity for humorous enjoyment ; and there were positive 
 gains to him from what he underwent, which were also 
 rich and lasting. To what in the outset of his difficulties 
 and trials gave the decisive bent to his genius, I have 
 already made special reference; and we are to observe, 
 of what followed, that with the very poor and unpros- 
 perous, out of whose sufferings and strugglings, and the 
 virtues as well as vices born of them, his not least 
 splendid successes were wrought, his childish expe- 
 riences had made him actually one. They were not 
 his clients whose cause he pleaded with such pathos and 
 
54 
 
 THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 [Chaptkb 
 
 LoNBON : 
 182i-6. 
 
 Next 
 move in 
 life. 
 
 C. D. loq. 
 
 WellJBg- 
 
 ton-house 
 
 academy. 
 
 humour, and on whose side he got the laughter and 
 tears of all the world, but in some sort his very self. Nor 
 was it a small part of this manifest advantage that he 
 should have obtained his experience as a child and not 
 as a man ; that only the good part, the flower and fruit 
 of it, was plucked by him ; and that nothing of the evil 
 part, none of the earth in which the seed- was planted, 
 remained to soil him. 
 
 His next move in life can also be given in his own 
 language. 'There was a school in the Hampstead-road 
 ' kept by Mr. Jones, a Welshman, to which my father dis- 
 ' patched me to ask for a card of terms. The boys were 
 'at dinner, and Mr. Jones was carving for them with a 
 'pair of hoUand sleeves on, when I acquitted myself of 
 'this commission. He came out, and gave me what I 
 ' wanted; and hoped I should become a pupil. I did. At 
 ' seven o'clock one morning, very soon afterwards, I went 
 ' as day scholar to Mr. Jones's establishment, which was in 
 ' Momington-place, and had its school-room sliced away by 
 ' the Birmingham-railway, when that change came about. 
 ' The school-room however was not threatened ^y directors 
 ' or civil engineers then, and there was a board over the 
 'door graced with the words WELLINGTON HouSE 
 ' Academy.' 
 
 At Wellington-house academy he remained nearly two 
 years, being a little over fourteen years of age when he 
 quitted it. In his minor writings as well as in Copperfield 
 will be found general allusions to it, and there is a paper 
 among his pieces reprinted from Household Words which 
 purports specifically to describe it. To the account 
 
Thied.1 SCHOOL-DATS AJS'D START IN LIFE. 55 
 
 therein given of himself when he went to the school, as London : 
 advanced enough, so safely had his memory retained its 
 
 poor fragments of early schooling, to be put into Virgil, ton-house 
 as getting sundry prizes, and as attaining to the eminent 
 position of its first boy, one of his two schoolfellows with 
 whom I have had communication, makes objection ; but 
 both admit that the general features of the place are 
 reproduced with wonderful accuracy, and more especially 
 in those points for which the school appears to have been 
 much more notable than for anything connected with 
 the scholarship of its pupils. 
 
 In the reprinted piece Dickens describes it as remark- Described 
 able for white mice. He says that red-polls, linnets, and 
 even canaries, were kept by the boys in desks, drawers, 
 hat-boxes, and other strange refuges for birds ; but that 
 white mice were the favourite stock, and that the boys 
 trained the mice much better than the master trained the 
 boys. He recalled in particular one white mouse who 
 lived in the cover of a Latin dictionary, ran up ladders, 
 drew Roman chariots, shouldered muskets, turned wheels, 
 and even made a very creditable appearance on the stage 
 as the Dog of Montargis, who might have achieved greater 
 things but for having had the misfortune to mistake his 
 way in a triumphal procession to the Capitol, when he 
 fell into a deep inkstand, and was dyed black and 
 drowned. 
 
 Nevertheless he mentions the school as one also of some 
 celebrity in its neighbourhood, though nobody could have 
 said why ; and adds that among the boys the master was 
 supposed to know nothing, and one of the ushers was 
 
5g THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. iChaptek 
 
 London : supposed to know everything. ' We are still inclined to 
 
 '-^— 'think the first named supposition perfectly correct. We 
 
 ton-house ' went to look at the place only this last midsummer, and 
 
 academy. , ^^^^^ ^-^^^ ^^^ railway had cut it up, root and branch, A 
 
 Revisited 'great trunk line had swallowed the playground, sliced 
 
 an^twenty ' away the school-room, and pared oif the corner of the 
 
 ^'"^- 'house. Which, thus curtailed of its proportions, pre- 
 
 'sented itself in a gi-een stage of stucco, profile-wise 
 
 ' towards the road, like a forlorn flat-iron without a handle, 
 
 ' standing on end.' 
 
 Letter One who knew him in those early days, Mr. Owen P. 
 
 sohoof- Thomas, thus writes to me (February 1871). ' I had the 
 
 fellow. < honour of being Mr. Dickens's schoolfellow for about two 
 
 'years (1824 — 1826), both being day-scholars, at Mr. 
 
 ' Jones's " Classical and Commercial Academy," as then 
 
 'inscribed in front of the house, and which was situated 
 
 ' at the comer of Granby-street and the Hampstead-road. 
 
 ' The house stands now in its original state, but the school 
 
 ' and large playground behind disappeared on the forma- 
 
 ' tion of the London and North-western railway, which at 
 
 ' this point runs in a slanting direction from Euston-square 
 
 'underneath the Hampstead-road. We were all com- 
 
 'panions and playmates when out of school, as well as 
 
 'fellow students therein.' (Mr. Thomas includes in this 
 
 remark the names of Henry Danson, now a physician in 
 
 practice in London ; of Daniel Tobin, whom I remember 
 
 to have been frequently assisted by his old schoolfellow in 
 
 later years ; and of Eichard Bray.) ' You will find a graphic 
 
 Sketch ' sketch of the school by Mr. Dickens himself in Household 
 
 by C. D. 
 
 ' Woi'ds of 11th October, 1851. The article is entitled Our 
 
TiiiuD.| SCHOOL-DAYS AND START IN LIFE. 57 
 
 ' School. The names of course are feigned ; but, allow- London : 
 'ing for slight colouring, the persons and incidents de- — - — - 
 
 W 6lliiiff- 
 
 'scribed are all true to life, and easily recognizable by any tou-housa 
 'one who attended the school at the time. The Latin ^^ ^'"^' 
 'master was Mr. Manville, or Mandeville, who for many 
 'years was well known at the library of the British- 
 ' museum. The academy, after the railroad overthrew it, 
 ' was removed to another house in the neighbourhood, but 
 ' Mr. Jones and two at least of his assistant masters have 
 ' long ago departed this life.' 
 
 One of the latter was the usher believed to know every- 
 thing, who was writing master, mathematical master, 
 English master, divided the little boys with the Latin 
 master, made out the bills, mended the pens, and always 
 called at parents' houses to enquire after sick boys, 
 because he had gentlemanly manners. This picture, my c. D. 's re- 
 correspondent recognized ; as well as those of the fat little „£ school. 
 dancing master who taught them hornpipes, of the Latin 
 master who stuffed his ears with onions for his deafness, 
 of the gniff serving-man who nursed the boys in scarlet 
 fever, and of the principal himself who was always ruling 
 ciphering books with a bloated mahogany ruler, smiting 
 the palms of offenders with the same diabolical instru- 
 ment, or viciously drawing a pair of pantaloons tight 
 with one of his large hands and caning the wearer with 
 the other. 
 
 ' My recollection of Dickens whilst at school,' Mr. Thomas School- 
 continues, ' is that of a healthy looking boy, small but well- collections 
 ' built, with a more than usual flow of spirits, inducing to " ' ' 
 ' harmless fun, seldom or ever I think to mischief, to which 
 
58 THE LIFE OF CHAELES DICKENS. [Ceiapter 
 
 London : ' SO many lads at that age are prone. I cannot recall 
 
 1- 'anything that then indicated he would hereafter become 
 
 ton-house ' a literary celebrity ; but perhaps he was too young then, 
 academy. , -g-^ usually held his head more erect than lads ordinarily 
 ' do, and there was a general smartness about him. His 
 ' week-day dress of jacket and trousers, I can clearly 
 ' remember, was what is called pepper-and-salt; and instead 
 ' of the frill that most boys of his age wore then, he had a 
 ' turn-down collar, so that he looked less youthful in con- 
 ' sequence. He invented what we termed a " lingo," pro- 
 duced by the addition of a few letters of the same sound 
 ' to every word ; and it was our ambition, walking and 
 ' talking thus along the street, to be considered foreigners. 
 'As an alternate amusement the present writer well 
 ' remembers extemporising tales of some sort, and reciting 
 'them offhand, with Dickens and Danson or Tobin 
 Schoolboy's ' walking on either side of him. I enclose you a copy 
 ' of a note I received from him when he was between 
 ' thirteen and fourteen years of age, perhaps one of the 
 ' earliest productions of his pen. The Leg referred to 
 'was the Legend of something, a pamphlet romance 1 
 'had lent him ; the Clavis was of course the Latin school 
 'book so named.' 
 
 There is some underlying whim or fun in the 'Leg' 
 allusions which Mr. Thomas appears to have overlooked, 
 and certainly fails to explain : but the note, which is 
 here given in fac-simile, may be left to speak for 
 itself; and in the signature the reader will be amused 
 to see the first faint beginning of a flourish afterwards 
 famous. 
 
TiuKD.] SCHOOL-DAYS AND STAET IN LIFK 
 
 •59 
 
 (No date, but was written in 
 latter part of 1825.) 
 
 ■4 
 
 !^pT >lc)] 
 
 
 
 LoNDOH • 
 
 1824-6. 
 
 Welling- 
 
 ton-houae 
 
 academy. 
 
 C. D.'s 
 autogi'aph 
 in boyhood. 
 
60 THE LIFE OF CHAELES DICKENS. [Chapieb 
 
 LoNDOH : 'After a lapse of years,' Mr. Thomas continues, ' I recog- 
 ' nized the celebrated writer as the individual I had known 
 
 after thirty ' SO Well as a boy, from having preserved this note ; and 
 years. 'upon Mr. Dickens visiting Reading in December 1S54 
 
 ' to give one of his earliest readings for the benefit of the 
 ' literary institute, of which he had become president on 
 ' Mr. Justice Talfourd's death, I took the opportunity of 
 ' showing it to him, when he was much diverted therewith. 
 ' On the same occasion we conversed about mutual school- 
 ' fellows, and among others Daniel Tobin was referred to, 
 ' whom I remembered to have been Dickens's Tnost intimate 
 ' companion in the school days (1824 to 1826). His reply 
 ' was that Tobin either was then, or had previously been, 
 ' assisting him in the capacity of amanuensis ; but there is 
 Daniel ' a Subsequent mystery about Tobin, in ' connection with 
 
 Tobiu. 
 
 ' his friend and patron, which I have never been able to 
 ' comprehend; for I understood shortly afterwards that there 
 'was entire separation between them, and it must have 
 'been an offence of some gravity to have sundered an 
 'acquaintance formed in early youth, and which had 
 ' endured, greatly to Tobin' s advantage, so long. He 
 'resided in our schooldays in one of the now old and 
 'grimy-looking stone-fronted houses in George-street, 
 ' Euston-road, a few doors from the Orange-tree tavern. 
 ' It is the opinion of the other schoolfellow with whom we 
 ' were intimate, Doctor Danson, that upon leaving school 
 ' Mr. Dickens and Tobin entered the same solicitor's office, 
 ' and this he thinks was either in or near Lincoln's-inn- 
 ' fields.' 
 
 The offence of Tobin went no deeper than the having at 
 
Thied.1 SCHOOL-DATS ANB START IN LIFE. 61 
 
 last worn out even Dickens's patience and kindness. His London : 
 
 applications for relief were so incessantly repeated, that to '-L 
 
 cut him and them adrift altogether was the only way of remember 
 escape from what had become an intolerable nuisance. °^'^''^^'^- 
 To Mr. Thomas's letter the reader wiU thank me for adding 
 one not less interesting with which Dr. Henry Danson has 
 favoured me. We have here, with the same fun and animal 
 spirits, a little of the proneness to mischief which his other 
 school-fellow says he was free from ; but the mischief is 
 all of the harmless kind, and might perhaps have been 
 better described as but part of an irrepressible vivacity. 
 
 ' My impression is that I was a schoolfellow of Dickens Letter from 
 ' for nearly two years : he left before me, I think at school- 
 ' about 15 years of age. Mr. Jones's school, called the 
 'Wellington-academy, was in the Hampstead-road, at 
 'the north-east corner of Granby-street. The school- 
 ' house was afterwards removed for the London and North- 
 ' western railway. It was considered at the time a very 
 ' superior sort of school, one of the best indeed in that 
 ' part of London ; but it was most shamefully mis- 
 ' managed, and the boys made but very little progress. 
 'The proprietor, Mr. Jones, was a Welshman; a most Chief em- 
 ' ignorant fellow, and a mere tyrant ; whose chief employ- of chief 
 'ment was to scourge the boys. Dickens has given a 
 ' very lively account of this place in his paper entitled 
 ' Our School, but it is very mythical in many respects, 
 ' and more especially in the compliment he pays in it to 
 ' himself I do not remember that Dickens distinguished 
 ' himself in any way, or carried off any prizes. My belief 
 ' is that he did not learn Greek or Latin there, and you 
 
 master 
 
62 
 
 THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 [Chapter 
 
 LoHDOir : 
 1824-6. 
 
 WeUing- 
 
 ton-house 
 
 academy. 
 
 C. D. in 
 the school. 
 
 C. D.'s 
 
 associates 
 and pur- 
 suits. 
 
 Writing 
 tales and 
 getting up 
 plays. 
 
 ' will remember there is no allusion to the classics in any 
 ' of his writings. He was a handsome, curly-headed lad, 
 ' full of animation and animal spirits, and probably was 
 ' connected with every mischievous prank in the school. 
 ' I do not think he came in for any of Mr. Jones's scourg- 
 ' ing propensity : in fact, together with myself, he was 
 ' only a day-pupil, and with these there was a wholesome 
 ' fear of tales being carried home to the parents. His 
 ' personal appearance at that time is vividly brought home 
 ' to me in the portrait of him taken a few years later by Mr. 
 ' Lawrence. He resided with his friends, in a very small 
 ' house in a street leading out of Seymour-street, north of 
 ' Mr. Judkin's chapel. 
 
 'Depend on it he was quite a self-made man, and 
 ' his wonderful knowledge and command of the English 
 ' language must have been acquired by long and patient 
 ' study after leaving his last school. 
 
 'I have no recollection of the boy you name. His 
 ' chief associates were, I think, Tobin, Mr. Thomas, Bray, 
 ' and myself The first-named was his chief ally, and his 
 ' acquaintance with him appears to have continued many 
 'years afterwards. At about that time Penny and 
 'Saturday Magazines were published weekly, and were 
 ' greedily read by us. We kept bees, white mice, and 
 ' other living things, clandestinely in our desks ; and the 
 ' mechanical arts were a good deal cultivated, in the shape 
 ' of coach-building, and making pumps and boats, the 
 ' motive power of Vi'hich was the white mice. 
 
 ' I think at that time Dickens took to writinar small 
 ' tales, and we had a sort of club for lending and circu- 
 
Thiw).] SCHOOL-DATS A^D START IN LIFE. 63 
 
 'lating them. Dickens was also very strong in using London: 
 ' a sort of lingo, -which made us quite unintelligible to 
 
 ' bj'standers. We were very strong, too, in theatricals, ton-house 
 'We mounted small theatres, and got up very gorgeous ™^" 
 ' scenery to illustrate the Miller and his Men and Cherry 
 
 ' and Fair Star. I remember the present Mr. Beverley, Master 
 
 ■ 1 ■ 1 - TN* 1 Beverley 
 
 'the scene painter, assisted us m this. Dickens was paints 
 ' always a leader at these plays, Avhich were occasionally 
 ' presented with much solemnity before an audience of 
 'boys, and in the presence of the ushers. My brother, 
 ' assisted by Dickens, got up the Miller and his Men, in 
 ' a very gorgeous form. Master Beverley constructed the 
 ' mill for us in such a way that it could tumble to pieces 
 ' with the assistance of crackers. At one representation 
 ' the fireworks in the last scene, ending with the destruc- 
 ' tion of the mill, were so very real that the police 
 ' interfered, and knocked violently at the doors. Dickens's 
 ' after taste for theatricals might have had its origin in 
 ' these small affairs. 
 
 ' I quite remember Dickens on one occasion heading Street 
 
 T 1 1 acting. 
 
 ' us in Drummond-street m pretending to be poor boys, 
 ' and asking the passers-by for charity — especially old 
 ' ladies ; one of whom told us she " had no money for 
 ' " beggar boys." On these adventures, when the old ladies 
 ' were quite staggered by the impudence of the demand, 
 ' Dickens would explode with laughter and take to his 
 ' heels. 
 
 ' I met him one Sunday morning shortly after he left At church. 
 ■the school, and we very piously attended the morning 
 ' service at Seymour-street chapel. I am sorry to say 
 
64 THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. [Chaiteb 
 
 London : ' Master Dickens did not attend in the slightest degree to 
 
 '^- ' the service, but incited me to laughter by declaring his 
 
 Dr. Daa- ' dinner was ready and the potatoes would be spoiled, and 
 Bon s e er. < ^^ ^^^^ behaved in such a manner that it was lucky for 
 ' us we were not ejected from the chapel. 
 
 ' I heard of him some time after from Tobin, whom I 
 
 ' met carrying a foaming pot of London particular in 
 
 ' Lincoln's-inn-fields, and I then understood that Dickens 
 
 ' was in the same or some neighbouring office. 
 
 School- ' Many years elapsed after this before I became aware, 
 
 after 40 ' from accidentally reading Our School, that the brilliant 
 
 years. , ^^^ ^^^ famous Dickens was my old schoolfellow. I 
 
 ' didn't like to intrude myself upon him ; and it was not 
 
 ' until three or four years ago, when he presided at the 
 
 ' University-college dinner at Willis's-rooms, and made a 
 
 ' most brilliant and effective speech, that I sent him a 
 
 ' congratulatory note reminding him of our former fellow- 
 
 ' ship. To this he sent me a kind note in reply, and 
 
 ' which I value very much. I send you copies of these.' * 
 
 Dr Danson * ■'^® reader TriU probably think them worth Bubjoining. Dr. Danson 
 to C. D. wrote ; — 'Api-il, 1864. Dear Sik, On the recent occasion of the U. C. H. 
 ' dinner, you would probably have been amused and somewhat surprised to 
 ' learn that one of those whom you addressed had often accompanied you over 
 ' that " iield of forty footsteps " to which you so aptly and amusingly alluded. 
 ' It is now some years since I was accidentally reading a paper written by 
 ' yourself in the SouseJiold Words, when I was first impressed with the 
 ' idea that the writer described scenes and persons with which I was once 
 ' famUiar, and that he must necessarily be the veritable Charles Dickens of 
 ' "our school" — ^the school of Jones ! I did not then, howeyer, like to intrude 
 ' myself upon you, for I could hardly hope that you would retain any recoUeo- 
 ' tion of myself ; indeed, it was only barely possible you should do so, howcTer 
 ' vi-ridly / might recall you in many scenes of fun and frolic of my school days. 
 ' I happened to be present at the dinner of Tuesday last (being interested as 
 ' aa old student in the school of the hospital), and was seated very near you ; 
 
Thibd.] SCHOOL-DAYS AND START IN LIFE. 65 
 
 From Dickens himself I never heard much allusion to London : 
 
 1826-7 
 
 the school thus described : but I knew, that, besides being ^- 
 
 the subject dealt with in Household Words, it had sup- 
 plied some of the lighter traits of Salem-house for Copper- 
 field; and that to the fact of one of its tutors being after- 
 wards engaged to teach a boy of Macready's, our common 
 friend, Dickens used to point for one of the iUustrations 
 of his favorite theory as to the smallness of the world, and Smallness 
 
 of the 
 
 how things and persons apparently the most unlikely to world. 
 
 meet were continually knocking up against each other. 
 
 The employment as his amanuensis of his schoolfellow Tobin Daniel 
 
 1 1 1 • TN T T 1 1 Tobin and 
 
 dates as early as nis Doctors -commons days, but both my. c. D. 
 correspondents are mistaken in the impression they appear 
 to have received that Tobin had been previously his fellow- 
 clerk in the same attorney's office. I had thought him 
 more likely to have been accompanied there by another of 
 his boyish acquaintances who became afterwards a solicitor, 
 
 ' I was tempted during the evening to introduce myself to you, but feared lest 
 ' an explanation such as this in a public room might attract attention and be 
 
 * disagreeable to yourself. A man who has attained a position and celebrity 
 ' such as yours will probably have many early associates and acquaintances 
 ' claiming his notice. I beg of you to believe that such is not my object, but 
 
 * that having so recently met you I feel myself unable to repress the desire to 
 
 * assure you that no one in the room could appreciate the fame and rank you 
 ' have so fairly won, or could wish you more sincerely long life and happiness 
 ' to enjoy them, than, Dear Sir, your old school-fellow, Henet Danson. ' To 
 
 this Dickens replied : ' Gad's Hill Place, Thursday, 5th May, 1864. *-'• ^' *" 
 'Dear Sib, I should have assured you before now that the' receipt of your r.iianson 
 ' letter gave me great pleasure, h:id I not been too much ' occupi6d to have 
 
 * leisure for correspondence. I perfectly recollect your name as that of an old 
 ' school-fellow, and distinctly remember your appearance and dress as a boy, 
 ' and believe you had a brother who was unfortunately drowned in the Ser- 
 
 * pontine. If you had made yourself personally known to me at the dinner, 
 ' I should have been well pleased ; though in that case I should have lost your 
 ' modest and manly letter. Faithfully yours, Charles Dickens. ' 
 
 VOL. I. J? 
 
66 THE LIFE OF CHAELES DICKENS. [Chapteb 
 
 LoNBON : Mr. Mitton, not recollected by either of my correspondents 
 
 '— in connection with the school, but whom I frequently met 
 
 with him in later years, and for whom he had the regard 
 arising out of such early associaiions. In this however 
 I have since discovered my own mistake : the truth beiag 
 An early that it was this gentleman's connection, not with the Wel- 
 lington-academy, but with a school kept by Mr. Dawson 
 in Hunter-street, Brunswick-square, where the brothers of 
 Dickens were subsequently placed, which led to their 
 early knowledge of each other. I fancy that they were 
 together also, for a short time, at Mr. Molloy's in New- 
 square, Lincoln's-inn ; but, whether or not this was so, 
 Dickens certainly had not quitted school many months 
 In an at- before his father had made sufficient interest with an 
 office^ ^ attorney of Gray's-inn, Mr. Edward Blackmore, to obtain 
 him regular employment in his office. In this capacity of 
 clerk, our only trustworthy glimpse of him we owe to the 
 last-named gentleman, who has described briefly, and I 
 do not doubt authentically, the services so rendered by 
 him to the law. It cannot be said that they were 
 noteworthy, though it might be difficult to find a more 
 distinguished person who has borne the title, unless we 
 make exception for the very father of literature himself, 
 whom Chaucer, with amusing illustration of the way in 
 which words change their meanings, calls ' that conceited 
 ' clerke Homfere.' 
 Described 'I was well acquainted,' writes Mr. Edward Blackmore, 
 employer, of Alresford, ' with his parents, and, being then in practice 
 'in Gray's-inn, they asked me if I could find employment 
 ' for him. He was a bright, clever-looking youth, and I 
 
Third.] SCHOOL-DAYS AND START IN LIFE. 67 
 
 ' took him as a clerk. He came to me in May 1827, and Londoii : 
 
 1827-8. 
 
 ' left in November 1828 ; and I have now an account- 
 
 In Mr. 
 
 'book which he used to keep of petty disbursements Black- 
 
 Tnorfi s 
 
 'in the office, in which he charged himself with the ogee. 
 ' modest salary firsi; of thirteen shillings and sixpence, and 
 ' afterwards of fifteen shillings a-week. Several incidents 
 ' took place in the office of which he must have been a 
 ' keen observer, as I recognized some of them in his 
 'Pickwick and Nickleby ; and I am much mistaken if 
 ' some of his characters had not their originals in persons 
 ' I well remember. His taste for theatricals was much 
 ' promoted by a fellow-clerk named Potter, since dead, 
 ' with whom he chiefly associated. They took every 
 ' opportunity, then unknown to me, of going together to Minor- 
 ' a minor theatre, where (I afterwards heard) they not tastes. 
 ' unfrequently engaged in parts. After he left me I saw 
 ' him at times in the lord chancellor's court, taking 
 ' notes of cases as a reporter. I then lost sight of him 
 ' until his Pickwick made its appearance.' This letter 
 indicates the position he held at Mr. Blackmore's ; and we 
 have but to turn to the passage in Pickwick which 
 describes the several grades of attorney's-clerk, to under- 
 stand it more clearly. He was very far below the articled His grado 
 clerk, who has paid a premium and is attorney in perspec- ship, 
 tive. He was not so high as the salaried clerk, with nearly 
 the whole of his weekly thirty-shiUings spent on his personal 
 pleasures. He was not even on a level with the middle- 
 aged copying clerk, always needy and uniformly shabby. 
 He was simply among, however his own nature may have 
 lifted him above, the 'office-lads in their first surtouts, 
 
 F 2 
 
IBg. 
 
 (58 THE LIFE OF CHAELES DICKENS. [Chapter 
 
 London: ' who feel a befitting contempt for boys at day-schools, 
 
 — ' club as they go home at night for saveloys and porter, 
 
 ' and think there's nothing like life.' Thus far, not more 
 or less, had he now reached. He was one of the office-lads, 
 and probably in his first surtout. , 
 
 Self-teach- But, even thus, the process of education went on, 
 defying what seemed to interrupt it; and in the amount 
 of his present equipment for his needs of life, what he 
 brought from the Wellington-house academy can have 
 borne but the smallest proportion to his acquirement at 
 Mr. Blackmore's. Yet to seek to identify, without help 
 from himself, any passages in his books with those boyish 
 law-experiences, would be idle and hopeless enough. In 
 the earliest of his writings, and down to the very latest, 
 he worked exhaustively the field which is opened by an 
 attorney's office to a student of life and manners ; but we 
 have not now to deal with his numerous varieties of the 
 genus clerk drawn thus for the amusement of others, but 
 with the acquisitions which at present he was storing up for 
 himself from the opportunities such offices opened to him. 
 Nor would it be possible to have better illustrative comment. 
 The father '^^ ^^ these years, than is furnished by his father's reply 
 education^ to a friend it was now hoped to interest on his behalf, 
 which more than once I have heard him whimsically, but 
 good-humouredly, imitate. 'Pray, Mr. Dickens, where 
 • was your son educated ? ' ' Why, indeed. Sir — ha ! ha ! — 
 'he may be said to have educated himself!' Of the two 
 kinds of education which Gibbon says that aU men who 
 rise above the common level receive ; the first, that of his 
 teachers, and the second, more personal and more im- 
 
jhikd.] school-days and start in life. 69 
 
 portant, Ms own ; he had the advantage only of the last. Lonbon : 
 
 1828-30. 
 It nevertheless sufficed for him. 
 
 Very nearly another eighteen months were now to be Another 
 spent mainly in practical preparation for what he was, at ment in 
 this time, led finally to choose as an employment from 
 which a fair income was certain with such talents as he 
 possessed ; his father already having taken to it, in these 
 latter years, in aid of the family resources. In his father's 
 house, which was at Hampstead through the first portion 
 of the Mornington-street school time, then in the^house out 
 of Seymour-street mentioned by Dr. Danson, and after- 
 wards, upon the elder Dickens going into the gallery, in 
 Bentinck-street, Manchester-square, Charles had continued 
 to live ; and, influenced doubtless by the example before 
 him, he took sudden determination to qualify himself 
 thoroughly for what his father was lately become, a 
 newspaper parliamentary reporter. He set resolutely 
 therefore to the study of short-hand ; and, for the Studying 
 additional help of such general information about books as 
 a fairly educated youth might be expected to have, as well 
 as to satisfy some higher personal cravings, he became an 
 assiduous attendant in the British-museum reading-room, in British- 
 He would frequently refer to these days as decidedly the reading- 
 usefullest to himself he had ever passed ; and judging from ™°™' 
 the results they must have been so. No man who knew 
 him in later years, and talked to him familiarly of books 
 and things, would have suspected his education in boy- 
 hood, almost entirely self-acquired as it was, to have been 
 so rambling or hap-hazard as I have here described it. 
 The secret consisted in this, that, whatever for the time he 
 
70 THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. lchapteb 
 
 LosDON : had to do, he lifted himself, there and then, to the level of ; 
 
 1828-30. -Ill 
 
 and at no time disregarded the rules that guided the hero 
 
 D. 0. of his novel. ' Whatever I have tried to do in life, I have 
 C. D. ' tried with all my heart to do well. What I have devoted 
 ' myself to, I have devoted myself to completely. Never to 
 'put one hand to anything on which I could throw my 
 ' whole self, and never to affect depreciation of my work, 
 ' whatever it was, I find now to have been my golden 
 ' rules.' 
 
 Of the difficulties that beset his short-hand studies, as 
 well as of what first turned his mind to them, he has told 
 also something in Copjperfield. He had heard that many 
 men distinguished in various pursuits had begun life by re- 
 porting the debates in parliament, and he was not deterred 
 by a friend's warning that the mere mechanical accom- 
 plishment for excellence in it might take a few years to 
 master thoroughly : ' a perfect and entire command of the 
 Prepaiing ' mystery of short-hand writing and reading being about 
 gallery. ' equal in difficulty to the mastery of six languages.' 
 Undaunted, he plunged into it, self-teaching in this as in 
 graver things ; and, having bought Mr. Gurney's half- 
 guinea book, worked steadily his way through its distrac- 
 D- C. tions. / ' The changes that were rung upon dots, which in 
 C- D- ' such a position meant such a thing, and in such another 
 ' position something else entirely different ; the wonderful 
 ' vagaries that were played by circles ; the unaccountable 
 ' consequences that resulted from marks like flies' legs ; 
 ' the tremendous effects of a curve in a wrong place ; not 
 ' only troubled my waking hours, but reappeared before 
 ' me in my sleep. When I had groped my way, blindly, 
 
X 
 
 Third.] SCHOOL-DAYS AND START IN LIFE. 7I 
 
 ' through these difficulties, and had mastered the alphabet, London : • 
 
 1828-^0 
 
 ' there then appeared a procession of new horrors, called ^ 
 
 ' arbitrary characters ; the most despotic characters I have 
 ' ever known ; who insisted, for instance, that a thing like 
 ' the beginning of a cobweb meant expectation, and that 
 'a pen-and-ink sky-rocket stood for disadvantageous. 
 ' When I had fixed these wretches in my mind, I found 
 'that they had driven everything else out of it; then, 
 ' beginning again, I forgot them ; while I was picking 
 ' them up, I dropped the other fragments of the system ; 
 ' in short, it was almost heart-breaking.' 
 
 What it was that made it not quite heart-breaking to Further 
 
 likeness 
 
 the hero of the fiction, its readers know ; and something of between 
 
 . 1 • 1 • ,1 1 . D. C. and 
 
 the same kmd was now to enter into the actual expen- c. D. 
 ence of its writer. First let me say, however, that after 
 subduing to his wants in marvellously quick time this 
 unruly and unaccommodating servant of stenography, 
 what he most desired was still not open to him. ' There 
 ' never was such a short-hand writer,' has been often said 
 to me by Mr. Beard, the friend he first made in that line 
 when he entered the gallery, and with whom to the close 
 of his life he maintained the friendliest intercourse. But 
 there was no opening for him in the gallery yet. He had Reporting 
 to pass nearly two years as a reporter for one of the offices commons. 
 in Doctors'-commons, practising in this and the other 
 law courts, befqre he became a sharer in parliamentary 
 toils and triumphs ; and what sustained his young hero 
 through something of the same sort of trial, was also his 
 own support. He, too, had his Dora, at apparently the A real 
 same hopeless elevation ; striven for as the one only thing i829. 
 
72 
 
 THE LIFE OF CHAELES DICKENS. 
 
 [Chapteb 
 
 LoNDOH : 
 1828-30. 
 
 Tlie Dora 
 of 1829 
 reappears 
 in 1855. 
 
 C. D. 
 
 to 
 J.F.(1855), 
 
 An incen- 
 tive to 
 exei-tion. 
 
 to be attained, and even more unattainable, for neither 
 did he succeed nor happily did she die ; but the one idol, 
 like the other, supplying a motive to exertion for the time, 
 and otherwise opening out to the idolater, both in fact and 
 fiction, a highly unsubstantial, happy, foolish time. I 
 used to laugh and tell him I had no belief in any but the 
 book Dora, until the incident of a sudden reappearance 
 of the real one in his life, nearly six years after Copper- 
 field was written, convinced me there had been a more 
 actual foundation for those chapters of his book than I 
 was ready to suppose. Still I would hardly admit it; 
 and, that the matter could possibly affect him then, per- 
 sisted in a stout refusal to believe. His reply (1855' 
 throws a little light on this juvenile part of his careei, 
 and I therefore venture to preserve it. 
 
 ' I don't quite apprehend what you mean by my over- 
 ' rating the strength of the feeling, of five-and-twenty 
 ' years ago. If you mean of my own feeling, and will 
 'only think what the desperate intensity of my nature 
 ' is, and that this began when I was Charley's age ; that 
 ' it excluded every other idea from my mind for four 
 'years, at a time of life when four years are equal to 
 ' four times four ; and that I went at it with a determi- 
 ' nation to overcome all the difficulties, which fairly lifted 
 ' me up into that newspaper life, and floated me away over 
 ' a hundred men's heads : then you are wrong, because 
 'nothing can exaggerate that. I have positively stood 
 ' amazed at myself ever since ! — And so I sufifered, and so 
 ' worked, and so beat and hammered away at the mad- 
 'dest romances that ever got into any boy's head and 
 
Third.] SCHOOL-DATS AND START IN LIFE. 73 
 
 ' stayed there, that to see the mere cause of it all, now, London : 
 
 1828 ^0 
 
 'loosens my hold upon myself. "Without for a moment 
 
 • sincerely believing that it would have been better if we q j, 
 ' had never got separated, I cannot see the occasion of so ^ ^ 
 ' much emotion as I should see any one else. No one 
 ' can imagine in the most distant degree what pain the 
 ' recollection gave me in Copperfield. And, just as I can 
 ' never open that book as I open any other book, I cannot 
 ' see the face (even at four-and-forty), or hear the voice, 
 ' without going wandering away over the ashes of all that 
 ' youth and hope in the wildest manner.' More and more 
 plainly seen, however, in the light of four-and-forty, the 
 romance glided visibly away, its work being fairly done ; ^ romance 
 aad, at the close of the month following that in which ^^'^'''S- 
 this letter was written, during which he had very quietly 
 made a formal caU with his wife at his youthful Dora's 
 house, and contemplated with a calm equanimity, in the 
 haU, her stuffed favourite Jip, he began the fiction in 
 which there was a Flora to set against its predecessor's Dora of 
 Dora, both derived from the same original. The fancy ^SZi 
 had a comic humour in it he found it impossible to resist, 'f'^SSlf* 
 but it was kindly and pleasant to the last ; * and if the Oon-it. 
 
 * I take other fanciful allusions to the lady from two of his occasional 
 writings. The first from his visit to the city churches (written during the 
 Dombey time, when he had to select a church for the marriage of Florence) : 
 ' Its drowsy cadence soon lulls the three old women asleep, and the nnmar- C. D. 
 ' ried tradesman sits looking out at window, and the married tradesman sits 
 ' looking at his wife's bonnet, and the lovers sit looking at one another, so 
 ' superlatively happy, that I mind when I, turned of eighteen, went with my 
 ' Angelica to a city church on account of a shower (by this special coincidence 
 'that it was in Hnggin-lane), and when I said to my Angelica, "Let the 
 ' "blessed event, Angelica, occur at no altar but this ! " and when my Angelica 
 
74 THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. tCh hi. 
 
 Loisruoif: later picture showed him plenty to laugh at in this 
 
 1828-30 X ./ o 
 
 '- retrospect of his youth, there was nothing he thought of 
 
 Ashes of 
 
 youth and more tenderly than the earlier, as long as he was conscious 
 °^^' of anything. 
 
 C. D. ' consented that it should occur at no other — which it certainly never did, for 
 
 ' it never occurred anywhere. And 0, Angelica, what has become of you, 
 ' this present Sunday morning when I can't attend to the sermon ; and, more 
 ' difficult question than that, what has become of Me as I was when I sat by 
 ' your side ! ' The second, from his pleasant paper on birthdays : — ' I gave 
 ' a party on the occasion. She was there. It is unnecessary to name Her, 
 ' more particularly ; She was older than I, and had pervaded every chink and 
 ' crevice of my mind for three or four years. I had held volumes of Imaginary 
 ' Conversations with her mother on the subject of our union, and I had written 
 ' letters more in number than Horace Walpole's, to that discreet woman, 
 ' soliciting her daughter's hand in maiTiage. I had never had the remotest 
 ' intention of sending any of those letters ; but to wiite them, and after a few 
 ' days tear them up, had been a sublime occupation.' 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 REPOETBRS' GALLERY AND NEWSPAPER LITERATURE. 
 1831— 1835, 
 
 Dickens was nineteen years old when at last he en- l-oNixiit: 
 
 . ... 1831-2. 
 tered the gallery. His father, with whom he still lived ia 
 
 Bentinck-street, had already, as we have seen, joined the 
 gallery as a reporter for one of the morning papers, and was 
 now in the more comfortable circumstances derived from 
 the addition to his official pension which this praise- 
 worthy labour ensured ; but his own engagement on the 
 Chronicle dates somewhat latei-. His first parliamentary Reporting 
 
 . . for the 
 
 service was given to the True Sun, a journal which had True Sun. 
 then on its editorial staff some dear friends of mine, through 
 whom I became myself a contributor to it, and afterwards, 
 in common with all concerned, whether in its writing, re- 
 porting, printing, or publishing, a sharer in its difficulties. 
 The most formidable of these arrived one day in a general 
 strike of the reporters ; and I well remember noticing at C. D. first 
 
 seen by me. 
 
 this dread time, on the staircase of the magnificent 
 mansion we were lodged in, a young man of my own 
 age . whose keen animation of look would have arrested 
 attention anywhere, and whose name, upon enquiry, I then 
 for the first time heard. It was coupled with the fact 
 
7g THE LIFE OF CHAELES DICKENS. [Cbapteb 
 
 London : which gave it interest even then, that ' young Dickens ' 
 . — had been spokesman for the recalcitrant reporters, and 
 
 conducted their case triumphantly. He was afterwards 
 
 Reporting during two sessions engaged for the Mirror of Parliament, 
 
 wiClirm- which one of his uncles by the mother's side originated 
 
 '"^^^ and conducted; and finally, in his twenty-third year, 
 
 he became a reporter for the Morning Chronicle. 
 
 1833-5. A. step far more momentous to him (though then he 
 
 did not know it) he had taken shortly before. In the 
 
 December number for 1833 of what then was called the Old 
 
 First pub- Monthly Magazine, his first published piece of writing had 
 
 piece. seen the light. He has described himself dropping this 
 
 paper (Mr. Minns and his Cousin, as he afterwards entitled 
 
 it, but which appeared in the magazine as A Dinner at 
 
 Poplar Walk) stealthily one evening at twilight, with 
 
 fear and trembling, into a dark letter-box in a dark ofSce 
 
 up a dark court in Fleet-street ; and he has told his 
 
 'C. D. lo(i. agitation when it appeared in all the glory of print. ' On 
 
 ' which occasion I walked down to Westminster-hall, and 
 
 ' turned into it for half an hour, because my eyes were so 
 
 ' dimmed with joy and pride, that they could not bear the 
 
 'street, and were not fit to be seen there.' He had 
 
 purchased the magazine at a shop in the Strand; and 
 
 exactly two years afterwards, in the younger member of 
 
 'Smallness a publishing firm who had called, at the chambers in 
 
 of tlie _, . ^, . 
 
 world.' iumivals-mn to which he had moved soon after entering 
 the gallery, with the proposal that originated Pichwich, 
 he recognized the person he had bought that magazine 
 from, and whom before or since he had never seen. 
 
 This interval of two years more than comprised what 
 
Fourth.] EEPORTEES' GALLEEY. 77 
 
 remained of his career in the gallery and the engage- London: 
 
 ments connected with it ; but that this occupation was of 
 
 the utmost importance in its influence on his life, in the J'/^g^^^™;^. 
 
 discipline of his powers as well as of his character, there days. 
 
 can be no doubt whatever. ' To the wholesome training of 
 
 ' severe newspaper work, when I was a very young man, 
 
 ' I constantly refer my first successes,' he said to the New 
 
 York editors when he last took leave of them. It opened 
 
 to him a wide and varied range of experience, which his 
 
 wonderful observation, exact as it was humorous, made 
 
 entirely his own. He saw the last of the old coaching days, 
 
 and of the old inns that were a part of them; but it will be 
 
 long before the readers of his living page see the last of the 
 
 life of either. ' There never was,' he once wrote to me (in c. D. 
 
 1845), ' anybody connected with newspapers, who, in the j.f.(1845). 
 
 ' same space of time, had so much express and post-chaise 
 
 'experience as I. And what gentlemen they were to 
 
 'serve, in such things, at the old Morning Chronicle! 
 
 ' Great or small it did not matter. I have had to charge 
 
 'for half-a-dozen break-downs in half-a-dozen times as 
 
 ' many miles. I have had to charge for the damage of a 
 
 ' great-coat from the drippings of a blazing wax-candle, 
 
 ' in writing through the smallest hours of the night in a 
 
 ' swift-flying carriage and pair. I have had to charge for all 
 
 'sorts of breakages fifty times in a journey without ques- 
 
 ' tion, such being the ordinary results of the pace which 
 
 'we went at. I have charged for broken hats, broken Experi- 
 
 . ences at 
 
 ' luggage, broken chaises, broken harness — everything but Morning 
 ' a broken head, which is the only thing they would have 
 'grumbled to pay for.' 
 
78 
 
 THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 [Chapter 
 
 LONDOH : 
 1834-6. 
 
 His own 
 sketch of 
 life as a 
 reporter. 
 
 Something to the same effect he said publicly twenty- 
 years later, on the occasion of his presiding, in May 1865, 
 at the second annual dinner of the newspaper-press-fund, 
 when he condensed within the compass of his speech a 
 summary of the whole of his reporting life. ' I am not 
 ' here,' he said, ' advocating the case of a mere ordinary 
 'client of whom I have little or no knowledge. I hold 
 'a brief to-night for my brothers. I went into the 
 'gallery of the house of commons as a parliamentary 
 ' reporter when I was a boy, and I left it — I can hardly 
 'believe the inexorable truth — nigh thirty years ago. I 
 'have pursued the calling of a reporter under circum- 
 ' stances of which many of my brethren here can form no 
 ' adequate conception. I have often transcribed for the 
 'printer, from my shorthand notes, important public 
 'speeches in which the strictest accuracy was required, 
 Expresses. • and a mistake in which would have been to a young 
 ' man severely compromising, writing on the palm of my 
 ' hand, by the light of a dark lantern, in a post-chaise and 
 ' four, galloping through a wild country, and through th6 
 ' dead of the night, at the then surprising rate of fifteen 
 ' miles an hour. The very last time I was at Exeter, I 
 ' strolled into the castle-yard there to identify, for the 
 ' amusement of a friend, the spot on which I once " took," 
 ' as we used to call it, an election speech of Lord John 
 ' Russell at the Devon contest, in the midst of a lively fight 
 ' maintained by aU the vagabonds in that division of the 
 ' county, and under such a pelting rain, that I remember 
 'two good-natured colleagues, who chanced to be at 
 ' leisure- held a pocket-handkerchief over my note-book, 
 
PoDRTa] EEPOETEES" GALLEET. 79 
 
 ■ after the manner of a state canopy in an ecclesiastical London : 
 ' procession. I have worn my knees by writing on them 
 
 ' on the old back row of the old gallery of the old house parliament 
 
 ' of commons ; and I have worn my feet by standing to -^^^ 
 
 ' write in a preposterous pen in the old house of lords, 
 
 'where we used to be huddled together like so many 
 
 'sheep — kept in waiting, say, until the woolsack might 
 
 ' want re-stuffing. Returning home from exciting political a repor- 
 
 ' meetings in the country to the waiting press in London, gita^es. 
 
 '1 do verily believe I have been upset in almost every 
 
 'description of vehicle known in this country. I have 
 
 ' been, in my time, belated on miry by-roads, towards the 
 
 ' small hours, forty or fifty tniles from London, in a wheel- 
 
 ' less carriage, with exhausted horses and drunken post- 
 
 ' boys, and have got back in time for publication, to be 
 
 'received with never-forgotten compliments by the late 
 
 ' Mr. Black, coming in the broadest of Scotch from the j;,}^^ g]^]^ 
 
 ' broadest of hearts I ever knew. These trivia] things °JJ^^ . , 
 
 ° (Jhronicle. 
 
 ' I mention as an assurance to you that I never have for- 
 
 ' gotten the fascination of that old pursuit. The pleasure 
 
 'that I used to feel in the rapidity and dexterity of its 
 
 ' exercise has never faded out of my breast. Whatever 
 
 'little cunning of hand or head 1 took to it, or acquired 
 
 'in it, I have so retained as that I fully beheve I could 
 
 'resume it tormorrow, very little the worse from long 
 
 ' disuse. To this present year of my life, when I sit in 
 
 ' this hall, or where not, hearing a dull speech (the phe- 
 
 'nomenon does occur), I sometimes beguile the tedium of 
 
 ' the moment by mentally following the speaker in the imaginary 
 
 'old, old way ; and sometimes, if you can believe me, I "aking 
 
80 THE LIFE OF CHAELES DICKENS. [Chaiter 
 
 London : ' even, find nay hand going on the table-cloth, taking an 
 1- 'imaginary note of it all.' The latter I have known him 
 
 do frequently. It was indeed a quite ordinary habit with 
 
 him. 
 Mr. James j^,. James Grant, a writer who was himself in the 
 
 Grrant s 
 
 reooUec- gallery with Dickens, and who states that among its 
 
 tions of 
 
 C. D. eighty or ninety reporters he occupied the very highest 
 
 rank, not merely for accuracy in reporting but for mar- 
 vellous quickness in transcribing, has lately also told us 
 that while there he was exceedingly reserved in his 
 manners, and that, though showing the usual courtesies to 
 all he was concerned with in his duties, the only personal 
 
 Mr.Thomas intimacy he formed was with Mr. Thomas Beard, then 
 
 Beard. ^ ^ . 
 
 too reporting for the Morning Chronicle. I have already 
 mentioned the friendly and familiar relations maintained 
 with this gentleman to the close of his life ; and in con- 
 firmation of Mr. Grant's statement I can further say that 
 the only other associate of these early reporting days, 
 to whom I ever heard him refer with special regard, 
 
 ''^t D^°' ^^ *^® ^^*® ^^' ^i'^c^^* Dowling, many years editor 
 ling- of Bell's Life, with whom he did not continue much 
 
 personal intercourse, but of whose character as well as 
 talents he had formed a very high opinion. Nor is 
 there anything to add to the notice of these days which 
 the reader's fancy may not easily supply. A letter has 
 been kept as written by him while engaged on one of his 
 ' expresses;' but it is less for its saying anything new, than 
 for its confirming with a pleasant vividness what has been 
 said already, that its contents will justify mention here. 
 He writes, on a ' Tuesday morning ' in May 1835, from 
 
FouKTH.] EEPORTEES' GALLERY. 81 
 
 the Bush-inn, Bristol ; the occasion that has taken him to Bristol : 
 
 the west, connected with a reporting party, being Lord John .'— 
 
 Eussell's Devonshire contest above-named, and his asso- exp^tioT 
 ciate-chief being Mr. Beard, entrusted with command for 
 the Chronicle in this particular express. He expects to 
 forward ' the conclusion of Russell's dinner ' by Cooper's 
 company's coach leaving the Bush at half-past six next 
 morning ; and by the first Ball's coach on Thursday morn- 
 ing he will forward the report of the Bath dinner, indorsing 
 the parcel for immediate delivery, with extra rewards for 
 the porter. Beard is to go over to Bath next morning. Letter of 
 He is himself to come back by the mail from Marl- diu-ing 
 borough ; he has no doubt, if Lord John makes a speech contest. 
 of any ordinary dimensions, it can be done by the time 
 Marlborough is reached ; ' and taking into consideration 
 ' the immense importance of having the addition of 
 ' saddle horses from thence, it is, beyond all doubt, worth 
 ' an effort. ... I need not say,' he continues, ' that it will be 
 ' sharp work and will require two of us ; for we shall both sharp 
 ' be up the whole of the previous night, and shall have to 
 ' sit up all night again to get it off in time.' He adds 
 that as soon as they have had a little sleep they will 
 return to town as quickly as they can : but they have, if 
 the express succeeds, to stop at sundry places along the 
 road to pay money and notify satisfaction. And so, for 
 himself and Beard, he is his editor's very sincerely. 
 
 Another anecdote of these reporting days, with its C. D. and 
 sequel, may be added from his own alleged relation, in ley.' 
 which however mistakes occur that it seems strange he 
 should have made. The story, as told, is that the late 
 
82 
 
 THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 [Chapter 
 
 London ; 
 1834-6. 
 
 Stanley's 
 speech 
 against 
 O'Connen. 
 
 Ke-re- 
 
 poi-ted for 
 the Mirror 
 of Parlia- 
 tnent. 
 
 Lord Derby, wLen Mr. Stanley, bad on some important 
 occasion made a speech wbicb all tbe reporters found 
 it necessary greatly to abridge ; that its essential points 
 bad nevertheless been so well given in tbe Chronicle 
 that Mr. Stanley, having need of it for himself in greater 
 detail, had sent a request to the reporter to meet him in 
 Carlton-house-terrace and take down the entire speech; 
 that Dickens attended and did the work accordingly, 
 much to Mr. Stanley's satisfaction ; and that, on his 
 dining with Mr. Gladstone in recent years, and finding the ' 
 aspect of the dining-room strangely familiar, he discovered 
 afterwards on enquiry that it was there he had taken the 
 speech. Tbe story, as it actually occurred, is connected 
 with tbe. brief Hfe of tbe Mirror of Parliament. It was 
 not at any special desire of Mr. Stanley's, but for that new 
 record of the debates, which had been started by one of 
 tbe uncles of Dickens and professed to excel Hansard in 
 giving verbatim reports, that the famous speech against 
 O'Connell was taken as described. The young reporter 
 went to the room in Garlton-terrace because tbe work 
 of his uncle Barrow's publication required to be done 
 there ; and if, in later years, the great author was in 
 the same room as tbe guest of the prime minister, it 
 must have been but a month or two before he died, 
 when for tbe first time be visited and breakfasted with 
 Mr. Gladstone. 
 
 Tbe mention of bis career in the gaUery may close with 
 the iacident. I will only add that his observation while 
 there had not led him to form any high opinion of the 
 bouse of commons or its heroes ; and that, of the Pick- 
 
FoDRTH.] NEWSPAPER LITEEATUEE. 83 
 
 wickian sense whicli so often takes the place of common'/ London -. 
 
 sense in our legislature, he omitted no opportunity of '— 
 
 declaring his contempt at every part of his life. 
 
 The other occupation had meanwhile not been lost sight Nine 
 of, and for this we are to go back a little. Since the first(\,Lthe^^ 
 sketch appeared in the Monthly Magazine, nine others ^-^""'''^J'- 
 have enlivened the pages of later numbers of the same ma- \ 
 gazine, the last in February 1835, and that which appeared p)^. 
 in the preceding August having first had the signature of ' ^ 
 Boz. This was the nickname of a pet child, his youngest Origin of 
 brother Augustus, whom in honour of the Vicar of Wake- 
 field he had dubbed Moses, which being facetiously pro- 
 nounced through the nose became Boses, and being 
 shortened became Boz. ' Boz was a very familiar house- 
 ' hold word to me, long before I was an author, and so I 
 ' came to adopt it.' Thus had he fuUy invented his 
 Sketches by Boz before they were even so called, or any 
 one was ready to give much attention to them ; and the 
 next invention needful to himself was some kind of 
 payment in return for them. The magazine was owned Captain 
 as well as conducted at this time by a Mr. Holland, who 
 had come back from Bolivar's South American campaigns 
 with the rank of captain, and had hoped to make it a 
 popular mouthpiece for his ardent liberalism. But this 
 hope, as well as his own health, quite failed ; and he had 
 sorrowfully to decline receiving any more of the sketches 
 when they had to cease as voluntary offerings. I do not 
 think that either he or the magazine lived many weeks 
 after an evening I passed with him in Doughty-street in 
 1837, when he spoke in a very touching way of the failure 
 
 a 2 
 
8i 
 
 THE LIFE OP CHAELES DICKENS. 
 
 [Chapteti 
 
 LONDOH : 
 1835-6. 
 
 of this and other enterprises of his life, and of the help 
 that Dickens had been to him. 
 
 Nothing thus being forthcoming from the Monthly, it 
 was of course but natural the sketches too should cease 
 to be forthcoming ; and, even before the above-named 
 February number appeared, a new opening had been found 
 for them. An evening off-shoot to the Morning Chronicle 
 had been lately in hand ; and to a countryman of Black's 
 Mr. George engaged in the preparations for it, Mr. George Hogarth, 
 
 Hogarth, 
 
 Dickens was communicating from his rooms in Furnival's- 
 inn, on the evening of Tuesday the 20th of January 1835, 
 certain hopes and fancies he had formed. This was the 
 beginning of his knowledge of an accomplished and kindly 
 man, with whose family his relations were soon to become 
 so intimate as to have an influence on all his future 
 career. Mr. Hogarth had asked him, as a favour to 
 himself, to write an original sketch for the first number 
 of the enterprise, and in writing back to say with what 
 readiness he should comply, and how anxiously he should 
 desire to do his best for the person who had made the 
 request, he mentioned what had arisen in his mind. It 
 had occurred to him that he might not be unreasonably or 
 improperly trespassing farther on Mr. Hogarth, if, trusting 
 to his kindness to refer the application to the proper 
 quarter, he begged to ask whether it was probable, if he 
 commenced a regular series of articles under some at- 
 tractive title for the Evening Chronicle, its conductors 
 would think he had any claim to some additional remu- 
 neration (of course, of no great amount) for doing so. In 
 short, he wished to put it to the proprietors — first, whether 
 
 Sketches 
 continued 
 in Evenim 
 Chronicle. 
 
FouETH.] NEWSPAPER IITEEATURE. 85 
 
 a continuation of some chapters of light papers in the style London : 
 
 of his street-sketches would be considered of use to the lJ_ 
 
 new journal ; and secondly, if so, whether they would not 
 think it fair and reasonable that, taking his share of the 
 ordinary reporting business of the Chronicle besides, he 
 should receive something for the papers beyond his 
 ordinary salary as a reporter ? The request was thought Salary 
 fair, he began the sketches, and his salary was raised from 
 five to seven guineas a week. 
 
 They went on, with undiminished spirit and freshness, 
 throughout the year ; and much as they were talked of 
 outside as well as in the world of newspapers, nothing 
 in connection with them delighted the writer half so 
 much as the hearty praise of his own editor. Mr. Black Mr. Jotii 
 is one of the men who have passed without recognition out 
 of a world their labours largely benefited, but with those 
 who knew him no man was so popular, as well for his 
 broad kindly humour, as for his honest great-hearted 
 enjoyment of whatever was excellent in others. Dickens 
 to the last remembered, that it was most of all the cordial 
 help of this good old mirth-loving man, which had started 
 him joyfully on his career of letters. It was John Black 
 that flung the slipper after me, he would often say. ' Dear Black's 
 ' old Black ! my first hearty out-and-out appreciator,' is ™^ ^ '^ ^' 
 an expression in one of his letters written to me in the 
 year he died. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 FIRST BOOK AND ORIGIN OF PICKWICK. 
 1836. 
 
 The opening of 1836 found him collecting into two 
 volumes the first series of Sketches hy Boz, of which he had 
 ot Sketches, sold the copyright for a conditional payment of (I think) 
 a hundred and fifty pounds to a young publisher named 
 Macrone, whose acquaintance he had made through Mr. 
 Ainsworth a few weeks before.* At this time also, 
 
 London : 
 1836. 
 
 Fancy- 
 piece by 
 Mr. Willis ; 
 
 a poor 
 
 Eiiglisli 
 
 author. 
 
 * To this date belongs a visit paid him at Furnival's-inn in Mr. Macrone's 
 company, by the notorious Mr. N. P. WUlis, who calls him 'a young para- 
 ' graphist for the Morning Chronicle,' and thus sketches his residence and 
 himself. ' In the most crowded part of Holbom, within a door or two of the 
 ' Bull-and-mouth inn, we puUed up at the entrance of a large building used 
 ' for lawyers' chambers. I foUowed by a long flight of stairs to an upper 
 ' storey, and was ushered into an uncarpeted and bleak-looking room, with a 
 ' deal table, two or three chairs and a few books, a small boy and Mr. Dickens, 
 ' for the contents. I was only struck at first with one thing (and I made a 
 ' memorandum of it that evening as the strongest instance I had seen of 
 ' English obseq^uiousness to employers), the degree to which the poor author 
 * was overpowered with the honour of his publisher's visit ! I remember 
 ' saying to myself, as I sat down on a ricketty chair, "My good fellow, if you 
 ' " were in America with that fine face and your ready quUl, you would have 
 ' " no need to be condescended to by a publisher." Dickens was dressed very 
 ' much as he has since described Dick SwiveUer, minus the swell look. His 
 ' hair was cropped close to his head, his clothes scant, though jauntily cut, 
 ' and after changing a ragged ofiice-coat for a shabby blue, he stood by the 
 ' door, oollarless and buttoned up, the very personification, I thought, of a 
 
Ch. v.] first book and origin of PICKWICK. 87 
 
 we are told in a letter before quoted, the editorship Lohdon : 
 
 of the Monthly Magazine having come into Mr. James ' — 
 
 Grant's hands, this gentleman, applying to him through 
 
 its previous editor to know if he would again contribute 
 
 to it, learnt two things ; the first that he was going to be 
 
 married, and the second that having entered into an 
 
 arrangement to write a monthly serial, his duties in 
 
 future would leave him small spare time. Both pieces of fi 
 
 news were soon confirmed. The Times of the 26th of First num. 
 
 March, 1836, gave notice that on the 31st would be Pickwick. 
 
 published the first shilling number of the Posthumous 
 
 Papers of the Pichwich Club, edited by Boz; and the 
 
 same journal of a few days later announced that on the 
 
 2nd of April Mr. Charles Dickens had married Catherine, 
 
 the eldest daughter of Mr. George Hogarth, whom already 
 
 we have met as his fellow-worker on the Chronicle. '^The M^i-i-iage 
 
 of Dickens, 
 
 honeymoon was passed in the neighbourhood to which at 
 all times of interest in his life he turned with a strange 
 recurring fondness ; and while the young couple are at 
 the quiet little village of Chalk, on the road between 
 Gravesend and Rochester, I will relate exactly the origin 
 of the ever-memorable Mr. Pickwick. y^ 
 
 A young publishing house had started recently, among Overtures 
 other enterprises ingenious rather than important, a man and 
 Library of Fiction ; among the authors they wished to 
 enlist in it was the writer of the sketches in the Monthly ; 
 
 ' close sailer to the wind.' I remember, while my friend lived, oar laughing 
 heartily at this description, hardly a word of which is true ; and I give it now 
 as no unfair specimen of the kind of garbage that since his death also has been 
 served up only too plentifully, by some of his own as well as by others of Mr 
 Willis's countrymen. 
 
88 
 
 THE LIFE OF CHAELES BICKENS. 
 
 [Chapteo 
 
 London : 
 X836. 
 
 Mr. Sey- 
 mour and 
 his Squib 
 Annual. 
 
 and, to the extent of one paper during the past year, they 
 had effected this through their editor, Mr. Charles White- 
 head, a very ingenious and very unfortunate man. ' I 
 ' was not aware,' wrote the elder member of the firm to 
 Dickens, thirteen years later, in a letter to which reference 
 was made * in the preface to Pickwick in one of his 
 later editions, ' that you were writing in the Chronicle, 
 ' or what your name was ; but Whitehead, who was an old 
 ' Monthly man, recollected it, and got you to write The 
 ' Tuggs's at Ramsgate.' 
 
 And now comes another person on the scene. ' In 
 'November 1835,' continues Mr. Chapman, 'we published 
 'a little book called the Squib Annual, with plates by 
 ' Seymour ; and it was during my visit to him to see after 
 ' them, that he said he should like to do a series of cockney- 
 ' sporting plates of a superior sort to those he had already 
 'published. I said I thought they might do, if accom- 
 ' panied by letter-press and published in monthly parts ; 
 ' and this being agreed to, we wrote to the author of 
 ' Three Courses and a Dessert, and proposed it ; but 
 ' receiving no answer the scheme dropped for some months, 
 'till Seymour said he wished us to decide, as another job 
 ' had offered which would fully occupy his time ; and it 
 
 Mr. Pick- 
 wick of 
 Batli. 
 
 * Not quoted in detail, on that or any other occasion ; though referred to. 
 It was however placed in my hands, for use if occasion should aiise, when 
 Dickens went to America in 1867. The letter bears date the 7th July, 1849, 
 and was Mr. Chapman's answer to the question Dickens had asked him, 
 whether the account of the origin of Pichwich which he had given in the 
 preface to the cheap edition in 1847 was not strictly correct? 'It is so 
 ' correctly described,' was Mr. Chapman's opening remark, 'that I can throw 
 ' but little additional light on it.' The name of his hero, I may add, Dickens 
 took from that of a celebrated coach-proprietor of Bath. 
 
Fifth.] FIEST BOOK AND OEIGIN OP PICKWICK. 89 
 
 'was on this we decided to ask you to do it. Having Loitdon: 
 ' opened already a connection with you for our Library of 
 
 ' Fiction, we naturally applied to you to do the Pickwick ; pickwwk. 
 ' but I do not think we even mentioned our intention to 
 'Mr. Seymour, and I am quite sure that from the 
 ' beginning to the end nobody but yourself had anything 
 'whatever to do with it. Our prospectus was out at 
 ' the end of February, and it had all been arranged before 
 ' that date.' 
 
 The member of the firm who carried the application to Mr. Hall 
 
 at Pur- 
 
 him in Furnival's-inn, was not the writer of this letter, nival's-inn. 
 
 but Mr. Hall, who had sold him two years before, not 
 
 knowing that he was the purchaser, the magazine in which 
 
 his first effusion was printed ; and he has himself described 
 
 what passed at the interview. ' The idea propounded to c. D. loq. 
 
 ' me was that the monthly something should be a vehicle 
 
 ' for certain plates to be executed by Mr. Seymour ; and 
 
 ' there was a notion, either on the part of that admirable What was 
 
 ' humorous artist, or of my visitor, that a Nimeod Club, by others. 
 
 ' the members of which were to go out shooting, fishing, and 
 
 ' so forth, and getting themselves into diflSculties through 
 
 ' their want of dexterity, would be the best means of intro- 
 
 ' ducing these. I objected, on consideration, that although 
 
 ' born and partly bred in the country I was no great sports- 
 
 ' man, except in regard to all kinds of locomotion ; that 
 
 'the idea was not novel, and had already been much used; 
 
 ' that it would be infinitely better for the plates to arise What was 
 
 ' naturally out of the text : and that I would like to take by himself. 
 
 ' my own way, with a freer range of English scenes and 
 
 ' people, and was afraid I should ultimately do so in any 
 
90 
 
 THE LIFE OF CHAELES DICKENS. 
 
 tCHAPTER 
 
 London : 
 1836. 
 
 C. D. foj. 
 
 Mr. Chap- 
 man's con- 
 firmation 
 (1849). 
 
 ' case, whatever course I might prescribe to myself at 
 ' starting. My views being deferred to, I thought of 
 'Mr. Pickwick, and wrote the first number; from the 
 ' proof sheets of which Mr. Seymour made his drawing 
 ' of the club and his happy portrait of its founder. I 
 ' connected Mr. Pickwick with a club, because of the 
 ' original suggestion ; and I put in Mr. Winkle expressly 
 ' for the use of Mr. Seymour.' 
 
 Mr. Hall was dead when this statement was first made, 
 in the preface to the cheap edition in 1847 ; but Mr. 
 Chapman clearly recollected his partner's account of the 
 interview, and confirmed every part of it, in his letter of 
 1849,* with one exception. In giving Mr. Seymour credit 
 
 False 
 
 claims put 
 forward. 
 
 C.D.'s re- 
 futation. 
 
 * The appeal was then made to him because of recent foolish statements by 
 members of Mr. Seymour's family, which Dickens thus contradicted : ' It is 
 ' with great unwillingness that I notice some intangible and incoherent asser- 
 ' tions which have been made, professedly on behalf of Mr. Seymour, to the 
 ' effect that he had some share in the invention of this book, or of anything 
 ' in it, not faithfully described in the foregoing paragraph. With the modera- 
 ' tion that is due equally to my respect for the memory of a brother-artist, 
 ' and to my self-respect, I confine myself to placing on record here the facts — 
 ' That, Mr. Seymour never originated or suggested an incident, a phrase, 
 ' or a word, to be found in this book. That, Mr. Seymour died when only 
 ' twenty-four pages of this book were published, and when assuredly not fortj - 
 ' eight were written. That, I believe I never saw Mr. Seymour's hand-writing 
 ' in my Ufe. That, I never saw Mr. Seymour but once in my life, and that 
 ' was on the night but one before his death, when he certainly offered no 
 ' suggestion whatsoever. That I saw him then in the presence of two persons, 
 ' both living, perfectly acquainted with all these facts, and whose written 
 ' testimony to them I possess. Lastly, that Mr. Edward Chapman (the 
 ' survivor of the original firm of Chapman and Hall) has set down in writing, 
 ' for similar preservation, his personal knowledge of the origin and progress of 
 ' this book, of the monstrosity df the baseless assertions in question, and 
 ' (tested by details) even of the self-evident impossibility of there being any 
 ' truth in them.' The ' written testimony' alluded to is also in my possession, 
 having been enclosed to me by Dickens, in 1867, with Mr. Chapman's letter 
 hero referred to. 
 
Fifth.] FIRST BOOK AND ORIGIN OF PICKWICK. 91 
 
 for the figure by which all the habitable globe knows London : 
 
 Mr. Pickwick, and which certainly at the outset helped to — — 
 
 make him a reality, it had given the artist too much. nalofMr. 
 
 The reader will hardly be so startled as I was on coming in^fi^-e 
 
 to the closing line of Mr. Chapman's confirmatory letter. ^"^ ''^'^^■ 
 
 'As this letter is to be historical, I may as well claim 
 
 ' what little belongs to me in the matter, and that is the 
 
 ' figure of Pickwick. Seymour's first sketch was of a long, 
 
 ' thia man. The present immortal one he made from my 
 
 ' description of a friend of mine at Eichmond, a fat old 
 
 ' beau who would wear, in spite of the ladies' protests, drab 
 
 ' tights and black gaiters. His name was John Foster.' 
 
 On the coincidences, resemblances, and surprises of life. Surprises 
 Dickens liked especially to dwell, and few things moved smallness 
 his fancy so pleasantly. The world, he would say, was so ^oi-ld. 
 much smaller than we thought it ; we were all so connected 
 by fate without knowing it ; people supposed to be far apart 
 were so constantly elbowing each other; and to-morrow 
 bore so close a resemblance to nothing half so much as to 
 yesterday.' Here were the only two leading incidents of 
 his own life before I knew him, his marriage and the first 
 appearance of his Pickwick ; and it turned out after all 
 that I had some shadowy association with both. He was 
 married on the anniversary of my birthday, and the 
 original of the figure of Mr. Pickwick bore my name.* 
 
 The first number had not yet appeared when his 
 
 * Wliether Mr. Chapman spelt the name correctly, or has unconsciously 
 depriTed his fat beau of the letter 'r,' I cannot say ; hut experience tells me 
 that the latter is probable. I have been trying all my life to get my own name 
 spelt correctly, and have only very imperfectly succeeded. 
 
92 
 
 THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 [Chapteb 
 
 Loudon : 
 1836. 
 
 PuWioation 
 of the 
 Sketches. 
 
 The hook 
 illustrated 
 by Cruik- 
 ehank. 
 
 First 
 
 sprightly 
 
 runnings. 
 
 Sketches by Boz, Illustrative of Every-Day Life and 
 Every-Bay People, came forth in two duodecimos with 
 some capital cuts by Cruikshank, and with a preface in 
 which he spoke of the nervousness he should have had 
 in venturing alone before the public, and of his delight in 
 getting the help of Cruikshank, who had frequently con- 
 tributed to the success, though his well-earned reputation 
 rendered it impossible for him ever to have shared the 
 hazard, of similar undertakings. It very soon became 
 apparent that there was no hazard here. The SJcetches 
 were much more talked about than the first two or three 
 numbers of Pickwick, and I remember still with what 
 hearty praise the book was first named to me by my dear 
 friend Albany Fonblanque, as keen and clear a judge as 
 ever lived either of books or men. Eichly did it merit 
 all the praise it had, and more, I will add, than he was 
 ever disposed to give to it himself. He decidedly under- 
 rated it. He gave, in subsequent writings, so much more 
 perfect form and fullness to everything it contained, that 
 he did not care to credit himself with the marvel ol 
 having yet so early anticipated so much. But the first 
 sprightly runnings of his genius are undoubtedly here, 
 Mr. Bumble is in the parish sketches, and Mr. Dawkins 
 the dodger in the Old-bailey scenes. There is laughter 
 and fun to excess, never misapplied ; there are the minute 
 points and shades of character, with all the discrimination 
 and nicety of detail, afterwards so famous ; there is every- 
 where the most perfect ease and skill of handling. The 
 observation shown throughout is nothing short of won- 
 derful. Things are painted literally as they are; and. 
 
Fifth.] FIRST BOOK AND ORIGIN OF PICKWICK. 93 
 
 whatever the picture, whether of every-day vulgar, shabby London : 
 
 1S36. 
 
 genteel, or downright low, with neither the condescending 
 
 air which is affectation, nor the too familiar one which is 
 slang. The book altogether is a perfectly unaffected, Its success 
 unpretentious, honest performance. Under its manly merited, 
 sensible straightforward vein of talk, there is running 
 at the same time a natural flow of sentiment never 
 sentimental, of humour always easy and unforced, and of 
 pathos for the most part dramatic or picturesque, under 
 which lay the germ of what his mature genius took after- 
 wards most delight in. Of course there are inequalities The 
 in it, and some things that would have been better away : ciarac- 
 but it is a book that might have stood its gTound, even 
 if it had stood alone, as containing unusually truthful 
 observation of a sort of life between the middle class 
 and the low, which, having few attractions for bookish 
 observers, was quite unhacknied ground. It had otherwise 
 also the very special merit of being in no respect bookish 
 or commonplace in its descriptions of the old city with 
 which its writer was so familiar. It was a picture of 
 every-day London at its best and worst, in its humours 
 and enjoyments as well as its sufferings and sins, per- 
 vaded everywhere not only with the absolute reality of 
 the things depicted, but also with that subtle sense and 
 mastery of feeling which gives to the reader's sympathies \ 
 
 invariably right direction, and awakens consideration, 
 tenderness, and kindness precisely for those who most need 
 sxich help. 
 
 Between the first and the second numbers of Picktuick, Death of 
 
 Mr. Sey- 
 
 the artist, Mr. Seymour, died by his own hand; and the mour. 
 
94 THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS [Chapter 
 
 London : number came out with three instead of four illustrations. 
 '. — Dickens had seen the unhappy man only once, forty-eight 
 
 hours before his death; when he went to Furnival's-inn 
 with an etching for the ' stroUer's-tale ' in that number, 
 which, altered at Dickens's suggestion, he brought away 
 again for the few further touches that occupied him to a 
 late hour of the night before he destroyed himself. A 
 notice attached to the number informed the public of this 
 latter fact. There was at first a little difficulty in replacing 
 Mr. Buss him, and for a single number Mr. Buss was interposed. 
 
 interposed. 
 
 But before the fourth number a choice had been made, 
 which as time went on was so thoroughly justified, that 
 through the greater part of the wonderful career which was 
 then beginning the connection was kept up, and Mr. Hablot 
 Mr. Haljlot Browne's name is not unworthily associated with the 
 chosen, masterpieces of Dickens's genius. An incident which I 
 heard related by Mr. Thackeray at one of the royal- 
 academy dinners belongs to this time. ' I can remember 
 ' when Mr. Dickens was a very young man, and had 
 ' commenced delighting the world with some charming 
 'humorous works in covers which were coloured lig-ht 
 ' green and came out once a month, that this young man 
 ' wanted an artist to illustrate his writings; and I recollect 
 ' walking up to his chambers in Furnival's-inn, with two 
 ' or three drawings in my hand, which, strange to say, he 
 'did not find suitable.' Dickens has himself described 
 Changes in another change now made in the publication. ' We 
 wicJcnma- 'started with a number of twenty-four pages and four 
 ' illustrations. Mr. Seymour's sudden and lamented death 
 ' before the second number was published, brought about 
 
Fi)?TH.i FIEST BOOK AND OEIGIN OF PICKWICK. 95 
 
 ' a quick decision upon a point already in agitation ; the London : 
 'number became one of thirty-two pages with only two ! 
 
 'illustrations, and remained so to the end.' 
 
 The Session of 1836 terminated his connection with Reporting 
 the gallery, and some fruits of his increased leisure 
 showed themselves before the close of the year. His 
 eldest sister's musical attainments and connections had 
 introduced him to many cultivaoors and professors of that 
 art ; he was led to take much interest in Mr. Braham's 
 enterprise at the St. James's-theatre ; and in aid of it he 
 wrote a farce for Mr. Harley, founded upon one of his 
 sketches, and the story and songs for an opera composed 
 by his friend Mr. HuUah. Both the Strange Gentleman, Strange 
 
 Gentleman 
 
 acted in September, and the Village Coquettes, produced and ViUage 
 in December, 1836, had a good success ; and the last is 
 memorable to me for having brought me first into personal 
 communication with Dickena 
 
CHAPTEE VI. 
 
 IlONDON : 
 
 1837. 
 
 Tlien on 
 third floor 
 of No. 15 ; 
 ■whicli he 
 had occu- 
 pied since 
 Christmas 
 1835; 
 having 
 moved from 
 the same 
 floor of 
 No. 13, to 
 which he 
 first went 
 in 1834. 
 
 As he was 
 35 years 
 ago. 
 
 WRITING THE PICKWICK PAPERS. 
 1837. 
 
 The first letter I had from him was at the close of 
 1836 from Furnival's-inn, -when he sent me the book of 
 his opera of the Village Coquettes, wlaich had been pub- 
 lished by Mr. Bentley ; and this was followed, two months 
 later, by his collected Sketches, both first and second 
 series ; which he desired me to receive ' as a very small 
 ' testimony of the donor's regard and obligations, as well 
 ' as of his desire to cultivate and avail himself of a friend- 
 
 ' ship which has been so pleasantly thrown in his way 
 
 ' In short, if you will receive them for my sake and not 
 ' for their own, you will very greatly oblige me.' I had 
 met him in the interval at the house of our common 
 friend Mr. Ainswovth, and I remember vividly the im- 
 pression then made upon me. 
 
 Very different was his face in those days from that 
 which photography has made familiar to the present 
 generation. A look of youthfulness first attracted you, 
 and then a candour and openness of expression which 
 made you sure of the qualities within. The features were 
 very good. He had a capital forehead, a firm nose with full 
 
CH.VI.J "WEITINa THE PICKWICK PAPEES. 97 
 
 wide nostril, eyes wonderfully beaming with intellect and London : 
 
 running over with hu'mour and cheerfulness, and a rather 1- 
 
 prominent mouth strongly marked with sensibility. The descrip- 
 head was altogether well-formed and symmetrical, and the ""'' 
 air and carriage of it were extremely spirited. The 
 hair so scant and grizzled in later days was then of a rich 
 brown and most luxuriant abundance, and the bearded 
 face of his last two decades had hardly a vestige of hair 
 or whisker; but there was that in the face as I first 
 recollect it which no time could change, and which 
 remained implanted on it unalterably to the last. This 
 was the quickness, keenness, and practical power, the 
 eager, restless, energetic outlook on each several feature, 
 that seemed to tell so little of a student or writer of books, 
 and so much of a man of action and business in the 
 world. Light and motion flashed from every part of it. 
 It was as if made of steel, was said of it, four or five years Remark 
 after the time to which I am referring, by a most original Cariyie. 
 and delicate observer, the late Mrs. Carlyle. ' What a 
 ' face is his to meet in a drawing-room ! ' wrote Leigh 
 Hunt to me, the morning after I made them known to 
 each other., ' It has the life and soul in it of fifty human Of Leigh 
 'beings.' In such sayings are expressed not alone the 
 restless and resistless vivacity and force of which I have 
 spoken, but that also which lay beneath them of steadiness 
 and hard endurance. 
 
 Several unsuccessful efforts were made by each to get 
 the other to his house before the door of either was 
 opened at last. A son had been born to him on twelfth- Birth of 
 
 his eklest 
 
 day (the 6th January 1837), and before the close of the son. 
 
98 
 
 THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 [ChjvPTEK 
 
 Chaik : 
 
 G-KAVES- 
 END : 
 
 1837. 
 
 Last letter 
 from Fur- 
 liival's-inn. 
 
 Firf>t from 
 Doughty- 
 street. 
 
 C. D. 
 
 to 
 J. F. 
 
 A long-re- 
 memtered 
 
 following month he and his wife were in the lodgings at 
 Chalk they had occupied after their marriage. Early in 
 March there is a letter from him accounting for the 
 failure of a promise to call on me because of ' a crew of 
 ' house agents and attornies ' through whom he had nearly 
 missed his conveyance to Chalk, and been made ' more 
 ' than half wild besides.' This was his last letter from 
 Furnival's-inn. In that same month he went to 48, 
 Doughty-street ; and in his first letter to me from that ad- 
 dress, dated at the close of the month, there is this passage. 
 ' We only called upon you a second time in the hope of 
 ' getting you to dine with us, and were much disappointed 
 ' not to find you. I have delayed writing a reply to your 
 ' note, meaning to call upon you. I have been so much 
 ' engaged, however, in the pleasant occupation of " moving " 
 ' that I have not had time ; and I am obliged at last to 
 ' write and say that I have been long engaged to the 
 ' Pickwick publishers to a dinner in honour of that hero 
 ' which comes off to-morrow. I am consequently unable 
 ' to accept your kind invite, which I frankly own I should 
 ' have liked much better.' 
 
 That Saturday's celebration of his twelfth number, 
 the anniversary of the birth of Pickwick, preceded by 
 but a few weeks a personal sorrow which profoundly 
 moved him. His wife's next younger sister, Mary, who 
 lived with them, and by sweetness of nature even more 
 than by graces of person had made herself the ideal 
 of his life, died with a terrible suddenness that for the 
 time completely bore him down.* His grief and suffer- 
 
 * Her epitaph, written by him, remains upon a graTestone in the cemetery 
 
Sixth.] WEITrnG THE PICKWICK PAPERS. 99 
 
 ing were intense, and affected him, as will be seen, Hamp- 
 through many after years. The publication of Pichivlck 1837.' 
 
 was interrupted for two months, the effort of writing it 
 not being possible to him. He moved for change of scene 
 to Hampstead, and here, at the close of May, I visited I visit him 
 him, and became fii'st his guest. More than ordinarily 
 susceptible at the moment to all kindliest impressions, his 
 heart opened itself to mine. I left him as much his 
 friend, and as entirely in his confidence, as if I had known 
 him for years. Nor had many weeks passed before he 
 addressed to me from Doughty-street words which it is 
 my sorrowful pride to remember have had literal fulfil- 
 ment. ' I look back with unmingled pleasure to every C. D. 
 'link which each ensuing week has added to the chain j. p. 
 ' of our attachment. It shall go hard, I hope, ere any- 
 ' thing but Death impairs the toughness of a bond now so 
 ' firmly riveted.' It remained unweakened till death came. 
 
 There were circumstances that drew us at once into Hasty com- 
 frequent and close communication. What the sudden pubusiers. 
 popularity of his writings implied, was known to others 
 some time before it was known to himself; and he was 
 only now becoming gradually conscious of all the dis- 
 advantage this had placed him at. He would have 
 laughed if, at this outset of his wonderful fortune in 
 literature, his genius acknowledged by all without mis- 
 giving, young, popular, and prosperous, any one had 
 compared him to the luckless men of letters of former 
 days, whose common fate was to be sold into a slavery 
 
 at Kensal-green. 'Young, beautiful, and good, God numljered her among 
 ' his angels at the early a?9 of seveuteen.' 
 
 M 2 
 
£QQ THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICE.ENS. [Ciuctbi, 
 
 London ; which their later lives were passed in vain endeavours to 
 " escape from. Not so was his fate to be, yet something of 
 
 Solf-sold it he was doomed to experience. He had unwittingly sold 
 
 bondage. himself into a quasi-bond age, and had to purchase his 
 liberty at a heavy cost, after considerable suffering. 
 
 It was not until the fourth or fifth number of Pickwick 
 (in the latter Sam Weller made his first appearance) that 
 its importance began to be understood by 'the trade,' 
 and on the eve of the issue of its sixth number, the 22nd 
 
 Agieement August 1836, he had signed an agreement with Mr. 
 
 montlily Bentley to undertake the editorship of a monthly maga- 
 zine to be started the following January, to which he was 
 to supply a serial story; and soon afterwards he had 
 
 Another agreed with the same publisher to write two other tales, the 
 
 nnvek" ^^^^ ^* ^ specified early date ; the expressed remuneration 
 in each case being certainly quite inadequate to the claims 
 of a writer of any marked popularity. Under these Bentley 
 agreements he was now writing, month by month, the 
 first half of Oliver Tivist, and, under his Chapman and 
 Hall agreement, the last half of Pickiuick, not even by 
 a week in advance of the printer with either ; when a 
 circumstance became known to him of which he thus 
 wrote to me. 
 CD. 'I heard half-an-hour ago, on authority which leaves me 
 
 J p_ ' in no doubt about the matter (from the binder of Pickwick 
 ' in fact), that Macrone intends publishing a new issue of 
 'my Sketches in monthly parts of nearly the same size 
 ' and in just the same form as the Pickvnck Pa/pers. I 
 'need not tell you that this is calculated to injure me most 
 ' seriously, or that I have a very natural and most decided 
 
Sixth.] WRITING THE PICKWICK PAPERS. ]01 
 
 'objection to being supposed to presume upon the success London : 
 
 1837. 
 
 ' of the Pickwick, and thus foist this old work upon the 
 
 CD 
 ' public in its new dress for the mere purpose of putting to ' 
 
 • • T P 
 
 ' money m my own pocket. Neither need I say that the ' ' 
 
 ' fact of my name being before the town, attached to three 
 
 'publications at the same time, must prove seriously 
 
 'prejudicial to my reputation. As you are acquainted 
 
 'with the circumstances under which these copyrights 
 
 ' were disposed of, and as I know I may rely on your kind 
 
 ' help, may I beg you to see Macrone, and to state in the 
 
 ' strongest and most emphatic manner my feeling on this 
 
 ' point. I wish him to be reminded of the sums he paid A sclieme 
 
 to re-issue 
 
 ' for those books ; of the sale he has had for them ; of the Sketcha. 
 ' extent to which he has already pushed them ; and of the 
 'very great profits he must necessarily have acquired from 
 'them. I wish him also to be reminded that no intention 
 'of publishing them in this form was in the remotest 
 ' manner hinted to me, by him or on his behalf, when he 
 'obtained possession of the copyright. I then wish you 
 'to pat it to his feelings of common honesty and fai'-- 
 ' dealing whether after this communication he will per- 
 ' severe in his intention.' What else the letter contained 
 need not be quoted, but it strongly moved me to do my 
 best. 
 
 I found Mr. Macrone inaccessible to all arguments of Attempt to 
 persuasion however. That he had bought the book for a this, 
 small sum at a time when the smallest was not unim- 
 portant to the writer, shortly before his marriage, and that 
 he had since made very considerable profits by it, in no 
 way disturbed his position that he had a right to make as 
 
102 THE LIFE OF CHAELES DICEEKS. [Chapter 
 
 London : much as he could of what was his, without regard to how 
 
 1RS7 
 
 '— it had become so. There was nothing for it but to change 
 
 front, and, admitting it might be a less evil to the unlucky 
 author to repurchase than to let the monthly issue proceed, 
 to ask what further gain was looked for : but so wide a 
 mouth was opened at this that I would have no part in 
 the costly process of filling it. I told Dickens so, and 
 strongly counselled him to keep quiet for a time. 
 
 But the worry and vexation were too great with all the 
 work he had in hand, and I was hardly surprised next day to 
 receive the letter sent me ; which yet should be prefaced 
 with the remark that suspense of any kind was at all times 
 intolerable to the writer. The interval between the, accom- 
 plishment of anything, and 'its first motion,' Dickens never 
 could endure, and he was too ready to make any sacrifice to 
 abridge or end it. This did not belong to the strong side 
 of his character, and advantage was frequently taken of the 
 C. D. fact. ' I sent down just now to know whether you were at 
 J. F. ' home (two o'clock), as Chapman and Hall were with me, 
 ' and, the case being urgent, I wished to have the further 
 'benefit of your kind advice and assistance. Macrone and 
 
 ' H (arcades ambo) waited on them this morning, and 
 
 ' after a long discussion peremptorily refused to take one 
 £2000 ' farthing less than the two thousand pounds. H re- 
 
 a.sked for i . , i 
 
 ■what £150 ' peated the statement oi figures which he made to you yes- 
 chased.' ' ' terday, and put it to Hall whether he could say from his 
 'knowledge of such matters that the estimate of probable 
 ' profit was exorbitant. Hall, whose judgment may be relied 
 ' on in such matters, could not dispute the justice of the 
 • calculation. And so the matter stood. In this dilemma 
 
Sixth.] "WEITING THE PICKWICK PAPERS. 103 
 
 ' it occurred to thera (my Piclcwick men), whether, if the London : 
 
 m 7 ■ • • 1837. 
 
 ' Sketches must appear in monthly numbers, it would not 
 
 ' be better for them to appear for their benefit and mine to 
 
 T F 
 
 'conjointly, than for Macrone's sole use and behoof; 
 
 ' whether they, having all the Pickwick machinery in full 
 
 ' operation, could not obtain for them a much larger sale 
 
 ' than Macrone could ever get ; and whether, even at this 
 
 ' large price of two thousand pounds, we might not, besides 
 
 ' retaining the copyright, reasonably hope for a good profit 
 
 'on the outlay. These suggestions having presented 
 
 ' themselves, they came straight to me (having obtained a 
 
 ' few hours' respite) and proposed that we should purchase Chapman 
 
 ' the copyrights between us for the two thousand pounds, advise 
 
 'and publish them in monthly parts. I need not say that '^""^ ^^' 
 
 ' no other form, of pubhcation would repay the expenditure ; 
 
 'and they wish me to explain by an address that t?i,ey, 
 
 ' who may be fairly put forward as the parties, have been 
 
 'driven into that mode of publication, or the copyrights 
 
 ' would have been lost. I considered the matter in every 
 
 'possible way. I sent for you, but you were out. I 
 
 'thought of ' . . what need not be repeated, now that all is 
 
 past and gone . . ' and consented. Was I right 1 I think 
 
 ' you will say yes.' I could not say no, though I was glad Close of 
 
 to have been no party to a price so exorbitant ; which yet with Mr, 
 
 profited extremely little the person who received it. He '^'''''""'• 
 
 died in hardly more than two years ; and if Dickens had 
 
 enjoyed the most liberal treatment at his hands, he could 
 
 not have exerted himself more generously for the widow 
 
 and children. 
 
 His new story was now beginning largely to share atteu- j,^";^ 
 
104 THE LIFE OF CHARLES DIUKEKS. [Chapteb 
 
 London: tion with his PicJcwich Papers, and it was delightful to 
 
 '■ — see how real all its people became to him. What I had 
 
 real to Mm- most indeed to notice in him, at the very outset of his 
 career, was his indifference to any praise of his perform- 
 ances on the merely literary side, compared with the higher 
 recognition of them as bits of actual life, with the meaning 
 and purpose on their part, and the responsibility on his, of 
 I'ealities rather than creatures of fancy. The exception 
 that might be drawn from Pickwick is rather in seeming 
 than substance. A first book has its immunities, and 
 the distinction of this from the rest of the writings appears 
 Distinc- in what has been said of its origin. (The plan of it was 
 
 tion of . 
 
 Pickwwk simply to amuse. It was to string together whimsical 
 works. sketches of the pencil by entertaining sketches of the pen ; 
 and, at its beginning, where or how it was to end was as 
 little known to himself as to any of its readers] But 
 genius is a master as well as a servant, and when the 
 laughter and fun were at their highest something graver 
 made its appearance. He had to defend himself for this ; 
 and he said that though the mere oddity of a new 
 acquaintance was apt to impress one at first, the more 
 serious qualities were discovered when we became friends 
 with the man. In other words he might have said that 
 the change was become necessary for his own satisfaction. 
 Sense of The book itself, in teaching him what his power was, had 
 
 responsi- i i • 
 
 biiity for made mm more conscious oi what would be expected from 
 its use ; and this never afterwards quitted him. In what 
 he was to do hereafter, as in all he was doing now, with 
 Pickwick still to finish and Oliver only beginning, it 
 constantly attended him. Nor could it well be otherwise. 
 
 liis ^Tit- 
 ings. 
 
SixTnj WRITING THE PICK-WICK PAPEES. 105 
 
 with all those fanciful creations so real, to a nature in London : 
 
 1837. 
 itself so practical and earnest; and in this spirit I had 
 
 well understood the letter accompanying what had been 
 published of Oliver since its commencement the pre- 
 ceding February, which reached me the day after I 
 visited him. Something to the effect of what has just 
 been said, I had remarked publicly of the portion of the 
 story sent to me ; and his instant warm-hearted acknow- 
 ledgment, of which I permit myself to quote a line or two, 
 showed me in what perfect agreement we were. ' How C. D. 
 ' can I thank you ? Can I do better than by saying that j. f. 
 ' the sense of poor Oliver's reality, v/hich I know you have 
 ' had from the first, has been the highest of all praise to 
 ' me. None that has been lavished upon me have I felt 
 'half so much as that appreciation of my intent and 
 ' meaning. You know I have ever done so, for it was 
 ' your feeling for me and mine for you that first brought 
 ' us together, and I hope will keep us so, till death do us 
 ' part. Your notices make me grateful but very proud ; 
 ' so have a care of them.' 
 
 There was nothing written by him after this date which Help ^ven 
 
 with his 
 
 I did not see before the world did, either in manuscript or proofs, 
 proofs ; and in connection with the latter I shortly began to 
 give him the help which he publicly mentioned twenty years 
 later in dedicating his collected writings to me. One of his 
 letters reminds me when these corrections began, and they 
 were continued very nearly to the last. They lightened for 
 him a labour of which he had more than enough imposed 
 upon him at this time by others, and they were never any- 
 thing but an enjoyment to me. ' I have,' he wrote, ' so 
 
106 
 
 THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 [Chapteb 
 
 London : 
 1837. 
 
 C. D. 
 
 to 
 J. F. 
 
 Pickwick 
 
 No. xiy. 
 
 C. D. 
 
 to 
 
 J. F. 
 
 Wilting 
 No. XV. 
 
 The 
 
 debtors' 
 lirison in 
 Pkhmch. 
 
 'tnariy sheets of the Miscellany to coiTect before I can 
 'begin Oliver, that I fear I shall not be able to leave 
 ' home this morning. I therefore send your revise of the 
 ' PickwicJc by Fred, who is on his way with it to the 
 ' printers. You will see thai my alterations are very slight, 
 'but I think for the better.' This was the fourteenth 
 number of the Pickwick Papers. Fred was his next 
 younger brother, who lived with him at the time. 
 
 The number following this was the famous one in 
 which the hero finds himself in the Fleet, and another of 
 his letters will show what enjoyment the writing of it had 
 given to himself I had sent to ask him where we were 
 to meet for a proposed ride that day. ' Herb,' was his 
 reply. ' I am slippered and jacketted, and, like that same 
 ' starling who is so very seldom quoted, can't get out. I 
 ' am getting on, thank Heaven, like " a house o' fire," 
 ' and think the next Pickwick will bang aU the others. I 
 ' shall expect you at one, and we will walk to the stable 
 ' together. If you know anybody at Saint Paul's, I wish 
 ' y(3u'd send round and ask them not to ring the bell so. 
 ' I can hardly hear my own ideas as they come into my 
 ' head, and say what they mean.' 
 
 The exulting tone of confidence in what he had thus 
 been writing was indeed well justified. He had as yet 
 done nothing so remarkable, in blending humour with 
 tragedy, as his picture of what the poor side of a debtors' 
 prison was in the days of which we have seen that he had 
 himself had bitter experience ; and we have but to recall, 
 as it rises sharply to the memory, what is contained in this 
 portion of a work that was not only among his earliest but 
 
Sixth.] WRITING THE PICKWICK PAPERS. l07 
 
 his least considered as to plan, to understand what it was London: 
 
 . 1837. 
 that not alone had given him his fame so early, but that 
 
 in itself held the germ of the future that awaited him. 
 
 Every point was a telling one, and the truthfulness of 
 
 the whole unerring. The dreadful restlessness of the 
 
 place, undefined yet unceasing, unsatisfying and terrible, 
 
 was pictured throughout with De Foe's minute reality; 
 
 while points of character were handled in that greater 
 
 style which connects with the richest oddities of humour 
 
 an insight into principles of character universal as nature 
 
 itself When he resolved that Sam Weller should be A recollec- 
 tion of 
 occupant of the prison with Mr. Pickwick, he was Smollett. 
 
 perhaps thinking of his favourite Smollett, and how, when 
 
 Peregrine Pickle was inmate of the Fleet, Hatchway and 
 
 Pipes refused to leave him ; but Fielding himself might 
 
 have envied his way of setting about it. Nor is any 
 
 portion of his picture less admirable than this. The comedy Gaol 
 
 scenes. 
 
 gradually deepening into tragedy; the shabby vagabonds 
 who are the growth of debtors' prisons, contrasting with 
 the poor simple creatures who are their sacrifices and 
 victims ; Mr. Mivins and Mr. Smangle side by side with 
 the cobbler ruined by his legacy, who sleeps under 
 the table to remind himself of his old four-poster ; Mr. 
 Pickwick's first night in the marshal's room, Sam Weller 
 entertaining Stiggins in the snuggery. Jingle in decline, 
 and the chancery prisoner dying; in all these scenes there 
 was writing of the first order, a deep feeling of character, 
 that delicate form of humour which has a quaintly 
 pathetic turn in it as well, comedy of the richest and 
 broadest kind, and the easy handling throughout of a 
 
108 
 
 THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 [Chaptbb 
 
 LoNDOH : master in his art. We place the picture by the side of 
 
 18^7 
 
 1_ those of the great writers of this style of fiction in our 
 
 language, and it does not fall by the comparison. 
 Keception 7 Of what the reception of the book had been up to this 
 
 of Pick- i 
 
 mck. I time, and of the popularity Dickens had won as its author, 
 this also will be the proper place to speak. For its kind, 
 its extent, and the absence of everything unreal or factitious 
 in the causes that contributed to it, it is unexampled in 
 literature. Here was a series of sketches, without the 
 pretence to such interest as attends a well-constructed 
 story ; put forth in a form apparently ephemeral as its 
 purpose ; having none that seemed higher than to exhibit 
 some studies of cockney manners with help from a comic 
 artist ; and after four or five parts had appeared, without 
 newspaper notice or puffing, and itself not subserving m 
 the public anything false or unworthy, it sprang into a 
 popularity that each part carried higher and higher, until 
 jDeople at this time talked of nothing else, tradesmea 
 
 A. popular recommended their goods by using its name, and its sale, 
 outstripping at a bound that of all the most famous books 
 of the century, had reached to an almost fabulous number, 
 Of part one, the binder prepared four hundred ; and of 
 part fifteen, his order was for more than forty thousand. 
 Every class, the high equally with the low, were attracted 
 to it. The charm of its gaiety and good humour, its in- 
 exhaustible fun, its riotous overflow of animal spirits, its 
 brightness and keenness of observation, and above all, the 
 incomparable ease of its many varieties of enjoyment, fasci- 
 nated everybody. Judges on the bench and boys in the 
 street, gravity and folly, the young and the old, those who 
 
SIXTH.] WRITING THE PICKWICK PAPERS. 109 
 
 ■were entering life and those who were quitting it, alike London : 
 found it to be irresistible. 'An archdeacon/ wrote Mr. 
 
 Mr. Car- 
 
 Carlyle afterwards to me, ' with his own venerable lips, re- lyie'a 
 ' peated to me, the other night, a strange profane story : of gtory. 
 ' a solemn clergyman who had been administering ghostly 
 ' consolation to a sick person ; having finished, satisfactorily 
 ' as he thought, and got out of the room, he heard the 
 ' sick person ejaculate : " Well, thank God, Pickwick will 
 ' "be out in ten days any way !" — This is dreadful.' 
 
 Let me add that there was something more in it all 
 than the gratification of mere fun and laughter, more even 
 than the rarer pleasure that underlies the outbreak of all 
 forms of genuine humour. Another chord had been struck. 
 Over and above the lively painting of manners which at 
 first had been so attractive, there was something that left 
 deeper mark. Genial and irrepressible enjoyment, affec- One secret 
 tionate heartiness of tone, unrestrained exuberance of success. 
 mirth, these are not more delightful than they are fleet- 
 ing and perishable qualities ; but the attention eagerly 
 excited by the charm of them in Pickwick, found itself 
 retained by something more permanent. We had all 
 become suddenly conscious, in the very thick of the 
 extravaganza of adventure and fun set before us, that 
 here were real people. It was not somebody talking Keality of 
 humorously aboiit them, but they were there themselves. 
 That a number of persons belonging to the middle and 
 lower ranks of life (Wardles, Winkles, Wellers, Tupmans, 
 Bardells, Snubbinses, Perkers, Bob Sawyers, Dodsons and 
 Foggs,) had been somehow added to his intimate and 
 familiar acquaintance, the ordinary reader knew before 
 
no 
 
 THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 [Chapter 
 
 London : 
 1837. 
 
 Pickmck 
 inferior to 
 later 
 books. 
 
 Exception 
 for Sam 
 Weller : 
 
 and for 
 Mr. Pick- 
 wick. 
 
 half a dozen numbers were out; and it took not many 
 more to make clear to the intelligent reader, that a new 
 and original genius in the walk of Srnollett and Fielding 
 had arisen in England. 
 
 I do not, for reasons to be hereafter stated, think the 
 Pickwick Papers comparable to the later books ; but, 
 apart from the new vein of humour it opened, its 
 wonderful freshness and its unflagging animal spirits, it 
 has two characters that will probably continue to attract 
 to it an unfading popularity. Its pre-eminent achieve- 
 ment is of course Sam Weller ; one of those people 
 that take their place among the supreme successes of 
 fiction, as one that nobody ever saw but everybody re- 
 cognizes, at once perfectly natural and intensely original. 
 Who is there that has ever thought him tedious ? Who is 
 so familiar with him as not still to be finding something 
 new in him ? Who is so amazed by his inexhaustible 
 resources, or so amused by his inextinguishable laughter, 
 as to doubt of his being as ordinary and perfect a reality, 
 nevertheless, as anything in the London streets ? When 
 indeed the relish has been dulled that makes such humour 
 natural and appreciable, and not his native fun only, 
 his ready and rich illustration, his imperturbable self- 
 possession, but his devotion to his master, his chivalry 
 and his gallantry, are no longer discovered, or believed no 
 longer to exist, in the ranks of life to which he belongs, it 
 will be worse for all of us than for the fame of his creator. 
 Nor, when faith is lost in that possible combination of 
 eccentricities and benevolences, shrewdness and simplicity, 
 good sense and folly, all that suggests the ludicrous and 
 
 i 
 
Sixth.] "WRITING THE PICKWICK PAPERS. HI 
 
 nothing that suggests contempt for it, which form the Lohdon : 
 delightful oddity of Pickwick, will the mistake committed '— 
 
 he one merely of critical misjudgment. But of this 
 there is small fear. Sam Weller and Mr. Pickwick are 
 the Sancho and the Quixote of Londoners, and as little 
 likely to pass away as the old city itself. 
 
 Dickens was very fond of riding in these early years, and Personal 
 
 habits. 
 
 there was no recreation he so much indulged, or with such 
 profit to himself, in the intervals of his hardest work. I was 
 his companion oftener than I could well afford the time 
 for, the distances heing great and nothing else to be done 
 for the day ; but when a note would unexpectedly arrive 
 while I knew him to be hunted hard by one of his printers, 
 telling me he had been sticking to work so closely that he 
 must have rest, and, by way of getting it, proposing 
 we should start together that morning at eleven o'clock 
 for ' a fifteen mile ride out, ditto in, and a lunch on the Riding. 
 ' road ' with a wind-up of six o'clock dinner in Doughty- 
 street, I could not resist the good fellowship. His notion 
 of finding rest from mental exertion in as much bodily 
 exertion of equal severity, continued with him to the 
 last ; taking in the later years what I always thought the 
 too great strain of as many miles in walking as he now 
 took in the saddle, and too often indulging it at night : 
 for, though he was always passionately fond of walking, 
 he observed as yet a moderation in it, even accepting 
 as sufficient my seven or eight miles companionship. 
 ' What a brilliant morning for a country walk ! ' he would Walking. 
 write, with not another word in his dispatch. Or, ' Is it 
 •possible that you can't, oughtn't, shouldn't, mustn't, 
 
112 THE LIFE OF CHAELES DICKENS. [Chapter 
 
 London : ' Won't be tempted, this gorgeous day ! ' Or, ' I start pre- 
 
 ' cisely — ^precisely mind — at half-past one. Come, come, 
 
 to ' come, and walk in the green lanes. You will work the 
 J. F. 
 
 ' better for it all the week. Come ! I shall expect you.' 
 
 Or, 'You don't feel disposed, do you, to muffle yourself 
 
 ' up, and start off with me for a good brisk walk over 
 
 ' Hampstead-heath ? I knows a good 'ous there where we 
 
 ' can have a red-hot chop for dinner, and a glass of good 
 
 Jack ' wine ' : which led to our first experience of Jack Straw's- 
 
 castle, memorable for many happy meetings in coming 
 years. But the rides were most popular and frequent. 
 ' I think,' he would write, ' Richmond and Twickenham, 
 ' thro' the park, out at Knightsbridge, and over Barnes- 
 ' common — would make a beautiful ride.' Or, ' Do you 
 ' know, I shouldn't object to an early chop at some village 
 
 Belief after 'inn?' Or, 'Not knowing whether my head was off or 
 ' on, it became so addled with work, I have gone riding 
 ' the old road, and should be truly delighted to meet or 
 ' be overtaken by you.' Or, ' Where shall it be — oh where 
 ' — Hampstead, Greenwich, Windsor ? where 111111 
 ' while the day is bright, not when it has dwindled away 
 'to nothing! For who can be of any use whatsomdever 
 ' such a day as this, excepting out of doors ? ' Or it 
 might be interrogatory summons to ' A hard trot of three 
 ' hours 1 ' or intimation as laconic ' To be heard of at Eel- 
 ' pie-house, Twickenham ! ' When first I knew him, I 
 may add, his carnage for his wife's use was a small 
 
 His ponies, chaise with a smaller pair of ponies, which, having a 
 habit of making sudden rushes up bye-streets in the 
 day and peremptory standstills in ditches by night, 
 
Sixth.] WRITING THE PICKWICK PAPERS. 113 
 
 were changed in the following year for a more suitable London: 
 
 equipage. 
 
 To this mention of his habits while at work when our 
 friendship began, I have to add what will complete the 
 relation already given, in connection with his Sketches, of 
 the uneasy sense accompanying his labour that it was 
 yielding insufficient for himself while it enriched others. Natural 
 
 . , disoon- 
 
 which IS a needful part of his story at this time. At tents. 
 midsummer 1837, replying to some inquiries, and send- 
 ing his agreement with Mr. Bentley for the Miscellany 
 under which he was writing Oliver, he went on : 'It '^- ^• 
 ' is a very extraordinary fact (I forgot it on Sunday) that J- F- 
 ' I have NEVER HAD from him a copy of the agreement 
 ' respecting the novel, which I never saw before or since 
 ' I signed it at his house one morning long ago. Shall I 
 ' ask him for a copy or no ? I have looked at some '^^ ^ariy 
 
 agi-ee- 
 
 • memoranda I made at the time, and I fear he has my ments. 
 
 'second novel on the same terms, under the same agree- what is said 
 
 'ment. This is a bad look-out, but we must try and p." 212-13! 
 
 ' mend it. You will tell me you are very much surprised 
 
 ' at my doing business in this way. So am I, for in most 
 
 ' matters of labour and application I am punctuality 
 
 ' itself. The truth is (though you do not need I should 
 
 ' explain the matter to you, my dear fellow) that if I 
 
 'had allowed myself to be worried by these things, I 
 
 ' could never have done as much as I have. But I 
 
 ' much fear, in my desire to avoid present vexations, 
 
 'I have laid up a bitter store for the future.' The 
 
 second novel, which he had promised in a complete form 
 
 for a very early date, and had already selected subject 
 
Proposed 
 successor 
 to Oliver 
 
 114, THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. [Chaptob 
 
 London : and title for, was published four years later as Bamahy 
 Budge; but of the third he at present knew nothing but 
 that he was expected to begin it, if not in the magazine, 
 rwir^'' somewhere or other independently within a specified time. 
 The first appeal made, in taking action upon his letter, 
 had reference to the immediate pressure of the Bamahy 
 novel; but it also opened up the question of the great 
 change of circumstances since these various agreements 
 Relations had been precipitately signed by him, the very different 
 Bentley. situation brought about by the extraordinary increase in 
 the popularity of hi'S writings, and the advantage it 
 would be, to both Mr. Bentley and himself, to make more 
 equitable adjustment of their relations. Some misunder- 
 A com- standings followed, but were closed by a compromise in Sep- 
 promise. tember 3837; by which the third novel was abandoned* 
 on certain conditions, and Barnaby was undertaken to be 
 finished by November 1838. This involved a completion 
 of the new story during the progress of Oliver, whatever 
 might be required to follow on the close of Pickwick; and 
 I doubted its wisdom. But it was accepted for the time. 
 Trip to He had meanwhile taken his wife abroad for a ten days' 
 
 summer holiday, accompanied by the shrewd observant 
 young artist, Mr. Hablot Browne, whose admirable illus- 
 trations to Pickwick had more than supplied Mr. Sey- 
 mour's loss ; and I had a letter from him on their landing 
 at Calais on the 2nd of July. 
 
 'We have arranged for a post-coach to take us to 
 
 * I have a memorandum In Dickens's writing ihit ROOl. was to have 
 been given for it, and an additional 2502. on its sale reacliiag 3000 copies : 
 but I feel certain it was surrendered on more favourable terms. 
 
 Flanders. 
 
Sixth.] WRITING THE PICKWICK PAPERS. 115 
 
 ' Ghent, Brussels, Antwerp, and a hundred other places, Calais : 
 
 18^7 
 
 ' that I cannot recollect now and couldn't spell if I did. 1— 
 
 CD 
 ' We went this afternoon in a barouche to some gardens to 
 
 ' where the people dance, and where they were footing it 
 
 ' most heartily — especially the women, who in their short 
 
 ' petticoats and light caps look uncommonly agreeable. 
 
 ' A gentleman in a blue surtout and silken berlins accom- 
 
 ' panied us from the hotel, and acted as curator. He even 
 
 ' waltzed with a very smart lady (just to show us, con- 
 
 ' descendingly, how it ought to be done), and waltzed 
 
 ' elegantly too. We rang for slippers after we came back, 
 
 ' and it turned out that this gentleman was the Boots.' 
 
 His later sea-side holiday was passed at Broadstairs, First visit 
 as were those oi many subsequent years, and the little stairs. 
 watering-place has been made memorable by his pleasant 
 sketch of it. From his letters to myself a few lines may 
 be given of his first doings and impressions there. 
 
 Writing on the 3rd of September he reports himself Writing 
 
 Pickwick, 
 
 just risen from an attack of illness. ' I am much better. No. XTIII. 
 ' and hope to begin Picktvick No. 18 to-morrow. You 
 ' will imagine how queer I must have been when I tell 
 ' 3'ou that I have been compelled for four-and-twenty 
 ' mortal hours to abstain from porter or other malt 
 ' liquor ! ! ! I done it though — really. . . I have dis- C. D. 
 ' covered that the landlord of the Albion has delicious J. F. 
 ' hollands (but what is that to you, for you cannot sym- 
 ' pathise with my feelings), and that a cobbler who lives 
 ' opposite to my bed-room window is a roman-catholic, 
 ' and gives an hour and a half to his devotions every 
 ' morning behind his counter. I have walked upon the 
 
 I 2 
 
116 THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. icbawto 
 
 Broah- ■■ sands at low-water from this place to Eamsgate, and sat 
 1837. ' upon the same at high-ditto till I have been flayed with 
 
 C. D. ' the cold. I have seen ladies and gentlemen walking 
 
 to 
 
 J pi ' upon the earth in slippers of buff, and pickling them- 
 
 ' selves in the sea in complete suits of the same. I have 
 
 ' seen stout gentlemen looking at nothing through power- 
 
 ' ful telescopes for hours, and, when at last they saw a 
 
 ' cloud of smoke, fancying a steamer behind it, and going 
 
 'home comfortable and happy. I have found out that 
 
 ' our next neighbour has a wife and something else under 
 
 ' the same roof with the rest of his furniture — ^the wife 
 
 ' deaf and blind, and the something else given to drink- 
 
 ' ing. And if you ever get to the end of this letter you 
 
 ' wiU find out that I subscribe myself on paper as on 
 
 ' everything else (some atonement perhaps for its length 
 
 ' and absurdity),' &c. &c. 
 
 Piracies of In his next letter (from 12, High-street, Broadstairs, on 
 Pickwick. u, . . 
 
 the 7th) there is allusion to one of the many piracies of 
 
 Piclcwicic, which had distinguished itself beyond the rest 
 
 C. D. by a preface abusive of the writer plundered. ' I recollect 
 
 J. F. • this " member of the dramatic-authors'-society " bring- 
 
 ' ing an action once against Chapman who rented the 
 
 ' City-theatre, in which it was proved that he had under- 
 
 ' taken to write under special agreement seven melo- 
 
 ' dramas for five pounds, to enable him to do which a 
 
 ' room had been hired in a gin-shop close by. The defen- 
 
 ' dant's plea was, that the plaintiff was always drunk, and 
 
 ' had not fulfilled his contract. Well ; if the Pichwiclc 
 
 'has been the means of putting a few shiJlings in the 
 
 ' vermin-eaten pockets of so miserable a creature, and has 
 
tSixTH. ■WRITING THE PICKWICK PAPERS. II7 
 
 ' saved him from a workhouse or a jail, let him empty out Broad- 
 ' his little pot of filth and welcome. I am quite content i837. 
 ' to have been the means of relieving him. Besides, he A sufferer 
 • seems to have suffered by agreements ! ' agree- 
 
 His own troubles in that way were compromised for the ™^° ^' 
 time, as already hinted, at the close of this September 
 month ; and at the end of the month following, after 
 finishing Pickwick and resuming Oliver, the latter having 
 been suspended by him during the recent disputes, he Fii-st visit 
 
 ... . toBriglitoiu 
 
 made his first visit to Brighton. The opening of his 
 letter of Friday the 3rd of November is full of regrets 
 that I had been unable to join them there. ' It is a beau- C. D. 
 
 to 
 
 ' tiful day and we have been taking advantage of it, but J. F. 
 
 ' the wind until to-day has been so high and the weather 
 
 ' so stormy that Kate has been scarcely able to peep out 
 
 ' of doors. On Wednesday it blew a perfect hurricane, 
 
 'breaking windows, knocking down shutters, carrying 
 
 ' people off their legs, blowing the fires out, and causing 
 
 ' universal consternation. The air was for some hours A storm. 
 
 ' darkened with a shower of black hats (second-hand) 
 
 ' which are supposed to have been blown off the heads of 
 
 ' unwary passengers in remote parts of the town, and have 
 
 ' been industriously picked up by the fishermen. Charles 
 
 ' Kean was advertised for Othello " for the benefit of Mrs. 
 
 ' " Sefton, having most kindly postponed for this one day 
 
 ' " his departure for London." I have not heard whether 
 
 ' he got to the theatre, but I am sure nobody else did. 
 
 ' They do The Honeymoon to-night, on which occasion ^'^^ 
 
 ' I mean to patronize the drayma. We have a beautiful 
 
 ' bay-windowed sitting-room here, fronting the sea, but 
 
118 
 
 THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 fCHAPTEB 
 
 Brighton 
 1837. 
 
 C. D. 
 
 to 
 J. F. 
 
 Chavaotera 
 in Oliver 
 Twist. 
 
 Reading 
 De Foe. 
 
 ' I have seen nothing of B's brother who was to have 
 ' shown me the lions, and my notions of the place are 
 ' consequently somewhat confined : being limited to the 
 ' pavilion, the chain-pier, and the sea. The last is quite 
 ' enough for me, and, unless I am joined by some male 
 ' companion {do you think I shall be T), is most probably 
 ' all I shall make acquaintance with. I am glad you like 
 ' Oliver this month : especially glad that you particularize 
 ' the first chapter. I hope to do great things with Nancy. 
 ' If I can only work out the idea I have formed of her, and 
 ' of the female who is to contrast with her, I think I may 
 
 ' defy Mr. and aU his works.* I have had great 
 
 ' difficulty in keeping my hands off Fagin and the rest of 
 ' them in the evenings ; but as I came down for rest, [ 
 ' have resisted the temptation, and steadily applied myself 
 'to the labour of being idle. Did you ever read (of 
 ' course you have though) Defoe's History of the Devil ? 
 ' What a capital thing it is ! I bought it for a couple 
 ' of shillings yesterday morning, and have been quite 
 ' absorbed in it ever since. We must have been jolter- 
 ' headed , geniuses not to have anticipated M's reply. 
 ' My best remembrances to him. I see H at this moment. 
 'I must be present at a rehearsal of that opera. It 
 ' will be better than any comedy that was ever played. 
 
 * The allusion -was to the supposed author of a paper in the Quarterly 
 Review (Oct. 1837), in the course of which there was much high praise, but 
 where the writer said at the close : ' Indications are not wanting that the 
 ' particular vein of humour which has hitherto yielded so much attractive 
 • metal, is worked out. ... The fact is, Mr. Dickens writes too often and 
 ' too fast. . . . If he persists much longer in this course, it requires no gift 
 ' of prophecy to foretell his fate— he has risen like a rocket, and he will come 
 ' down like the stick. ' 
 
Sixth,] WRITING THE PICKWICK PAPEES. 119 
 
 'Talking of comedies, I still see No Thoroughfare brmhton: 
 
 1837 
 
 • staring me in the face, every time I look down that road. 
 
 C D 
 
 ' I have taken places for Tuesday next. "We shall be at home '^^ ' 
 
 ' at six o'clock, and I shall hope at least to see you that 
 
 ' evening. I am afraid you will find this letter extremely Thorough- 
 
 ' dear at eightpence, but if the warmest assurances of 
 
 'friendship and attachment, and anxious lookings-forward 
 
 ' to the pleasure of your society, be worth anything, throw 
 
 ' them into the balance, togetherwith a hundred good wishes 
 
 ' and one hearty assurance that I am,' &c. &c. ' Charles 
 
 ' Dickens. No room for the flourish — I'll finish it the next 
 
 ' time I write to you.' 
 
 The flourish that accompanied his signature is familiar 
 to every one. The allusion to the comedy expresses a 
 fancy he at this time had of being able to contribute some 
 such achievement in aid of Macready's gallant efforts at Proposed 
 Covent-garden to bring back to the stage its higher asso- Maoready'a 
 ciations of good literature and intellectual enjoyment. It ^l^^^' 
 connects curiously now that unrealised hope with the 
 exact title of the only story he ever helped himself to 
 dramatize, and which Mr. Fechter played at the Adelphi 
 three years before his death. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 IjDndoit ; 
 1837. 
 
 Edits tae 
 Life of 
 Grimaldi. 
 
 His own 
 opinion 
 of it. 
 
 BETWEEN PICKWICK AND NICKLBBY. 
 1837 AiTD 1838. 
 
 Not remotely bearing on the stage, nevertheless, was 
 the employment on which I found him busy at his return 
 from Brighton ; one result of his more satisfactory relations 
 with Mr. Bentley having led to a promise to edit for him 
 a life of the celebrated clown, Grimaldi. The manuscript 
 had been prepared from autobiographical notes by a Mr. 
 Egerton Wilks, and contained one or two stories told so 
 badly, and so weU worth better telling, that the hope of 
 enlivening their dulness at the cost of very little labour 
 constituted a sort of attraction for him. Except the preface 
 he did not write a hne of this biography, such modifica- 
 tions or additions as he made having been dictated by 
 him to his father ; whom I found often in the supreme 
 enjoyment of the office of amanuensis. He had also a 
 most indifferent opinion of the mass of material which in 
 general composed it, describing it to me as ' twaddle ' ; 
 and his own modest estimate of the book, on its comple- 
 tion, may be guessed from the number of notes of admira- 
 tion (no less than thirty) which accompanied his written 
 mention to me of the sale with which it started in the 
 
CH. VII.] BETWEEN PICKWICK AND NICKLEBY. 121 
 
 first week of its publication. ' Seventeen hundred Gri- Lokdon : 
 ' maldis have been already sold, and the demand increases '. — . 
 
 ' daily !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!' 
 
 It was not to have all its own way however. A great An objec- 
 
 ... tion to hia 
 
 many critical faults were found ; and one point m parti- writing 
 cular was urged against his handling such a subject, that e-rimaldi. 
 he could never himself even have seen Grimaldi. To this 
 last objection he was moved to reply, and had prepared a 
 letter for the Miscellany, 'from editor to sub-editor,' 
 which it was thought best to suppress, but of which the 
 opening remark may now be not unamusing. ' I under- Answered 
 
 by himself, 
 
 ' stand that a gentleman unknown is going about this town 
 
 • privately informing all ladies and gentlemen of discon- 
 
 ' tented natures, that, on a comparison of dates and putting 
 
 ' together of many little circumstances which occur to his 
 
 ' great sagacity, he has made the profound discovery that 
 
 ' I can never have seen Grimaldi whose life I have edited, 
 
 " and that the book must therefore of necessity be bad. 
 
 ' Now, sir, although I was brought up from remote country 
 
 ' parts in the dark ages of 1819 and 1820 to behold the 
 
 ' splendour of Christmas pantomimes and the humour of 
 
 ' Joe, in whose honour I am informed I clapped my hands 
 
 ' with great precocity, and although I even saw him act C, D. loq. 
 
 ' in the remote times of 1823 ; yet as I had not then 
 
 ' aspired to the dignity of a tail-coat, though forced by a 
 
 ' relentless parent into my first pair of boots, I am will- 
 
 ' ing, with the view of saving this honest gentleman 
 
 ' further time and trouble, to concede that I had not 
 
 ' arrived at man's estate when Grimaldi left the stage, and 
 
 ' that my recollections of his acting are, to my loss, but 
 
122 THE LIFE OF CHAELES DICKENS. iCaAmm 
 
 London : ' shadowy and imperfect. Which confession I now make 
 1837. 
 
 ' publickly, and without mental qualification or reserve, 
 
 'to all whom it may concern. But the deduction of this 
 'pleasant gentleman that therefore the Grimaldi book 
 • must be bad, I must take leave to doubt. I don't think 
 ' that to edit a man's biography from his own notes it is 
 ' essential you should have known him, and I don't 
 'believe that Lord Braybrooke had more than the very 
 ' slightest acquaintance with Mr. Pepys whose memoirs he 
 ' edited two centuries after he died.' 
 Completion Enormous meanwhile, and without objection audible on 
 ^•^j^ " any side, had been the success of the completed Piclcwich, 
 which we celebrated by a dinner, with himself in the chair 
 and Talfourd in the vice-chair, everybody in hearty good 
 humour with every other body ; and a copy of which I re- 
 ceived from him on the 11th of December in the most luxu- 
 rious of Hayday's bindings, with a note worth preserving 
 for its closing allusion. The passage referred to in, it was 
 a comment, in delicately chosen words, that Leigh Hunt 
 had made on the inscription at the grave in Kensal- 
 C. D. green.* ' Chapman and HaU have just sent me, with a 
 J* p ' copy of our deed, three " extra-super " bound copies of 
 ' Pickwick, as per specimen inclosed. The first I forward 
 ' to you, the second I have presented to our good friend 
 ' Ainsworth, and the third Kate has retained for herself 
 ' Accept your copy with one sincere and most comprehen- 
 ' sive expression of my warmest friendship and esteem ; and 
 ' a hearty renewal, if there need be any renewal when there 
 ' has been no interruption, of all those assurances of affec- 
 * See ante, p. 98. 
 
Botenth.] between PICKWICK AND NICKLEBT. 123 
 
 ' tionate regard which our close friendship and communion L.-sdok : 
 
 ' for a long time back has every day implied .... That 
 
 ' beautiful passage you were so kind and considerate as to to 
 
 ' send me, has given me the only feeling akin to pleasure 
 
 ' (sorrowful pleasure it ia) that I have yet had, connected 
 
 ' with the loss of my dear young friend and companion; for 
 
 ' whom my love and attachment will never diminish, and 
 
 ' by whose side, if it please God to leave me in possession A purpose 
 
 long enter- 
 
 ■ of sense to signify my wishes, my bones, whenever or tained. 
 ' wherever I die, will one day be laid. Tell Leigh Hunt 
 
 • when you have an opportunity how much he has affected 
 
 ■ me, and how deeply I thank him for what he has, done. 
 
 ' You cannot say it too strongly.' 
 
 The ' deed ' mentioned was one executed in the previous K^iationa 
 
 with Chap- 
 month to restore to him a third ownership in the book man and 
 
 HaU. 
 
 which had thus far enriched all concerned but himself. 
 The original understanding respecting it Mr. Edward 
 Chapman thus describes for me. 'There was no agree- 
 ' ment about Pickwick except a verbal one. Each number 
 ' was to consist of a sheet and a half, for which we were 
 ' to pay fifteen guineas ; and we paid him for the first two 
 ' numbers at once, as he required the money to go and get 
 ' married with. We were also to pay more according to 
 ' the sale, and I think Pickwick altogether cost us three 
 ' thousand pounds.' Adjustment to the sale would have 
 cost four times as much, and of the actual payments I 
 have myself no note; but, as far as my memory serves, 
 they are overstated by Mr. Chapman. My impression 
 is, that, above and beyond the first sum due for each 
 of the twenty numbers (making no allowance for their 
 
124 
 
 THE LIFE OF CHAELES DICEIENS. 
 
 [CDAITEIt 
 
 LONDOIT : 
 
 1837. 
 
 Payments 
 for Pici:- 
 wwk. 
 
 ment for 
 Nicholas 
 Nicklehy. 
 
 Going on 
 with Oliver 
 Twist. 
 
 extension after the first to thirty-two pages), successive 
 cheques were given, as the work went steadily on to the 
 enormous sale it reached, which brought up the entire sum 
 received to two thousand five hundred pounds. I had how- 
 ever always pressed so strongly the importance to him of 
 some share in the copyright, that this at last was conceded in 
 the deed above-mentioned, though five years were to elapse 
 before the right should accrue ; and it was only yielded as 
 part consideration for a further agreement entered into 
 at the same date (the 19th of November, 1837) whereby 
 Dickens engaged to ' write a new work the title whereof 
 ' shall be deteiTained by him, of a similar character and 
 ' of the same extent as the Posthumous Papers of the 
 ' Pickvjick Club,' the first number of which was to be de- 
 livered on the fifteenth of the following March, and each of 
 the numbers on the same day of each of the successive 
 nineteen months ; which was also to be the date of the 
 payment to him, by Messrs. Chapman and HaU, of twenty 
 several sums of one hundred and fifty pounds each for five 
 years' use of the copyright, the entire ownership in which 
 was then to revert to Dickens. The name of this new 
 book, as all the world knows, was The Life and Adven- 
 tures of Nicholas Nicldeby; and between April 1838 and 
 October 1839 it was begun and finished accordingly. 
 
 All through the interval of these arrangements Oliver 
 Twist had been steadily continued. Month by month, for 
 many months, it had run its opening course with the close 
 of Pickwick, as we shall see it close with the opening of 
 Nicklehy ; and the expectations of those who had built 
 most confidently on the young novelist were more than 
 
Sevbnth.] between PICKWICK AND NICKLEBT. 12^ 
 
 confirmed. Here was the interest of a story simply but Lohdon : 
 
 1837 
 ■well constructed ; and characters with the same impress '■ — 
 
 of reality upon them, but more carefully and skilfully 
 drawn. Nothing could be meaner than the subject, the 
 progress of a parish or workhouse boy, nothing less so 
 than its treatment. As each number appeared, his readers The story 
 generally became more and more conscious of what already, ized. 
 as we have seen, had revealed itself amid even the riotous 
 fun of Pickwick, that the purpose was not solely to amuse ; 
 and, far more decisively than its predecessor, the new story 
 further showed what were the not least potent elements in 
 the still increasing popularity that was gathering around 
 the writer. His qualities could be appreciated as well Keasonsfor 
 as felt in an almost equal degree by all classes of his with every 
 various readers. Thousands were attracted to him because " ' 
 he placed them in the midst of scenes and characters 
 with which they were already themselves acquainted ; and 
 thousands were reading him with no less avidity because 
 he introduced them to passages of nature and life of which 
 they before knew nothing, but of the truth of which their 
 own habits and senses sufficed to assure them. Only to 
 genius are so revealed the affinities and sympathies of Affinities ol 
 high and low, in regard to the customs and usages of life ; Low. ™ 
 and only a writer of the first rank can bear the applica- 
 tion of such a test. For it is by the alliance of common 
 habits, quite as much as by the bonds of a common 
 humanity, that we are all of us linked together i and the 
 result of being above the necessity of depending on other 
 people's opinions, and that of being below it, are pretty 
 much the same. It would equally startle both high and 
 
126 THE LIFE OF CHAKLES DICKENS. [Chapter 
 
 LoNiKN : low to be conscious of the whole that is implied in this 
 
 "- — close approximation; but for the common enjoyment of 
 
 which I speak such consciousness is not required ; and for 
 the present Fagin may be left undisturbed in .his school 
 of practical ethics with only the Dodger, Charley Bates, 
 and his other promising scholars. 
 ' Surgit With such work as this in hand, it will hardly seem sur- 
 
 amari . . . « , . . -,-,-. 777 
 
 aliquid.' prismg that as the time for begmnmg is%clcLeoy came on, 
 and as he thought of his promise for November, he should 
 have the sense of ' something hanging over him like a 
 
 A night- ' hideous nightmare.' He felt that he could not complete 
 
 mare of an 
 
 agreement, the BaTThoby Rudge novel by the November of that year as 
 promised, and that the engagement he would have to break 
 was unfitting him for engagements he might otherwise 
 fulfil. He had undertaken what in truth was impossible. 
 The labour of at once editing the Miscellany and 
 supplying it with monthly portions of Oliver, more than 
 occupied all the time left him by other labours absolutely 
 C. D. necessary. ' I no sooner get myself up,' he wrote, ' high 
 J. F. ' and dry, to attack Oliver manfully, than up come the 
 ' waves of each month's work, and drive me back again 
 ' into a sea of manuscript.' There was nothing for it but 
 that he should make further appeal to Mr. Bentley. ' 1 have 
 
 Appeal to ' recently,' he wrote to him on the 11th of February 1838, 
 
 Mr. Bent- . . J ' 
 
 ley. ' been thinking a great deal about Barnaby Rudge. Gri^ 
 
 ' maldi has occupied so much of the short interval I had 
 ' between the completion of the Pickvjick and the com- 
 • mencement of the new work, that I see it will be wholly 
 ' impossible for me to produce it by the time I had hoped, 
 ' with justice to myself or profit to you. What I wish you 
 
Seventh.] BETWEEN PICKWICK AND NICKLEBT. 127 
 
 ' to consider is this : would it not be far naore to your London : 
 
 1838. 
 'interest, as well as within the scope of my ability, if 
 
 ' Barnaby Budge began in the Miscellany immediately to write 
 
 ' on the conclusion of Oliver Twist, and were continued inThT 
 
 ' there for the same time, and then published in three "™ "^' 
 
 ' volumes ? Take these simple facts into consideration. 
 
 ' If the Miscellany is to keep its ground, it miist have 
 
 ' some continuous tale from me when Oliver stops. If I 
 
 ' sat down to Barnaby Budge, writing a little of it when 
 
 ' I could (and with all my other engagements it would 
 
 ' necessarily be a very long time before I could hope to 
 
 ' finish it that way), it would be clearly impossible for me 
 
 ' to begin a new series of papers in the Miscellany. The Letter to 
 
 ' conduct of three different stories at the same time, and ley. 
 
 ' the production of a large portion of each, every month, 
 
 ' would have been beyond Scott himself Whereas, having 
 
 ' Barnaby for the Miscellany, we could at once supply the 
 
 ' gap which the cessation of Oliver must create, and you 
 
 ' would have all the advantage of that prestige in favour 
 
 ' of the work which is certain to enhance the value of 
 
 ' Oliver Twist considerably. Just think of this at your 
 
 ' leisure. 1 am really anxious to do the best I can for you 
 
 ' as well as for myself, and in this case the pecuniary 
 
 ' advantage must be all on your side.' This letter never- Result of 
 
 theless, which had also requested an overdue account of 
 
 the sales of the Miscellany, led to differences which were 
 
 only adjusted after six months' wrangling ; and I was 
 
 party to the understanding then arrived at, by which, 
 
 among other things, Barnaby was placed upon the footing 
 
 desired, and was to begin when Oliver closed. 
 
128 
 
 THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 [Chapter 
 
 London 
 1838. 
 
 Progress 
 of Oliver 
 Twist. 
 
 Birth of 
 
 his eldest 
 daughter. 
 
 Of the progress of his Oliver, and his habits of writing 
 at the time, it may perhaps be worth giving some addi- 
 tional glimpses from his letters of 1838. ' I was thinking 
 ' about Oliver till dinner time yesterday,' he wrote on the 
 9th of March,* ' and, just as I had fallen upon him tooth 
 ' and nail, was called away to sit with Kate. I did eight 
 ' slips however, and hope to make them fifteen this mom- 
 ' ing.' Three days before, a little daughter had been born 
 to him, who became a little god-daughter to me; on which 
 occasion (having closed his announcement with a post- 
 script of ' I can do nothing this morning. What time 
 ' will you ride ? The sooner the better, for a good long 
 ' spell '), we rode out fifteen miles on the great north-road, 
 and, after dining at the Eed-lion in Barnet on our way 
 Celebration home, distinguished the already memorable day by bring- 
 ay. .^^ ^^ both hacks dead lame. 
 
 On that day week, Monday the 13th, after describing 
 himself 'sitting patiently at home waiting for Oliver 
 ' Tiuist who has not yet arrived,' which was his pleasant 
 form of saying that his fancy had fallen into sluggishness 
 that morning, he made addition not less pleasant as to 
 some piece of painful news I had sent him, now for- 
 gotten. ' I have not yet seen the paper, and you throw 
 
 Young 
 Gentlemen 
 and 
 
 CoupleSj 
 and /Sun- 
 day under 
 Three 
 ffeads. 
 
 • There is an earlier allusion I may qi'.ite, from a letter in January, for its 
 mention of a small piece written hy him at this time, but not included in his 
 acknowledged writings. 'I am as badly off as you. I have not done the 
 ' Young Gentlemen, nor written the preface to Grimaldi, nor thought of 
 ' Oliver Twist, or eyen supplied a subject for the plate.' The Young Gentle- 
 men was a small book which he wrote as the companion to a similar half-crown 
 volume of Young Ladies (not written by him), for Messrs. Chapman and HaU. 
 He had before written for them, without his name, Sunday under Three 
 Heads ; and he added subsequently a volume of Young Couples. 
 
Seventh] BETWEEN PICKWICK AND NICKLEBT. 129 
 
 ' me into a fever. The comfort is, that all the strange London : 
 
 1838 
 
 ' and terrible things come uppermost, and that the good 
 
 C D 
 ' and pleasant things are mixed up with every moment of ^ ' 
 
 ' our existence so plentifully that we scarcely heed them.' • ' 
 
 At the close of the month Mrs. Dickens was well enough 
 
 to accompany him to Richmond, for now the time was 
 
 come to start Nicklehy; and, having been away from town First num. 
 
 ber of 
 
 when Pickwick's first number came out, he made it a super- Nicholas 
 
 ... Nickltby. 
 
 stition to be absent at all future similar times. The maga- 
 zine-day of that April month, I remember, fell upon a 
 Saturday, and the previous evening had brought me a 
 peremptory summons : 'Meet me at the Shakespeare on 
 ' Saturday night at eight ; order your horse at midnight, and 
 ' ride back with me.' Which was done accordingly. The 
 smallest hour was sounding from St. Paul's into the night 
 before we started, and the night was none of the plea- 
 santest ; but we carried news that lightened every part of 
 the road, for the sale of Nicklehy had reached that day 
 the astonishing number of nearly fifty thousand ! I left Its sola 
 him working with unusual cheerfulness at Oliver Twist 
 when I left the Star-and-garter on the next day but 
 one, after celebrating with both friends on the previous 
 evening an anniversary* which concerned us all (their 2n(iof 
 
 ^ . . Aprill83& 
 
 second and my twenty-sixth) ; and which we kept always 
 in future at the same place, except when they were living 
 out of England, for twenty successive years. It was 
 a part of his love of regularity and order, as well as of 
 his kindliness of nature, to place such friendly meetings 
 as these under rules of habit and continuance. 
 
 * See ante, p. 91. 
 
CHAPTEE VIII. 
 
 LoirooH : 
 1838. 
 
 OLIVBE TWIST. 
 1838. 
 
 The whole of his time not occupied by Nickleby was 
 now given to Oliver, and as the story shaped itself to its 
 close it took extraordinary hold of him. I never knew 
 him work so frequently after dinner, or to such late hours 
 (a practice he afterwards abhorred), as during the final 
 Interest in months of this task ; which it was now his hope to com- 
 ei Oliver plete before October, though its close in the magazine would 
 not be due until the following March. ' I worked pretty 
 'well last night,' he writes, referring to it in May, 'veiy 
 ' well indeed ; but although I did eleven close slips before 
 'half-past twelve I have four to write to complete the 
 ' chapter ; and, as I foolishly left them till this morning, 
 'have the steam to get up afresh.' A month later he 
 writes : ' I got to the sixteenth slip last night, and shall 
 'try hard to get to the thirtieth before I go to bed.'* 
 Then, on a ' Tuesday night ' at the opening of August, he 
 
 * Here is another of the same month : ' AH day I have heen at work on 
 ' Oliver, and hope to finish the chapter by bed time. I wish you'd let me 
 ' know what Sir Francis Burdett has been saying about him at some Birming- 
 ' ham meeting. B. has just sent me the Courier containing some reference to 
 ■ his speech ; but the speech I hayen't seen. ' 
 
 C. D. 
 
 to 
 J. P. 
 
Ch. Vlli] OLIVER TWIST. 131 
 
 wrote : ' Hard at work still. Nancy is no more. I showed London : 
 'what I have done to Kate last night, who was in an 
 
 •unspeakable "state:" from which and my own impres- to 
 ' sion I augur well. When I have sent Sikes to the devil, ^' ^' 
 
 Nancy, 
 
 I must have yours.' ' No, no,' he wrote, in the following Sikes, and 
 month : 'don't, don't let us ride till to-morrow, not having 
 'yet disposed of the Jew, who is such an out and outer 
 'that I don't know what to make of him.' No small 
 difficulty to an inventor, where the creatures of his inven- 
 tion are found to be as real as himself ; but this also was 
 mastered ; and then there remained but the closing quiet 
 chapter to tell the fortunes of those who had figured in 
 the tale. To this he summoned me in the first week of 
 September, replying to a request of mine that he'd give 
 me a call that day. ' Come and give me a call, and let c D. 
 ' us have " a bit o' talk " before we have a bit o' som'at J. F. 
 ' else. My missis is going out to dinner, and I ought to 
 ' go, but I have got a bad cold. So do you come, and sit 
 ' here, and read, or work, or do something, whUe I write 
 ' the LAST chapter of Oliver, which will be arter a lamb The last 
 
 chapter. 
 
 ' chop.' How well I remember that evening ! and our talk 
 of what should be the fate of Charley Bates, on behalf of 
 whom (as indeed for the Dodger too) Talfourd had pleaded 
 as earnestly in mitigation of judgment as ever at the bar 
 for any client he had most respected. 
 
 The publication had been announced for October, but Cruikshank 
 the third-volume-illustrations intercepted it a little. This tions. 
 part of the story, as we have seen, had been written in anti- 
 cipation of the magazine, and the designs for it, having to 
 be executed ' in a lump,' were necessarily done somewhat 
 
 K 2 
 
132 
 
 THE LIFE OF CHAELES DICKENS. 
 
 . [CHAPTFli 
 
 London : 
 1838. 
 
 Etchings 
 for last 
 Tolume. 
 
 Letter to 
 
 Cruik- 
 
 ehank. 
 
 an etching 
 to be can- 
 celled. 
 
 hastily. The matter supplied in advance of the monthly 
 portions in the magazine, formed the bulk of the last 
 volume as published in the book ; and for this the plates 
 had to be prepared by Cruikshank also in advance of the 
 magazine, to furnish them in time for the separate publi- 
 cation : Sikes and his dog, Fagin in the cell, and Eose 
 Maylie and Oliver, being the three last. None of these 
 Dickens had seen until he saw them in the book on the 
 eve of its publication ; when he so strongly objected to 
 one of them that it had to be cancelled. ' I returned 
 'suddenly to town yesterday afternoon,' he wrote to the 
 artist at the end of October, ' to look at the latter pages of 
 ' Oliver Twist before it was delivered to the booksellers, 
 ' when I saw the majority of the plates in the last volume 
 ' -for the first time. With reference to the last one — Rose 
 ' Maylie and Oliver — without entering into the question 
 ' of great haste, or any other cause, which may have led 
 'to its being what it is, I arn quite sure there can be 
 'little difference of opinion between us with respect to 
 ' the result. May I ask you whether you will object to 
 ' designing this plate afresh, and doing so at once, in order 
 ' that as few impressions as possible of the present one 
 ' may go forth ? I feel confident you know me too well 
 ' to feel hurt by this enquiry, and with equal confidence 
 ' in you I have lost no time in preferring it.' This letter, 
 printed from a copy in Dickens's handwriting fortu- 
 nately committed to my keeping, entirely disposes of a 
 wonderful story* originally promulgated in America, with 
 
 * Reproduced as below, in large type, and •withoiit a word of contradic- 
 tion or even doubt, in a biogi-aphy of Mr. Dickens put forth by Mr. Hotten. 
 
EioiiTH.] OLIYEE TWIST. I33 
 
 a minute particularity of detail that might have raised London ; 
 
 1838. 
 
 the reputation of Sir Benjamin Backbite himself. 
 
 Whether all Sir Benjamin's laurels however should fall statement 
 to the person by whom the tale is told,* or whether any ^^ 
 part belongs to the authority alleged for it, is unfortu- 
 
 ' Dr. Shelton MoKenzie, in the American Sound Table, relates this anec- A marvel- 
 
 ' dote of Oliver Ttmt : In London I was intimate with the brothers Oruikshank, l""^ ^ *ble : 
 
 "Robert and George, but more particularly with the latter. Haraig called 
 
 ' upon him one day at his house (it was then in Myddelton-terraoe, Penton- 
 
 ' ville), I had to wait while he was finishing an etching, for which a printer's 
 
 ' boy was waiting. To while away the time, I gladly complied with his sug- 
 
 ' gestion that I should look over a portfolio crowded with etchings, proofs, and 
 
 ' drawings, which lay upon the sofa. Among these, carelessly tied together 
 
 ' in a wrap of brown paper, was a series of some twenty-five or thirty drawings, 
 
 'very carefully finished, through most of which were carried the well-known 
 
 'portraits of Pagin, BiU SUces and his dog, Nancy, the Artful Dodger, and 
 
 'Master Charles Bates — all weU known to the readers of Oliner Twist. There 
 
 ' was no mistake about it ; and when Cruilishank turned round, his work 
 
 * finished, I said as much. He told me that it had long been in his mind to 
 
 'show the life of a London thief by a series of drawings engraved by himself, ascribed to 
 ' in which, without a single line of letter-press, the story would be strikingly ^, ' , '; 
 ' and clearly told. " Dickens," he continued, " dropped in here one day, just 
 ' " as you have done, and, while waiting until 1 could speak with him, took 
 
 * "up that identical portfolio, and ferreted out that bundle of drawings. 
 ' "When he came to that one which represents Fagin in the condemned cell, 
 ' "he studied it for half an hour, and told me that he was tempted to change 
 ' " the whole plot of his story ; not to carry Oliver Twist through adventures 
 ' " in the country, but to take him up into the thieves' den in London, show 
 ' "what their life was, and bring Oliver through it without sin or shame. I 
 ' "consented to let him write up to as many of the designs as he thought 
 
 ' "would suit his purpose; and that was the way in which Fagin, Sikes, ',-' 
 
 * "and Nancy were created. My drawings suggested them, rather than his 
 ' " strong individuality suggested my drawings." ' 
 
 * This question has been partly solved, since my last edition, by Mr. Cruik- amj g^,, 
 shank's announcement in the Times, that, though Dr. Mackenzie had 'con- cepted by 
 ' fused some circumstances with respect to Mr. Dickens looking over some '^''^■ 
 ' drawings and sketches,' the substance of his information as to who it was 
 that originated Oliver Twist, and all its characters, had been derived from 
 Mr. Oruikshank himself. The worst part of the foregoing fable, therefore, has 
 not Dr. Mackenzie for its author ; and Mr. Oruikshank is to be congratulated 
 on the prudence of his rigid silence respecting it as long as Mr. Dickens lived. 
 
134 THE LIFE OF CHAELES DICKENS. [Chaptek 
 
 London : nately not quite clear. There would hardly have been a 
 
 '—■ doubt, if the fable had been confined to the other side of 
 
 the Atlantic ; but it has been reproduced and widely 
 circulated on this side also; and the distinguished artist 
 whom it calumniates by attributing the invention to him 
 has been left undefended from its slander. Dickens's 
 letter spares me the necessity of characterizing, by the 
 only word which would have been applicable to it, a tale 
 of such incredible and monstrous absurdity as that one of 
 the masterpieces of its author's genius had been merely an 
 illustration of etchings by Mr. Cruikshank ! 
 Eepntation The completed Oliver Txuist found a circle of admirers, 
 
 of OUvej' .... ^1 n 1 . 
 
 Twist. not so wide m its range as those of others of his books, but 
 of a character and mark that made their honest hking for 
 it, and steady advocacy of it, important to his fame ; and 
 the book has held its ground in the first class of his writings. 
 It deserves that place. The admitted exaggerations in 
 PicJcwick are incident to its club's extravaganza of ad- 
 venture, of which they are part, and are easily separ- 
 able from the reality of its wit and humour, and its incom- 
 parable freshness ; but no such allowances were needed 
 . here. Make what deduction the too scrupulous reader 
 of OUver might please for ' lowness ' in the subject, the 
 precision and the unexaggerated force of the delineation 
 Copying Were not to be disputed. The art of copying from nature 
 nature. as it really exists in the common walks, had not been 
 carried by any one to greater perfection, or to better 
 results in the way of combination. Such was his handling 
 of the piece of solid, existing, everyday life, which he 
 made here the groundwork of his wit and tenderness. 
 
EiaHTH.i OLIA^ER TWIST. 135 
 
 that the book which did much to help out of the world Londos : 
 
 1838. 
 
 the social evils it pourtrayed, will probably preserve longest 
 
 the picture of them as they then were. Thus far indeed 
 he had written nothing to which in a greater or less 
 degree this felicity did not belong. At the time of which Social evils 
 I am speaking, the debtors' prisons described in Pickwick, away. 
 the parochial management denounced in Oliver, and the 
 Yorkshire schools exposed in Nickleby, were all actual 
 existences ; which now have no vivider existence than in 
 the forms he thus gave to them. With wiser purposes, he 
 superseded the old petrifying process of the magician in 
 the Arabian tale, and struck the prisons and parish prac- 
 tices of his country, and its schools of neglect and crime, 
 into palpable life for ever. A portion of the truth of the 
 past, of the character and very history of the moral abuses 
 of his time, wUl thus remain always in his writings ; and 
 it will be remembered that with only the light arms of Augean 
 humour and laughter, and the gentle ones of pathos and cleansed, 
 sadness, he carried cleansing and reform into those Augean 
 stables. 
 
 Not that such intentions are in any degree ever 
 intruded by this least didactic of writers. It is the fact 
 that teaches, and not any sermonizing drawn from it. 
 Oliver Twist is the history of a child born in a workhouse 
 and brought up by parish overseers, and there is nothing 
 introduced that is out of keeping with the design. It is 
 a series of pictures from the tragi-comedy of lower life 
 worked out by perfectly natural agencies, from the dying 
 mother and the starved wretches of the first volume, 
 through the scenes and gradations of crime, careless or 
 
136 THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. [Chaptkb 
 
 Loudon : deliberate, which have a frightful consuramatioTi m the 
 
 '— last volume, but are never without the reliefs and self- 
 
 ^';'i?* assertions of humanity even in scenes and among- 
 
 the story, characters so debased. It is indeed the primary purpose 
 of the tale to show its little hero, jostled as he is in the 
 miserable crowd, preserved everywhere from the vice of its 
 pollution, by an exquisite delicacy of natural sentiment 
 which clings to him under every disadvantage. There is 
 not a more masterly touch in fiction, and it is by such 
 that this delightful fancy is consistently worked out to 
 the last, than Oliver's agony of childish grief on being 
 brought away from the branch-workhouse, the wretched 
 home associated only with suffering aud starvation, and 
 with no kind word or look, but containing still his little 
 companions in misery. 
 Its prinoi- Of the figures the book has made familiar to every one 
 pa guie . ^^ .^ ^^^ ^^ purpose to speak. To name one or two will 
 be enough. Bumble and his wife ; Charley Bates and the 
 Artful Dodger ; the cowardly charity-boy, Noah Claypole, 
 whose Such agony, please sir puts the whole of a school- 
 life into one phrase ; the so-called meny old jew, supple 
 and blackhearted Fagin ; and BiU Sikes, the bolder-faced 
 bulky-legged ruffian, with his white hat and white shaggy 
 dog, — ^who does not know them all, even to the least 
 points of dress, look, and walk, and all the small pecu- 
 liarities that express great points of character ? I have 
 Nancy. Omitted poor wretched Nancy; yet it is to be said of 
 her, with such honest truthfulness her strength and weak- 
 ness are shown, in the virtue that lies neighboured in 
 her nature so closely by vice, that the people meant to 
 
Eighth.] OLIVER TWIST. 137 
 
 be entirely virtuous show poorly beside her. But, though London : 
 
 Rose and her lover are trivial enough beside Bill and '— 
 
 his mistress, being indeed the weak part of the story, her lover. 
 
 it is the book's pre-eminent merit that vice is no where 
 
 made attractive in it. Crime is not more intensely 
 
 odious, all through, than it is also most wretched and 
 
 most unhappy. Not merely when its exposure comes, 
 
 when the latent recesses of guilt are laid bare, and all the 
 
 agonies of remorse are witnessed ; not in the great scenes 
 
 only, but in those lighter passages where no such aim 
 
 might seem to have guided the apparently careless hand ; 
 
 this is emphatically so. Whether it be the comedy or the The comedy 
 
 tragedy of crime, terror and retribution dog closely at its of" crin^'^'^ ^ 
 
 heels. They are as plainly visible when Fagin is first 
 
 shown in his den, boiling the coffee in the saucepan 
 
 and stopping every now and then to listen when there 
 
 is the least noise below, — the villainous conndence of 
 
 habit never extinguishing in him the anxious watchings 
 
 and listenings of crime, — as when we see him at the last 
 
 in the condemned cell, like a poisoned human rat in a 
 
 hole. 
 
 A word may be added upon the attacks directed against Reply to 
 the subjfjct of the book, to which Dickens made reply in **'*° ^' 
 one of his later editions ; declaring his belief that he had 
 tried +o do a service to society, and had certainly done 
 no disservice, in depicting a knot of such associates in 
 crime in all their deformity and squalid wretchedness, 
 skulking uneasily through a miserable life to a painful 
 and shameful death. It is indeed never the subject that 
 can be objectionable, if the treatment is not so, as we may 
 
138 THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. [Chapteb 
 
 London ; see by much popular writing since, where subjects unim- 
 
 1838 
 
 '■ — peachably high are brought low by degrading sensualism. 
 
 and low. When the object of a writer is to exhibit the vulgarity of 
 vice, and not its pretensions to heroism or cravings for 
 sympathy, he may measure his subject with the highest. 
 
 LeSage, We meet with a succession of swindlers and thieves in 
 
 Fielding : OH Blos ; we shake hands with highwaymen and house- 
 breakers all round in the Beggars' Ojpera ; we pack cards 
 with La Ruse or pick pockets with Jonathan in Fielding's 
 Mr. Wild the Great ; we follow cmelty and vice from its 
 least beginning to its grossest ends in the prints of 
 Hogarth ; but our morals stand none the looser for any of 
 them. As the spirit of the Frenchman was pure enjoy- 
 ment, the strength of the Englishmen lay in wisdom and 
 satire. The low was set forth to pull down the false 
 pretensions of the high. And though for the most part 
 they differ in manner and design from Dickens in this tale, 
 desiring less to discover the soul of goodness in things evil 
 than to brand the stamp of evil on things apt to pass for 
 good, their objects and results are substantially the same. 
 
 Likeness Familiar with the lowest kind of abasement of life, the 
 knowledge is used, by both him and them, to teach what 
 constitutes its essential elevation ; and by the very coarse- 
 ness and vulgarity of the materials employed, we measure 
 the gentlemanliness and beauty of the work that is done. 
 The quack in morality will always call such writing 
 immoral, and the impostors will continue to complain of 
 its treatment of imposture ; but for the rest of the world 
 it will still teach the invaluable lesson of what men ought 
 to be from what they are. We cannot learn it more than 
 
Eiomu.] OLIVER TWIST. 139 
 
 enough. We cannot too often be told that as the pride Lohbon : 
 and grandeur of mere external circumstance is the falsest 
 
 of earthly things, so the truth of virtue in the heart is the acm and^ 
 most lovely and lasting ; and from the pages of Oliver ^ ™®' 
 Twist this teaching is once again to be taken by all who 
 will look for it there. 
 
 And now, while Oliver was running a great career of Again the 
 
 shadow of 
 
 popularity and success, the shadow of the tale of Barnahy Bamahy 
 Rvdge which he was to write on similar terms, and to 
 begin in the Miscellany when the other should have 
 ended, began to darken everything around him. We had 
 much discussion respecting it, and I had no small diffi- 
 culty in restraining him from throwing up the agreement 
 altogether ; but the real hardship of his position, and the 
 considerate construction to be placed on every effort made 
 by him to escape from obligations incurred in ignorance 
 of the sacrifices implied by them, wiU be best understood See on the 
 
 other hand, 
 
 from his own frank and honest statement. On the 21st as to view 
 of January 1839, enclosing me the copy of a letter which Mr.Bmtloy, 
 he proposed to send to Mr. Bentley the following morning, ""■ ^ " "■ 
 he thus wrote. ' From what I have already said to you, 
 ' you wiU have been led to expect that I entertained some 
 ' such intention. I know you will not endeavour to 
 ' dissuade me from sending it. Go it MUST. It is no 
 ' fiction to say that at present I cannot write this tale. 
 'The immense profits which Oliver has realized to its 
 'publisher arid is stUl realizing; the paltry, wretched, 
 'miserable sum it brought to me (not equal to what is 
 ' every day paid for a novel that sells fifteen hundred 
 ' copies at most) ; the recollection of this, and the con- 
 
140 THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. tCBAPTEn 
 
 LoiTEoif : ' sciousness that I have still the slavery and drudgerv 
 '- — 'of another work on the same iournevman-terms ; the 
 
 CD o ^ 
 
 to ' consciousness that my books are enriching everybody 
 ' connected with them hut myself, and that I, with such 
 ' a popularity as I have acquired, am struggling in old 
 
 An old ' toils, and wasting my energies in the very height and 
 ' freshness of my fame, and the best part of my life, to 
 ' fill the pockets of others, while for those who are nearest 
 ' and dearest to me I can realize little more than a genteel 
 ' subsistence : all this puts me out of heart and spirits. 
 ' And I cannot — cannot and will not — under such circum- 
 ' stances that keep me down with an iron hand, distress 
 ' myself by beginning this tale untU I have had time to 
 ' breathe ; and until the intervention of the summer, and 
 ' some cheerful days in the country, shall have restored 
 ' me to a more genial and composed state of feeling. 
 
 Proposed 'There — for six months Barnahy Rudge stands over. 
 
 Bwmaby. ' And but for you, it should stand over altogether. For I 
 ' do most solemnly declare that morally, before God and 
 ' man, I hold myself released from such hard bargains as 
 ' these, after I have done so much for those who drove 
 'them. This net that has been wound about me, so 
 ' chafes me, so exasperates and irritates my mind, that to 
 ' break it at whatever cost — that I should care nothing for 
 ' — is my constant impulse. But I have not yielded to it. 
 ■ I merely declare that I must have a postponement very 
 ' common in all literary agreements ; and for the time I 
 'have mentioned — six months from the conclusion of 
 ' Oliver in the Miscellany — I wash my hands of any 
 ' fresh accumulation of labour, and resolve to proceed as 
 
Eighth.] OLIVER TWIST. 141 
 
 ' cheerfully as I can with that which already presses upon London : 
 
 1838. 
 
 • me. «■ 
 
 To describe what followed upon this is not necessary. Eesigna- 
 It will suffice to state the results. Upon the appearance Miscellany. 
 in the Miscellany, in the early months of 1839, of the last 
 portion of Oliver Twist, its author, having been relieved 
 altogether from his engagement to the magazine, handed 
 over, in a familiar epistle from a parent to his child, the 
 -Bditorship to Mr. Ainsworth; and the still subsisting 
 agreement to write Barnaby Budge was, upon the over- Barnaby 
 
 given up 
 
 ture of Mr. Bentley himself in June of the following year, by Mr. 
 1840, also put an end to, on payment by Dickens, for 
 the copyright of Oliver Twist and such printed stock as 
 remained of the edition then on hand, of two thousand 
 two hundred and fifty pounds. What was further inci- 
 dent to this transaction will be told hereafter ; and a few 
 words may meanwhile be taken, not without significance 
 in regard to it, from the parent's familiar epistle. It Parent's 
 describes the child as aged two years and two months the chili 
 (so long had he watched over it) ; gives sundry pieces of 
 advice concerning its circulation, and the importance 
 
 * Upon receiving this letter I gently reminded him that I had made objec- 
 tion at the time to the arrangement on the failure of which he empowered me 
 to bring about the settlement it was now proposed to supersede. I cAnnot 
 give his reply, as it would be unbecoming to repeat the warmth of its expres- 
 sion to myself, but I preserve its first few lines to guard against any possible 
 f u tiire misstatement. ' If you suppose that anything in my letter could by the C. D. 
 ' utmost latitude of construction imply the smallest dissatisfaction on my part, to 
 
 ' for God's sake dismiss such a thought from your mind. I have never had a • 
 
 ' momentary approach to doubt or discontent where yon have been mediating 
 ' for me . . . .1 could say more, but you would think me foolish and rhapso- 
 ' dical ; and such feeling as I have for you is better kept within one's own 
 ' breast than vented in imperfect and inexpressive words. ' 
 
142 THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. [Ch. vm. 
 
 London : thereto of light and pleasant articles of food : and con- 
 
 1838. ° ^ 
 eludes, after some general moralizing on the shiftings and 
 
 changes of this world having taken so wonderful a turn 
 
 that mail-coach guai'ds were become no longer judges of 
 
 horse-flesh : ' I reap no gain or profit by parting from 
 
 'you, nor will any conveyance of your property be re- 
 
 ' quired, for in this respect you have always been literally 
 
 ' Bentley's Miscellany and never mina' 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 NICHOLAS NICKLEBT. 
 1838 AUD 1839. 
 
 I WELL recollect the doubt there was, mixed with Lonbos: 
 the eager expectation which the announcement of his 
 
 second serial story had awakened, whether the event mchUby: 
 would justify all that interest ; and if indeed it were 
 possible that the young writer could continue to walk 
 steadily under the burthen of the popularity laid upon 
 him. The first number dispersed this cloud of a 
 question in a burst of sunshine ; and as much of the 
 gaiety of nations as had been eclipsed by old Mr. Pick- 
 wick's voluntary exile to Dulwich, was restored by the Dispelled, 
 cheerful confidence with which young Mr. Nicholas 
 Nickleby stepped into his shoes. Everything that had 
 given charm to the first book was here, with more atten- 
 tion to the important requisite of a story, and more 
 wealth as well as truth of character. 
 
 How this was poured forth in each successive number, 
 it hardly needs that I should tell. To recall it now, is to 
 talk of what since has so interwoven itself with common 
 speech and thought, as to have become almost part of the 
 daily life of us alL It was well said of him, soon after his 
 
144r 
 
 THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICE:ENS. 
 
 [Chapteb 
 
 London : 
 1838-9. 
 
 Kemark 
 of the 
 Saturday 
 Heview, 
 
 Idealiza- 
 tion of the 
 real. 
 
 Characters 
 
 edf- 
 
 revealeii. 
 
 death, in meutioning how largely his compositions had 
 furnished one of the chief sources of intellectual enjoy- 
 ment to this generation, that his language had become 
 part of the language of every class and rank of his 
 countrymen, and his characters were a portion of our 
 contemporaries. 'It seems scarcely possible,' continued 
 this otherwise not too indulgent commentator, 'to 
 'believe that there never were any such persons as Mr. 
 ' Pickwick and Mrs. Nickleby and Mrs. Gamp. They are 
 ' to us not only types of English life, but types actually 
 ' existing. They at once revealed the existence of such 
 ' people, and made them thoroughly comprehensible. They 
 ' were not studies of persons, but persons. And yet they 
 ' were idealized in the sense that the reader did not think 
 ' that they were drawn from the life. They were alive ; 
 ' they were themselves.' The writer might have added 
 that this is proper to all true masters of fiction who work 
 in the higher regions of their calling. 
 
 Nothing certainly could express better what the new 
 book was at this time making manifest to its thousands of 
 readers ; not simply an astonishing variety in the creations 
 of character, but what it was that made these creations so 
 real ; not merely the writer's wealth of genius, but the 
 secret and form of his art. There never was any one who 
 had less need to talk about his characters, because never 
 were characters so surely revealed by themselves ; and it 
 was thus their reality made itself felt at once. They 
 talked so well that everybody took to repeating what they 
 said, as the writer just quoted has pointed out ; and the 
 sayings being the constituent elements of the characters, 
 
(iNTH.] NICHOLAS NICKLEBT. I45 
 
 ;hese also of themselves became part of the public. This, London : 
 
 noooQ 
 
 ivhich must always be a novelist's highest achievement, was — 
 
 ;he art carried to exquisite perfection on a moi^e limited 
 stage by Miss Austen ; and, under widely different condi- 
 tions both of art and work, it was pre-eminently that 
 rf Dickens. I told him, on reading the first dialogue of 
 Mrs. Nickleby and Miss Knag, that he had been lately Miss Bates 
 reading Miss Bates in EmTna, but I found that he had not Nickleby. 
 at this time made the acquaintance of that fine writer. 
 
 Who that recollects the numbers of Nicldeby as they 
 appeared can have forgotten how each number added to 
 the general enjoyment ? All that had given Pickwick 
 Its vast popularity, the overflowing mirth, hearty exube- 
 rance of humour, and genial kindliness of satire, had here 
 the advantage of a better laid design, more connected 
 incidents, and greater precision of character. Everybody 
 seemed immediately to know the Nickleby family as well as 
 his own. Dotheboys, with all that rendered it, like a piece Dotteboya. 
 by Hogarth, both ludicrous and terrible, became a house- 
 hold word. Successive groups of Mantalinis, Kenwigses, / 
 Crummleses, introduced each its little world of reality, 
 lighted up everywhere with truth and life, with capital 
 observation, the quaintest drollery, and quite boundless 
 mirth and fun. The brothers Cheeryble brought with 
 them all the charities. With Smike came the first of those Smike and 
 
 N 6 WEI 3,11 
 
 pathetic pictures that filled the world with pity for what Noggs. 
 cruelty, ignorance, or neglect may inflict upon the young. 
 And Newman Noggs ushered in that class of the creatures 
 of his fancy in which he took himself perhaps the most 
 delight, and which the oftener he dealt with the more he 
 
146 THE LIFE OP CHAELES DICE:ENS. [Ch»to„ 
 
 LoNBoif : seemed to know how to vary and render attractive ; 
 
 1838-9. 
 
 gentlemen by nature, however shocking bad their 
 
 type™f^' ^ or UDgenteel their dialects ; philosophers of modest en- 
 character. (J^J,J^nce, and needy but most respectable coats; a sort 
 of humble angels of sympathy and self-denial, thougli 
 without a particle of splendour or even good looks about 
 them, except what an eye as fine as their own feelings 
 might discern. ' My friends,' wrote Sydney Smith, de- 
 scribing to Dickens the anxiety of some ladies of liis 
 Sydney acquaintance to meet him at dinner, 'have not the 
 
 Smith to . . 
 
 C. D. ' smallest objection to be put into a number, but on tie 
 
 ' contrary would be proud of the distinction ; and Lady 
 ' Charlotte, in particular, you may marry to Newman 
 ' Noggs.' Lady Charlotte was not a more real person to 
 Sydney than Newman Noggs ; and all the world that 
 Dickens attracted to his books could draw from them the 
 same advantage as the man of wit and genius. It has 
 been lately objected that humanity is not seen in them m 
 its highest or noblest types, and the assertion may here- 
 after be worth considering ; but what is very certain is, 
 that they have inculcated humanity in familiar and 
 engaging forms to thousands and tens of thousands of 
 their readers, who can hardly have failed each to make his 
 little world around him somewhat the better for their 
 teaching. From first to last they were never for a 
 moment alien to either the sympathies or the under- 
 standings of any class ; and there were crowds of people 
 at this time that could not have told you what imagina- 
 tion meant, who were adding month by month to theii 
 limited stores the boundless gains of imagination. 
 
Ninth.] NICHOLAS NICELEBT. I47 
 
 One other kindliest product of humour in Nicldehy, not London : 
 
 18S8 
 
 to be passed over in even thus briefly rocalling a few first . '. — 
 
 impressions of it, was the good little miniature painter 
 
 Miss La Creevy, living by herself, overflowing with affec- Miss La 
 
 Creevy. 
 
 tions she has nobody to bestow on, but always cheerful by 
 dint of industry and good heartedness. When she is 
 disappointed in the character of a woman she has been to 
 see, she eases her mind by saying a very cutting thing at 
 her expense in a soliloquy : and thereby illustrates one Advantage 
 
 of liTing 
 
 of the advantages of having lived alone so long, that she by oneself. 
 
 made always a confidant of herself; was as sarcastic as 
 
 she could be, by herself, on people who offended her ; 
 
 pleased herself, and did no harm. Here was one of those 
 
 touches, made afterwards familiar to the readers of Dickens 
 
 by innumerable similar fancies, which added affection 
 
 to their admiration for the writer, and enabled them to 
 
 anticipate the feeling with which posterity -svould regard 
 
 him as indeed the worthy companion "bf the Goldsmiths 
 
 and Fieldings. There was a piece of writing, too, within 
 
 not many pages of it, of which Leigh Hunt exclaimed on Remark of 
 
 reading it that it surpassed the best things of the kind Hunt. 
 
 in Smollett that he was able to call to mind. This was 
 
 the letter of Miss Squeers to Ralph Nickleby, giving him 
 
 her version of the chastisement inflicted by Nicholas on 
 
 the schoolmaster. ' My pa requests me to write to you. Miss 
 
 Squeers, 
 
 ' the doctors considering it doubtful whether he will ever 
 ' recuvver the use of his legs which prevents his holding a 
 ' pen. We are in a state of mind beyond everything, and 
 ' my pa is one mask of brooses both blue and green like- 
 * wise two forms are steepled in his Goar. . . . Me and my 
 
 L 2 
 
148 
 
 THE LIFE OP CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 [Chapteb 
 
 IiONDON : 
 
 1838-9. 
 
 Early and 
 later books. 
 
 Character 
 of the 
 writing. 
 
 ' brother were then the victims of his feury since which 
 ' we have suffered very much which leads us to the arrow- 
 ' ing belief that we have received some injury in our 
 ' insides. especially as no marks of violence are visible 
 ■ externally. I am screaming out loud aU the time I 
 ' write and so is my brother which takes off my attention 
 ' rather and I hope will excuse mistakes " . . . . 
 
 Thus rapidly may be indicated some elements that con- 
 tributed to the sudden and astonishingly wide popularity 
 of these books. I purposely reserve from my present 
 notices of them, which are biographical rather than 
 critical, any statement of the reasons for which I think 
 them inferior in imagination and fancy to some of the 
 later works ; but there was continued and steady growth 
 in them on the side of humour, observation, and character, 
 while freshness and raciness of style continued to be an 
 important help. There are faults of occasional exaggera- 
 tion in the writing, but none that do not spring from 
 animal spirits and good humour, or a pardonable excess, 
 here and there, on the side of earnestness; and it has 
 the rare virtue, whether gay or grave, of being always 
 thoroughly intelligible and for the most part thoroughly 
 natural, of suiting itself without effort to every change of 
 mood, as quick, warm, and comprehensive, as th^ sympa- 
 thies it is taxed to express. The tone also is excellent. 
 We are never repelled by egotism or conceit, and mis- 
 placed ridicule never disgusts us. When good is going on, 
 we are sure to see all the beauty of it ; and when there 
 is evil, we are in no danger of mistaking it for good. 
 No one can paint more picturesquely by an apposite 
 
NiKTH.] NICHOLAS NICKLEBT. 149 
 
 epithet, or illustrate more happily by a choice allusion. Iohbom; 
 
 Whatever he knows or feels, too, is always at his. — 
 
 fingers' ends, and is present through whatever he is 
 doing. "What Eebecca . says to Ivanhoe of the black 
 knight's mode of fighting would not be wholly inapplic- 
 able to Dickens's manner of writing. ' There is more than 
 ' mere strength, there seems as if the whole soul and 
 ' spirit of the champion were given to every blow he 
 ' deals.' This, when a man deals his blows with a pen, is 
 the sort of handling that freshens with new life the oldest 
 facts, and breathes into thoughts the most familiar an 
 emotion not felt before. There seemed to be not much Kotm-es of 
 
 London. 
 
 to add to our knowledge of London until his books 
 came upon us, but each in this respect outstripped the 
 other in its marvels. In Nicldeby the old city reappears 
 under every aspect ; and whether warmth and light are 
 playing over what is good and cheerful in it, or the veil 
 is uplifted from its darker scenes, it is at all times our 
 privilege to see and feel it as it absolutely is. Its interior 
 hidden life becomes familiar as its commonest outward 
 forms, and we discover that we hardly knew anything of 
 the places we supposed that we knew the best. 
 
 Of such notices as his letters give of his progress with Materials 
 Nicldehy, which occupied him from February 1838 to Yorkshire. 
 October 1839, something may now be said. Soon after 
 the agreement for it was signed, before the Christmas of 
 1837 was over, he went down into Yorkshire with Mr. 
 Hablot Browne to look up the Cheap Schools in that 
 county to which public attention had been painfully 
 drawn by a law case in the previous year ; which had 
 
150 
 
 a HE LIFE OF CHAELES DICKENS. 
 
 [CHATTEa 
 
 LoNBoir : 
 1838-9. 
 
 before been notorious for cruelties committed in tbem, 
 whereof lie had heard as early as in his childish days;* and 
 which he was bent upon destroying if he could. I soon 
 heard the result of his journey ; and the substance of that 
 letter, returned to him for the purpose, is in his preface to 
 the story written for the collected edition. He came back 
 confirmed in his design, and in February set to work 
 
 Beginning upon his first chapter. On his birthday he wrote to me. 
 
 7 Feb. ' ' I have begun ! I wrote four slips last night, so you see 
 ' the beginning is made. And what is more, I can go on : 
 ' so I hope the book is in training at last.' ' The first 
 ' chapter of Nicholas is done,' he wrote two days later. 
 ' It took time, but I think answers the purpose as well 
 ' as it could.' Then, after a dozen days more : ' I wrote 
 'twenty slips of Nicholas yesterday, left only four to 
 ' do this morning (up at 8 o'clock too !), and have ordered 
 ' my horse at one.' I joined him as he expected, and we 
 read together at dinner that day the first number of 
 Nicholas NicJcleby. 
 
 In the following number there was a difficulty which 
 it was marvellous should not oftener have occurred to him 
 in this form of publication. ' I could not write a line till 
 'three o'clock,' he says, describing the close of that 
 number, ' and have yet five slips to finish, and don't know 
 ' what to put in them, for I have reached the point I 
 ' meant to leave off with.' He found easy remedy for 
 
 A difficulty 
 at starting. 
 
 C. D. loq, * ' I cannot call to mind now how I came to hear about Torksbire schools 
 
 ' when I was a not very robust child, sitting in bye-places near Kochester- 
 ■ castle, with a head full of Partridge, Strap, Tom Pipes, and Sancho Panza ; 
 ' but I know that my first impressions of them were picked up at that time. ' 
 
Ninth.] NICHOLAS NICKLEBT. 151 
 
 such a miscalculation at his outset, and it was nearly his London : 
 last as well as first misadventure of the kind : his dif- L 
 
 ficulty in Pickwick, as he once told me, having always 
 been, not the running short, but the running over : not 
 the whip but the drag that was wanted. Sufflaminandus 
 erat, as Ben Jonson said of Shakespeare. And in future 
 works, with such marvellous nicety could he do always 
 what he had planned, strictly within the space available, 
 that only another similar instance is remembered by me. 
 The third number introduced the school ; and ' I remain 
 ' dissatisfied until you have seen and read number three,' 
 was his way of announcing to me his own satisfaction 
 with that first handling of Dotheboys-hall. Nor had it 
 the least part in my admiration of his powers at this time, 
 that he never wrote without the printer at his heels ; that, 
 always in his latest works two or three numbers in ad- Never in 
 vance, he was never a single number in advance with this ^j^™^ 
 story ; that the more urgent the call upon him the more NuUeby. 
 readily he rose to it ; and that his astonishing animal 
 spirits never failed him. As late in the November month 
 of 1838 as the 20th, he thus wrote to me : 'I have just c. D. 
 ' begun my second chapter ; cannot go out to-night ; must j_*^_ 
 ' get on ; think there will be a Nickleby at the end of this 
 ' month now (I doubted it before) ; and want to make a 
 ' start towards it if I possibly can.' That was on Tuesday ; 
 and on Friday morning in the same week, explaining to 
 me the failure of something that had been promised the 
 previous day, he tells me : ' I was writing incessantly until 
 ' it was time to dress ; and have not yet got the subject 
 ' of my last chapter, which must he finished to-night.' 
 
152 THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. [CnAFiEB 
 
 London : But this was not all. Between that Tuesday and 
 
 1 838-Q 
 
 '— Friday an indecent assault had been committed on his 
 
 adaptation, book by a theatrical adapter named Stiriing, who seized 
 upon it without leave while yet only a third of it was 
 written ; hacked, cut, and garbled its dialogue to the 
 shape of one or two farcical actors ; invented for it a plot 
 and an ending of his own, and produced it at the Adelphi ; 
 where the outraged author, hard pressed as he was with 
 an unfinished number, had seen it in the interval between 
 the two letters I have quoted. He would not have run 
 such a risk in later years, but he threw off lightly at 
 present even such offences to his art ; and though I was 
 with him at a representation of his Oliver Twist the follow- 
 ing month at the Surrey -theatre, when in the middle of 
 Enjoying a the first scene he laid himself down upon the floor in a corner 
 of the box and never rose from it until the drop-scene fell, 
 he had been able to sit through Nichleby, and to see a kina 
 of merit in some of the actors. Mr. Yates had a sufficiently 
 humorous meaning in his wildest extravagance, and Mr. 
 O. Smith could put into his queer angular oddities enough 
 of a hard dry pathos, to conjure up shadows at least of Man- 
 Actors of talini and Newman Noggs; of Ealph Nickleby there was 
 indeed nothing visible save a wig, a spencer, and a pair 
 of boots, but there was a quaint actor named Wilkinson 
 who proved equal to the drollery though not to the' fierce 
 brutality of Squeers; and even Dickens, in the letter 
 that amazed me by telling me of his visit to the theatre, 
 was able to praise ' the skilful management and dressing 
 'of the boys, the capital manner and speech of Fanny 
 ' Squeers, the dramatic representation of her card-party 
 
Ninth.] NICHOLAS NICKLEBT. 153 
 
 'in Squeers's parlour, the careful making-up of all the London: 
 
 1838-9 
 
 ' people, and the exceedingly good tableaux formed from 
 
 Browne's sketches . . . Mrs. Keeley's first appearance 
 ' beside the fire (see wollum), and all the rest of Smike, 
 ' was excellent ; bating sundry choice sentiments and rub- 
 ' bish regarding the little robins in the fields which have '^' ' 
 ' been put in the boy's mouth by Mr. Stirling the adapter.' 
 His toleration could hardly be extended to the robins, and 
 their author he very properly punished by introducing and 
 denouncing him at Mr. Crummles's farewell supper. 
 
 The story was well in hand at the next letter to be 
 quoted, for I limit myself to those only with allusions 
 that are characteristic or illustrative. ' I must be alone writing 
 ' in my glory to-day,' he wi-ote, ' and see what I can Ni^tlgty's 
 ' do. I perpetrated a great amount of work yesterday, l<''>'«-s<'™8- 
 ' and have every day indeed since Monday, but I must 
 ' buckle-to again and endeavour to get the steam up. If 
 ' this were to go on long, I should " bust " the boiler. I 
 ' think Mrs. Nickleby's love-scene will come out rather 
 ' unique.' The steam doubtless rose dangerously high when 
 such happy inspiration came. It was but a few numbers 
 earlier than this, while that eccentric lady was im- 
 parting her confidences to Miss Knag, that Sydney Smith 
 confessed himself vanquished by a humour against which Sydney 
 his own had long striven to hold out. ' Nichleby is very nuished. 
 'good' he wrote to Sir George Phillips after the sixth 
 number. ' I- stood out against Mr. Dickens as long as I 
 ' could, but he has conquered me.' * 
 
 * Moore in his Diary (April 1837) describes Sydney crying down Dickens at 
 a dinner ia tiie How, ' and evidently without having given him a fair trial. ' 
 
154 THE LIFE OF CHAELES DICKENS. [Chapter 
 
 Broad- The close of the story was written at Broadstairs, from 
 
 1839. ' which (he had taken a house ' two doors from the Albion- 
 
 " ' hotel, where we had that merry night two years ago ') 
 c. D. he wrote to me on the 9th September 1839. ' I am hard 
 J. p. ' at it, but these windings-up wind slowly, and I shall 
 ' think I have done great things if I have entirely finished 
 ' by the 20th. Chapman and Hall came down yesterday 
 '■ with Browne's sketches, and dined here. They imparted 
 ' their intentions as to a Nicklebeian fete which will make 
 ' you laugh heartily — so I reserve them till you come. It - 
 ' has been blowing great guns for the last three days, and 
 ' last night (I wish you could have seen it !) there was such 
 ' a sea ! I staggered down to the pier, and, creeping under 
 ' the lee of a large boat which was high and dry, watched 
 ' it breaking for nearly an hour. Of course I came back 
 ' wet through.' On the afternoon of Wednesday the 18th 
 he wrote again. ' I shall not finish entirely before Friday, 
 ' sending Hicks the last twenty pages of manuscript by 
 ' the night coach. I have had pretty stiff work as you may 
 ' suppose, and I have taken gi-eat pains. The discovery 
 ' is made, Ralph is dead, the loves have come all right, Tim 
 ' Linkinwater has proposed, and I have now only to break 
 ' up Dotheboys and the book^^ together. I am very anxious 
 Close of the 'that you should see this conclusion before it leaves my 
 'hands, and I plainly see therefore that I must come to 
 ' town myself on Saturday if I would not endanger the 
 ' appearance of the number. So I have written to Hicks 
 ' to send proofs to your chambers as soon as he can that 
 ' evening ; and if you don't object I will dine with you 
 ' any time after five, and we will devote the night to a 
 
 book. 
 
NiHTH.] NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. 155 
 
 'careful reading. I have not written to Macready, for Beoad- 
 
 ' they have not yet sent me the title page of dedication, 1839. ' 
 
 ' which is merely " To W. 0. Macready, Esq., the following 
 
 ' " pages are inscribed, as a slight token of admiration and 
 
 ' " regard, by his friend the Author." Meanwhile will you A. proposed 
 
 celebration, 
 
 'let him know that I have fixed the Nickleby dinner 
 ' for Saturday the 5th of October. Place, the Albion in 
 ' Aldersgate-street. Time, six for half-past exactly ... I 
 ' shall be more glad than I can tell ycu to see you again, 
 ' and I look forward to Saturday, and the evenings that 
 ' are to follow it, with most joyful anticipation. I have 
 ' had a good notion for Barndby, of which more anon.' 
 
 The shadow from the old quarter, we see, the unwritten 
 Barndby tale, intrudes itself still; though hardly, as of old, 
 making other pleasanter anticipations less joyful. Such 
 indeed at this time was his buoyancy of spirit that it cost 
 him little, compared with the suffering it gave him at 
 all subsequent similar times, to separate from the people Parting 
 
 PI- -if mi from crea- 
 
 who for twenty months had been a part of himself • The tares of Ma 
 increased success they had achieved left no present room ' "°^' 
 but for gladness and well-won pride ; and so, to welcome 
 them into the immortal family of the English novel, and 
 open cheerily to their author 'fresh woods and pastures 
 ' new,' we had the dinner-celebration. But there is small TheNickle- 
 need now to speak, of what has left, to one of the few 
 survivors, only the sadness of remembering that all who 
 made the happiness of it are passed away. There was 
 Talfourd, facile and fluent of kindliest speech, with whom Talfourd 
 we were in constant and cordial intercourse, and to whom, Maciise. 
 grateful for his copyright exertions in the house of 
 
156 
 
 THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 [Ch. IX. 
 
 London : 
 1839. 
 
 Sir David 
 Willde. 
 
 commons, he had dedicated Pickwick: there was Maclise, 
 dear and familiar friend to us both, whose lately painted 
 portrait of Dickens hung in the room : * and there was the 
 painter of the Eent-daj', who made a speech as good as 
 his pictures, rich in colour and quaint with homely 
 allusion, all about the reality of Dickens's genius, and 
 how there had been nothing like him issuing his novels 
 part by part since Richardson issued his novels volume by 
 volume, and how in both cases people talked about the 
 characters as if they were next-door neighbours or friends; 
 and as many letters were written to the author of Nicklehy 
 to implore him not to kill poor Smike, as had been sent 
 by young ladies to the author of Clarissa to ' save Love- 
 ' lace's soul alive.' These and others are gone. Of those 
 who survive only three arise to my memory — Macready, 
 who spoke his sense of the honour done him by the 
 dedication in English as good as his delivery of it, Mr. 
 Edward Chapman, and Mr. Thomas Beard. 
 
 Tlie paint- 
 ing ty 
 Maclise. 
 
 * This portrait was giTen to Dickens by Ms publishers, for •whom it -was 
 painted with a view to an engraving for NicTclehy, which however was poorly 
 executed, and of a size too small to do the original any kind of justice. To 
 the courtesy of its present possessor, the Eev. Sir Edward Repps Jodrell, and 
 to the careful art of Mr. Eobert Graves, A.K.A., I owe the illustration at 
 the opening of this volume, in which the head is for the first time worthily 
 expressed. In some sort to help also the reader's fancy to a complete 
 impression, Maclise having caught as happily the figure as the face, a skiUiil 
 outline of the painting has been executed for the present page by Mr. Jeens. 
 ' As a likeness,' said Mr. Thackeray of the work, and no higher praise could 
 be given to it, ' it is perfectly amazing. A looking-glass could not render a 
 ' better fac-simile. We have here the real identical man Dickens, the inward 
 ' aa well as the outward of him. ' 
 
: ^^:^ ^f^^i^00^-f^\-^. 
 
 re 181 A m. IL m s ® 1[ € m. IE w § 
 
 0M0i7ie or 
 I H t Pl\ I N n M C B V M A r. I I S E ( I 8 .I 9 ) 
 
CHAPTEE X. 
 
 DURING AND AFTBB NICKLEBT. 
 1838 AND 1839. 
 
 The name of his old gallery-companion may carry me Twiokek- 
 back from the days to which the close of Nichlehy had led isss. 
 me, to those when it was only beginning. 'This snow will 
 ' take away the cold weather,' he had written, in that birth- 
 day letter of 1838 already quoted, 'and then for Twicken- 
 ' ham.' Here a cottage was taken, nearly all the summer 
 was passed, and a familiar face there was Mr. Beard's. 
 There, with Talfourd and with Thackeray and Jerrold, we 
 had many friendly days, too; and the social charm of 
 Maclise was seldom wanting. Nor was there anything Daniel 
 
 . , p . . T\- 1 1 1 Maclise. 
 
 that exercised a greater fascination over Dickens than the 
 grand enjoyment of idleness, the ready self-abandonment 
 to the luxury of laziness, which we both so laughed at in 
 Maclise, under whose easy swing of indifference, always the 
 most amusing at the most aggravating events and times, 
 we knew that there was artist-work as eager, energy as 
 unwearying, and observation almost as penetrating as 
 Dickens's own. A greater enjoyment than the fellowship 
 of Maclise at this period it would indeed be difficult to 
 imagine. Dickens hardly saw more than he did,, while yet 
 
158 
 
 THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 [Chapter 
 
 TwioKEN- he seemed to be seeing nothing ; and the small esteem 
 1838. in which this rare faculty was held by himself, a quaint 
 
 The charm oddity that gave to shrewdness itself in him an air of Irish 
 
 acise. gimpijjcity^ jjis unquestionable turn for literature, and a 
 varied knowledge of it not always connected with such 
 intense love and such unwearied practice of one special 
 and absorbing art, combined to render him attractive far 
 beyond the common. His fine genius and his handsome 
 person, of neither of which at any time he seemed himself 
 to be in the slightest degree conscious, completed the 
 
 Otherartist charm. Edwin Landseer, aU the world's favourite, and the 
 excellent Stanfield, came a few months later, in the Devon- 
 shire-terrace days ; but another painter-friend was George 
 Cattermole, who had then enough and to spare of fun as 
 well as fancy to supply ordinary artists and humourists 
 by the dozen, and wanted only a little more ballast and 
 steadiness to have had all that could give attraction to good 
 .fellowship. A friend now especially welcome, too, was 
 
 Mr. Hani- the novelist Mr. Ainsworth, who shared with us incessantly 
 
 son Ains- 
 worth. for the three following years m the companionship which 
 
 began at his house ; with whom we visited, during two 
 
 of those years, friends of art and letters in his native 
 
 Manchester, from among whom Dickens brought away his 
 
 Brothers Cheeryble ; and to whose sympathy in tastes and 
 
 pursuits, accomplishments in literature, open-hearted 
 
 generous ways, and cordial hospitality, many of the 
 
 pleasures of later years were due. Frederick Dickens, to 
 
 whom soon after this a treasury-clerkship was handsomely 
 
 given, on Dickens's application, by Mr. Stanley of Alderley, 
 
 known in and before those Manchester days, was for the 
 
Tenth.] 
 
 DURING JlSD after NICKLEBY. 
 
 159 
 
 Twicken- 
 ham : 
 1838. 
 
 present again living with his father, but passed much 
 time in his brother's home; and another familiar face 
 "was that of Mr. Thomas Mitton, who had known him when 
 himself a law-clerk in Lincoln' s-inn, through whom there 
 was introduction of the relatives of a friend and partner, 
 Mr. Smithson, the gentleman connected with Yorkshire 
 mentioned in his preface to NicJdeby, who became very 
 intimate in his house. These, his father and mother and 
 their two younger sons, with members of his wife's family, 
 and his married sisters and their husbands, Mr. and Mrs. 
 Burnett and Mr. and Mrs. Austin, are figures that all as- 
 sociate themselves prominently with the days of Doughty- 
 street and the cottages of Twickenham and Petersham as 
 remembered by me in the summers of 1838 and 1839. 
 
 In the former of these years the sports were necessarily 
 quieter * than at Petersham, where extensive garden- 
 grounds admitted of much athletic competition, from, the 
 more difficult forms of which I in general modestly retired, 
 but where Dickens for the most part held his own against 
 
 * We had at Twickenham a balloon club for the children, of ^vhich I appear 
 to have been elected the president on condition of supplying aU the balloons, 
 a condition which I seem so insuf&ciently to have complied with as to bring 
 down upon myself the subjoined resolution. The Snodgering Blee and Popem Childish 
 Jee were the little brother and sister, for whom, as for their successors, enjoy- 
 he "Was always inventing these surprising descriptive epithets. 'Gammon ments. 
 ' Lodge, Satui-day evening, June 23rd, 1838. Sir, I am requested to inform 
 ' you that at a numerous meeting of the Gammon Aeronautical Association 
 'for the Encouragement of Science and the Consumption of Spirits (of 
 'Wine) — Thomas Beard Esquire, Mrs. Charles Dickens, Charles Dickens 
 ' Esquire, the Snodgering Blee, Popem Jee, and other distinguished characters 
 ' being present and assenting, the vote of censm'e of which I enclose a copy 
 ' was unanimously passed upon you for gross negligence in the discharge of 
 'your duty, and most unjustifiable disregard of the best interests of the 
 ' Society. I am, Sir, your most obedient Servant, Charles Dickens, Honorary 
 ' Secretary. To John Forster, Esquire. ' 
 
 Peteus- 
 ham: 
 1839. 
 
160 
 
 THE LIFE OF CHAELES DICKElSrS. 
 
 [Chapteb 
 
 Petees- 
 EAM : 
 1839. 
 
 Athletic 
 sports. 
 
 Writes a 
 farce for 
 CoTent- 
 garden. 
 
 Entered at 
 theMiddle- 
 temple. 
 
 We see 
 Waine- 
 wright in 
 Newgate. 
 
 even such accomplished athletes as Maclise and Mr. Beard. 
 Bar-leaping, bowling, and qnoits, were among the games 
 carried on with the greatest ardour ; and in sustained 
 energy, what is called keeping it up, Dickens certainly 
 distanced every competitor. Even the lighter recreations 
 of battledore and bagatelle were pursued with relentless 
 activity; and at such amusements as the Petersham races, 
 in those days rather celebrated, and which he visited 
 daily while they lasted, he worked much harder himself 
 than the running horses did. 
 
 What else his letters of these years enable me to recall 
 that could possess any interest now, may be told in a 
 dozen sentences. He wrote a farce by way of helping the 
 Covent-garden manager which the actors could not agree 
 about, and which he turned afterwards into a story called 
 the Lcumplighter. He entered his name among the 
 students at the inn of the Middle-temple, though he did 
 not eat dinners there until many years later. We made 
 together a circuit of nearly all the London prisons ; and, 
 in coming to the prisoners under remand while going 
 over Newgate, accompanied by Macready and "Mr. Hablot 
 Browne* were startled by a sudden tragic cry of 'My 
 ' God ! there's Wainewright ! ' In the shabby-genteel 
 creatiire, with sandy disordered hair and dirty moustache, 
 who had turned quickly round with a defiant stare 
 at our entrance, looking at once mean and fierce, and. 
 quite capable of the cowardly murders he had committed, 
 Macready had been horrified to recognize a man familiarly 
 
 * Not Mr. Procter, as, by an oversight of his own, Dickens caused to be said in 
 an interesting paper on Wainewright which appeai'ed in his weeldy periodical. 
 
Tenth.] DURING AND AFTER NICKLEBY. 161 
 
 known to him in former years, and at whose table he had Londoh : 
 
 1 QQQ 
 
 dined. Between the completion of Oliver and its publi- '- — 
 
 cation, Dickens went to see something of North "Wales ; 
 
 and joining him at Liverpool, I returned with him.* Soon 
 
 after his arrival he had pleasant communication with 
 
 Lockhart, dining with him at Cruikshank's a little later; 
 
 and this was the prelude to a Quarterly notice of Oliver by Oliver 
 
 Mr. Ford, written at the instance of Lockhart but without the Quar- 
 
 the raciness he would have put into it, in which amende p^emew. 
 
 was made for previous less favourable remarks ia that 
 
 review. Dickens had not however waited for this to 
 
 express publicly his hearty sympathy with Lockhart's 
 
 handling of some passages in his admirable Life of Scott 
 
 that had drawn down upon him the wrath of the Bal- 
 
 lantynes. This he did in the Uxaminer ; where also I 
 
 find him noticing a book by Thomas Hood : ' rather poor, ' Up the 
 
 'but I have not said so, because Hood is too, and ill 
 
 ' besides.' In the course of the year he was taken into 
 
 Devonshire to select a home for his father, on the removal 
 
 of the latter (who had long given up his reporting duties) 
 
 from his London residence ; and this he found in a cottage 
 
 at Alphing-ton, near Exeter, where he placed the elder 
 
 Dickens with his wife and their youngest son. The same 
 
 year closed Macready's Covent-garden management, and at 
 
 * I quote from a letter dated Llangollen, Friday morning, 3rd Nov. 1838. 
 'I wTOte to you last night, but by mistake the letter has gone on Heaven „ y. 
 'knows where in my portmanteau. I have only time to say, go straight to ^^' 
 
 ' Liverpool by the first Birmingham train on Monday morning, and at the J. P. 
 ' Adelphi-hotel in that town you will find me. I trust to you to see my 
 ' dear Kate, E,nd bring the latest intelligence of her and the darlings. My best 
 'Jove to them.' 
 
162 
 
 THE LIFE OF CHAELES DICKEXS. 
 
 London : 
 1839. 
 
 After- 
 dinner 
 speeches. 
 
 Sliate- 
 Bpeare 
 Society. 
 
 Incidents 
 of 1839 : 
 Second 
 d;ini;liter. 
 
 the dinner to the retiring manager, when the Duke of Cam- 
 bridge took the chair, Dickens spoke with that wonderful 
 instinct of knowing what to abstain from saying, as well 
 as what to say, which made his after-dinner speeches 
 quite unique. Nor should mention be omitted of the 
 Shakespeare-society, now diligently attended, of which 
 Procter, Talfourd, Macready, Thackeray, Henry Davison, 
 Blanchard, Charles Knight, John Bell, Douglas Jerrold, 
 Maclise, Stanfield, George Cattermole, the good Tom 
 Landseer, Frank Stone, and other old friends were mem- 
 bers, and where, out of much enjoyment and many dis- 
 putings,* there arose, from Dickens and all of us, plenty 
 of after-dinner oratory. The closing months of this year 
 of 1839 had special interest for him. At the end of 
 October another daughter was born to him, who bears the 
 name of that dear friend of his and mine, Macready, whom 
 he asked to be her godfather ; and before the close of the 
 year he had moved out of Doughty-street into Devonshire- 
 terrace, a handsome house with a garden of considerable 
 size, shut out from the New-road by a high brick wall 
 facing the York-gate into Eegent's-park. These various 
 matters, and his attempts at the Barnaby novel on the 
 
 * One of these disputes is referred to by Charles Knight in his Autobiography ; 
 and I see in Dickens's letters the mention of another in which I seem to have 
 been turned by his kindly counsel from some foUy I was going to commit. ' I 
 need not, I am sui*e, impress upon you the sincerity with which I make this 
 ' representation. Our close and hearty fi'iendship happily spares me tlie 
 ' necessity. But I will add this — that feeling for you an attachment which 
 ' no ties of blood or other relationship could ever awaken, and hoping to be to 
 'the end of my life your affectionate and chosen friend, I am convinced that 
 ' I counsel you now as you would counsel me if I were in the like case ; 
 ' and I hope and trust that you will be led by an opinion which I am sure 
 ' cannot be wrong when it ia influenced by such feelings as I bear towards you, 
 'and BO many warm and grateful considerations.' 
 
rENTii.] DURING AND AFTER NICKLEBT. 1(53 
 
 conclusion of NicUehy, are the subjects of his letters London: 
 between October and December. ^^^^' ■ 
 
 'Thank God, all goes famously. I have worked at wTn'g. 
 'Barnaby all day, and moreover seen a beautiful (and 
 ' reasonable) house in Kent-terrace, where Macready once 
 ' lived, but larger than his.' Again (this having gone off) : 
 ' 5ama62/ has suffered so much from the house-hunting, 
 'that I mustn't chop to-day.' Then (for the matter of 
 the Middle-temple) 'I return the form. It's the right 
 'temple, I take for granted. Barnaby moves, not at Working 
 'race-horse speed, but yet as fast (I think) as under these ^°^^' 
 'unsettled circumstances could possibly be expected.' 
 Or again : ' All well. Barnaby has reached his tenth 
 'page. I have just turned lazy, and have passed into 
 ' Ghristabel, and thence to Wallenstein.' At last the 
 choice was made. ' A house of great promise (and great Devon- 
 ' premium), "undeniable" situation, and excessive splen- race in 
 ■ dour, is in view. Mitton is in treaty, and I am in ecstatic P'°^p^° 
 ' restlessness. Kate wants to know whether you have any 
 ' books to send her, so please to shoot here any literary 
 'rubbish on hand.' To these I will only add a couple 
 of extracts from his letters while in Exeter arranging 
 his father's and mother's new home. They are very 
 humorous; and the vividness with which everything, 
 once seen, was photographed in his mind and memory, is 
 pleasantly shown in them. 
 
 ' I took a little house for them this morning' (5th March, From 
 1839 : from the JSTew-London-inn), ' and if they are not ^^ ^' 
 ' pleased with it I shall be grievously disappointed. Exactly *° 
 ' a mile beyond the city on the Plymouth road there are 
 
 M 2 
 
164 THE LIFE OF CHAELES DICKENS [Chapteb 
 
 BxisTER : ' two white cottages : one is theirs and the other belongs 
 
 1S39. ^ 
 
 'to their landlady. I almost forget the number of rooms, 
 
 his father ' but there is an excellent parlour with two other rooms 
 mo er. , ^^ ^j^^ ground floor, there is really a beautiful little room 
 'over the parlour which I am furnishing as a drawing- 
 'room, and there is a splendid garden. The paint and 
 'paper throughout is new and fresh and cheerful-looking, 
 'the place is clean beyond all description, and the neigh- 
 ' bourhood I suppose the most beautiful in this most beau- 
 ' tiful of English counties. Of the landlady, a Devonshire 
 'widow with whom I had the honour of taking lunch 
 ' today, I must make most especial mention. She is a fat, 
 'infirm, splendidly-fresh-faced country dame, rising sixty 
 ' and recovering from an attack " on the nerves " — I 
 ' thought they never went off the stones, but I find they 
 'try country air with the best of us. In the event of my 
 ' mother's being ill at any time, I really think the vicinity 
 ' of this good dame, the very picture of respectability and 
 'good humour, will be the greatest possible comfort. Her 
 'furniture and domestic arrangements are a capital picture, 
 'but that I reserve till I see you, when I anticipate a 
 ' liearty laugh. She bears the highest character with the 
 'bankers and the clergyman (who formerly lived in my 
 'cotiage himself), and is a kind-hearted worthy capital 
 ' specimen of the sort of life, or I have no eye for the real 
 ' and no idea of finding it out. 
 Alandlarly 'This good lady's brother and his wife live in the next 
 
 and her 
 
 friends. ' nearest cottage, and the brother transacts the good lady's 
 ' business, the nerves not admitting of her transacting it 
 ' herself, although they leave her in her debilitated state 
 
tentb.] during and after nicklebt. 165 
 
 'something sharper than the finest lancet. Now the Exht^-: 
 
 'brother, having coughed all night till he conglieil lii,,; -, 
 
 'into such a perspiration that you might have " wi-ioyi 6 
 
 '"his hair," according to the asseveration of eye witnesses, 
 
 'his wife was sent for to negociate with me ; and if you 
 
 ' could have seen me sitting in the kitchen with the two 
 
 ' old women, endeavouring to make them comprehend that 
 
 ' I had no evil intentions or covert designs, and that I had A cross-ex- 
 
 ' come down all that way to take some cottage and had 
 
 ' happened to walk down that road and see that particular 
 
 ' one, you would never have forgotten it. Then, to see the 
 
 ' servant girl run backwards and forwards to the sick man, 
 
 'and when the sick man had signed one agreement which Signing 
 
 ' I drew up and the old woman instantly put away in a ments. 
 
 ' disused tea-caddy, to see the trouble and the number of 
 
 ' messages it took before the sick man could be brought 
 
 'to sign another (a duplicate) that we might have one 
 
 ' apiece, was one of the richest scraps of genuine drollery 
 
 'I ever saw in all my days. How, when the business was 
 
 ' over, we became conversational ; how I was facetious, and 
 
 ' at the same time virtuous and domestic ; how I drank 
 
 ' toasts in the beer, and stated on interrogatory that I was Autobio- 
 
 ' a married man and the father of two blessed infants ; 
 
 'how the ladies marvelled thereat ; how one of the ladies, 
 
 'having been in London, enquired where I lived, and, 
 
 'being told, remembered that Doughty-street and the 
 
 ' Foundling-hospital were in the Old-Kent-road, which I 
 
 'didn't contradict — all this and a great deal more must 
 
 'make us laugh when I return, as, it makes me laugh now 
 
 ' to think of. Of my subsequent visit to the upholsterer 
 
16(3 
 
 THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 [Chapteb 
 
 Exeter : 
 1839. 
 
 Visit to 
 an uphol- 
 sterer. 
 
 The 
 theatre. 
 
 ' i-ecommended by the landlady; of the absence of the 
 'upholsterer's wife, and the timidity of the upholsterer 
 ' fearful of acting in her absence ; of my sitting behind a 
 ' high desk in a little dark shop, calling over the articles 
 'in requisition and checking off the prices as the 
 ' upholsterer exhibited the goods and called them out ; of 
 'my coming over the upholsterer's daughter with many 
 ' virtuous endearments, to propitiate the establishment and 
 ' reduce the bill ; of these matters I say nothing, either, 
 'for the same reason as that just mentioned. The dis- 
 ' covery of the cottage I seriously regard as a blessing (not 
 ' to speak it profanely) upon our efforts in this cause. I 
 'had heard nothing from the bank, and walked straight 
 ' there, by some strange impulse, directly after breakfast. 
 ' I am sure they may be happy there ; for if I were older, 
 ' and my course of activity were run, I am sure I could, 
 ' with God's blessing, for many and many a year.' . . . 
 
 ' The theatre is open here, and Charles Kean is to-night 
 ' playing for his last night. If it had been the " rig'lar '' 
 ' drama I should have gone, but I was afraid Sir Giles 
 'Overreach might upset me, so I stayed away. My 
 'quarters are excellent, and the head- waiter is such a 
 ' waiter ! Knowles (not Sheridan Knowles, but Knowles 
 'of the Cheetham-hiU-road *) is an ass to him. This 
 ' sounds bold, but truth is stranger than fiction. By the 
 ' bye, not the least comical thing that has occurred was 
 
 * This was the hutler of Mr. Gilhert Winter, one of the kind Manchester 
 friends whose hospitality we had enjoyed with Mr. Ainsworth, and whose 
 shrewd, quaint, old-world ways come delightfully back to me as I write hia 
 once well-known and widely honouied name. 
 
Tenth.] DUEING AND AFTER NICKLEBT. 1(J7 
 
 ' the visit of the upholsterer (with some further calculations) Exethu : 
 
 1839 
 
 ' since I began this letter. I think they took me here at '- — 
 
 ' the New-London for the Wonderful Being I am ; they 
 
 ' were amazingly sedulous ; and no doubt they looked for my 
 
 ' being visited by the nobility and gentry of the neighbour- 
 
 'hood. My first and only visitor came to-night : A ruddy- visit /ram 
 
 ' faced man in faded black, with extracts from a feather- gterer. 
 
 ' bed all over him ; an extraordinary and quite miraculously 
 
 ' dirty face ; a thick stick ; and the personal appearance 
 
 'altogether of an amiable bailiff in a green old age. I 
 
 'have not seen the proper waiter since, and more than 
 
 ' suspect I shall not recover this blow. He was announced 
 
 ' (by the waiter) as " a person." I expect my bill every Dignity in 
 
 danger. 
 
 ' mmute 
 
 ' The waiter is laughing outside the door with another 
 ' waiter — this is the latest intelligence of my condition.' 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 NEW LITERARY PROJECT. 
 1839. 
 
 Pkters- Xhe time was now come for him seriously to busy 
 1839. himself with a successor to Pickwick and Nickleby, which 
 he had not however waited thus long before turning over 
 thoroughly in his mind. Nickleby s success had so far 
 outgone even the expectation raised by Pickwick's, that, 
 without some handsome practical admission of this fact 
 at the close, its publishers could hardly hope to retain him. 
 This had been frequently discussed by us, and was well 
 Thougl/ts understood. But, apart from the question of his resuming 
 
 for tlie 
 
 future. with them at all, he had persuaded himself it might be 
 unsafe to resume in the old way, believing the public 
 likely to tire of the same twenty numbers over again. 
 There was also another and more sufiBcient reason for 
 change which naturally had great weight with him, and 
 this was the hope, that, by invention of a new mode 
 as well as kind of serial publication, he might be able 
 for a time to discontinue the writing of a long story with 
 all its strain on his fancy, in any case to shorten and 
 vary the length of the stories written by himself, and 
 pei'haps ultimately to retain all the profits of a continuous 
 
Ch. XI,] NEW LITERARY PROJECT. Ig'g 
 
 publication without necessarily himself contributing every Peters- 
 line that was to be written for it. These considerations 1839I 
 had been discussed stiU more anxiously ; and for several 
 months some such project had been taking form in his 
 thoughts. 
 
 While he was at Petersham (July 1839) he thus wrote 
 tome. 'I have been thinking that subject over. Indeed CD. 
 ' I have been doing so to the great stoppage of Nicldeby j. p. 
 ' and the great worrying and fidgetting of myself. I have 
 ' been thinking that if Chapman and Hall were to admit 
 ' you into their confidence with respect to what they mean 
 ' to do at the conclusion of Nicldeby, without admitting 
 ' me, it would help us very much. You know that I am Suggestion 
 ■ well-disposed towards them, and that if they do some- publishers. 
 ' thing handsome, even handsomer perhaps than they 
 • dreamt of doing, they will find it their interest, and will 
 ' find me tractable. You know also that I have had 
 ' straightforward offers from responsible men to publish 
 ' anything for me at a per-centage on the profits, and take 
 ' all the risk ; but that I am unwilling to leave them, and 
 'have declared to you that if they behave with liberality 
 ' to me I will not on any consideration, although to a 
 ' certain extent I certainly and surely must gain by it. 
 ' Knowing all this, I feel sure that if you. were to put My media 
 
 . . , . - . tion with 
 
 ' before them the glories of our new project, and, reminding them. 
 ' them that when Barnaby is published I am clear of all 
 ' engagements, were to tell them that if they wish to secure 
 ' me and perpetuate our connection now is the time for 
 •' them to step gallantly forward and make such proposals 
 ' as will produce that result — I feel quite sure that if this 
 
170 
 
 THE LIFE OF CHAELES DICKENS. 
 
 [Chafi'kb 
 
 Pbtees- 
 HAM : 
 183r. 
 
 C. D. 
 
 to 
 J. F. 
 
 Proposed 
 ■weekly 
 publica- 
 tion. 
 
 Old 
 
 faTourites 
 to be re- 
 vived. 
 
 ' shotild be done by you, as you only can do it, the result will 
 ' be of the most vital importance to me and mine, and that 
 ' a very great deal may be effected, thus, to recompense 
 ' your friend for very small profits and very large work as 
 ' yet. I shall see you, please God, on Tuesday night ; and 
 ' if they wait upon you on Wednesday, I shall remain in 
 ' town until that evening.' 
 
 They came ; and the tenor of the interview was so favour- 
 able that I wished him to put in writing what from time to 
 time had been discussed in connection with the new project. 
 This led to the very interesting letter I shall now quote, 
 ■written also in the same month from Petersham. I did 
 not remember, untU I lately read it, that the notion of a 
 possible visit to America had been in his thoughts so 
 early. 
 
 ' I should be wilhng to commence on the thirty-first of 
 ' March, 1840, a new publication consisting entirely of 
 ' original matter, of which one number price threepence 
 ' should be published every week, and of which a certain 
 ' amount of numbers should form a volume, to be pub- 
 ' lished at regular intervals. The best general idea of the 
 ' plan of the work might be given perhaps by i-eference to 
 ' the Spectator, the Tatler, and Goldsmith's Bee ; but it 
 • would be far more popular both in the subjects of which 
 ' it treats and its mode of treating them. 
 
 ' I should propose to start, as the Spectator does, with 
 ' some pleasant fiction relative to the origin of the publi- 
 ' cation ; to introduce a little club or knot of characters 
 ' and to carry their personal histories and proceedings 
 ' through the work ; to introduce fresh characters con- 
 
Eleventh.] NEW LITEEAEY PROJECT. 171 
 
 ' stantly ; to reintroduce Mr. Pickwick and Sam Weller, Peters- 
 ' the latter of whom might furnish an occasional commu- 1839] 
 ' nication with great effect ; to write amusing essays on c. D. 
 ' the various foibles of the day as they arise ; to take j p 
 ' advantage of all passing events ; and to vary the form 
 ' of the papers by throwing them into sketches, essays, 
 ' tales, adventures, letters from imaginary correspondents 
 ' and so forth, so as to diversify the contents as much as 
 ' possible. 
 
 ' In addition to this general description of the contents, 
 ' I may add that under particular heads I should strive to 
 ' establish certain features in the work, which should be 
 ' so many veins of interest and amusement running 
 ' through the whole. Thus the Chapters on Chambers Chapters 
 ' which I have long thought and spoken of, might be very bers. 
 ' well incorporated with it ; and a series of papers has 
 ' occurred to me containing stories and descriptions of 
 ' London as it was many years ago, as it is now, and as 
 ' it will be many years hence, to which I would give some 
 ' such title as The Eelaxations of Gog and Magog, Relaxa- 
 ' dividing them into portions like the Arabian Niglds, oog and 
 ' and supposing Gog and Magog to entertain each other ^^"^^ 
 ' with such narrations in Guildhall all night long, and to 
 'break off every morning at daylight. An almost in- 
 ' exhaustible field of fun, raillery, and interest, would be 
 ' laid open by pursuing this idea. 
 
 ' I would also commence, and continue from time to time, 
 ' a series of satirical papers purporting to be translated 
 ' from some Savage Chronicles, and to describe the admi- Savage 
 
 Cliro- 
 
 ' nistration of justice in some country that never existed, niciea. 
 
172 
 
 THE LIFE OF CHAELES DICKENS. 
 
 [Chapteb 
 
 Peters- 
 ham : 
 1839. 
 
 C. D. 
 
 to 
 J. F. 
 
 Others as 
 well as 
 himself 
 to write. 
 
 Visits to 
 Ireland or 
 America. 
 
 ' and record the proceedings of its wise men. The object 
 ' of this series (which if I can compare it with au3'thing 
 ' would be something between Gulliver's Travels and the 
 ' Citizen of the World) would be to keep a special look- 
 ' out upon the magistrates in town and country, and never 
 ' to leave those worthies alone. 
 
 ' Tlie quantity of each number that should be written 
 ' by myself would be a matter for discussion and arrange- 
 ' ment. Of course I should pledge and bind myself upon 
 ' that head. Nobody but myself would ever pursue these 
 ' ideas, but I must have assistance of course, and there 
 ' must be some contents of a different kind. Their 
 ' general nature might be agreed upon beforehand, but I 
 ' should stipulate that this assistance is chosen solely by 
 ' myself, and that the contents of every number are as 
 ' much under my own control, and subject to as little 
 ' interference, as those of a number of Pickwick or 
 ' Nicklehy. 
 
 ' In order to give fresh novelty and interest to this 
 ' undertaking, I should be ready to contract to go at any 
 ' specified time (say in the midsummer or autumn of 
 ' the year, when a sufficient quantity of matter in advance 
 ' should have been prepared, or earlier if it were thought 
 ' fit) either to Ireland or to America, and to write from 
 ' thence a series of papers descriptive of the places and 
 ' people I see, introducing local tales, traditions, and 
 ' legends, something after the plan of Washington Irving's 
 ' Alharribra. I should wish the republication of these 
 'papers in a separate form, with others to render tho. 
 ' subject complete (if we should deem it advisable), to 
 
EL.EVENTH.] NEW LITERARY PROJECT. I73 
 
 ' form part of the arrangement for the work ; and I Petehs- 
 ' should wish the same provision to be made for the re- 1839.' 
 ' publication of the Gog and Magog series, or indeed any c. D.~ 
 ' that I undertook. j% 
 
 ' This is a very rough and slight outline of the project 
 ' I have in view. I am ready to talk the matter over, to 
 ' give any further explanations, to consider any sugges- 
 'tions,or to go into the details of the subject immediately. 
 ' I say nothing of the novelty of such a publication now- 
 ' a-days or its chances of success. Of course I think them 
 ' very great, very great indeed ; almost beyond calcula- 
 ' tion, or I should not seek to bind myself to anything so 
 ' extensiva 
 
 ' The heads of the terms upon which I should be 
 'prepared to go into this undertaking would be — That 
 ' I be made a proprietor in the work and a sharer in the r^^ jj^^g ^ 
 'profits. That when I bind myself to write a certain f^^OTk."" 
 ' portion of every number, I am ensured, for that writing 
 ' in every number, a certain sum of money. That those 
 'who assist me, and contribute the remainder of every 
 'number, shall be paid by the publishers immediately 
 ' after its appearance, according to a scale to be calcu- 
 'lated and agreed upon, on presenting my order for the 
 ' amount to which they may be respectively entitled. Or. 
 'if the publishers prefer it, that they agree to pay yi^n^y 
 ' me a certain sum for the whole of every number, and P^y™^"^*^- 
 'leave me to make such arrangements for that part 
 ' which I may not write, as I think best. Of course I 
 ' should require that for these payments, or any other 
 ' outlay connected with the work, I am not held account- 
 
174 
 
 THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 [Chaptek 
 
 Petees- 
 
 HAM : 
 1839. 
 
 C. D. 
 
 to 
 J. F. 
 
 Weekly 
 pxiblica- 
 tion to be 
 started. 
 
 Nothing 
 settled as 
 to story by 
 himself. 
 
 ' able in any way; and that no portion of them is to be 
 ' considered as received by me on account of the profits. 
 ' I need not add that some arrangement would have to 
 'be made, if I undertake my Travels, relative to the 
 ' expenses of travelling. 
 
 ' Now I want our publishing friends to take these things 
 ' into consideration, and to give me the views and pro- 
 'posals they would be disposed to entertain when they 
 ' have maturely considered the matter.' 
 
 The result of their consideration was on the whole satis- 
 factory. An additional fifteen hundred pounds was to be 
 paid at the close of Nickleby, the new adventure was to be 
 undertaken, and Cattermole was to be joined with Browne 
 as its illustrator. Nor was its plan much modified before 
 starting, though it was felt by us all that, for the opening 
 numbers at least, Dickens would have to be sole contri- 
 butor ; and that, whatever otherwise might be its attrac- 
 tion, or the success of the detached papers proposed by 
 him, some reinforcement of them from time to time, by 
 means of a story with his name continued at reasonable if 
 not regular intervals, would be found absolutely necessary. 
 Without any such planned story, however, the work did 
 actually begin; its course afterwards being determined by 
 circurastances stronger than any project he had formed. 
 The agreement, drawn up in contemplation of a mere 
 miscellany of detached papers or essays, and in which no 
 mention of any story appeared, was signed at the end of 
 March ; and its terms were such as to place him in his 
 only proper and legitimate position in regard to all such 
 contracts, of being necessarily a gainer in any case, and, in 
 
EtEVESTH.] JNEW LITEEAET PROJECT. 175 
 
 the event of success, the greatest gainer of all concerned Pkibrs- 
 in the undertaking. All the risk of every kind was to be 1339! 
 undergone by the publishers ; and, as part of the expenses 
 to be defrayed by them of each weekly number, he was 
 to receive fifty pounds. Whatever the success or failure, Terms of 
 this was always to be paid. The numbers were then to " 
 be accounted for separately, and half the realized profits 
 paid to him, the other half going to the publishers ; each 
 number being held strictly responsible for itself, and the 
 loss upon it, supposing any, not carried to the general 
 account. The work was to be continued for twelve months 
 certain, with leave to the publishers then to close it ; but 
 if they elected to go on, he was himself bound to the 
 enterprise for five years, and the ultimate copyright as 
 well as profit was to be equally divided. 
 
 Six weeks before signature of this agreement, while a London. 
 title was still undetermined, I had this letter from him. 
 ' I will dine with you. I intended to spend the evening c. D. 
 ' in strict meditation (as I did last night) ; but perhaps I j, ji_ 
 ' had better go out, lest all work and no play should make 
 ' me a dull boy. I have a list of titles too, but the final 
 ' title I have determined on — or something very near it. 
 ' I have a notion of this old file in the queer house, open- Notion for 
 ' ing the book by an account of himself, and, among other 
 ' peculiarities, of his affection for an old quaint qu'eer-cased 
 ' clock ; showing how that when they have sat alone to- 
 ' gether in the long evenings, he has got accustomed to its 
 ' voice, and come to consider it as the voice of a friend ; 
 ' how its striking, in the night, has seemed like an assur- 
 ' ance to him that it was still a cheerful watcher at his 
 
176 THE LIFE OP CHARLES DICEENS. [Ch. xi. 
 
 London : ' chamber-door ; and how its very face has seemed to have 
 
 1839. . . . 
 
 ■ — ' something of welcome in its dusty features, and to relax 
 
 to 'from its grimness when he has looked at it from his 
 ' chimney-corner. Then I mean to tell how that he has 
 ' kept odd manuscripts in the old, deep, dark, silent closet 
 ' where the weights are ; and taken them from thence to 
 ' read (mixing up his enjoyments with some notion of 
 ' his clock) ; and how, when the club came to be formed, 
 'they, by reason of their punctuality and his regard 
 ' for this dumb servant, took their name from it. And 
 
 A name hit ' thus I shall call the book either Old Hum/phrey's 
 
 upon. 
 
 ' Clock, or Master Humphre'ifs Clock ; beginning with 
 'a woodcut of old Humphrey and his clock, and ex- 
 ' plaining the why and wherefore. All Humphrey's own 
 'papers will be dated then From my clock-side, and 1 
 ' have divers thoughts about the best means of intro- 
 ' ducing the others. I thought about this all day yeste'- 
 ' day and all last night till I went to bed. I am sure 
 Ranguine ' 1 can make a good thing of this opening, which I have 
 
 of success. 1 , • ) 
 
 ' thoroughly warmed up to m consequence. 
 
 A few days later: 'I incline rather more to Master 
 ' Humphrey's Clock than Old Humphrey's — if so be that 
 ' there is no danger of the Pensive confounding master 
 ' with a boy.' After two days more : ' I was thinking all 
 ' yesterday, and have begun at Master Humphrey to-day.' 
 Then, a week later : ' I have finished the first number, 
 ' but have not been able to do more in the space than 
 ' lead up to the Giants, who are just on the scene.' 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. 
 1840 AND 1841. 
 
 A DAT or two after the date of the last letter quoted, Bath: 
 Dickens and his wife, with Maclise and myself, visited -;-; 
 
 Visit to 
 
 Lander in Bath, and it was during three happy days we Landor. 
 passed together there that the fancy which was shortly 
 to take the form of little Nell first occun-ed to its author.* 
 
 ' I have mentioned the fact in my lAfc of Landor ; and to the passage I here 
 add the comment made by Dickens when he read it. ' It was at a celebration First 
 ' of his birthday in the first of his Bath lodgings, 35 St. James's-square, that thouglit of 
 ' the fancy which took the form of little Nell in the Owiosity Shop first 1"™^ Nell. 
 ' dawned on the genius of its creator. No character in prose fiction was a 
 ' greater favourite with Landor. He thought that, upon her, Juliet might for a 
 ' moment have turned her eyes from Romeo, and that Desdemona might have 
 * taken her hair-breadth escapes to heart, so interesting and pathetic did she 
 ' seem to him ; and when, some years later, the circumstance I have named 
 ' was recalled to him, he broke into one of those whimsical bursts of comical 
 ' extravagance out of which arose the fancy of Boythom. With tremendous 
 ' emphasis he confirmed the fact, and added that he had never in his life 
 ' regretted anything so much as his having failed to carry out an intention he 
 ' had formed respecting it ; for he meant to have purchased that house, 35 
 ' St. James's-square, and then and there to have burnt it to the ground, to the 
 ' end that no meaner association should ever desecrate the birthplace of Nell. 
 ' Then he would pause a little, become conscious of our sense of his absurdity, 
 'and break into a thundering peal of laughter.' Dickens had himself proposed „ ». 
 to tell this story as a contribution to my biography of our common friend, but jg 
 
 his departure for America prevented him. 'I see,' he wrote to me, as soon as J. P. 
 the published book reached him, ' you have told, with what our friend would gth May, 
 ' have called won-derful accuracy, the little St. James's-square story, which a 1869. 
 certain faithless wretch was to have related. ' 
 
 VOL. I. N 
 
178 THE LIFE OF CHAELES DICKENS. [Chapteb 
 
 LoNiioir : But as yet with the intention only of making out of 
 '- — it a tale of a few chapters. On the 1st of March we 
 
 returned from Bath ; and on the 4th I had this letter : 
 
 C. D. ' If you can manage to give me a call in the course 
 
 J. F. 'of the day or evening, I wish you would. I am la- 
 
 'boriously turning over iu my mind how I can best 
 
 ' effect the improvement we spoke of last night, which I 
 
 ' will certainly make by hook or by crook, and which I 
 
 'would like you to see before it goes finally to the 
 
 Hopeful of ' printer's. I have determined not to put that witch-story 
 
 Master . n -r • p i p 
 
 Hiunphiey. ' mto number 3, for I am by no means satisfied of the 
 ' effect of its contrast with Humphrey. I think of lengthen- 
 'ing Humphrey, finishing the description of the society, 
 ' and closing with the little child-stoiy, which is SXJEE to 
 ' be effective, especially after the old man's quiet way.' 
 Then there came hard upon this : ' What do you think of 
 ' the following double title for the beginning of that little 
 'tale? "Personal Adventuees of Master Humphrey: 
 '"The Old Curiosity Shop." I have thought of Master 
 'Humphrey's Tale, If aster Humphrey's Narrative, 
 'A Passage in Master Humphrey's Life — but I don't 
 
 A title for 'think any does as well as this. I have also thought 
 
 his story. 
 
 ' of The Old Curiosity Dealer wnd the Child instead 
 ' of The Old Curiosity Shop. Perpend. Topping waits.' 
 
 And thus was taking gradual form, with less direct 
 
 consciousness of design on his own part than I can 
 remember in any other instance of all his career, a story 
 which was to add largely to his popularity, more than any 
 other of his works to make the bond between himself and 
 his readers one of personal attachment, and very widely to 
 
Twelfth.] THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. 179 
 
 increase the sense entertained of his powers as a pathetic Londok : 
 as well as humorous writer. L_ 
 
 He had not written more than two or three chapters, 
 when the capability of the subject for more extended 
 treatment than he had at first proposed to give to it 
 pressed itself upon him, and he resolved to throw every- 
 thing else aside, devoting himself to the one story only. 
 There were other strong reasons for this. Of the first First sale 
 number of the Clock nearly seventy thousand were sold ; _ff„^. 
 but with the discovery that there was no continuous tale ^^| * 
 the orders at once diminished, and a change must have 
 been made even if the material and means for it had not 
 been ready. There had been an interval of three numbers 
 between the first and second chapters, which the society of 
 Mr. Pickwick and the two Wellers made pleasant enough ; 
 but after the introduction of Dick Swiveller there were 
 three consecutive chapters ; and in the continued progress 
 of the tale to its close there were only two more breaks, 
 one between the fourth and fifth chapters and one between 
 the eighth and ninth, pardonable and enjoyable now for 
 the sake of Sam and his father. The re-introduction of 
 these old favourites, it will have been seen, formed part 
 of his original plan ; of his abandonment of which his 
 own description may be added, from his preface to the 
 collected edition. ' The first chapter of this tale appeared Its original 
 'in the fourth number of Master Humphrey's Clock, joned. 
 ' when I had already been made uneasy by the desultory 
 ' character of that work, and when, I believe, my readers 
 'had thoroughly participated in the feeling. The com- 
 ' mencement of a story was a great satisfaction to me, and 
 
 N 2 
 
180 
 
 THE LIFE OF CHAELES DICKENS. 
 
 [Chapter 
 
 IiONDOU ; 
 
 1840. 
 
 Tote 
 limited to 
 one atory. 
 
 Dick 
 
 Swireller. 
 
 Disadvan- 
 tages of 
 weeldy 
 publica- 
 tion. 
 
 ' I had reason to believe that my readers participated in 
 ' this feeling too. Hence, being pledged to some inter- 
 ' ruptions and some pursuit of the original design, I set 
 ' cheerfully about disentangling myself from those impedi- 
 ' ments as fast as I could ; and, this done, from that time 
 ' until its completion The Old Curiosity Shop was written 
 ' and published from week to week, in weekly parts.' 
 
 He had very early himself become greatly taken with 
 it. 'I am very glad indeed,' he wrote to me after the 
 first half-dozen chapters, ' that you think so well of the 
 ' Curiosity Shop, and especially that what may be got 
 ' out of Dick strikes you. I mean to make much of 
 'him. I feel the stoiy extremely myself, which I take 
 ' to be a good sign ; and am already warmly interested 
 ' in it. I shall run it on now for four whole numbers 
 ' together, to give it a fair chance.' Every step lightened 
 the road as it became more and more real with each 
 character that appeared in it, and I still recall the glee 
 with which he told me what he intended to do not 
 only with Dick Swiveller, but with Septimus Brass, 
 changed aftei"wards to Sampson. Undoubtedly, however, 
 Dick Avas his favourite. ' Dick's behaviour in the matter 
 ' of Miss Wackles will, I hope, give you satisfaction,' is the 
 remark of another of his letters. ' I cannot yet discover 
 ' that his aunt has any belief in him, or is in the least 
 ' degree likely to send him a remittance, so that he will 
 'probably continue to be the sport of destiny.' His 
 difficulties were the quickly recurring times of publication, 
 the confined space in each number that yet had to contri- 
 bute its individual effect, and (from the suddenness with 
 
Twelfth.] THE OLD CUEIOSITT SHOP. 181 
 
 which he had begun) the impossibility of getting in Londok : 
 
 advance. ' I was obliged to cramp most dreadfully what '-■- 
 
 ' I thought a pretty idea in the last chapter. I hadn't 
 ' room to turn ' : to this or a similar effect his complaints 
 are frequent, and of the vexations named it was by far the 
 worst. But he steadily bore up against all, and made a 
 triumph of the little story. 
 
 To help his work he went twice to Broadstairs, in June Bkoap- 
 
 STAIRS ' 
 
 and in September. From this he wrote to me (17th June) : 17th Juno 
 
 ' It's now four o'clock and I have been at work since half- 
 
 ' past eight. I have really dried myself up into a condi- 
 
 ' tion which would almost justify me in pitching off the 
 
 ' cliff, head first — but I must get richer before I indulge in 
 
 ' a crowning luxury. Number 15, which I began to-day, I 
 
 ' anticipate great things from. There is a description of The old 
 
 . man's 
 
 'getting gradually out of town, and passmg through flight from 
 ' neighbourhoods of distinct and various characters, with 
 ' which, if I had read it as anybody else's writing, I think 
 ' I should have been very much struck. The child and 
 'the old man are on their journey of course, and the 
 ' subject is a very pretty one.' Between these two Broad- 
 stairs visits he wrote to me : ' I intended calling on you 
 ' this morning on my way back from Bevis-marks, whither in Bevis. 
 ' I went to look at a house for Sampson Brass. But I got "^^ 
 • mingled up in a kind of social paste with the jews of 
 ' Houndsditch, and roamed about among them till I came 
 ' out in IVToorfields, quite unexpectedly. So I got into a 
 ' cab, and came home again, very tired, by way of the 
 ' city-road.' At the opening of September he was again 
 at Broadstairs. The residence he most desired there, 
 
182 THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. [Chaftkb 
 
 BRoiD- Fort-honse, stood prominently at the top of a breezy hill 
 
 am 4 TTjfl • 
 
 1840.' on the road to Kingsgate, with a corn-field between it 
 
 and the sea, and this in many subsequent years he always 
 
 occupied ; but he was fain to be content, as yet, with 
 
 Iiawu- Lawn-house, a smaller villa between the hill and the 
 
 hou£e. 
 
 corn-field, from which he now wrote of his attentions to 
 Sally Brass. ]y[r. Sampson Brass's sister. 'I have been at work of 
 ' course ' (2nd September) ' and have just finished a 
 ' number. I have effected a reform by virtue of which 
 ' we breakfast at a quarter before eight, so that I get 
 'to work at half-past, and am commonly free by one 
 ' o'clock or so, which is a great happiness. Dick is now 
 ' Sampson's clerk, and I have touched Miss Brass in 
 ' Number 25, lightly, but effectively I hope.' 
 
 At this point it became necessary to close the first 
 volume of the Clock, which was issued accordingly with a 
 dedication to Rogers, and a preface to which allusion wiU he 
 Chapter 38. made hereafter. ' I have opened the second volume,' he 
 wrote to me on the 9th of September, ' with Kit ; and I saw 
 ' this morning looking out at the sea, as if a veil had been 
 ' lifted up, an affecting thing that I can do with him bye 
 ' and bye. Nous verrons.' ' I am glad you like that Kit 
 ' number,' he wrote twelve days later, ' I thought you 
 Changes in ' would. I have altered that about the opera-going. Of 
 ' course I had no intention to delude the many-headed 
 ' into a false belief concerning opera nights, but merely to 
 ' specify a class of senators. I needn't have done it, how- 
 ' ever, for God knows they're pretty well all alike.' This 
 referred to an objection made by me to something he had 
 written of 'opera-going senators on Wednesday nights ; ' 
 
Twelfth.] THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. 183 
 
 and, of another change made in compliance with some Broad- 
 
 other objection of mine, he -ftTote on the 4th of October : i840. 
 
 ' You wUl receive the proof herewith. I have altered it. Cliapter42. 
 
 'You must let it stand now. I really think the dead 
 
 'mankind a million fathoms deep, the best thing in 
 
 ' the sentence. I have a notion of the dreadful silence 
 
 ' down there, and of the stars shining down upon their 
 
 'drowned eyes— the fruit, let me tell you, of a solitary 
 
 ' walk by starlight on the cliffs. As to the child-image 
 
 'I have made a note of it for alteration. In number 
 
 ' thirty there will be some cutting needed, I think. I 
 
 ' have, however, something in my eye near the beginning 
 
 ' which I can easily take out. You will recognize a descrip- 
 
 ' tion of the road we travelled between Birmingham and 
 
 ' "Wolverhampton : but I had conceived it so well in my 
 
 ' mind that the execution doesn't please me quite as well 
 
 ' as I expected. I shall be curious to know whether you Cliapters 
 
 43-45 
 
 ' think there's anything in the notion of the man and his 
 ' furnace-fire. It would have been a good thing to have 
 ' opened a new story with, I have been thinking since.' 
 
 In the middle of October he returned to town, and by London. 
 the end of the month he had so far advanced that the 
 close of the story began to be not far distant. ' Tell me 
 ' what you think,' he had written just before his return, 
 ' of 36 and 37 ? The way is clear for Kit now, and for 
 'a great effect at the last with the Marchioness.' The Dick and 
 last allusion I could not in the least understand, until I cMoness. 
 found, in the numbers just sent me, those exquisite chapters 
 of the tale, the 57th and 58th, in which Dick Swiveller 
 realizes his threat to Miss Wackles, discovers the smaU 
 
184. THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. [Chaptl-h 
 
 London : creature that his destiny is expressly saving up for him, 
 • '■ — dubs her Marchioness, and teaches her the delights of hot 
 
 purl and cribbage. This is comedy of the purest kind ; 
 its great charm being the good-hearted fellow's kindness 
 to the poor desolate child hiding itself under cover of what 
 seems only mirth and fun. Altogether, and because of 
 rather than in spite of his weaknesses, Dick is a capti- 
 Master- vating person. His gaiety and good humour survive such 
 kindly fun. accumulations of ' staggerers,' he makes such discoveries of 
 the ' rosy ' in the very smallest of drinks, and becomes him- 
 self by his solacements of verse such a ' perpetual grand 
 ' Apollo,' that his failings are all forgiven ; and hearts 
 resolutely shut against victims of destiny in general, open 
 themselves freely to Dick Swiveller. 
 
 At the opening of November, there seems to have 
 been a wish on Maclise's part to try his hand at an 
 illustration for the story ; but I do not remember that it 
 bore other fruit than a very pleasant day at Jack Straw's- 
 castle, where Dickens read one of the later numbers to 
 C. n. us. ' Maclise and myself (alone in the carriage),' he wi'ote, 
 J. p_ ' will be with you at two exactly. We propose driving 
 ' out to Hampstead and walking there, if it don't rain in 
 ' buckets'-full. I shan't send Bradburys' the MS. of next 
 ' number till to-morrow, for it contains the shadow of the 
 ' number after that, and I want to read it to Mac, as, if 
 ' he likes the subject, it will furnish him with one, I think. 
 'You can't imagine (gravely I write and speak) how 
 Closing of ' exhausted I am to-day with yesterday's labours. I went 
 'to bed last night utterly dispirited and done up. All 
 ' night I have been pursued by the child ; and this mom- 
 
TwELiTH] THE OLD CUEIOSITT SHOP. 185 
 
 ' ing I am unrefreshed and miserable. I don't know wbat Lonbon : 
 
 18^0. 
 
 ' to do with myself. . . I think the close of the story will 
 
 ' be great.' Connected with the same design on Maclise's 
 
 part there was another reading, this time at my house, 
 
 and of the number shadowed forth by what had been read 
 
 at Hampstead. 'I will bring the MS,' he writes on the ] 2th 
 
 of November, ' and, for Mac's information if needful, the 
 
 ' number before it. I have only this moment put the 
 
 ' finishing touch to it. The difficulty has been tremendous 
 
 ' — the anguish unspeakable. I didn't say six. Therefore Effect upon 
 
 ' dine at half-past five like a Christian. I shall bring Mac 
 
 • at that hour.' 
 
 He had sent me, shortly before, the chapters in which the 
 Marchioness nurses Dick in his fever, and puts his favourite 
 philosophy to the hard test of asking him whether he has 
 ever put pieces of orange-peel into cold water and made 
 believe it was wine. ' If you make believe veiy much it's c. D. 
 ' quite nice ; but if you don't, you know, it hasn't much j ji_ 
 ' flavour : " so it stood originally, and to the latter word in 
 the little creature's mouth I seem to have objected. Re- 
 plying (on the 16th of December) he writes : '"If you 
 ' " make believe very much it's quite nice; but if you don't, Making- 
 ' " you know, it seems as if it would bear a little more veiy muoh. 
 ' " seasoning, certainly." I think that's better. Flavour is a 
 ' common word in cookery, and among cooks, and so I 
 'used it. The part you cut out in the other number, 
 ' which was sent me this morning, I had put in with a 
 ' view to Quilp's last appearance on any stage, which is 
 ' casting its shadow upon my mind ; but it will come well 
 ' enough without such a preparation, so I made no change. 
 
186 
 
 THE LIFE OF CHAELES DICKENS. 
 
 [Chapter 
 
 London ; 
 1840. 
 
 C. D. 
 
 to 
 J. P. 
 
 The end 
 
 approaoh." 
 
 ing. 
 
 C. D. 
 
 to 
 J. F. 
 7tli Jan. 
 1841. 
 
 Death of 
 Little NeU. 
 
 ' I mean to shirk Sir Robert Inglis, and work to-night. I 
 ' have been solemnly revolving the general story all this 
 'morning. The forty-fifth number will certainly close. 
 ' Perhaps this forty-first which I am now at work on, had 
 'better contain the announcement of Barnaby? I am 
 ' glad you like Dick and the Marchioness in that sixty- 
 ' fourth chapter — I thought you would.' 
 
 Fast shortening as the life of little Nell was now, the 
 dying year might have seen it pass away; but I never 
 knew him wind up any tale with such a sorrowful reluct- 
 ance as this. He caught at any excuse to hold his hand 
 from it, and stretched to the utmost limit the time left to 
 complete it in. Christmas interposed its delays too, so 
 that twelfth-night had come and gone when 1 wrote to 
 him in the beUef that he was nearly done. ' Done ! ' he 
 wrote back to me on Friday the 7th, ' Done ! ! ! Why 
 ' bless you, I shall not be done till Wednesday night. I 
 ' only began yesterday, and this part of the story is not to 
 ' be galloped over, I can tell you. I think it will come 
 ' famously — ^but 1 am the wretchedest of the wretched. 
 ' It casts the most horrible shadow upon me, and it is as 
 ' much as I can do to keep moving at all. I tremble to 
 ' approach the place a great deal more than Kit ; a great 
 ' deal more than Mr. Garland ; a great deal more than 
 ' the Single Gentleman. I shan't recover it for a long 
 ' time. Nobody will miss her like I shall. It is such a 
 ' very painful thing to me, that I really cannot express 
 ' my sorrow. Old wounds bleed afresh when I only think 
 ' of the way of doing it : what the actual doing it will be, 
 ' God knows. I can't preach to myself the schoolmaster's 
 
TwEi^H.] THE OLD CUEIOSITY SHOP. ]87 
 
 ' consolation, though I try. Dear Mary died yesterday, London : 
 
 ' when I think of this sad story. I don't know what to say '- — • 
 
 ' about dining to-morrow — perhaps you'll send up to- sorrow. 
 ' morrow morning for news ? That'll be the best way. I 
 ' have refused several invitations for this week and next, 
 ' determining to go nowhere till I had done. I am afraid 
 ' of disturbing the state I have been trying to get into, 
 ' and having to fetch it aU back again.' He had finished, 
 all but the last chapter, on the Wednesday named ; that 
 was the 12th of January ; and on the following night he 
 read to me the two chapters of Nell's death, the 71st and 
 72nd, with the result described in a letter to me of the 
 following Monday, the 17th January 1841. 
 
 ' I can't help letting you know how much your C. D. 
 ' yesterday's letter pleased me. I felt sure you liked j. f. 
 'the chapters when we read them on Thursday night, but i^th Jan. 
 ' it was a great delight to have my impression so strongly 
 'and heartily confirmed. You know how little value 1 
 ' should set on what I had done, if all the world cried out 
 'that it was good, and those whose good opinion and 
 ' approbation I value most were silent. The assurance 
 ' that this little closing of the scene touches and is felt by 
 'you so strongly, is better to me than a thousand most 
 ' sweet voices out of doors. When I first began, on your 
 ' valued suggestion, to keep my thoughts upon this ending 
 ' of the tale, I resolved to try and do something which 
 ' might be read by people about whom Death had been, 
 ' with a softened feeling, and with consolation. . . After you 
 ' left last night, I took my desk upstairs ; and writing The end. 
 ' until four o'clock this morning, finished the old story. It 4 a.in. 
 
188 
 
 THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 [Chapter 
 
 LoNDOS : 
 1841. 
 
 A 3Ug' 
 
 gestion 
 
 • makes me very melancholy to think that all these people 
 'are lost to me for ever, and I feel as if I never could 
 ' become attached to any new set of characters.' The words 
 printed in italics, as underlined by himself, give me my 
 share in the story which had gone so closely to his heart. I 
 was responsible for its tragic ending. He had not thought 
 of killing her, when, about half way through, I asked him 
 adopted by to consider whether it did not necessarily belong even to 
 ^ his own conception, after taking so mere a child through 
 
 such a tragedy of sorrow, to lift her also out of the com- 
 monplace of ordinary happy endings, so that the gentle 
 pure little figure and form should never change to the 
 fancy. All that I meant he seized at once, and never 
 turned aside from it again. 
 
 The published book was an extraordinary success, and, 
 in America more especially, very greatly increased the 
 writer's fame. The pathetic vein it had opened was 
 perhaps mainly the cause of this, but opinion at home 
 continued still to turn on the old characteristics; the 
 freshness of humour of which the pathos was but another 
 form and product, the grasp of reality with which character 
 had again been seized, the discernment of good under its 
 least attractive forms and of evil in its most captivating 
 disguises, the cordial wisdom and sound heart, the enjoy- 
 ment and fun, luxuriant yet under proper control. No fall- 
 ing-off was found in these, and I doubt if any of his people 
 have been more widely liked than Dick Swiveller and the 
 Marchioness. The characters generally indeed work out 
 their share in the purpose of the tale ; the extravagances 
 of some of them help to intensify its meaning ; and the 
 
 Success of 
 the stoiy. 
 
 Its ciarao- 
 teristics. 
 
TwELpra.] THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. 189 
 
 sayings and doings of the worst and the best alike have London -. 
 their point and applicability. Many an over-suspicious 
 
 .„ „ , , . , . , TJseful 
 
 person will find advantage in remembering what a too lessons. 
 
 liberal application of Foxey's principle of suspecting 
 everybody brought Mr. Sampson Brass to ; and many an 
 overhasty judgment of poor human nature will uncon- 
 sciously be checked, when it is remembered that Mr. 
 Christopher Nubbles did come back to work out that 
 shilling. 
 
 But the main idea and chief figure of the piece consti- Tie cHld- 
 
 1 1 ■ • 1 heroine. 
 
 tute its interest for most people, and give it rank upon the 
 whole with the most attractive productions of English 
 fiction. I am not acquainted with any story in the 
 language more adapted to strengthen in the heart what 
 most needs help and encouragement, to sustain kindly 
 and innocent impulses, and to awaken everywhere the 
 sleeping germs of good. It includes necessarily much 
 pain, much uninterrupted sadness ; and yet the brightness 
 and sunshine quite overtop the gloom. The humour is so 
 benevolent ; the view of errors that have no depravity of 
 heart in them is so indulgent ; the quiet courage under 
 calamity, the purity that nothing impure can soil, are so 
 full of tender teaching. Its effect as a mere piece of art, 
 too, considering the circumstances in which I have shown 
 it to be written, I think very noteworthy. It began with Con- 
 a plan for but a short half dozen chapters ; it grew into bit by bit. 
 a full-proportioned story under the warmth of the feeling 
 it had inspired its writer with; its veiy incidents created a 
 necessity at first not seen ; and it was carried to a close 
 only contemplated after a full half of it had been written. 
 
190 
 
 THE LIFE OF CHAELES DICKENS. 
 
 [Chapter 
 
 LoNDOir : 
 1841. 
 
 Harmony 
 of effect. 
 
 Fitness of 
 means. 
 
 Hogarth- 
 ian. 
 
 Beginning 
 and end. 
 
 Yet, from the opening of the tale to that undesigned 
 ending ; from the image of little Nell asleep amid the 
 quaint grotesque figures of the old curiosity warehouse, to 
 that other final sleep she takes among the grim forms and 
 cai-vings of the old church aisle; the main purpose seems 
 to be always present. The characters and incidents that 
 at first appear most foreign to it, are found to have had with 
 it a close relation. The hideous lumber and rottenness 
 that surround the child in her grandfather's home, take 
 shape again in Quilp and his filthy gang. In the first still 
 picture of Nell's innocence in the midst of strange and 
 alien forms, we have the forecast of her after- wanderings, 
 her patient miseries, her sad maturity of experience be- 
 fore its time. Without the show-people and their blended 
 fictions and realities, their waxworks, dwarfs, giants, and 
 performing dogs, the picture would have wanted some part 
 of its significance. Nor could the genius of Hogarth 
 himself have given it higher expression than in the scenes 
 by the cottage door, the furnace fire, and the burial place 
 of the old church, over whose tombs and gravestones hang 
 the puppets of Mr. Punch's show while the exhibitors are 
 mending and repairing them. And when, at last, Nell 
 sits within the quiet old church where all her wanderings 
 end, and gazes on those silent monumental groups of 
 warriors ; helmet^, swords, and gauntlets wasting away 
 around them ; the associations among which her life had 
 opened seem to have come crowding on the scene again, 
 to be present at its close. But, stripped of their strange- 
 ness ; deepened into solemn shapes by the suffering she 
 has undergone ; gently fusing every feeling of a life past 
 
Twelfth.] THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. 191 
 
 into hopeful and familiar anticipation of a life to come ; Londoit : 
 and already imperceptibly lifting her, without grief or ^ — 
 
 pain, from the earth she loves, yet whose gi'osser paths 
 her light steps only touched to show the track through 
 them to Heaven. This is genuine art, and such as all 
 cannot fail to recognize who read the book in a right 
 sympathy with the conception that pervades it. Nor, 
 great as the discomfort was of reading it in brief 
 weekly snatches, can I be wholly certain that the dis- 
 comfort of so writing it involved nothing but disadvantage. 
 With so much in every portion to do, and so little space 
 to do it in, the opportunities to a writer for mere self- 
 indulgence were necessarily rare. 
 
 Of the innumerable tributes the story has received, and A recent 
 to none other by Dickens have more or more various 
 been paid, there is one, the very last, which has much 
 affected me. Not many months before my friend's death, 
 he had sent me two Overland Monthlies containing two 
 sketches by a young American writer far away in California, 
 'The Luck of Bearing Camp,' and 'The Outcasts of Sketches 
 ' Poker Flat,' in which he had found such subtle strokes Dkke^s m 
 of character as he had not anywhere else in late years ^ ' 
 discovered; the manner resembling himself, but the 
 matter fresh to a degree that had surprised him; the 
 painting in all respects masterly, and the wild rude thing 
 painted a quite wonderful reality. I have rarely known 
 him more honestly moved. A few months passed ; tele- 
 graph wires flashed over the world that he had passed 
 away on the 9th of June ; and the young writer of whom 
 he had then written to me, all unconscious of that praise, 
 
192 
 
 THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 [Chapter 
 
 London : put his tribute of gratefulness and sorrow into the form of 
 a poem called Dickens in Camp* It embodies the same 
 kind of incident which had so affected the master him- 
 
 Verses by 
 the same 
 
 JunelWO. sslf; ^^ *^® papers to which I have referred; it shows 
 the gentler influences, which, in even those Californiaa 
 wilds, can restore outlawed ' roaring camps ' to silence and 
 humanity ; and there is hardly any form of posthumous 
 tribute which I can imagine likely to have better satisfied 
 his desire of fame, than one which should thus connect, 
 with the special favourite among all his heroines, the 
 restraints and authority exerted by his genius over the 
 rudest and least civilized of competitors in that far fierce 
 race for wealth. 
 
 ' Dickens 
 ia Camp. • 
 
 Above tbe pines tie moon was slowly drifting, 
 
 Tlie river sang below ; 
 The dim Sierras, far beyond, uplifting 
 
 Tbeir minarets of snow : 
 
 The roaring camp-fire, with rude humour, painted 
 
 The ruddy tints of health 
 On haggard face and form that drooped and fainted 
 
 In the fierce race for wealth ; 
 
 Till one arose, and from his pack's scant treasure 
 
 A hoarded volume drew, 
 And cards were dropped from hands of listless leisure 
 
 To hear the tale anew ; 
 
 And then, while round them shadows gathered faster, 
 
 And as the fire-light fell, 
 He read aloud the book wherein the Master 
 
 Had writ of " Little NeU : " 
 
 * Poems. By Bret Harte (Boston : Osgood & Co. 1871), pp. 32-5. 
 
TwEUTii,] THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP. I93 
 
 Perhaps 'twas boyish, fancy, — for the reader ' Dickens 
 
 "Was youngest of them all,— '" Camp. ' 
 
 But, as he read, from clustering pine and cedar 
 A silence seemed to fall ; 
 
 The fir-trees, gathering closer in the shadows, 
 
 Listened in every spray. 
 While the whole camp, with " Nell " on English meadows, 
 
 Wandered and lost their way: 
 
 And so in mountain solitudes — o'ertaken 
 
 As hy some spell divine — 
 Their cares dropped from them like the needles shakec 
 
 From out the gusty pine. 
 
 Lost is that camp, and wasted all its fire ; 
 
 And he who wrought that spell ? — 
 Ah, towering pine and stately Kentish spire, 
 
 Te have one tale to tell I 
 
 Lost is that camp 1 but let its fragrant story 
 
 Blend with the breath that thrills 
 With hop-vines' incense all the pensive gloiy 
 
 That fills the Kentish hills. 
 
 And on that grave where English oak and holly 
 
 And laurel wreaths entwine, 
 Deem it not all a too presumptuous folly, — 
 
 This spray of Western pine I 
 
 JwJy, 1870. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 LONDOM ; 
 
 1840. 
 
 A good 
 saying. 
 
 Lander 
 mystified. 
 
 DEVONSHIRE TERRACE AND BROADSTAIRS. 
 1840. 
 
 It was an excellent saying of the first Lord Shaftesbury, 
 that, seeing every man of any capacity holds within him- 
 self two men, the wise and the foolish, each of them ought 
 freely to be allowed his turn ; and it was one of the secrets 
 of Dickens's social charm that he could, in strict accord- 
 ance with this saying, allow each part of him its turn: 
 could afford thoroughly to give rest and relief to what was 
 serious in him ; and, when the time came to play his 
 gambols, could surrender himself wholly to the enjoyment 
 of the time, and become the very genius and embodiment 
 of one of his own most whimsical fancies. 
 
 Turning back from the narrative of his last piece of 
 writing to recall a few occurrences of the year during 
 which it had occupied him, I find him at its opening in 
 one of these humorous moods, and another friend, with 
 myself, enslaved by its influence. ' What on earth does it 
 ' all mean,' wrote poor puzzled Mr. Landor to me, enclosing 
 a letter from him of the date of the 11th of February, the 
 day after the royal nuptials of that year. In this he had 
 related to our old friend a wonderful hallucination arising 
 
Ch.xiu.] DEVONSHIRE TERKACE AND BROADSTAIRS. 195 
 
 out of that event, -which had then taken entire possession Lohbon : 
 of him. ' Society is unhinged here,' thus ran the letter, 
 
 'by her majesty's marriage, and I am sorry to add that fuiside^of' 
 
 'I have fallen hopelessly in love with the Queen, and ^'''''^"^■ 
 
 'wander up and down with vague and dismal thoughts 
 
 ' of running away to some uninhabited island with a maid 
 
 ' of honor, to be entrapped by conspiracy for that purpose. 
 
 ' Can you suggest any particular young person, serving in 
 
 ' such a capacity, who would suit me ? It is too much per- a bold 
 
 ' haps to ask you to join the band of noble youths (Forster p^"?™* ■ 
 
 ' is in it, and Maclise) who are to assist me in this great 
 
 ' enterprise, but a man of your energy would be invaluable. 
 
 ' I have my eye upon Lady . . . , principally because she is 
 
 ' very beautiful and has no strong brothers. Upon this, and 
 
 ' other points of the scheme, however, we will confer more 
 
 ' at large when we meet ; and meanwhile burn this docu- 
 
 ' ment, that no suspicion may arise or rumour get abroad.' 
 
 The maid of honor and the uninhabited island were Extrava- 
 flights of fancy, but the other daring delusion was for a 
 time encouraged to such whimsical lengths, not alone by 
 him, but (under his influence) by the two friends named, 
 that it took the wildest forms of humorous extravagance ; 
 and of the private confidences much interchanged, as well 
 as of the style of open speech in which our joke of despair- 
 ing unfitness for any further use or enjoyment of life was 
 unflaggingly kept up, to the amazement of bystanders 
 knowing nothing of what it meant, and behoving we had 
 half lost our senses, I permit myself to give from his letters 
 one further illustration. ' I am utterly lost in misery,' he 
 writes to me on the 12th of February, 'and can do nothing, 
 
 o 2 
 
596 
 
 THE LIFE OF CHAELES DICKENS. 
 
 [C'HArTEB 
 
 London ; 
 1840. 
 
 C. D. 
 
 to 
 J. F. 
 
 amng 
 thoughts. 
 
 Biding 
 exercise. 
 
 'I have been reading Oliver, Pickwick, and Nickleby to get 
 ' my thoughts together for the new effort, but all in vain : 
 
 ' My heart is at 'W'iD.dBOr, 
 
 ' My heart isn't here ; 
 'My heart is at Windsor, 
 
 ' A following my dear. 
 
 ' I saw the Kesponsibilities this morning, and burst into 
 ' tears. The presence of my wife aggravates me. I loathe 
 ' my parents. I detest my house. I begin to have thoughts 
 ' of the Serpentine, of the regent's-canal, of the razors 
 ' upstairs, of the chemist's down the street, of poisoning 
 
 • myself at Mrs. 's table, of hanging myself upon the 
 
 ' pear-tree in the garden, of abstaining from food and 
 ' starving myself to death, of being bled for my cold and 
 ' tearing off the bandage, of falling under the feet of cab- 
 ' horses in the New-road, of murdering Chapman and Hall 
 ' and becoming great in story (She must hear something oi 
 ' me then — perhaps sign the warrant : or is that a fable 1), 
 ' of turning Chartist, of heading some bloody assault upon 
 
 ' the palace and saving Her by my single hand of being 
 
 ' anything but what I have been, and doing anything but 
 ' what I have done. Your distracted friend, C. D.' The 
 wild derangement of asterisks in every shape and forn:, 
 with which this incoherence closed, cannot here be given. 
 Some ailments which dated from an earlier period in his 
 life made themselves felt in the spring of the year, as I 
 remember, and increased horse exercise was strongly re- 
 commended to him. ' I find it will be positively necessary 
 ' to go, for five days in the week at least,' he wrote to me 
 in March, ' on a perfect regimen of diet and exercise, and 
 
TaiETKENTH.] DEVONSHIEE TERRACE AJSTD BROADSTAIRS. I97 
 
 ' am anxious therefore not to delay treating for a horse.' Lohdon : 
 We were now in consequence, when he was not at the sea- 
 
 side, much on horseback in suburban lanes and roads ; and ^st of his 
 the spacious garden of his new house was also turned to 
 healthful use at even his busiest times of work. 1 aiark 
 this, too, as the time when the first of his ravens took up 
 residence there ; and as the beginning of disputes with 
 two of his neighbours about the smoking of the stable- 
 chimney, which his groom Topping, a highly absurd little Groom 
 
 Topping, 
 
 man with flaming red hair, so complicated by secret 
 devices of his own, meant to conciliate each complainant 
 alternately and having the effect of aggravating both, 
 that law proceedings were only barely avoided. ' I shall 0- ^• 
 
 to 
 
 ' give you,' he writes, ' my latest report of the chimney J. P. 
 
 ' in the form of an address from Topping, made to me 
 
 ' on our way from little Hall's at Norwood the other 
 
 ' night, where he and Chapman and I had been walking 
 
 ' all day, while Topping drove Kate, Mrs. Hall, and her 
 
 'sisters, to Dulwich. Topping had been regaled upon 
 
 ' the premises, and was just drunk enough to be con- 
 
 ' fidential. " Beggin' your pardon, sir, but the genelman 
 
 ' " next door sir, seems to be gettin' quite comfortable and 
 
 '"pleasant about the chim'ley." — "I don't think he is, 
 
 ' " Topping." — " Yes he is sir I think. He comes out in 
 
 ' " the yard this morning and says, Goachinan he says " 
 
 ' (observe the vision of a great large fat man called up by 
 
 ' the word) " is that your raven he says. Coachman ? or 
 
 ' "is it Mr. Dickens's raven? he says. My master's sir, 
 
 ' " I says. Well, he says, Ifs a fine bird. I think the 
 
 ' " chimley 'ill do now Coachman, — now the jint's taken 
 
198 
 
 THE LIFE OF CHAELES DICKENS. 
 
 [Chapter 
 
 LoifBOH : 
 1840. 
 
 Tlie smoky 
 chimneys. 
 
 .Juryman 
 at an 
 inquest. 
 
 ' " of the pipe he says. I Lope it will sir, I says ; my 
 ' " master's a genelman as wouldn't annoy no genelman if 
 ' " he could help it, I'm sure ; and my missis is so afraid 
 ' " of havin' a bit o' fire that o' Sundays our little bit o' 
 ' " weal or wot not, goes to the baker's a purpose. — 
 ' " Damn the chimley, Coachman, he says, it's a smoJcin 
 ' " now. — It a'nt a smokin your way sir, I says ; Well he 
 ' " says no more it is, Coachman, and as long as it smokes 
 ' " anybody else's way, it's all right and I'm, agreeable." 
 ' Of course I shall now have the man from the other side 
 ' upon me, and very likely with an action of nuisance for 
 ' smoking into his conservatory.' 
 
 A graver incident, which occurred to him also among 
 his earliest experiences as tenant of Devonshire-terrace, 
 illustrates too well the always practical turn of his kind- 
 ness and humanity not to deserve relation here. He has 
 himself described it, in one of his minor writings, in 
 setting down what he remembered as the only good that 
 ever came of a beadle. Of that great parish functionary, 
 he says, 'having newly taken the lease of a house in a 
 ' certain distinguished metropolitan parish, a house which 
 ' then appeared to me to be a frightfully first-class family 
 ' mansion involving awful responsibihties, I became the 
 'prey.' In other words he was summoned, and obliged 
 to sit, as juryman at an inquest on the body of a little 
 child alleged to have been murdered by its mother; of 
 which the result was, that, by his persevering exertion, 
 seconded by the humane help of the coroner, Mr. Wakley, 
 the verdict of himself and his fellow-jurymen charged her 
 only with concealment of the birth. ' The poor desolate 
 
THmTEENTH] DEVONSHIEE TEREACE AND BE0ADSTAIR8. 199 
 
 ' creature dropped upon her knees before us with protesta- Londoh ■ 
 ' tions that we were right (protestations among the most 
 
 'affecting that I have ever heard in my life), and was 
 
 ' carried away insensible. I caused some extra care to Practical 
 
 humanity. 
 
 ' be taken of her in the prison, and counsel to be retained 
 ' for her defence when she was tried at the Old Bailey ; 
 'and her sentence was lenient, and her history and 
 ■ conduct proved that it was right.' How much he felt the 
 little incident, at the actual time of its occurrence, may be 
 judged from the few lines written to me next morning: 
 ' Whether it was the poor baby, or its poor mother, or the 
 ' coffin, or my fellow-jurymen, or what not, I can't say, but 
 'last night I had a most violent attack of sickness and 
 ' indigestion which not only prevented me from sleeping, 
 ' but even from lying down. Accordingly Kate and I sat 
 ' up through the dreary watches.' 
 
 The day of the first publication of Master Humphrey Birmino- 
 (Saturday, 4th April) had by this time come, and, accord- Publication 
 ing to the rule observed in his two other great ventures, Qig^j^'^ (;,^t 
 he left town with Mrs. Dickens on Friday the 3rd. With number. 
 Maclise we had been together at Richmond the previous 
 night; and I joined him at Birmingham the day following 
 with news of the sale of the whole sixty thousand copies 
 to which the first working had been limited, and of orders 
 already in hand for ten thousand more ! The excite- 
 ment of the success somewhat lengthened our holiday ; A hoiiiiay. 
 and, after visiting Shakespeare's house at Stratford 
 and Johnson's at Lichfield, we found our resources so 
 straitened in returning, that, employing as our messenger 
 of need his younger brother Alfred, who had joined us 
 
200 
 
 THE LIFE OP CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 [Chapteb 
 
 Broad- 
 
 STAIES : 
 
 1840. 
 
 Transfer of 
 Barnalyy 
 Rudge 
 settled. 
 
 C. D. 
 
 to 
 J. P. 
 
 The pot- 
 boy traitor. 
 
 A true pre- 
 diction. 
 
 from Tamworth where he was a student-engineer, we had 
 to pawn our gold watches at Bh-mingham. 
 
 At the end of the following month he went to Broadstairs, 
 and not many days before (on the 20th of May) a note frora 
 Mr. Jerdan on behalf of Mr.Bentley opened the negotiations 
 foi-merly referred to,* which transferred to Messrs. Ch'ip- 
 man and Hall the agreement for Barnaby Rudge. I was 
 myself absent when he left, and in a letter announcing his 
 departure he had written : ' I don't know of a word of 
 'news in all London, but there will be plenty next week, 
 'for I am going away, and I hope you'll send me an 
 ' account of it. I am doubtful whether it will be a murder, 
 ' a fire, a vast robbery, or the escape of Gould, but it will 
 'be something remarkable no doubt. I almost blame 
 ' myself for the death of that poor girl who leaped off the 
 ' monument upon my leaving town last year. She would 
 ' not have done it if I had remained, neither would the two 
 ' men have found the skeleton in the sewers.' His predic- 
 tion was quite accurate, for I had to tell him, after not 
 many days, of the potboy who shot at the queen. ' It's 
 'a great pity,' he replied very sensibly, 'they couldn't 
 ' suffocate that boy. Master Oxford, and say no more about 
 ' it. To have put him quietly between two feather-beds 
 ' would have stopped his heroic speeches, and dulled the 
 ' sound of his glory very much. As it is, she will have 
 ' to run the gauntlet of many a fool and madman, some of 
 ' whom may perchance be better shots and use other than 
 ' Brummagem firearms.' How much of this actually came 
 to pass, the reader knows. 
 
 * See ante, p. 141. 
 
TniiwEBNTH.] DEVONSHIRE TERRACE AND BROADSTAIR?. 201 
 
 From the letters of his present Broadstairs visit, there London: 
 
 IS little further to add to their account of his progress 
 
 with his story ; but a couple more lines may be given for 
 their characteristic expression of his invariable habit 
 upon entering any new abode, whether to stay in it for 
 days or for years. On a Monday night he arrived, and 
 on the Tuesday (2nd of June) wrote to me : ' Before I 
 ' tasted bit or drop yesterday, I set out my writing-table HaWta of 
 
 order. 
 
 'with extreme taste and neatness, and improved the 
 ' disposition of the furniture generally.' He stayed till 
 the end of June; when Maclise and myself joined him 
 for the pleasure of posting back home with him and 
 Mrs. Dickens, by way of his favourite Chatham and 
 Rochester and Cobham, where we passed two agreeable 
 days in revisiting well-remembered scenes. I had mean- Revisiting 
 
 old SC6I163 
 
 while brought to a close the treaty for repurchase of Oliver 
 and surrender of Barnahy, upon terms which are succinctly 
 stated in a letter written by him to Messrs. Chapman and 
 Hall on the 2nd of July, the day after our return. 
 
 ' The terms upon which you advance the money to-day C. D. 
 ' for the purchase of the copyright and stock* of Oliver on chapman 
 ' my behalf, are understood between us to be these. That 
 ' this 2250L is to be deducted from the purchase-money 
 ' of a work by me entitled Barnahy Budge, of which two 
 ' chapters are now in your hands, and of which the whole 
 
 * By way of a novelty to help off the stools; he had suggested (17th June) : 
 * Would it not be best to print new title-pages to the copies in sheets and 
 'publish them as a new edition, with an interesting Preface ? I am talking 
 ' about all this as though the treaty were concluded, bat I hope and trust 
 ' that in effect it is, for negotiation and delay are worse to me than drawn 
 'daggers.' See my remark ante, p. 102. 
 
202 
 
 THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 [CHiPTEB 
 
 London : 
 1840. 
 
 Terms of 
 sale of 
 Bamaby. 
 
 A gift. 
 
 'is to be written within some convenient time to be 
 ' agreed upon between us. But if it should not be written 
 ' (which God forbid !) within five years, you are to have a 
 ' lien to this amount on the property belonging to me that 
 ' is now in your hands, namely, my shares in the stock 
 ' and copyright of Sketches by Boz, The Pickwick Papers, 
 ' Nicholas Nickleby, Oliver Twist, and Master Humphrey's 
 ' Clock ; in which we do not include any share of the 
 ' current profits of the last-named work, which I shall 
 'remain at liberty to draw at the times stated in our 
 ' agreement. Your purchase of Barnahy Pudge is made 
 ' upon the following terms. It is to consist of matter 
 ' sufficient for ten monthly numbers of the size of PicJc- 
 ' wick and Nickleby, which you are however at liberty to 
 'divide and publish in fifteen smaller numbers if you 
 ' think fit. The terms for the purchase of this edition in 
 ' numbers, and for the copyright of the whole book for six 
 ' months after the publication of the last number, are 
 ' 3000Z. At the expiration of the six months the whole 
 ' copyright reverts to me.' The sequel was, as all the 
 world knows, that Barnaby became successor to little 
 Nell, the money being repaid by the profits of the Clock ; 
 but I ought to mention also the more generous sequel 
 that my own small service had, on my receiving from 
 him, after not many days, an antique silver-mounted jng 
 of great beauty of form and workmanship, but with a 
 wealth far beyond jeweller's chasing or artist's design in 
 the written words that accompanied it.* I accepted them 
 
 'Accept from me' (July 8th, 1840), 'as a sliglit memorial of your 
 .„i,„;i „„„„„„;nn^ tiig pQQp keepsake which accompanies this. My 
 
 'attached companion, 
 
Thikteenth.] DEVONSHIRE TERRACE AND BROADSTAIRS. 203 
 
 bo commemorate, not the help they would have far over- Bkoad- 
 paid, but the gladness of his own escape from the last of 1340. 
 the agreements that had hampered the opening of his Escape 
 career, and the better future that was now before him. bonda>'e. 
 
 At the opening of August he was with Mrs. Dickens 
 for some days in Devonshire, on a visit to his father, 
 but he had to take his work with him ; and, as he wrote to 
 me, they had only one real holiday, when Dawlish, Teign- 
 mouth, Babbicombe, and Torquay were explored, returning 
 to Exeter at night. In the beginning of September he 
 was again at Broadstairs. 
 
 ' I was just going to work,' he wrote on the 9th, ' when C. D. 
 
 to 
 
 ' I got this letter, and the story of the man who went to j. f. 
 
 ' Chapman and Hall's knocked me down flat. I wrote 
 
 ' until now (a quarter to one) against the grain, and have 
 
 ' at last given it up for one day. Upon my word it is 
 
 5 intolerable. I have been grinding my teeth all the Published 
 
 Ti'iT 11 * T 1- libels about 
 
 ' morning. I thmk I could say in two Jines something iiim. 
 ' about the general report with propriety. I'll add them 
 'to the proof (the preface to the first volume of the Clock 
 was at this time in prepai-ation), ' giving you full power 
 
 'heart is not an eloquent one on matters which toneh it most, but suppose C. D. 
 ' this claret jug the urn in which it Ues, and belicTe that its warmest and to 
 
 ' truest blood is yours. This was the object of my fruitless search, and your ' ' 
 
 ' curiosity, on Friday. At first I scarcely knew what trifle (you will deem it 
 ' valuable, I know, for the giver's sake) to send you ; but I thought it would 
 ' be pleasant to connect it with our jovial moments, and to let it add, to the 
 'wine we shall drink from it together, a flavor which the choicest vintage 
 • could never impart. Take it from my hand — fiUed to the brim and running 
 ' over with truth and earnestness. I have just taken one parting look at it, 
 ' and it seems the most elegant thing iu the world to me, for I lose sight of 
 'the vase in the crowd of welcome associations that are clustering and 
 ' wreathing themselves about it. ' 
 
204 
 
 THE LIFE OE CHAHLES DICKENS. 
 
 [Chapter 
 
 Broad- 
 stairs ; 
 1840. 
 
 Stated to 
 be insane. 
 
 Other 
 
 similar 
 
 reiiorts. 
 
 'to cut them out if you should think differently from 
 ' me, and from C and H, who in such a matter must be 
 ' admitted judges.' He refers here to a report, rather 
 extensively circulated at the time, and ■which through 
 various channels had reached his publishers, that he was 
 suffering from loss of reason and was under treatment in 
 an asylum.* I would have withheld from him the mention 
 of it, as an absurdity that must quickly pass away — but 
 against my wish it had been communicated to him, and 
 I had difficulty in keeping within judicious bounds his 
 extreme and very natural wrath. 
 
 A few days later (the 15th) he wrote : ' I have been rather 
 ' surprised of late to have applications from roman-catholic 
 ' clergymen, demanding (rather pastorally, and with a kind 
 ' of grave authority) assistance, literary employment, and 
 'so forth.' At length it struck me, that, through some 
 ' channel or other, I must have been represented as 
 ' belonging to that religion. Would you believe, that in 
 ' a letter from Lamert at Cork, to my mother, which I saw 
 ' last night, he says " What do the papers mean by saying 
 ' " that Charles is demented, and further, that he has 
 ' " turned roman-catholic ? " — .' ' Of the begging-letter- 
 
 * Already he had been the subject of similar reports on the occasion 
 of the family sorrow which compelled him to suspend the pnbUoation of 
 Pichwkk for two mouths (ante, p. 98), when, upon issuing a brief address 
 C. D, Ion. ^° resuming his work (30th June, 1837), he said: 'By one set of intimate 
 ' acquaintances, especially well-informed, he hss been killed outright ; by 
 'another, 'Iriven mad; by a third, imprisoned for debt; by a fourth, sent 
 'per steamer to the United-States; by a fifth, rendered incapable of mental 
 ' exertion for evermore ; by all, in short, represented as doing anything but 
 ' seeking in a few weeks' retirement the restoration of that cheerfulness and 
 'peace of which a sad bereavement had temporarily deprived him.' 
 
THiBTEm™.! DEVONSHIRE TEREACE AND BEOADSTAIRS. 205 
 
 writers, hinted at here, I ought earlier to have said some- Buoad- 
 thing. In one of his detached essays he has described, 1840. 
 
 without a particle of exaggeration, the extent to which Begging- 
 he was made a victim by this class of swindler, and the writers. 
 extravagance of the devices practised on him ; but he 
 has not confessed, as he might, that for much of what he 
 suffered he was himself responsible, by giving so largely, 
 as at first he did, to almost every one who applied to 
 him. What at last brought him to his senses in this 
 respect, I think, was the request made by the adven- 
 turer who had exhausted every other expedient, and who 
 desired finally, after describing himself reduced to the 
 condition of a travelling Cheap Jack in the smallest way 
 of crockery, that a donkey might be left out for him next A donkey 
 
 ^^ sbIcgcI for 
 
 day, which he would duly call for. This I perfectly remem- 
 ber, and I much fear that the applicant was the Daniel 
 Tobin before mentioned.* 
 
 Many and delightful were other letters written from 
 Broadstairs at this date, filled with whimsical talk and 
 humorous description relating chiefly to an eccentric friend Mr. Kind- 
 who stayed with him most of the time, and is sketched in 
 one of his published papers as Mr. Kindheart ; but all 
 too private for reproduction now. He returned in the 
 middle of October, when we resumed our almost daily 
 ridings, foregatherings with Maclise at Hampstead and 
 elsewhere, and social entertainments with Macready, Tal- 
 fourd, Procter, Stanfield, Fonblanque, Elliotson, Tennent, 
 d'Orsay, Quin, Harness, Wilkie, Edwin Landseer, Eogers, 
 Sydney Smith, and Bulwer. Of the genius of the author 
 
 * See ante, p. 60-1. 
 
206 
 
 THE LIFE OF CHAKLES DICEJilNS. 
 
 [Chapter 
 
 London : 
 18«. 
 
 Friendly 
 meetings. 
 
 Social 
 talk. 
 
 of Pelham and Eugene Aram he had, early and late, the 
 highest admiration, and he took occasion to express it 
 during the present year in a new preface which he pub- 
 lished to Oliver Twist. Other friends became familiar 
 in later years ; but, disinclined as he was to the dinner 
 invitations that reached him from every quarter, all sucli 
 meetings with those whom I have named, and in an 
 especial manner the marked attentions shown him by 
 Miss Coutts which began with the very beginning of 
 his career, were invariably welcome. 
 
 To .speak here of the pleasure his society afforded, 
 would anticipate the fitter mention to be made hereafter. 
 But what in this respect distinguishes nearly all original 
 men, he possessed eminently. His place was not to be 
 filled up by any other. To the most trivial talk he gave 
 the attraction of his own character. It might be a small 
 matter ; something he had read or observed during the 
 day, some quaint odd fancy from a book, a vivid little 
 outdoor picture, the laughing exposure of some imposture, 
 or a burst of sheer mirthful enjoyment ; but of its kind it 
 would be something unique, because genuinely part of 
 himself This, and his unwearying animal spirits, made 
 him the most delightful of companions ; no claim on good- 
 fellowship ever found him wanting ; and no one so con- 
 stantly recalled to his friends the description Johnson 
 gave of Garrick, as the cheerfullest man of his age. 
 
 Of what occupied him in the way of literary labour in 
 the autumn and winter mouths of the year, some descrip- 
 tion has been given ; and, apart from what has already thus 
 been said of his work at the closing chapters of The Old 
 
THmTEENTH.] DEVONSHIRE TERRACE AND BROADSTAIRS. 207 
 
 Curiosity Shop, nothing now calls for more special allusion, ^°?^9? ' 
 
 except that in his town-walks in November, impelled 
 thereto by specimens recently discovered in his country- 
 walks between Broadstairs and Ramsgate, he thoroughly 
 explored the ballad literature of Seven-dials, and took to Bailada of 
 singing himself, with an effect that justified his reputation dials. 
 for comic singing in his childhood, not a few of these won- 
 derful productions. His last successful labour of the year 
 was the reconciliation of two friends ; and his motive, as 
 well as the principle that guided him, as they are des- 
 cribed by himself, I think worth preserving. For the Reoon- 
 first : ' In the midst of this child's death, I, over whom frienda. 
 ' something of the bitterness of death has passed, not lightly 
 ' perhaps, was reminded of many old kindnesses, and was 
 ' sorry in my heart that men who really liked each other 
 ' should waste life at arm's length.' For the last : ' I have C. D. 
 
 to 
 
 ' laid it down as a rule in my judgment of men, to ob- j. f. 
 ' serve narrowly whether some (of whom one is disposed to 
 ' think badly) don't carry all their faults upon the surface, 
 ' and others (of whom one is disposed to think well) don't Hint for 
 ' carry many more beneath it. I have long ago made sure men 
 ' that our friend is in the first class ; and when I know 
 ' all the foibles a man has, with little trouble in the 
 'discovery, I begin to think he is worth liking.' His 
 latest letter of the year, dated the day following, closed 
 with the hope that we might, he and I, enjoy together 
 ' fifty more Christmases, at least, in this world, and eternal 
 'summers in another.' Alas! 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 BASNABT EUDGB. 
 
 1841. 
 
 London : The letters of 1841 yield similar fruit as to his doings 
 
 1841. . •' 
 
 ■ and sayings, and may in like manner first be consulted for 
 
 the literary work he had in hand. 
 
 He had the advantage of beginning Barnahy Rudge 
 
 with a fair amount of story in advance, which he had only 
 
 to make suitable, by occasional readjustment of chapters, 
 
 to publication in weekly portions ; and on this he was en- 
 
 C. D. gaged before the end of January. ' I am at present ' (22iid 
 
 ■to 
 J. F. January, 1841) ' in what Leigh Hunt would call a kind 
 
 ■ of impossible state — thinking what on earth Master 
 
 ' Humphrey can think of through four mortal pages. I 
 
 ' added, here and there, to the last chapterof the Gwriosity 
 
 ' Shop yesterday, and it leaves me only four pages to 
 
 ' write.' (They were filled by a paper from Humphrey 
 
 introductory of the new tale, in which will be found a 
 
 striking picture of London, from midnight to the break of 
 
 day.) ' I also made up, and wrote the needful insertions 
 
 ' for, the second number of Barnahy — so that I came back 
 
 n^dwork. ' to the mill a little.' Hardly yet: for after four days he 
 
 writes, having meanwhile done nothing: 'I have been 
 
L'H- Xiv.i BAENABT EUDGE, 209 
 
 ' looking (three o'clock) with an' appearance of extra- London : 
 
 ' ordinary interest and study at one leaf of the Gwriosities '— 
 
 ' of Literature ever since half-past ten this morning — I 
 'haven't the heart to turn over.' Then, on Friday the 
 29th, better news came. ' I didn't stir out yesterday, but 
 ' sat and thought all day ; not writing a line ; not so much 
 ' as the cross of a t or dot of an i. I imaged forth a good At work on 
 
 ,,._ 711 • -1 !• Barnaby. 
 
 ' deal 01 Barnaby by keeping my mmd steadily upon him ; 
 
 ' and am happy to say I have gone to work this morning in 
 
 ' good twig, strong hope, and cheerful spirits. Last night 
 
 ' I was unutterably and impossible-to-form-an-idea-of-ably 
 
 ' miserable. ... By the bye don't engage yourself other- 
 
 ' wise than to me, for Sunday week, because it's my birth- 
 
 ' day. I have no doubt we shall have got over our 
 
 ' troubles here by that time, and I purpose having a snug 
 
 ' dinner in the study.' We had the dinner, though the 
 
 troubles were not over ; but the next day another son was a fourth 
 
 born to him. ' Thank God,' he wrote on the 9th, ' quite geoond^ou 
 
 ' well. I am thinking hard, and have just written to ^°^^ 
 
 ' Browne enquiring when he will come and confer about 
 
 ' the raven.' He had by this time resolved to make that 
 
 bird, whose accomplishments had been daily ripening 
 
 and enlarging for the last twelve months to the increasing 
 
 mirth and delight of all of us, a prominent figure in Bar- The raven. 
 
 naby; and the invitation to the artist was for a conference 
 
 how best to introduce him graphically. 
 
 The next letter mentioning Barnahywas from Brighton 
 (25th February), whither he had flown for a week's quiet 
 labour. ' I have (it's four o'clock) done a very fair morn- 
 'ing's work, at which I have sat veiy close, and been 
 
 VOL. I. P 
 
210 
 
 THE LIFE, OF CHAKLES DICEDNS. 
 
 [CHAFfER 
 
 LOHDON : 
 1841. 
 
 A loss in 
 the family. 
 
 'blessed besides with a clear view of the end of the 
 ' volume. As the contents of one number usually require 
 ' a day's thought at the very least, and often more, this 
 ' puts me in great spirits. I think — that is, I hope — the 
 ' story takes a great stride at this point, and takes it 
 ' WELL. Nous verrons. Grip will be strong, and I build 
 ' greatly on the Varden household.' 
 
 Upon his return he had to lament a domestic calamity, 
 which, for its connection with that famous personage in 
 Barnahy, must be mentioned here. The raven had for some 
 days been ailing, and Topping had reported of him, as 
 Shakespeare of Hamlet, that he had lost his mirth and fore- 
 gone all customary exercises : but Dickens paid no great 
 heed, remembering his recovery from an illness of the 
 previous summer when he swallowed some white paint; so 
 that the graver report which led him to send for the doctor 
 came upon him unexpectedly, and nothing but his own 
 language can worthily describe the result. Unable from 
 the state of his feelings to write two letters, he sent the 
 narrative to Maclise, under an enormous black seal, for 
 transmission to me ; and thus it befell that this fortunate 
 bird receives a double passport to fame, so great a humorist 
 having celebrated his farewell to the present world, and so 
 great a painter his welcome to another. 
 Deatkot ' You will be greatly shocked' (the letter is dated 
 
 the raven ; 
 
 12 March. Friday evenmg, March 12th, 1841) 'and grieved to hear 
 ' that the Raven is no more. He expired to-day at a few 
 ' minutes after twelve o'clock at noon. He had been 
 ' ailing for a few days, but we anticipated no serious 
 ' result, conjecturing that a portion of the white paint he 
 
VouETEENTH] BARNABT RUDGE. 211 
 
 ' swallowed last summer might be lingering about his London : 
 
 vitals without having any serious effect upon his con- • 
 
 C. B. de- 
 ' stitution. Yesterday afternoon he was taken so much scribes hia 
 
 ' worse that I sent an express for the medical gentleman 
 
 ' (Mr. Herring), who promptly attended, and administered 
 
 ' a powerful dose of castor oil. Under the influence of 
 
 ' this medicine, he recovered so far as to be able at eight 
 
 ' o'clock p.m. to bite Topping. His night was peaceful. 
 
 ' This morning at daybreak he appeared better ; received 
 
 ' (agreeably to the doctor's directions) another dose of 
 
 ' castor oil ; and partook plentifully of some warm gruel, 
 
 ' the flavor of which he appeared to relish. Towards 
 
 ' eleven o'clock he was so much worse that it was found 
 
 ' necessary to muffle the stable-knocker. At half-past, or 
 
 ' thereabouts, he was heard talking to himself about the 
 
 ' horse and Topping's family, and to add some incoherent 
 
 ' expressions which are supposed to have been either a 
 
 ' foreboding of his approaching dissolution, or some wishes 
 
 ' relative to the disposal of his little property : consisting Disposal of 
 
 'chiefly of half-pence which he had buried in dififerent perty!°" 
 
 ' parts of the garden. On the clock striking twelve he 
 
 ' appeared slightly agitated, but he soon recovered, walked 
 
 ' twice or thrice along the coach-house, stopped to bark, 
 
 ' staggered, exclaimed Halloa old girl ! (his favourite 
 
 ' expression), and died. 
 
 ' He behaved throughout with a decent fortitude, 
 
 ' equanimity, and self-possession, which cannot be too 
 
 ' much admired. I deeply regret that being in ignor- 
 
 ' ance of his danger I did not attend to receive his last 
 
 ' instructions. Something remarkable about Lis eyes 
 
 p 2 
 
212 THE LIFE OP CHARLES DICEIENS. [Ch^ipter 
 
 London : ' occasioned Topping to run for the doctor at twelve. 
 ' When they returned together our friend was gone. It 
 
 The doctor ■,. , , . „ „,. 
 
 sent for. ' was the medical gentleman who mtormed me oi his 
 ' decease. He did it with great caution and delicacy, 
 ' preparing me by the remark that " a jolly queer start 
 ' "had taken place" ; but the shock was very great not- 
 
 Suspicions. ' withstanding. I am not wholly free from suspicions of 
 'poison. A malicious butcher has been heard to say 
 ' that he would " do " for him : his plea was that he 
 ' would not be molested in taking orders down the mews, 
 ' by any bird that wore a tail. Other persons have also 
 ' been heard to threaten : among others, Charles Knight, 
 ' who has just started a weekly publication price four- 
 ' pence : Barnaby being, as you know, threepence. I 
 ' have directed a post-mortem examination, and the body 
 ' has been removed to Mr. Herring's school of anatomy for 
 ' that purpose. 
 
 ' I could wish, if you can take the trouble, that you could 
 ' inclose this to Forster immediately after you have read 
 ' it. I cannot discharge the painful task of communication 
 ' more than once. Were they ravens who took manna to 
 ' somebody in the wilderness ? At times I hope they 
 
 Family ' were, and at others I fear they were not, or they would 
 ' certainly have stolen it by the way. In profound sorrow, 
 ' I am ever your bereaved friend C. D. Kate is as well 
 ' as can be expected, but terribly low as you may suppose. 
 ' The children seem rather glad of it. He bit their ancles. 
 ' But that was play.' 
 
 Maclise's covering letter was an apotheosis, to be ren- 
 dered only in facsimile. 
 
 mourners. 
 
BAENABY KUDGE. 
 
 213 
 
 London : 
 1841. 
 
 Death of 
 raven. 
 
 Apotheosis 
 by Macliae. 
 
214 THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. [Chaptik 
 
 London: In what way the loss was replaced, so that Barnaby 
 
 1841. 
 
 should have the fruit of continued study of the habits of 
 seoraid. * the family of birds which Grip had so nobly represented, 
 Dickens has told in the preface to the story ; and another, 
 older, and larger Grip, obtained through Mr. Smithson, was 
 installed in the stable, almost before the stuffed remains of 
 his honoured predecessor had been sent home in a glass 
 case, by way of ornament to his master's study. 
 
 I resume our correspondence on what he was writing. 
 
 CD. 'I see there is yet room for a few lines,' (26th March) 
 
 J. F. ' and you are quite right in wishing what I cut out to be 
 
 ' restored. I did not want Joe to be so short about Dolly, 
 
 ' and really wrote his references to that young lady care- 
 
 ' fully — as natural things with a meaning in them. Ghig- 
 
 ' well, my dear fellow, is the greatest place in the world. 
 
 The inn at ' Name your day for going. Such a delicious old inn 
 
 ChigweU. 
 
 ' opposite the churchyard — such a lovely ride — such beau- 
 ' tiful forest scenery — such an out of the way, rural, place 
 ' — such a sexton ! I say again, name your day.' The 
 day was named at once ; and the whitest of stones marks 
 it, in now sorrowful memory. His promise was exceeded 
 by our enjoyment ; and his delight in the double recog- 
 Reception nition, of himself and of Barnaby, by the landlord of tlie 
 nice old inn, far exceeded any pride he would have taken 
 in what the world thinks the highest sort of honour. 
 
 ' I have shut myself up ' (26th March) ' by myself to- 
 ' day, and mean to try and " go it " at the Clock ; Kate 
 'being out, and the house peacefully dismal. I don't 
 ' remember altering the exact part you object to, but if 
 ' there be anything here you object to, knock it out ruth- 
 
 there. 
 
PoDRTEESTH.] BARNABT EUDGE. 215 
 
 'lessly.' 'Don't fail' (April the 5tli) 'to erase anything Lohdoh: 
 ' that seems to you too strong. It is difficult for me to 
 
 'judge what tells too much, and what does not. I am alone. 
 ' trying a very quiet number to set against this necessary 
 ' one. I hope it will be good, but I am in very sad condi- 
 ' tion for work. Glad you think this powerful. What I 
 'have put in is more relief, from the raven.' Two days 
 later : ' I have done that number and am now going to 
 ' work on another. I am bent (please Heaven) on finish- 
 ' ing the first chapter by Friday night. I hope to look in 
 ' upon you to-night, when we'll dispose of the toasts for 
 ' Saturday. Still bilious — but a goojl number, I hope, not- 
 ' withstanding. Jeffrey has come to town and was here 
 ' yesterday.' The toasts to be disposed of were those to be 
 given at the dinner on the 10th to celebrate the second a ' Clock ' 
 volume of Master Humphrey: when Talfourd presided, 
 when there was much jollity, and, according to the memo- 
 randum drawn up that Saturday night now lying before 
 me, we all in the greatest good humour glorified each 
 other: Talfourd proposing the GloaJe, Macready Mrs. 
 Dickens, Dickens the publishers, and myself the artists ; 
 Macready giving Talfourd, Talfourd Macready, Dickens 
 myself, and myself the comedian Mr. Harley, whose 
 humorous songs had been the not least considerable 
 element in the mirth of the evening. 
 
 Five days later he writes : ' I finished the number Lord 
 ' yesterday, and, although I dined with Jeffrey, and was in Loudon, 
 ' obliged to go to Lord Denman's afterwards (which made 
 ' me late), have done eight slips of the Lamplighter for 
 ' Mi's. Macrone, this morning. When I have got that off 
 
216 
 
 THU LIFE OF CHAELES DICKENS. 
 
 rCHAPTKH 
 
 LosDON : 
 1841. 
 
 The Lamp- 
 lighter. 
 
 Pic Nic 
 
 C. D. 
 
 to 
 J. F. 
 
 Character 
 of Lord 
 George 
 Gordon. 
 
 ' my mind, I shall try to go on steadily, fetching ap the 
 ' Gloch lee-way.' The Lamplighter was his old farce,* 
 which he now turned into a comic tale; and this, with 
 other conti'ibutions given him by fiiends and edited by 
 him as Pic Nic Papers, enabled him to help the widow 
 of his old publisher in her straitened means by a gift of 
 £300. He had finished his work of charity before he next 
 wrote of Barnahy Budge, but he was fetching up his lee- 
 way lazily. ' I am getting on' (29th of April) ' very slowly. 
 ' I want to stick to the story ; and the fear of committing 
 ' myself, because of the impossibility of trying back or 
 ' altering a syllable, njiakes it much harder than it looks. 
 ' It was too bad of me to give you the trouble of cutting 
 ' the number, but I knew so well you would do it in the 
 ' right places. For what Harley would call the " onward 
 ' " work " I really think I have some famous thoughts.' 
 There is an interval of a month before the next allusion. 
 ' Solomon's expression' (3rd of June) 'I meant to be one 
 ' of those strong ones to which strong circumstances give 
 ' birth in the commonest minds. Deal with it as yon 
 
 ' like Say what you please of Gordon ' (I had 
 
 objected to some points in his view of this madman, 
 stated much too favourably as\I thought), 'he must have 
 ' been at heart a kind man, and a lover of the despised and 
 ' rejected, after his own fashion. He lived upon a small 
 ' income, and always within it ; was known to relieve the 
 ' necessities of many people ; exposed in his place the 
 ' corrupt attempt of a minister to buy him out of Parlia- 
 ' ment ; and did great charities in Newgate. He always 
 
 * See ante, pp. 103 and 160. 
 
FOUKTEENTH.J BAENABY EUDGE. 217 
 
 ' spoke on the people's side, and tried against his muddled London : 
 ' brains to expose the pi'ofligacy of both parties. He never 
 
 1 -i. rni, Unprofit- 
 
 ' got anything by his madness, and never sought it. ine able mad- 
 
 ■ wildest and most raging attacks of the time, allow him 
 ' these merits : and not to let him have 'em in their full 
 ' extent, remembering in what a (politically) wicked time 
 ' he lived, would lie upon my conscience heavily. The libel 
 ' he was imprisoned for when he died, was on the queen of 
 ' France ; and the French government interested themselves 
 
 ■ warmly to procure his release — ^which I think they might 
 ' have done, but for Lord Grenville.' I was more successful 
 in the counsel I gave against a fancy he had at this part 
 
 of the story, that he would introduce as actors in the a doubtful 
 Gordon riots three splendid fellows who should order, "°^' 
 lead, control, and be obeyed as natural guides of the 
 crowd in that delirious time, and who should turn out, 
 when all was over, to have broken out from Bedlam : 
 but though he saw the unsoundness of this, he could not 
 so readily see, in Gordon's case, the danger of taxing 
 ingenuity to ascribe a reasonable motive to acts of sheer 
 insanity. The feeblest parts of the book are those in 
 which Lord George and his secretary appear. 
 
 He left for Scotland after the middle of June, but he From Edin 
 took work with him. ' You may suppose,' he wrote from ™^ _^ 
 Edinburgh on the 30th, ' I have not done much work — but *<> 
 
 J. r, 
 
 ' by Friday night's post from here I hope to send the first 
 ' long chapter of a number and both ,the illustrations ; 
 ' from Loch-earn on Tuesday night, the closing chapter 
 ' of that number; from the same place on Thursday night, 
 ' the first long chapter of another, with both the illustra- 
 
218 
 
 THE LIFE OP CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 [Chaptek 
 
 London ; 
 1841. 
 
 ' tions ; and, from some place which no niian ever spelt but 
 ' which sounds like Ballyhoolish, on Saturday, the closing 
 ' chapter of that number, which will leave us all safe till I 
 ' return to town.' Nine days later he wrote from ' Balle- 
 ' chelish :' ' I have done all I can or need do in the way of 
 
 Interest in ' Barnoby until I come home, and the story is progressing 
 
 labour. ' (I hope you will think) to good strong interest. 'I have left 
 ' it, I think, at an exciting point, with a good dawning of 
 ' the riots. In the first of the two numbers I have written 
 ' since I have been away, I forget whether the blind man, 
 ' in speaking to Barnaby about riches, tells him they are 
 ' to be found in crowds. If I have not actually used that 
 ' word, will you introduce it 1 A perusal of the proof of 
 ' the following number (70) will show you how, and why.' 
 ' Have you,' he wrote, shortly after his return (29th July), 
 ' seen no. 71 ? I thought there was a good glimpse of a 
 ' crowd, from a window — eh ? ' He had now taken tho- 
 roughly to the interest of his closing chapters, and felt 
 
 Constraints more than ever the constraints of his form of publication. 
 
 publica- ' I am warming up very much ' (on the 5th August from 
 Broadstairs) ' about Barnaby. Oh ! If I only had him, 
 ' from this time to the end, in monthly numbers. N'im- 
 ' parte ! 1 hope the interest wiU be pretty strong — and, 
 ' in every number, stronger.' Six days later, from the same 
 place : ' I was always sure I could make a good thing of 
 ' Barnaby, and I think you'll find that it comes out 
 ' strong to the last word. I have another number ready, 
 ' all but two slips. Don't fear for young Chester. The 
 
 ' time hasn't come there we go again, you see, with 
 
 ' the weekly delays. I am in great heart and spirits 
 
 C. D. 
 
 to 
 J. F. 
 
FOURTEESTH.J BAENABT RTJDGE. 219 
 
 ' with the stoiy, and with the prospect of having time London : 
 'to think before I go on again.' A month's interval ^- 
 
 followed, and what occupied it will be described shortly. 
 
 On the 11th September he wrote: 'I have just burnt 
 
 'into Newgate, and am going in the next number to The prison. 
 
 1 ■ ^11 riots. 
 
 ' tear the prisoners out by the hair of their heads. The 
 
 ' number which gets into the jail you'll have in proof by 
 
 ' Tuesday.' This was followed up a week later : ' I have 
 
 ' let all the prisoners out of Newgate, burnt down Lord 
 
 ' Mansfield's, and played the very devil. Another number 
 
 ' will finish the fires, and help us on towards the end. I 
 
 ' feel quite smoky when I am at work. I want elbow- 
 
 ' room terribly.' To this trouble, graver supervened at his Serious 
 
 return, a serious personal sickness not the least; but he 
 
 bore up gallantly, and I had never better occasion than 
 
 now to observe his quiet endurance of pain, how little he 
 
 thought of himself where the sense of self is commonly 
 
 supreme, and the manful duty with which everything was 
 
 done that, ailing as he was, he felt it necessary to do. 
 
 He was still ia his sick-room (22nd October) when he 
 
 wi-ote : ' I hope I shan't leave off any more, now, until 
 
 ' I have finished Barnaby.' Three days after that, he Close of 
 
 was busying himself eagerly for others ; and on the 2nd "'""' ^' 
 
 of November the printers received the close of Barnaby 
 
 Rudge. 
 
 This tale was Dickens's first attempt out of the sphere 
 
 of the life of the day and its actual manners. Begun 
 
 during the progress of Oliver Twist, it had been for some 
 
 time laid aside ; the form it ultimately took had been com- character 
 
 prised only partially within its first design ; and the story ° * ^ °°^ 
 
220 
 
 THE LIFE OP CHAELES DICKEKS. 
 
 [Chaiteb 
 
 LOHDON : 
 1841. 
 
 Lessons of 
 
 Barnahy 
 
 Riidge, 
 
 Defects iu 
 tke plot. 
 
 in its finished shape presented strongly a special purpose, 
 the characteristic of all but his very earliest ■writings. 
 Its scene is laid at the time when the incessant execution 
 of men and women, comparatively innocent, disgraced 
 every part of the country; demoralizing thousands, whom it 
 also prepared for the scaffold. In those days the theft of 
 a few rags from a bleaching ground, or the abstraction of 
 a roll of ribbons from a counter, was visited with the penalty 
 of blood ; and such laws brutalized both their ministers 
 and victims. It was the time, too, when a false religious 
 outcry brought with it appalling guilt and misery. These 
 are vices that leave more behind them than the first forms 
 assumed, and they involve a lesson sufficiently required to 
 justify a writer in dealing with them. There were also 
 others grafted on them. In Barnaby himself it was 
 desired to show what sources of comfort there might be, 
 for the patient and cheerful heart, in even the worst 
 of all human afflictions ; and in the hunted life of the 
 outcast father, whose crime had entailed not that afflic- 
 tion only but other more fearful wretchedness, we have as 
 powerful a picture as any in his writings of the inevitable 
 and unfathomable consequences of sin. But, as the story 
 went on, it was incident to these designs that what had 
 been accomplished in its predecessor could hardly be 
 attained here, in singleness of purpose, unity of idea,' or 
 harmony of treatment ; and other defects supervened in 
 the management of the plot. The interest with which the 
 tale begins, has ceased to be its interest before the close ; 
 and what has chiefly taken the reader's fancy at the 
 outset, almost wholly disappears in the power and passion 
 
FoDRTEENTH.] BAENABY EUDGE. 221 
 
 with -which, iu the later chapters, the great riots are de- Londoh : 
 scribed. So admirable is this description, however, that it 
 
 The No- 
 would be hard to have to surrender it even for a more Popery 
 
 riots. 
 
 perfect structure of fable. 
 
 There are few things more masterly in any of his books. 
 From the first low mutterings of the storm to its last 
 tenible explosion, this frantic outbreak of popular 
 ignorance and rage is depicted with imabated power. 
 The aimlessness of idle mischief by which the ranks of 
 the rioters are swelled at the beginning ; the recklessness 
 induced by the monstrous impunity allowed to the early 
 excesses ; the sudden spread of this drunken guilt into 
 every haunt of poverty, ignorance, or mischief in the 
 wicked old city, where the rich materials of crime lie 
 festering ; the wild action of its poison on all, without 
 scheme or plan of any kind, who come within its reach ; 
 the horrors that are more bewildering for this complete Descriptive 
 
 power. 
 
 absence of purpose in them ; and, when all is done, the 
 misery found to have been self-inflicted in every cranny 
 and corner of London, as if a plague had swept over the 
 streets : these are features in the picture of an actual 
 occurrence, to which the manner of the treatment gives 
 extraordinary force and meaning. Nor, m the sequel, is 
 there anything displayed with more profitable vividness, 
 than the law's indiscriminate cruelty at last, in con- 
 trast with its cowardly indifference at first ; while, among 
 the casual touches lighting up the scene with flashes of Vivid 
 
 touchef. 
 
 reality that illumme every part of it, may be instanced 
 the discovery, in the quarter from which screams for 
 succour ai'e loudest when Newgate is supposed to be 
 
222 THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. [Chapteb 
 
 London : accidentally on fire, of four men who were certain in any 
 case to nave perisned on tne drop next day. 
 
 Principal .... 
 
 characters Ine story, which has unusually careful writing in it, 
 and much manly upright thinking, has not so many people 
 eagerly adopted as of kin by everybody, as its predecessors 
 are famous for ; but it has yet a fair proportion of such aa 
 take solid form within the mind, and keep hold of the 
 memory. To these belong in an especial degi-ee Gabriel 
 Varden and his household, on whom are lavished all the 
 writer's fondness, and not a little of his keenest humour. 
 The honest locksmith with his jovial jug, and the tink- 
 tink-tink of his pleasant nature making cheerful music out 
 of steel and iron ; the buxom wife, with her plaguy tongue 
 that makes every one wretched whom her kindly disposi- 
 tion would desire to make happy ; the good hearted plump 
 little Dolly, coquettish minx of a daughter, with all she 
 suffers and inflicts by her fickle winning ways, and her 
 small self-admiring vanities ; and Miggs the vicious and 
 slippery, acid, amatory, and of uncomfortable figure, sower 
 of family discontents and discords, who swears all the while 
 she wouldn't make or meddle with 'em ' not for a annual 
 
 Social ' gold mine and found in tea and sugar ' : there is not much 
 
 soual painting anywhere with a better domestic moral, than 
 in all these ; and a nice propriety of feeling and thought 
 regulates the use of such satire throughout. No one 
 knows more exactly how far to go with that formidable 
 weapon ; or understands better that what satirizes every- 
 thing, in effect satirizes nothing. 
 
 Another excellent group is that which the story opens 
 with, in the quaint old kitchen of the Maypole ; John 
 
PoDKTKENTH.] BARNABT EUDGE. 223 
 
 Willett and his friends, genuinely comic creations all of London : 
 them. Then we have Barnaby and his raven : the light- 
 
 hearted idiot, as unconscious of guilt as of suffering, and andTis^ 
 happy with no sense but of the influences of nature ; and ™™°" 
 the grave sly bird, with sufficient sense to make himself 
 as unhappy as rascally habits will make the human ani- 
 mal. There is poor brutish Hugh, too, loitering lazily out- 
 side the Maypole door, with a storm of passions in him 
 raging to be let loose ; already the scaffold's withered 
 fruit, as he is doomed to be its ripe offering ; and though 
 with all the worst instincts. of the savage, yet not without 
 also some of the best. Still farther out of kindly nature's 
 pitying reach lurks the worst viUain of the scene : with 
 this sole claim to consideration, that it was by constant 
 contact with the filthiest instrument of law and state he 
 had become the mass of moral filth he is. Mr. Dennis the Dennis the 
 
 . . hangman. 
 
 hangman is a portrait that Hogarth would have painted 
 with the same wholesome severity of satire which is 
 employed upon it in Barnaby Rudge. 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 PUBLIC DINNBE IN EDINBtTRGH. 
 18il. 
 
 LoNBON : Among the occurrences of the year, apart from the tale 
 
 ^ — he was writing, the birth of his fourth child and second 
 
 son has been briefly mentioned. ' I mean to call the 
 ' boy Edgar,' he wrote the day after he was born (9th 
 February), ' a good honest Saxon name,- I think.' He 
 changed his mind in a few days, however, on resolving 
 Son to ask Landor to be godfather. This intention, as soon 
 
 Walter. 
 
 as formed, he announced to our excellent old friend ; 
 telling him it would give the child something to boast 
 of, to be called Walter Landor, and that to call him so 
 would do his own heart good. For, as to himself, what- 
 ever realities had gone out of the ceremony of christening, 
 the meaning still remained in it of enabling him to form 
 a relationship with friends he most loved : and as to the 
 boy, he held that to give him a name to be proud of was 
 to give him also another reason for doing nothing un- 
 worthy or untrue when he came to be a man. Walter 
 Dies in alas 1 Only lived to manhood. He obtained a military 
 iseT.**^' cadetship through the kindness of Miss Coutts, and died 
 at Calcutta on the last day of 1863, in his 23rd year. 
 
CH.XV.] PUBLIC DINNER IN EDINBURGH. 225 
 
 The interest taken by this distinguished lady in him and LoNDoir : 
 .,.,,, . 1841. 
 in his had begun, as I have said, at an earlier date than 
 
 even this; and I remember, while Oliver Twist was going 
 
 on, his pleasure because of her father's mention of him in a 
 
 speech at Birmingham, for his advocacy of the cause of the 
 
 poor. Whether to the new poor law Sir Francis Burdett Sir F. 
 
 , . . . Burdett, 
 
 objected as strongly as we have seen that Dickens did, 
 as well as many other excellent men, who forgot the 
 atrocities of the system it displaced in their indignation 
 at the needless and cruel harshness with which it was 
 worked at the outset, I have not at hand the means of 
 knowing. But certainly this continued to be strongly the 
 feeling of Dickens, who exulted in nothing so much as at 
 any misadventure to the whigs in connection with it. ' How 
 ' often used Black and I,' he wrote to me in April, ' to c. D. and 
 
 TTT ^^® new 
 
 ' quarrel about the effect of the poor-law bill ! Walter poor-law. 
 ' comes in upon the cry. See whether the whigs go out 
 ' upon it.' It was the strong desire he had to make him- 
 self heard upon it, even in parliament, that led him not 
 immediately to turn aside from a proposal, now privately 
 made by some of the magnates of Reading, to bring him in 
 for that borough ; but the notion was soon dismissed, as, 
 on its revival more than once in later times, it continued 
 very wisely to be. His opinions otherwise were extremely 
 radical at present, as will be apparent shortly ; and he did 
 not at all relish Peel's majority of one when it came soon 
 after, and unseated the whigs. It was just now, I may 
 add, he greatly enjoyed a quiet setting-down of Moore by Moore and 
 Rogers at Sir Francis Burdett's table, for talking exagge- 
 rated toryism. So debased was the house of commons 
 
 VOL. I. Q 
 
226 
 
 THE LIFE OF CHAELES DICKENS. 
 
 (Chapieb 
 
 LOHDON : 
 1841. 
 
 C. D. 
 
 to 
 J. F. 
 
 Jeffrey's 
 praise of 
 little Nell. 
 
 Eesolve 
 to visit 
 Scotland, 
 
 by reform, said Moore, that a Burke, if you could find 
 him, would not be listened to. 'No such thing. Tommy,' 
 said Rogers; 'jmd yourself, and they'd listen even to 
 ' you.' 
 
 This was not many days before he hinted to me an 
 intention soon to be carried out in a rather memorable 
 manner. ' I have done nothing to-day' (18th March : we 
 had bought books together, the day before, at Tom Hill's 
 sale) ' but cut the Swift, looking into it with a delicious 
 ' laziness in all manner of delightful places, and put poor 
 ' Tom's books away. I had a letter from Edinburgh this 
 ' morning, announcing that Jeffrey's visit to London will 
 ' be the week after next ; telling me that he drives about 
 ^Edinburgh declaring there has been "nothing so good 
 ' " as NeU. since Cordelia," which he writes also to aU 
 ' manner of people ; and informing me of a desire in that 
 ' romantic town to give me greeting and welcome. For 
 ' this and other reasons I am disposed to make Scotland 
 ' my destination in June rather than Ireland. Think, do 
 ' think, meantime (here are ten good weeks), whether you 
 • couldn't, by some effort worthy of the owner of the 
 ' gigantic helmet, go with us. Think of such a fortnight 
 ' — York, Carlisle, Berwick, your own Borders, Edinburgh, 
 'Rob Roy's country, railroads, cathedrals, country inns, 
 ' Arthur's-seat, lochs, glens, and home by sea. DO think 
 ' of this, seriously, at leisure.' It was very tempting, but 
 not to be. 
 
 Early in April Jeffrey came, many feasts and enter- 
 tainments welcoming him, of which he very sparingly 
 partook ; and before he left, the visit to Scotland in June 
 
FiiTEEmH.] PUBLIC DINNEE IN EDINBUEGH. 227 
 
 was all duly arranged, to be initiated by tbe splendid Lohdon : 
 welcome of a public dinner in Edinburgh, with Lord 
 
 Jeffrey himself in the chair. Allan the painter had come dinner 
 
 up meanwhile, with increasing note of preparation ; and it ^"^ 
 
 was whUe we were all regretting Wilkie's absence abroad, 
 
 and Dickens with warrantable pride was saying how surely 
 
 the great painter would have gone to this dinner, that 
 
 the shock of his sudden death * came, and there was left Sir David 
 
 . WUkie's 
 
 but the sorrowful satisfaction of honourmg his memory, death. 
 There was one other change before the day. ' I heard from 
 ' Edinburgh this morning,' he wrote on the 15th of June. 
 ' Jeffrey is not well enough to take the chair, so Wilson 
 ' does. I think under all circumstances of politics, 
 • acquaintance, and Edinburgh Review, that it's much 
 ' better as it is — Don't you 1 ' 
 
 His first letter from Edinburgh, where he and Mrs. Edin- 
 Dickens had taken up quarters at the Eoyal-hotel on 23rd June, 
 their arrival the previous night, is dated the 23rd of June. 
 ' I have been this morning to the Parliament-house, and C. D. 
 
 to 
 
 ' am now introduced (I hope) to everybody in Edinburgh. j. f. 
 
 ' The hotel is perfectly besieged, and I have been forced 
 
 ' to take refuge in a sequestered apartment at the end of 
 
 ' a long passage, wherein I write this letter. They talk of 
 
 ' 300 at the dinner. We are very well off in point of 
 
 ' rooms, having a handsome sitting-room, another next to 
 
 'it for Clock purposes, a spacious bed-room, and large 
 
 ' dressing-room adjoining. The castle is in front of the 
 
 * Dickens refused to believe it at first. 'My heart assures me Wllkie 
 'liveth,' be wrote. 'He is the sort of man who will be teey old when he dies' 
 —and certainly one would have said so. 
 
 q2 
 
228 
 
 THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKESS. 
 
 [CHAPrEH 
 
 Edih- 
 
 BUKGH : 
 
 1841. 
 
 Peter 
 KobertsoE. 
 
 Professor 
 Wilson. 
 
 C. D. 
 
 to 
 J. F. 
 
 ' windows, and the view noble. There was a supper ready 
 ' last night which would have been a dinner anywhere.' 
 This was his first practical experience of the honours his 
 fame had won for him, and it found him as eager to 
 receive as all were eager to give. Very interesting still, 
 too, are those who took leading part in the celebration ; 
 and, in his pleasant sketches of them, there are some 
 once famous and familiar figures not so well known to the 
 present generation. Here, among the first, are Wilson 
 and Robertson. 
 
 ' The renowned Peter Robertson is a large, portly, full- 
 ' faced man with a merry eye, and a queer way of looking 
 ' under his spectacles which is characteristic and pleasant. 
 ' He seems a very warm-hearted earnest man too, and I 
 ' felt quite at home with him forthwith. Walking up and 
 ' down the hall of the courts of law (which was fuU of 
 ' advocates, writers to the signet, clerks, and idlers) was a 
 ' tall, burly, handsome man of eight and fifty, with a gait 
 'like O'Connell's, the bluest eye you can imagine, and 
 ' long hair — longer than mine — falling down in a wild way 
 ' under the broad brim of his hat. He had on a surtout 
 ' coat, a blue checked shirt ; the collar standing up, and 
 ' kept in its place with a wisp of black neckerchief; no 
 ' waistcoat ; and a large pocket-handkerchief thrust into 
 ' his breast, which was all broad and open. At his heels 
 'followed a wiry, sharp-eyed, shaggy devil of a terrier, 
 ' dogging his steps as he went slashing up and down, now 
 • with one man beside him, now with another, and now 
 ' quite alone, but always at a fast, rolling pace, with his 
 ' head in the air, and his eyes as wide open as he could 
 
PiFTEEOTH.] PTTBLIC DINNEE IN EDINBUEGH. 229 
 
 ■ get them. I guessed it was Wilson, and it was. A Edin- 
 ' bright, clear-comploxioned, mountain-looking fellow, he i84i. ' 
 
 ' looks as though he had just come down from the High- c. d. 
 
 ' lands, and had never in his life taken pen in hand. But j_ p_ 
 
 'he has had an attack of paralysis in his right arm, 
 
 ' within this month. He winced when I shook hands 
 
 ' with him ; and once or twice when we were walking up 
 
 ' and down, slipped as if he had stumbled on a piece of 
 
 ' orange-peel. He is a great fellow to look at, and to talk 
 
 ' to ; and, if you could divest your mind of the actual 
 
 ' Scott, is just the figure you would put in his place.' ^ f*""? of 
 
 Scott. 
 
 Nor have the most ordinary incidents of the visit any 
 lack of interest for us now, in so far as they help to com- 
 plete the picture of himself. 'Allan has been squiring 
 ' me about, all the morning. He and Fletcher have gone 
 ' to a meeting of the dinner-stewards, and I take the 
 ' opportunity of writing to you. They dine with us to- 
 ' day, and we are going to-night to the theatre. M'lan 
 ' is playing there. I mean to leave a card for him 
 ' before evening. We are engaged for every day of our 
 ' stay, already ; but the people I have seen are so very 
 ' hearty and warm in their manner that much of the 
 ' horrors of lionizatioD gives way before it. I am glad to Lionization 
 
 /> 1 1 1 • • made 
 
 ' find that they propose givmg me for a toast on Friday tolerable. 
 
 ' the Memory of Wilkie. I should have liked it better 
 
 ' than anything, if I could have made my choice. Com- 
 
 ■ municate all particulars to Mac. I would to God jo\i 
 
 ' were both here. Do dine together at the Gray's-inn on 
 
 ' Friday, and think of me. If I don't drink my first glass 
 
 ' of wine to you, may my pistols miss fire, and my mare 
 
230 
 
 THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 [Chaptek 
 
 Edin- , 
 
 EtTRQH : 
 
 1841. 
 
 Thoughts 
 of home. 
 
 • slip her shoulder. . AH sorts of regard from Kate. She 
 ' has gone with Miss Allan to see the house she was bom 
 'in, &c. Write me soon, and long, &c.' 
 
 His next letter was written the morning after the 
 dinner, on Saturday the 26th June. ' The great event is 
 The dinner. ' over ; and being gone, I am a man again. It was the 
 'most brilliant affair you can conceive; the completest 
 ' success possible, from first to last. The room was 
 ' crammed, and more than seventy applicants for tickets 
 ' were of necessity refused yesterday. Wilson was ill, but 
 ' plucked up like a lion, and spoke famously.* I send you 
 
 The 
 
 Dominie 
 
 and Mr. 
 Squeere. 
 
 Professor 
 Wilson's 
 Bpeeoh. 
 
 * The speeches generally were good, bnt the descriptions in the text by him- 
 self ■will here be thought sufficient. One or two sentences ought however to 
 be given to show the tone of Wilson's praise, and I will only preface them by 
 the remark that Dickens's acknowledgments, as well as his tribute to WiUde, 
 were expressed with great felicity ; and that Peter Robertson seems to have 
 thrown the company into convulsions of laughter by his imitation of Dominie 
 Sampson's Pko-di-gi-otts, in a supposed interview between that worthy school- 
 master and Mr. Squeers of Dotheboys. I now quote from Professor Wilson's 
 speech : 
 
 ' Our friend has mingled in the common walks of life ; he has made himself 
 ' familiar with the lower orders of society. He has not been deterred by the 
 ' aspect of vice and wickedness, and misery and guilt, from seeking a spirit of 
 ' good in things evil, but has endeavoured by the might of genius to transmute 
 ' what was base into what is precious as the beaten gold .... But I shall be 
 ' betrayed, if I go on much longer — which it would be improper for me to do 
 
 * — into something like » critical delineation of the genius of our illustrious 
 ' guest. I shall not attempt that ; but I cannot but express in a few ineffec- 
 ' tiial words, the delight which every human bosom feels in the benign spirit 
 ' which pervades all his creations. How kind and good a man he is, I need 
 'not say; nor what strength of genius he has acquired by that profound sym- 
 
 • pathy with his fellow-creatures, whether in prosperity and happiness, or over- 
 ' whelmed with unfortunate circumstances, but who yet do not sink under their 
 ' miseries, but trust to their own strength of endurance, to that principle of 
 ' truth and honour and integrity which is no stranger to the uncultivated 
 ' bosom, and which is found in the lowest abodes in as great strength as in the 
 ' balls of nobles and the palaces of kings. Mr. Dickens is also a satirist. He 
 ' satirizes human life, but he does not satirize it to degrade it. He does not 
 
FiETEENTH.] PUBLIC DINNER IN EDINBFEGH. 231 
 
 ' a paper herewith, but the report is dismal in the extreme. Edin- 
 burgh : 
 ' They say there will be a better one — I don't know where i84i. 
 
 ' or when. Should there be, I will send it to you. I think 
 
 ' (ahem !) that I spoke rather well. It was an excellent room, C. D. 
 
 to 
 ' and both the subjects (Wilson and Scottish Literature, j. f. 
 
 ' and the Memory of Wilkie) were good to go upon. There 
 
 ■ were nearly two hundred ladies present. The place is so 
 
 ' contrived that the cross table is raised enormously : much 
 
 ' above the heads of people sitting below : and the effect 
 
 ' on first coming in (on me, I mean) was rather tremendous. His recep- 
 
 ' I was quite self-possessed however, and, notwithstanding 
 
 ' the enthoosemoosy, which was very startling, as cool as a 
 
 ' cucumber. I wish to God you had been there, as it is 
 
 ' impossible for the " distinguished guest " to describe the 
 
 ' scene. It beat all natur '. . . . > 
 
 Here was the close of his letter. ' I have been expect- 
 
 ' ing every day to hear from you, and not hearing mean 
 
 'to make this the briefest epistle possible. We start 
 
 'next Sunday (that's to-morrow week). We are going 
 
 ' -wish to ptdl down what is high into the neighbourhood of what is low. He 
 
 ' does not seek to represent all virtue as a hollow thing, in which no confidence 
 
 ' can be placed. He satirizes only the selfish, and the hard-hearted, and the 
 
 ' cruel. Our distinguished guest may not have given us, as yet, a full and 
 
 ' complete delineation of the female character. But this he has done : he has 
 
 'not endeavoured to represent women as charming merely by the aid of ac- 
 
 ' oomplishments, however elegant and graceful. He has not depicted those Professor 
 
 ■accomplishments as their essentials, buthas spoken of them rather as always Wilson foj 
 
 'inspired by a love of domesticity, by fidelity, by purity, by innocence, by 
 
 ' charity, and by hope, which makes them discharge, under the most difficult 
 
 'circumstances, their duties; and which brings over their path in this world 
 
 • some glimpses of the light of heaven. Mr. Dickens may be assured that there 
 
 ' is felt for him all over Scotland a sentiment of kindness, affection, admiration, 
 
 'and love; and I know for certain that the knowledge of these sentiments 
 
 'roust make him happy. ' 
 
232 THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. [Chapteb 
 
 Edin- ' out to Jefifrey's to-day (he is very unwell), and return 
 
 1841. ' Here to-morrow evening. If I don't find a letter from 
 
 C. D. 'you when I come back, expect no Lights and Shadows 
 
 J p_ ' of Scottish Life from your indignant correspondent. 
 
 ' Murray the manager made very excellent, tasteful, and 
 
 'gentlemanly mention of Macready, about whom Wilson 
 
 'had been asking me divers questions during dinner.' 
 
 'A hundred thanks for your letter,' he writes four days 
 
 later. ' I read it this morning with the greatest pleasure 
 
 ' and delight, and answer it with ditto, ditto. Where shall 
 
 Home < J 'begin — about my darlings ? I am delighted with 
 
 yearumgs. ° ./ o o 
 
 ' Charley's precocity. He takes arter his father, he does. 
 ' God bless them, you can't imagine {you! how can you !) 
 ' how much I long to see them. It makes me quite 
 ' sorrowful to think of them, . . . Yesterday, sir, the lord 
 ' provost, council, and magistrates voted me by acclamation 
 Freedom of ' the freedom of the city, in testimony (I quote the letter 
 
 the city 
 
 voted to 'just received from "James Forrest, lord provost") "of the 
 ' " sense entertained by them of your distinguished abilities 
 ' "as an author." I acknowledged this morning in appro- 
 ' priate terms the honour they had done me, and through 
 ' me the pursuit to which I was devoted. It is handsome, 
 ' is it not ? ' 
 
 The parchment scroll of the city-freedom, recording the 
 grounds on which it was voted, hung framed in his 
 study to the last, and was one of his valued possessions. 
 Answering some question of mine he told me further as 
 to the speakers, and gave some amusing glimpses of the 
 party-spirit which still at that time ran high in the capital 
 of the north. 
 
FiFTEEOTH.] PUBLIC DINNER IN EDINBURGH. 233 
 
 ' The men who spoke at the dinner were all the most Edin- 
 ' rising men here, and chiefly at the Bar. They were all, i84i. 
 
 • alternately, whigs and tories ; with some few radicals, C D. 
 
 TT • ^^ 
 
 ' such as Gordon, who gave the memory of Bums. He is j. f. 
 
 ' Wilson's son-in-law and the lord advocate's nephew — a 
 
 ' very masterly speaker indeed, who ought to become a 
 
 ' distinguished man. Neaves, who gave the other poets, 
 
 ' a little too lawyer-like for my taste, is a great gun in the 
 
 ' courts. Mr. Primrose is Lord Rosebery's son. Adam 
 
 ' Black, the publisher as you know. Dr. Alison, a very Speakers. 
 
 ' popular friend of the poor. Eobertson you know. Allan 
 
 • you know. Colquhoun is an advocate. All these men 
 'were selected for the toasts as being crack speakers, 
 ' known men, and opposed to each other very strongly in 
 
 ' politics. For this reason, the professors and so forth who Politics 
 
 and party. 
 
 ' sat upon the platform about me made no speeches and 
 
 ' had none assigned them. I felt it was very remarkable 
 
 'to see such a number of grey-headed men gathered 
 
 ' about my brown flowing locks ; and it struck most of 
 
 ' those who were present very forcibly. The judges, soli- 
 
 ' citor-general, lord-advocate, and so forth, were all here to 
 
 ' call, the day after our arrival. The judges never go to TJie judges. 
 
 'public dinners in Scotland. Lord Meadowbank alone 
 
 ' broke through the custom, and none of his successors 
 
 ' have imitated him. It will give you a good notion of 
 
 'party to hear that the solicitor-general and lord- 
 
 ' advocate refused to go, though they had previously 
 
 • engaged, v/nXess the croupier or the chairman were a 
 
 ' whig. Both (Wilson and Robertson) were tories, simply ^^ >*^- 
 
 officers. 
 
 ' because, Jeffrey excepted, no whig could be found who 
 
234 
 
 THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 IChapteb 
 
 Edin- 
 
 BUE8H : 
 1841. 
 
 Whig 
 jealousies. 
 
 Eumoura 
 from 
 
 GlMgOTf. 
 
 C. D. 
 
 to 
 J. F. 
 
 At the 
 theatre. 
 
 • was adapted to the office. The solicitor laid strict in- 
 ' junctions on Napier not to go if a whig were not in office. 
 ' No whig was, and he stayed away. I think this is good ? 
 ' — ^bearing in mind that all the old whigs of Edinburgh 
 ' were cracking their throats in the room. They give out 
 ' that they were ill, and the lord-advocate did actually lie 
 ' in bed all the afternoon ; but this is the real truth, and 
 ' one of the judges told it me with great glee. It seems 
 ' they couldn't quite trust Wilson or Eobertson, as they 
 'thought; and feared, some tory demonstration. Nothing 
 ' of the kind took place ; and ever since, these men have 
 ' been the loudest in their praises of the whole affair.' 
 
 The close of his letter tells us all his engagements, and 
 completes his grateful picture of the hearty Scottish wel- 
 come given him. It has also some personal touches that 
 may be thought worth preserving. ' A threat reached me 
 ' last night (they have been hammering at it in their 
 ' papers, it seems, for some time) of a dinner at Glasgow. 
 ' But I hope, having circulated false rumours of my move- 
 ' ments, to get away before they send to me ; and only to 
 ' stop there on my way home, to change horses and send 
 ' to the post-office. . . . You will like to know how we 
 ' have been living. Here's a list of engagements, past and 
 ' present. Wednesday, we dined at home, and went incog, 
 'to the theatre at night, to Murray's box : the pieces 
 
 • admirably done, and M'lan in the Two Drovers quite 
 
 • wonderful, and most affecting. Thursday, to Lord Mur- 
 
 • ray's; dinner and evening party. Friday, the dinner. 
 ' Saturday, to Jeffrey's, a beautiful place about three miles 
 'off' (Craig-crook, which at Lord Jeffrey's invitation I 
 
FiPTEENTH.] PUBLIC DINNER IN EDINBURGH. 235 
 
 afterwards visited ■with him), 'stop there all night, dine Edin- 
 ' on Sunday, and home at eleven. Monday, dine at Dr. 1841. ' 
 
 'Alison's, four miles off. Tuesday, dinner and evening Hospi- 
 ' party at Allan's. Wednesday, breakfast with Napier, 
 
 • dine with Blackwoods seven miles off, evening party at 
 
 ' the treasurer's of the town-council, supper with all the 
 
 ' artists (! !). Thursday, lunch at the solicitor-general's, 
 
 ' dine at Lord Gillies's, evening party at Joseph Gordon's, 
 
 ' one of Brougham's earUest supporters. Friday, dinner 
 
 ' and evening party at Robertson's. Saturday, dine again 
 
 ' at Jeffrey's ; back to the theatre, at half-past nine to the 
 
 ' moment, for public appearance ;* places all let, &c. &c. &c. 
 
 ' Sunday, off at seven o'clock in the morning to Stirhng, 
 
 'and then to Callender, a stage further. Next day, to 
 
 ' Loch-earn, and pull up there for three days, to rest and 
 
 'work. The moral of all this is, that there is no place Moral ol 
 
 it all. 
 'like home; and that I thank God most heartily for 
 
 ' having given me a quiet spirit, and a heart that won't 
 
 'hold many people. I sigh for Devonshire-terrace and 
 
 ' Broadstairs, for battledore and shuttlecock; I want to 
 
 ' dine in a blouse with you and Mac ; and T feel Topping's 
 
 • merits more acutely than I have ever done in my 
 'life. On Sunday evening the 17th of July I shall 
 •revisit my household gods, please heaven. I wish the 
 
 • day were here. For God's sake be in waiting. I wish 
 •you and Mac would dine in Devonshire-terrace that 
 
 * On this occasion, as he told me afterwards, the orchestra did a double 
 stroke of business, much to the amazement of himself and his friends, by im- 
 provising at his entrance Charley is my Darling, amid tumultuous shouts of 
 delight. 
 
236 
 
 THE LIFE OF CHABLES DICKENS. 
 
 [Chapteb 
 
 Edin- 
 burgh : 
 1841. 
 
 Proposed 
 visit to 
 the High- 
 lands. 
 
 Allan and 
 Wilkie. 
 
 Offer of a 
 
 seat. 
 
 Maolise 
 
 and 
 
 Maoready. 
 
 Guide 
 to the 
 Highlands. 
 
 ' day with Fred. He has the key of the cellar. Bo. 
 ' We shall be at Inverary in the Highlands on Tuesday 
 ' week, getting to it through the pass of Glencoe, of which 
 ' you may have heard ! On Thursday following we shall 
 ' be at Glasgow, where I shall hope to receive your last 
 ' letter before we meet. At Inverary, too, I shall make 
 ' sure of finding at least one, at the post-office. . . . Little 
 ' Allan is trying hard for the post of queen's Hmner for 
 ' Scotland, vacant by poor Wilkie's death. Every one is 
 
 ' in his favor but who is jobbing for some one else. 
 
 ' Appoint him, will you, and I'll give up the premier-ship. 
 ' — How I breakfasted to-day in the house where Scott 
 ' lived seven and twenty years ; how I have made solemn 
 ' pledges to write about missing children in the Edinburgh 
 'Review, and will do my best to keep them; how I 
 ' have declined to be brought in, free gratis for nothing and 
 • qualified to boot, for a Scotch county that's going a-beg- 
 ' ging, lest I should be thought to have dined on Friday 
 ' under false pretences ; these, with other marvels, shall be 
 ' yours anon. ... I must leave off sharp, to get dressed 
 ' and off upon the seven miles dinner trip. Kate's affec- 
 ' tionate regards. My hearty loves ' to Mac and Grim.' 
 Grim was another great artist having the same beginning 
 to his name, whose tragic studies had suggested an epithet 
 quite inapplicable to any of his personal qualities. 
 
 The narrative of the trip to the Highlands must have 
 a chapter to itself and' its incidents of adventure and 
 comedy. The latter chiefly were due to the guide who 
 accompanied him, a quasi-highlander himself, named a 
 few pages back as Mr. Kindheart, whose real name was 
 
FiFTEENTB.] PUBLIC DINNER IN EDINEUEGH. 237 
 
 Mr. Angus Fletcher, and to whom it hardly needs that Ewb- 
 I should give other mentioQ than will be supplied by such i84i. 
 
 future notices of him as my friend's letters may contain. Angus 
 He had a wayward kind of talent, which he could never 
 concentrate on a settled pursuit ; and though at the time 
 we knew him first he had taken up the profession of a 
 sculptor, he abandoned it soon afterwards. His mother, a 
 woman distinguished by many remarkable qualities, lived 
 now in the English lake-country ; and it was no fault of 
 hers that this home was no longer her son's. But what 
 mainly had closed it to him was undoubtedly not less the 
 secret of such liking for him as Dickens had. Fletcher's 
 eccentricities and absurdities, often divided by the thinnest 
 partition from the most foolish extravagance, but occa- 
 sionally clever, and always the genuine though whimsical 
 outgrowth of the life he led, had a curious sort of charm 
 for Dickens. He enjoyed the oddity and humour ; 
 tolerated all the rest ; and to none more freely than to 
 Kiridheart during the next few years, both in Italy and 
 in England, opened his house and hospitality. The close 
 of the poor fellow's life, alas ! was in only too sad agree- 
 ment with aU the previous course of it ; but this will 
 have mention hereafter. He is waiting now to introduce 
 Dickens to the Highlands. 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 ADVENTUEES IN THE HIGHLANDS. 
 1841. 
 
 The High- FiiOM Loch-eam-liead Dickens wrote on Monday the 
 
 YsTi ' ^*^ °^ J^ilyj having reached it, ' wet through,' at four that 
 
 ^~^ afternoon. ' Having had a great deal to do in a crowded 
 
 *° 'house on Saturday night at the theatre, we left Edin- 
 
 ' burgh yesterday morning at half past seven, and travelled, 
 
 ' with Fletcher for our guide, to a place called Stewart' s- 
 
 ' hotel, nine miles further than CaUender. We had 
 
 'neglected to order rooms, and were obliged to make a 
 
 ' sitting-room of our own bed-chamber ; in which my 
 
 ' genius for stowing furniture away was of the very greatest 
 
 ' service. Fletcher slept in a kennel with three panes of 
 
 ' glass in it, which formed part and parcel of a window ; 
 
 'the other three panes whereof belonged to a man who 
 
 ' slept on the other side of the partition. He told me this 
 
 A fright. ' morning that he had had a nightmare all night, and had 
 ' screamed horribly, he knew. The stranger, as you may 
 ' suppose, hired a gig and went off at fuU gaUop with the 
 ' first glimpse of daylight.* Being very tired (for we had 
 
 * Poor good Mr. Fletcher had, among his other peculiarities, a habit of 
 venting any particular emotion in a wildness of cry that went beyond even the 
 
CH.XVI.] ADVENTURES IN THE HIGHLANDS. 239 
 
 'not had more than three hours* sleep on the previous The Hwh- 
 
 LANDS : 
 
 •night) we lay till ten this morning; and at half past 1841. 
 
 ' eleven went through the Trossachs to Loch-katrine, C D. 
 
 ' where I walked from the hotel after tea last night. It is j. p. 
 
 'impossible to say what a glorious scene it was. It rained ^^ 
 
 • as it never does rain anywhere but here. We conveyed 
 'Kate up a rocky pass to go and see the island of the 
 
 ' Lady of the Lake, but she gave in after the first five island of 
 
 the Lady 
 
 ■ minutes, and we left her, very picturesque and uncomfort- of the 
 'able, with Tom' (the servant they had brought with 
 them from Devonshire-terrace) ' holding an umbrella over 
 'her head, while we climbed on. When we came back, 
 ' she had gone into the carriage. We were wet through 
 'to the skin, and came on in that state four and twenty 
 'miles. Fletcher is very good natured, and of extraor- 
 ' dinary use in these outlandish parts. His habit of going The tra- 
 'into kitchens and bars, disconcerting at Broadstairs, is guide. 
 
 descriptive power of his friend, who referred to it frequently in hia Broad- 
 stairs letters. Here is an instance (20th Sept. 18i0) ' Mrs. M. being in the 
 'next machine the other day heard him howl like a wolf (as he does) when he 
 ' first touched the cold water. I am glad to have my former story in that 
 •respect confirmed. There is no sound on earth like it. In the infernal 
 'regions there may be, but elsewhere there is no compound addition of wild 
 'beasts that could produce its like for their total. The description of the 
 ' wolves in Robinson Crusoe is the nearest thing ; but it's feeble — very feeble 
 ' — in comparison. ' Of the generally amiable side to aU his eccentricities I Fletcher's 
 am tempted to give an illustration from the same letter. 'An alarming report eccen- 
 ' being brought to me the other day that he was preaching, I betook myself to *'^i'***™' 
 'the spot and found he was reading Wordsworth to a family on the terrace, 
 ' outside the house, in the open fiir and public way. The whole town were 
 'out. When he had given them a taste of Wordsworth, he sent home for 
 ' Mrs. Norton's book, and entertained them with selections from that. He 
 
 * concluded with an imitation of Mrs. Hemans reading her own poetry, which 
 ' he performed with a pocket-handkerchief over his head to imitate her veil 
 ' — all this in public, before everybody.' 
 
240 
 
 THE LIFE OP CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 (CHAPTEft 
 
 The Hioh- 
 
 LANDS : 
 
 1841. 
 
 C. D. 
 
 to 
 
 J. F. 
 
 A comical 
 picture. 
 
 Higliland 
 accommo- 
 dation. 
 
 Weather. 
 
 'here of great service. Not expecting us till six, they 
 ' hadn't lighted our fires when we arrived here ; and if you 
 'had seen him (with whom the responsibility of th6 
 ' omission rested) running in and out of the sitting-room 
 ' and the two bed-rooms with a great pair of bellows, with 
 ' which he distractedly blew each of the fires out in turn, 
 • you would have died of laughing. He had on his head a 
 ' great highland cap, on his back a white coat, and cut such 
 ' a figure as even the inimitable can't depicter . . . 
 
 'The Inns, inside and out, are the queerest places 
 'imaginable. From the road, this one,' at Loch-earn- 
 head, 'looks like a white wall, with windows in it by 
 'mistake. We have a good sitting-room though, on the 
 ' first floor : as large (but not as lofty) as my study. The 
 ' bedrooms are of that size which renders it impossible fof 
 'you to move, after you have taken your boots off, without 
 ' chipping pieces out of your legs. There isn't a basin in 
 ' the Highlands which will hold my face ; not a drawer 
 ' which will open after you have put your clothes in it ; 
 ' not a water-bottle capacious enough to wet your tooth - 
 ' brush. The huts are wretched and miserable beyond all 
 'description. The food (for those who can pay for it) 
 ' " not bad," as M would say : oatcake, mutton, hotch, 
 ' potch, trout from the loch, small beer bottled, marmalade, 
 ' and whiskey. Of the last named article I have taken 
 ' about a pint to-day. The weather is what they call " soft " 
 ' — ^which means that the sky is a vast water-spout that 
 ' never leaves off emptying itself ; and the liquor has no 
 
 ' more effect than water. I am going to work to- 
 
 ' moiTOW, and hope before leaving here to write you again. 
 
Sixteenth.] ADTENTURES IN THE HIGHLANDS. 241 
 
 'The elections have been sad work indeed. That they The Hioh- 
 'should return Sibthoi-p and reject Bulwer, is, by Heaven, i84l. 
 'a national disgrace. ... I don't wonder the devil flew over c. D. 
 'Lincoln. The people were far too addle-headed, even for jp 
 ' him I don't bore you with accounts of Ben this and Peel's 
 
 elections. 
 
 'that, and Lochs of all sorts of names, but this is a 
 'wonderful region. The way the mists were stalking 
 ' about to-day, and the clouds lying down upon the hills ; 
 ' the deep glens, the high rocks, the rushing waterfalls, and 
 ' the roaring rivers down in deep gulfs below ; were all 
 ' stupendous. This house is wedged round by great heights Grand 
 
 SC6116rV 
 
 ' that are lost in the clouds ; and the loch, twelve miles long, 
 ' stretches out its dreary length before the windows. In 
 ' my next, I shall soar to the sublime, perhaps ; in this 
 'here present writing I confine myself to the ridiculous. 
 ' But I am always,' &c. &c. 
 
 His next letter bore the date of ' Ballechelish, Friday FromBaile. 
 
 , chelisli. 
 
 'evening, ninth July, 1841, half past nine, P.M. and 
 
 described what we had often longed to see together, the 
 
 Pass of Glencoe. . . . ' I can't go to bed without writing to 
 
 ' you from here, though the post will not leave this place 
 
 ' until we have left it, and arrived at another. On looking 
 
 ' over the route which Lord Murray made out for me, I Changes in 
 
 'found he had put down Thursday next for Abbotsford 
 
 ' and Dryburgh-abbey, and a journey of seventy miles 
 
 ' besides ! Therefore, and as I was happily able to steal 
 
 ' a march upon myself at Loch-earn-head, and to • finish 
 
 'in two days what I thought would take me three, we 
 
 ' shall leave here to-morrow morning ; and, by being a 
 
 'day earlier than we intended at all the places between 
 
242 
 
 THE LIFE OF CHAKLES DICKENS. 
 
 [Chapter 
 
 The Hioh- 
 
 LANDS : 
 
 1841. 
 
 C. D. 
 
 to 
 .,. F. 
 
 A -water- 
 fall. 
 
 'this and Melrose (which we propose to reach by 
 ' Wednesday night), we shall have a whole day for Scott's 
 'house and tomb, and still be at York on Saturday 
 'evening, and home, God willing, on Sunday. . . . We 
 ' left Loch-earn-head last night, and went to a place called 
 ' Killin, eight miles from it, where we slept. I walked 
 ' some six miles with Fletcher after we got there, to see a 
 ' waterfall : and truly it was a magnificent sight, foaming 
 ' and crashing down three great steeps of riven rock ; 
 ' leaping over the first as far off as you could carry your 
 ' eye, and rumbling and foaming down into a dizzy pool 
 ' below you, with a deafening roar. To-day we have had a 
 'journey of between 50 and 60 miles, through the bleakest 
 ' and most desolate part of Scotland, where the hiU-tops 
 ' are still covered with great patches of snow, and the road 
 ' winds over steep mountain passes, and on the brink of 
 ' deep brooks and precipices. The cold all day has been 
 'intense, and the rain sometimes most violent. It has 
 ' been impossible to keep warm, by any means ; even 
 ' whiskey failed ; the wind was too piercing even for that. 
 ' One stageof ten miles, overa place called the Black-mount, 
 ' took us two hours and a half to do ; and when we came 
 ' to a lone public called the King's-house, at the entrance 
 Entrance to ' to Glencoe — this was about three o'clock — ^we were well 
 'nigh frozen. We got a fire directly, and in twenty 
 ' minutes they served us up some famous kippered salmon, 
 ' broiled ; a broiled fowl ; hot mutton ham and poached 
 ' 6ggs ; pancakes ; oatcake ; wheaten bread ; butter ; 
 ' bottled porter ; hot water, lump sugar, and whiskey ; of 
 • which we made a very hearty meal. AU the way, the 
 
SixTEENTu.] ADVENTURES IN THE HIGHLANDS. 243 
 
 'road had been among moors and mountains with huge The Hiqh- 
 
 ' masses of rock, which fell down God knows where, i84i. 
 
 'sprinkling the ground in every direction, and giving it o. D. 
 
 ' the aspect of the burial place of a race of giants. Now j p 
 
 ' and then we passed a hut or two, with neither window nor 
 
 ' chimney, and the smoke of the peat fire rolling out at the 
 
 ' door. But there were not six of these dwellings in a 
 
 ' dozen miles ; and anything so bleak and wild, and mighty 
 
 ' in its loneliness, as the whole country, it is impossible 
 
 'to conceive. Glencoe itself is perfectly terrible. The The pass 
 
 T • 1 . 1-11°^ GHencoe. 
 
 'pass IS an awful place. It is shut m on each side by 
 ■ enormous rocks from which great torrents come rushing 
 ' down in all directions. In amongst these rocks on one 
 ' side of the pass (the left as we came) there are scores of 
 'glens, high up, which form such haunts as you might 
 'imagine yourself wandering in, in the very height and 
 'madness of a fever. They will live in my dreams for 
 'years — I was going to say as long as I live, and I 
 ' seriously think so. The very recollection of them makes 
 ' me shudder. . . Well, I will not bore you with my impres- 
 'sions of these tremendous wilds, but they really are 
 ' fearful in their grandeur and amazing solitude. Wales 
 'is a mere toy compared with them.' 
 
 The further mention of his guide's whimsical ways may 
 stand, for it cannot now be the possible occasion of pain or 
 annoyance, or of anything but very innocent laughter. 
 
 'We are now in a bare white house on the banks of Loch 
 
 TiP.TftTl 
 
 'Loch-leven, but in a comfortably furnished room on 
 'the top of the house — that is, on the first floor — 
 'with the rain pattering against the window as though 
 
 k2 
 
244 
 
 THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 [Chapter 
 
 The High- 
 
 lANDS : 
 
 18il. 
 
 C. D. 
 
 to 
 J. F. 
 
 A July 
 evening. 
 
 Postal 
 service at 
 Loch-earn- 
 head. 
 
 Route 
 homeward. 
 
 'it were December, the wind howling dismally, a cold 
 ' damp mist on everything without, a blazing fire within 
 'halfway up the chimney, and a most infernal Piper 
 ' practising under the window for a competition of pipers 
 ' which is to come off shortly. . . . The store of anecdotes 
 ' of Fletcher with which we shall return, will last a long 
 'time. It seems that the F's are an extensive clan, 
 ■and that his father was a highlander. Accordingly, 
 'wherever he goes, he finds out some cotter or small 
 'farmer who is his cousin. I wish you could see him 
 ' walking into his cousins' curds and cream, and into their 
 ' dairies generally ! Yesterday morning between eight and 
 ' nine, I was sitting writing at the open window, when the 
 ' postman came to the inn (which at Loch-earn-head is 
 ' the post office) for the letters. He is going away, when 
 ' Fletcher, who has been writing somewhere below stairs, 
 ' rushes out, and cries " Halloa there ! Is that the Post ?" 
 ' " Yes ! " somebody answers. " Call him back ! " says 
 ' Fletcher : " Just sit down till I've done, and don't go 
 ' " away till I tell you." — Fancy ! The General Post, with 
 'the letters of forty villages in a leathern bag! . . . To- 
 ' morrow at Oban. Sunday at Inverary. Monday at Tarbet. 
 'Tuesday at Glasgow (and that night at Hamilton). 
 'Wednesday at Melrose. Thursday at Ditto. Friday I 
 ' don't know where. Saturday at York. Sunday — ^how 
 'glad I shall be to shake hands with you. My love 
 'to Mac. I thought he'd have written once. Ditto to 
 ' Macready. I had a very nice and welcome letter from 
 ' him, and a most hearty one from Elliotson. . . . P.S. Half 
 ' asleep. So, excuse drowsiness of matter and composition. 
 
Sixteenth.] ADVENTURES IN THE HIGHLANDS. 243 
 
 ' I shall be fiill of joy to meet another letter from you ! The High- 
 lands : 
 '. . . P.P.S. They speak Gaelic here, of course, and 1841. 
 
 • many of the common people understand very little c. D. 
 
 'English. Since I wrote this letter, I rang the girl j, p, 
 
 'upstairs, and gave elaborate directions (you know my 
 
 ■ way) for a pint of sherry to be made into boiling negus ; 
 
 ' mentioning aU the ingredients one by one, and particularly 
 
 ' nutmeg. When I had quite finished, seeing her obviously The maid 
 
 ' bewildered, I said, with great gravity, " Now you know 
 
 '"whatyou're going to order?" " Oh yes. Sure." "What?" 
 
 ' — a pause — " Just " — another pause — " Just plenty of 
 
 ' " nutbergs ! " ' 
 
 The impression made upon him by the Pass of Glencoe 
 
 was not overstated in this letter. It continued with him 
 
 as he there expresses it ; and, as we shall see hereafter, 
 
 even where he expected to find Nature in her most Effect of 
 
 . Glencoe. 
 
 desolate grandeur on the dreavy waste or an American 
 prairie, his imagination went back with a higher satisfac- 
 tion to Glencoe. But his experience of it is not yet com- 
 pletely told. The sequel was in a letter of two days 
 later date from 'Dalmally, Sunday, July the eleventh, 
 '1841.' 
 
 ' As there was no place of this name in our route, you At a placa 
 'will be surprised to see it at the head of tbis present route, 
 'writing. But our being here is a part of such moving 
 ' accidents by flood and fi.eld as will astonish you. If you 
 ' should happen to have your hat on, take it off, that your 
 'hair may stand on end without any interruption. To 
 ' get from Ballyhoolish (as I ara obliged to spell it when 
 ' Fletcher is not in the way; and he is out at this moment) 
 
246 
 
 THE LIFE OF CHAELES DICKENS. 
 
 [Chapteh 
 
 The Hi9h- 
 
 LiNDS : 
 
 1841. 
 
 C. D. 
 
 to 
 J. P. 
 
 An adven- 
 ture. 
 
 Again 
 . through 
 Glencoe. 
 
 Torrents 
 liwollen 
 with rain 
 
 ' to Oban, it is necessary to cross two ferries, one of which 
 ' is an arm of the sea, eight or ten miles broad. Into this 
 ' ferry-boat, passengers, carriages, horses, and all, get bodily, 
 ' and are got across by hook or by crook if the weather be 
 ' reasonably fine. Yesterday morning, however, it blew 
 ' such a strong gale that the landlord of the inn, where we 
 ' had paid for horses all the way to Oban (thirty miles), 
 ' honestly came upstairs just as we were starting, with the 
 ' money in his hand, and told us it would be impossible to 
 ' cross. There was nothing to be done but to come back 
 ' five and thirty miles, through Glencoe and Inverouran, 
 ' to a place called Tyndrum, whence a road twelve miles 
 ' long crosses to Dalmally, which is sixteen miles from 
 ' Inverary. Accordingly we turned back, and in a great 
 ' storm of wind and rain began to retrace the dreary road 
 ' we had come the day before. . . I was not at all ill pleased 
 ' to have to come again through that awful Glencoe. If 
 ' it had been tremendous on the previous day, yesterday 
 'it was perfectly horrific. It had rained all night, and 
 ' was raining then, as it only does in these parts. Through 
 'the whole glen, which is ten miles long, torrents were 
 'boiling and foaming, and sending up in every direction 
 ' spray like the smoke of gi-eat fires. They were rushing 
 'down every hill and mountain side, and tearing like 
 ' devils across the path, and down into the depths of the 
 ' rocks. Some of the hills looked as if they were full of 
 ' silver, and had cracked in a hundred places. Others 
 ' as if they were frightened, and had broken out into a 
 ' deadly sweat. In others there was no compromise or 
 ■ division of streams, but one great torrent came roaring 
 
Sixteenth.] ADVENTTJEES IN THE HIGHLANDS. 247 
 
 ' down with a deafening noise, and a rushing of water that The Hicm. 
 ' was quite appalling. Such a spaet, in short (that's the i84i.' 
 ' country word), has not been known for many years, and c. D. 
 ' the sights and sounds were beyond description. The post- j*p 
 ' boy was not at all at his ease, and the horses were veiy 
 ' much frightened (as well they might be) by the perpetual 
 'raging and roaring; one of them started as we came 
 
 ' down a steep place, and we were within that much ( ) 
 
 ' of tumbling over a precipice ; just then, too, the drag 
 'broke, and we were obliged to go on as we best could, 
 ' without it : getting out every now and then, and hanging Dangerous 
 
 ■ on at the back of the carriage to prevent its rolling down 
 'too fast, and going Heaven knows where. Well, in this 
 ' pleasant state of things we came to King's-house again, 
 ' having been four hours doing the sixteen miles. The 
 ' rumble where Tom sat was by this time so full of water, 
 ' that he was obliged to borrow a gimlet, and bore holes in 
 'the bottom to let it run out. The horses that were to 
 ' take us on, were out upon the hills, somewhere within 
 ' ten miles round ; and three or four bare-legged fellows 
 ' went out to look for 'em, while we sat by the fire and 
 'tried to dry ourselves. At last we got off again (without Incident* 
 'the drag and with a broken spring, no smith living dents. 
 
 ' within ten miles), and went limping on to Inverouran. 
 
 ■ In the first three miles we were in a ditch and out again, 
 ' and lost a horse's shoe. All this time it never once left 
 ' off raining; and was very windy, very cold, very misty, and 
 ' most intensely dismal. So we crossed the Black-mount, 
 ' and came to a place we had passed the day before, where 
 ' a rapid river runs over a bed of broken rock. Now, this 
 
248 
 
 THE LIFE OF CHAELES DICKENS. 
 
 [CHAPfER 
 
 The High- 
 lands : 
 1841. 
 
 C. D. 
 
 to 
 J. F. 
 
 Broken- 
 down 
 bridge, 
 
 A fortunate 
 resolve. 
 
 ' river, sir, had a bridge last winter, but the bridge broke 
 ' down when the thaw came, and has never since been 
 ' mended ; so travellers cross upon a little platform, made 
 ' of rough deal planks stretching from rock to rock ; and 
 ' carriages and horses ford the water, at a certain point. 
 ' As the platform is the reverse of steady (we had proved this 
 ' the day before), is very slippery, and affords anything but 
 ' a pleasant footing, having only a trembling little rail on 
 ' one side, and on the other nothing between it and the 
 'foaming stream, Kate decided to remain in the carriage, 
 ' and trust herself to the wheels rather than to her feet. 
 ' Fletcher and I had got out, and it was going away, when 
 ' I advised her, as I had done several times before, to come 
 ' with us ; for I saw that the water was very high, the 
 ' current being greatly swollen by the rain, and that the 
 ' post-boy had been eyeing it in a very disconcerted manner 
 ' for the last half hour. This decided her to come out ; 
 ' and Fletcher, she, Tom, and I, began to cross, while the 
 'carriage went about a quarter of a mile down the bank, 
 ' in search of a shallow place. The platform shook so much 
 ' that we could only come across two at a time, and then 
 ' it felt as if it were hung on springs. As to the wind and 
 ' rain ! . . . well, put into one gust all the wind and rain you 
 ' ever saw and heard, and you'll have some faint notion of 
 ' it ! When we got safely to the opposite bank, there came 
 ' riding up a wild highlander, in a great plaid, whom we 
 ' recognized as the landlord of the inn, and who without 
 ' taking the least notice of us, went dashing on, — with the 
 ' plaid he was wi-apped in, streaming in the wind, — 
 ' screeching in Gaelic to the post-boy on the opposite bank, 
 
Sixteen™.] ADVENTUEES IN THE HIGHLANDS. 249 
 
 ' and making the most frantic gestures you ever saw, in The Hiqh- 
 
 1 • 1 1 • ■ • r LANDS : 
 
 'wnicn he was joined by some other wild man on foot, i84l. 
 ' who had come across by a short cut, knee-deep in mire o. D. 
 ' and water. As we began to see what this meant, wo j_ p. 
 ' (that is, Fletcher and I) scrambled on after them, while Post-toy 
 
 in danger. 
 
 ' the boy, horses, and carriage were plunging in the water, 
 
 'which left only the horses' heads and the boy's body 
 
 ' visible. By the time we got up to them, the man on 
 
 ' horseback and the men on foot were perfectly mad with 
 
 ' pantomime ; for as to any of their shouts being heard by 
 
 'the boy, the water made such a great noise that they 
 
 ' might as well have been dumb. It made me quite sick 
 
 ' to think how I should have felt if Kate had been inside. 
 
 ' The carriage went round and round like a great stone, 
 
 ' the boy was as pale as death, the horses were struggling 
 
 ' and plashing and snorting like sea-animals, and we were 
 
 'all roaring to the driver to throw himself off and let 
 
 'them and the coach go to the devil, when suddenly it 
 
 ' came all right (having got into shallow water), and, all ^te rescue. 
 
 'tumbling end dripping and jogging from side to side, 
 
 'climbed up to the dry land. I assure you we looked 
 
 ' rather queer, as we wiped our faces and stared at each 
 
 ' other in a little cluster round about it. It seemed that 
 
 'the man on horseback had been looking at us through a 
 
 ' telescope as we came to the track, and knowing that the 
 
 ' place was very dangerous, and seeing that we meant to 
 
 ' bring the carriage, had come on at a great gallop to show 
 
 ' the driver the only place where he could cross. By the Narrow 
 
 escai)e. 
 
 'time he came up, the man had taken the water at a 
 ' wrong place, and in a word was as nearly drowned (with 
 
250 
 
 THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 [Chapter 
 
 The Hish- 
 
 lANDS : 
 
 1841. 
 
 0. D. 
 
 to 
 J. F. 
 
 HigUand 
 inn and 
 inmates. 
 
 English 
 comfort 
 at IJal- 
 mally. 
 
 "carriage, horses, luggage, and all) as ever man was. 
 ' Was this a good adventure ? 
 
 'We all went on to the inn — the wild man galloping 
 'on first, to get a fire lighted — and there we dined on 
 ' eggs and bacon, oat-cake, and whiskey ; and changed 
 ' and dried ourselves. The place was a mere knot of 
 ' little outhouses, and in one of these there were fifty 
 'highlanders all drunh. . . . Some were drovers, some 
 ' pipers, and some workmen engaged to build a hunting- 
 ' lodge for Lord Breadalbane hard by, who had been 
 ' driven in by stress of weather. One was a paper-hanger. 
 'He had come out three days before to paper the inn's 
 'best room, a chamber almost large enough to keep a 
 ' Newfoundland dog in ; and, from the first half hour 
 ' after his arrival to that moment, had been hopelessly 
 'and irreclaimably drunk. They were lying about in all 
 ' directions : on forms, on the ground, about a loft over- 
 ' head, round the turf-fire wrapped in plaids, on the 
 'tables, and under them. We paid our bill, thanked our 
 ' host very heartily, gave some money to his children, 
 ' and after an hour's rest came on again. At ten o'clock 
 ' at night, we reached this place, and were overjoyed to 
 ' find quite an English inn, with good beds (those we have 
 ' slept on, yet, have • always been of straw), and every 
 ' possible comfort. We breakfasted this morning at half 
 'past ten, and at three go on to Inverary to dinner. I 
 'believe the very rough part of the journey is over, and 
 ' I am really glad of it. Kate sends all kind of regards. I 
 ' shall hope to find a letter from you at Inverary when the 
 ' post reaches there, to-morrow. I wrote to Oban yesterday, 
 
Sixteenth.] ADVENTURES IN THE HIGHLANDS. 251 
 
 ' desiring the post-ofSce keeper to send any he might have The High- 
 
 lANDS ; 
 
 ' for us, over to that place. Love to Mac' I84i. 
 
 One more letter, brief but overflowing at every word 
 •with his generous nature, must close the delightful series 
 written from Scotland. It was dated from Inverary the 
 day following his exciting adventure; promised me another 
 from Mekose (which has unfortunately not been kept with 
 the rest) ; and enclosed the invitation to a public dinner 
 at Glasgow. ' I have returned for answer that I am on c. D. 
 ' my way home, on pressing business connected with my j. p. 
 ' weekly publication, and can't stop. But I have offered to Dinner 
 ' come down any day in September or October, and accept proposed. 
 ' the honour then. Now, I shall come and return per mail ; 
 ' and if this suits them, enter into a solemn league and 
 ' covenant to come with me. Do. You must. I am sure 
 ' you will . . . Till my next, and always afterwards, God 
 'bless you. I got your welcome letter this morning, and 
 ' have read it a hundred times. What a pleasure it is. 
 ' Kate's best regards. I am dying for Sunday, and wouldn't Impatiencs 
 ' stop now for twenty dinners of twenty thousand each. 
 
 ■^ 
 
 (Q- ' 
 
 ' Will Lord John meet the parliament, or resign first ? ' 
 I agreed to accompany him to Glasgow; but illness inter- 
 cepted that celebration. 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 AGAIN AT BEOADSTAIKS. 
 1841. 
 
 Soon after his return, at the opening of August, he 
 STAIRS : vf ent to Broadstairs ; and the dii-ection in which that last 
 
 1841. ' 
 
 Beoad- 
 
 question shows his thoughts to have been busy, was that 
 to which he turned his first holiday leisure. He sent me 
 some rhymed squibs as his anonymous contribution to the 
 fight the liberals were then making, against what was 
 believed to be intended by the return to ofiice of the 
 tories; ignorant as we were how much wiser than his party 
 Peel and the statesman then at the head of it was, or how greatly 
 
 his party. 
 
 what we all most desired would be advanced by the very 
 success that had been most disheartening. There will be no 
 harm now in giving one of these pieces, which will suffi- 
 ciently show the tone of all of them, and with what a 
 hearty relish they were written. I doubt indeed if he ever 
 enjoyed anything more than the power of thus taking part 
 occasionally, unknown to outsiders, in the sharp conflict 
 the press was waging at the time. ' By Jove how radical 
 CD. 'I am getting ! ' he v/rote to me (13th August). ' I 
 
 to 
 
 J. F. ' wax stronger and stronger in the true principles every 
 ' day. I don't know whether it's the sea, or no, but so it 
 
CH.XVU.] AGAIN AT BEOADSTAIES. 253 
 
 ' is.' He would at times even talk, in moments of sudden Bkoad- 
 
 indignation at the political outlook, of carrying off him- i84l.' 
 
 self and his household gods, like Coriolanus, to a world 
 
 elsewhere ! ' Thank God there is a Van Diemen's-land. 
 
 ' That's my comfort. Now, I wonder if I should make a Thoughts 
 
 ' good settler ! I wonder, if I went to a new colony with nizing. 
 
 ' my head, hands, legs, and health, I should force myself 
 
 'to the top of the social milk-pot and live upon the 
 
 ' cream ! What do you think ? Upon my word I believe 
 
 ' I should.' 
 
 His political squibs during the tory interregnum com- 
 prised some capital subjects for pictures after the manner 
 of Peter Pindar ; but that which I select has no touch of 
 personal satire in it, and he would himself, for that reason, 
 have least objected to its revival. Thus ran his new 
 version of ' The Fine Old English Gentleman, to be said 
 ' or sung at all conservative dinners.' 
 
 I'll sing you a new ballad, and I'U warrant it first-rate, Squib by 
 
 Of the days of that old gentleman who had that old estate ; ^- ^• 
 
 "When they spent the pubho money at a bountiful old rate 
 On ev'ry mistress, pimp, and scamp, at ev'ry noble gate, 
 
 In the fine old English Tory times ; 
 
 Soon may they come again ! 
 
 The good old laws were garnished well with gibbets, whips, and chains, 
 With fine old English penalties, and fine old English paina. 
 With rebel heads and seas of blood once hot in rebel veins ; 
 For aJl these things were requisite to guard the rich old gains 
 
 Of the fine old English Tory times ; 
 
 Soon may they come again I 
 
 This brave old code, like Argus, had a hundred watchful eyes, 
 And ev'iy English peasant had his good old English spies, 
 
254 
 
 THE LIFE OF CHAELES DICKENS. 
 
 [Chapteh 
 
 Beoad- 
 
 BTAIES : 
 
 1841. 
 
 Tliefine 
 old Englisli 
 toTj- times. 
 
 Sqaib by 
 C. D. 
 
 Mesmer- 
 ism. 
 
 To tempt his starving discontent with fine old English lies 
 Then call the good old Yeomanry to stop his peevish cries, 
 
 In the fine old English Tory times ; 
 
 Soon may they come again I 
 
 The good old times for cutting throats that cried out in their need, 
 The good old times for hunting men who held their fathers' creed, 
 The good old times when William Pitt, as all good men agreed, 
 Came down direct from Paradise at more than railroad speed. . . . 
 
 Oh the fine old English Tory times ; 
 
 ■Wlen will they come again I 
 
 In those rare days, the press was seldom known to snarl or bark, 
 But sweetly sang of men in pow'r, like any tuneful lark ; 
 Grave judges, too, to aU their evil deeds were in the dark ; 
 And not a man in twenty score knew how to make his mark. 
 
 Oh the fine old English Tory times ; 
 
 Soon may they come again I . . . . 
 
 But Tolerance, though slow in flight, is strong-wing'd in the main ; 
 That night must come on these fine days, in course of time was plain ; 
 The pure old spirit struggled, but its struggles were in vain ; 
 A nation's grip was on it, and it died in choaking pain, 
 
 With the fine old English Tory days. 
 
 All of the olden time. 
 
 The bright old day now dawns again ; the cry runs through the laud, 
 In England there shall be— dear bread ! in Ireland — sword and brand! 
 And poverty, and ignorance, shall swell the rich and grand. 
 So, rally round the rulers with the gentle iron hand, 
 
 Of the fine old English Tory days ; 
 
 Hail to the coming time ! 
 
 Of matters in which he had been specially interested 
 before he quitted London, one or two may properly be 
 named. He had always sympathised, almost as strongly 
 as Archbishop Whately did, with Doctor Elliotson's 
 mesmeric investigations; and, reinforced as these were 
 in the present year by the displays of a Belgian youth 
 
Seventeenth.] AGAIN AT BEOADSTaIES. 255 
 
 whom another friend, Mr. Chauncy Hare Townshend, London : 
 
 brought over to England, the subject, which to the last J_. 
 
 had an attraction for him, was for the time rather ardently 
 
 followed up. The improvement during the last few years Metropo- 
 litan 
 m the London prisons was another matter of eager and prisons. 
 
 pleased enquiry with him ; and he took frequent means of 
 stating what in this respect had been done, since even the 
 date when his Sketches were written, by two most efficient 
 public officers at Clerkenwell and Tothill-fields, Mr. Ches- 
 terton and Lieutenant Tracey, whom the course of these 
 enquiries turned into private friends. His last letter to me 
 before he quitted town sufficiently explains itself. ' Slow 
 ' rises worth by poverty deprest ' was the thought in his 
 mind at every part of his career, and he never for a 
 moment was unmindful of the duty it imposed upon him. 
 ' I subscribed for a' couple of copies ' (31st July) ' of this Book by a 
 ' little book. I knew nothing of the man, but he wrote 
 ' me a very modest letter of two lines, some weeks ago. I 
 ' have been much affected by the little biography at the 
 ' beginning, and I thought you would like to share the 
 *■ emotion it had raised in me. I wish we were all in Eden 
 
 • again — for the sake of these toiling creatures.' 
 
 In the middle of August (Monday 16th) I had announce- Beoad- 
 
 ment that he was coming up for special purposes. ' I sit n d ' 
 
 ' down to write to you without an atom of news to *° 
 
 J. F. 
 
 • communicate. Yes I have — something that will surprise 
 'you, who are pent up in dark and dismal Lincoln's- 
 
 ' inn-fields. It is the brightest day you ever saw. The A day in 
 'sun is sparkling on the water so that I can hardly the^ea. ^ 
 'bear to look at it. The tide is in, and the fishing 
 
256 THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. [Chapteb 
 
 Bboab- 'boats are dancing like mad. Upon the green-topped 
 
 1841. ' ' cliffs the corn is cut and piled in shocks ; and thousands 
 
 Q D • of butterflies are fluttering about, taking the bright 
 
 j*p 'little red flags at the mast-heads for flowers, and panting 
 
 ■ with delight accordingly. [Here the Inimitable, unable 
 
 'to resist the brilliancy out of doors, breaketh off, 
 
 ' rusheth to the machines, and plungeth into the sea. 
 
 Efiinimrgli ' Eetuming, he proceedeth :] Jeffrey is just as he was 
 
 ' when he wrote the letter I sent you. No better, and no 
 
 ' worse. I had a letter from Napier on Saturday, urging 
 
 ' the children's-labour subject upon me. But, as I hear from 
 
 ' Southwood Smith that the report cannot be printed until 
 
 ' the new parliament has sat at the least six weeks, it will 
 
 ' be impossible to produce it before the January number. 
 
 ' I shall be in town on Saturday morning and go straight 
 
 Another ' to you. A letter has come from little Hall begging that 
 
 story in . . i ■ i 
 
 prospect. ' when I do come to town I will dine there, as they wish 
 ' to talk about the new story. I have written to say that 
 ' I will do so on Saturday, and we will go together ; but I 
 ' shall be by no means good company. ... I have more 
 ' than half a mind to start a bookseller of my own. I 
 ' could ; with good capital too, as you know ; and ready 
 ' to spend it. G. Varden beware ! ' 
 'Clock' Small causes of displeasure had been growing out of the 
 
 tents. Clock, and were almost unavoidably incident to the position 
 
 in which he found himself respecting it. Its discontinuance 
 had become necessary, the strain upon himself being too 
 great without the help from others which experience had 
 shown to be impracticable ; but I thought he had not met 
 the difficulty wisely by undertaking, which already he 
 
Seventeenth,] AGAIN AT BROADSTAIES. 257 
 
 had done, to begin a new story so early as the following Broad- 
 March. On his arrival therefore we decided on another 
 
 1841. 
 
 plan, with which we went armed that Saturday afternoon ^ 
 to his pubUshers ; and of which the result wiU be best a'l™*i>-«- 
 told by himself. He had returned to Broadstairs the 
 following morning, and next day (Monday the 23rd of 
 August) he wrote to me in very enthusiastic terms of the 
 share I had taken in what he calls ' the development on c. D. 
 ' Saturday afternoon ; when I thought Chapman very j p 
 ' manly and sensible. Hall morally and physically feeble 
 'though perfectly well intentioned, and both the state- 
 'ment and reception of the project quite triumphant. 
 ' Didn't you think so too ? ' A fortnight later, Tuesday the Agreement 
 7th of September, the agreement was signed in my signed. 
 chambers, and its terms were to the effect following. The 
 GlocJe was to cease with the close of Barnahy Rudge, the 
 respective ownerships continuing as provided ; and the new 
 work in twenty numbers, similar to those of Pickwick and 
 Nickleby, was not to begin until after an interval of twelve 
 months, in November 1842. During its publication he 
 was to receive £200 monthly, to be accounted as part ot 
 the expenses ; for all which, and all risks incident, the 
 publishers made themselves responsible, under conditions 
 the same as in the Clock agreement ; except that, out of Terms, 
 the profits of each number, they were to have only a 
 fourth, three fourths going to him, and this arrangement 
 was to hold good until the termination of six months from 
 the completed book, when, upon payment to him of a 
 fourth of the value of all existing stock, they were to have 
 half the future interest. During the twelve months' 
 
258 THE LIFE OF CHAELES DICKENS. |Ch. xvii. 
 
 Bkoab- interval before the book began, he was to be paid £150 
 1841. each month ; but this was to be drawn from his three 
 
 The book fourths of the profits, and in no way to interfere with the 
 to^heChL- monthly payments of £200 while the publication was 
 "^' going on.* Such was the 'project,' excepting only a provi- 
 
 sion to be mentioned hereafter against the improbable 
 event of the profits being inadequate to the repayment ; 
 and my only drawback from the satisfaction of my own 
 share in it, arose from my fear of the use he was likely to 
 make of the leisure it afforded him. 
 
 That this fear was not illfounded appeared at the close 
 
 of the next note I had from him. ' There's no news ' (13th 
 
 C. D. September) ' since my last. We are going to dine with 
 
 J. P. ' Rogers to-day, and with Lady Essex, who is also here. 
 
 ' Rogers is much pleased with Lord Ashley, who was offered 
 
 ' by Peel a post in the government, but resolutely refused 
 
 'to take office unless Peel pledged himself to factory 
 
 Peel and ' improvement. Peel " hadn't made up his mind " ; and 
 
 Ashley. ' Lord Ashley was deaf to all other inducements, though 
 
 ' they must have been very tempting. Much do I honour 
 
 ' him forit. I am in an exquisitely lazy state, bathing, 
 
 ' walking, reading, lying in the sun, doing everything but 
 
 ' working. This frame of mind is superinduced by the 
 
 ' prospect of rest, and the promising arrangements which I 
 
 Visions of ' owe to you. I am still haunted by visions of America, 
 America. 
 
 ' night and day. To miss this opportunity would be a 
 
 ' sad thing. Kate cries dismally if I mention the subject. 
 
 ' But, God willing, I think it Tnust be managed somehow !' 
 
 * ' M. was quite aghast last night (9th of September) at the brilliancy of 
 'the C. & H. arrangement ; which is worth noting perhaps.' 
 
CHAPTEE XVIII. 
 
 EVE OF THE VISIT TO AMERICA. 
 1841. 
 
 The notion of America was in his mind, as we have Bboad- 
 seen, when he first projected the Clock, and a very hearty ^ig™ 
 letter from Washington Irving about little Nell and the " 
 
 Curiosity Shop, expressing the delight with his writings Greetings 
 and the yearnings to himself which had indeed been pouring America. 
 in upon him for some time from every part of the States, 
 had very strongly revived it. He answered Irving with more 
 than his own warmth : unable to thank him enough for his 
 cordial and generous praise, or to tell him what lasting 
 gratification it had given. 'I wish I could find in your Reply to 
 ' welcome letter,' he added, ' some hint of an intention to ton Irvin", 
 ' visit England. I should love to go with you, as I have 
 ' gone, God knows how often, into Little-britain, and East- 
 ' cheap, and Green-arbour-court, and Westminster-abbey. 
 ' , . . It would gladden my heart to compare notes with you 
 
 • about all those delightful places and people that I used to 
 
 * walk about and dream of in the day time, when a very 
 ' small and not-over-particularly-taken-care-of boy.' After 
 interchange of these letters the subject was frequently 
 revived ; upon his return from Scotland it began to take 
 
 a 2 
 
260 THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. [Chaiteb 
 
 Bkoad- shape as a thing that somehow or other, at no very 
 1841. distant date, must he; and at last, near the end of a 
 
 letter filled with many unimpor .ant things, the announce- 
 ment, doubly underlined, came to me. 
 
 The decision once taken, he was in his usual fever until 
 its difficulties were disposed of. The objections to separation 
 from the children led at first to the notion of taking them, 
 but this was as quickly abandoned; and what remained to 
 be overcome yielded readily to the kind offices of Macready, 
 the offer of whose home to the little ones during the time 
 of absence, though not accepted to the full extent, gave 
 yet the assurance needed to quiet natural apprehensions. 
 All this, including an arrangement for publication of such 
 notes as might occur to him on the journey, took but a 
 few days ; and I was reading in my chambers a letter he 
 had written the previous day from Broadstairs, when a 
 note from him reached me, written that morning in 
 London, to tell me he was on his way to take share of my 
 breakfast. He had come overland by Canterbury after 
 posting his first letter ; had seen Macready the previous 
 night ; and had completed some part of the arrangements. 
 This mode of rapid procedure was characteristic of him 
 at all similar times, and will appear in the few following 
 extracts from his letters. 
 c. D. ' Now ' (19th September) ' to astonish you. After 
 
 J. F. ' balancing, considering, and weighing the matter in every 
 ' point of view, I HAVE made up mt mind (with God's 
 
 ResolTB 'leave) TO GO TO AmEEICA— AND TO START AS SOON 
 
 Ameril 'AFTER CHRISTMAS AS IT WILL BE SAFE TO GO.' Further 
 
 information was promised immediately ; and a request 
 
Eighteenth.] EVE OF THE VISIT TO AMEKIOA. 261 
 
 follo-wed, characteristic as any he could have added to his Bkoab- 
 
 design of travelling so far away, that we should visit once i84l. 
 
 more together the scenes of his boyhood. ' On the ninth 
 
 ' of October we leave here. It's a Saturday. If it should 
 
 ' be fine dry weather, or anything like it, will you meet us 
 
 ' at Rochester, and stop there two or three days to see all Wish to 
 
 rerisit 
 
 ' the lions in the surrounding country ? Think of this, scenes of 
 ' ... If you'll arrange to come, I'U have the carriage down, 
 ' and Topping ; and, supposing news from Glasgow don't 
 'interfere with us, which I fervently hope it will not, I 
 'will ensure that we have miich enjoyment.' 
 
 Three days later than that which announced his 
 resolve, the subject was resumed. ' I wrote to Chapman 
 'and HaU asking them what they thought of it, and 
 ' saying I meant to keep a note-book, and publish it for Proposed 
 
 book about 
 
 'half a guinea or thereabouts, on my return. ihey the States. 
 
 ' instantly sent the warmest possible reply, and said they 
 
 'had taken it for granted I would go, and had been 
 
 ' speaking of it only the day before. I have begged them 
 
 'to make every enquiry about the fares, cabins, berths, 
 
 ' and times of sailing ; and I shall make a great effort to 
 
 'take Kate and the children. In that case I shall try to CD. 
 
 . to 
 
 ' let the house furnished, for six months (for I shall remain j. f. 
 
 ' tliat time in America) ; and if I succeed, the rent wiU 
 
 ' nearly pay the expenses out, and home. I have heard of 
 
 ' family cabins at £100; and I think one of these is large 
 
 'enough to hold us alL A single fare, I think, is forty Arrange- 
 
 'guineas. I fear I could not be happy if we had the for the 
 
 ,' Atlantic between us; but leaving them in New York J"""^-''- 
 
 ' while I ran off a thousand miles or so, would be quite 
 
262 
 
 THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 rCHAPTEB 
 
 Bkoab- 
 
 STAIKS : 
 1841. 
 
 CD. 
 
 to 
 
 J. F. 
 
 London. 
 
 CD. 
 
 to 
 
 J. F. 
 
 Impatience 
 of suspense. 
 
 'another thing. If I can arrange all my plans before 
 ' publishing the Ghch address, I shall state therein that 1 
 ' am going : which will be no unimportant consideration, 
 ■as affording the best possible reason for a long delay. 
 'How I am to get on without you for seven or eight 
 ' months, I cannot, upon my soul, conceive. I dread to 
 ' think of breaking up all our old happy habits, for so long 
 'a time. The advantages of going, however, appear by 
 ' steady looking-at so great, that I have come to persuade 
 ' myself it is a matter of imperative necessity. Kate weeps 
 ' whenever it is spoken of Washington Irving has got a 
 ' nasty low fever. I heard from him a day or two ago.' 
 
 His next letter was the unexpected arrival which came 
 by hand from Devonshire-terrace, when I thought him still 
 by the sea. ' This is to give you notice that I am coming 
 ' to breakfast with you this morning on my way to Broad- 
 ' stairs. I repeat it, sir, — on my way to Broadstairs. For, 
 ' directly I got Macready's note yesterday I went to Can- 
 ' terbury, and came on by day-coach for the express purpose 
 ' of talking with him ; which I did between 11 and 12 last 
 'night in Clarence-terrace. The American preliminaries 
 ' are necessarily startling, and, to a gentleman of my tem- 
 ' perament, destroy rest, sleep, appetite, and work, unless 
 ' definitely arranged.* Macready has quite decided me in 
 ' respect of time and so forth. The instant I have wrung 
 'a reluctant consent from Kate, I shall take our joint 
 'passage in the mail -packet for next January. I never 
 ' loved my friends so well as now.' We had all dis- 
 countenanced his first thought of taking the children; 
 
 * See aitfs, p. 102. 
 
Eighteenth.] EVE OF THE VISIT TO AMEEICA. 263 
 
 and, upon this and other points, the experience of our Broad- 
 
 friend who had himself travelled over the States was i8il.' 
 
 very valuable. His next letter, two days later from KesoiTeto 
 
 Broadstairs, informed me of the result of the Macready cMldren. 
 
 conference. ' Only a word. Kate is quite reconciled. C. D. 
 
 • Anne ' (her maid) ' goes, and is amazingly cheerful and j. f. 
 ' light of heart upon it. And I think, at present, that 
 
 'it's a greater trial to me than anybody. The 4th of 
 'January is the day. Macready's note to Kate was 
 ' received and acted upon with a perfect response. 
 ' She talks about it quite gaily, and is satisfied to have Mis. 
 
 Dickens 
 
 ' nobody in the house but Fred, of whom, as you know, reconciled 
 
 ' they are all fond. He has got his promotion, and they 
 
 ' give him the increased salary from the day on which the 
 
 ' minute was made by Baring. I feel so amiable, so 
 
 ' meek, so fond of people, so fuU of gratitudes and re- 
 
 ' liances, that I am like a sick man. And I am already 
 
 • counting the days between this and coming home again.' 
 
 He was soon, alas ! to be what he compared himself to. Eoohbs- 
 
 I met him at Rochester at the end of September, as 
 
 arranged; we passed a day and night there; a day and 
 
 night in Cobham and its neighbourhood, sleeping at the 
 
 Leather-bottle ; and a day and night at Gravesend. But 
 
 we were hardly returned when some slight symptoms of 
 
 bodily trouble took suddenly graver form, and an illness A grave 
 
 illneBa. 
 followed involving the necessity of surgical attendance. 
 
 This, which with mention of the helpful courage displayed 
 
 by him has before been alluded to,* put off necessarily the 
 
 Glasgow dinner;, and he had scarcely left his bedroom 
 
 * See ante, p. 219. 
 
264 THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICEailSrS. [Cbapteb 
 
 loNBON : -when a trouble arose near home which touched him to 
 ^ the depths of the greatest sorrow of his life, and, in the 
 
 need of exerting himself for others, what remained of his 
 own illness seemed to pass away. 
 Domestic His wife's younsrer brother had died with the same un- 
 
 griefs. J s> 
 
 expected suddenness that attended her younger sister's 
 death ; and the event had followed close upon the decease 
 of Mrs. Hogarth's mother while on a visit to her daughter 
 and Mr. Hogarth. ' As no steps had been taken towards 
 CD. 'the funeral,' he wrote (25th October) in reply to my 
 
 to . 
 
 J. F. offer of such service as I could render, ' I thought it 
 ' best at once to bestir myself ; and not even you could 
 ' have saved my going to the cemetery. It is a great trial 
 ' to me to give up Mary's grave ; greater than I can pos- 
 ' sibly express. I thought of moving her to the catacombs 
 ' and saying nothing about it ; but then I remembered 
 ' that the poor old lady is buried next her at her own 
 ' desire, and could not find it in my heart, directly 
 ' she is laid in the earth, to take her grandchild away. 
 The old ' The desire to be buried next her is as strong upon me 
 ' now, as it was five years ago ; and I know (for I don't 
 ' think there ever was love like that I bear her) that it 
 ' wiU never diminish. I fear I can do nothing. Do you 
 ' think I can ? They would move her on Wednesday, if 
 ' I resolved to have it done. 1 cannot bear the thought 
 ' of being excluded from her dust ; and yet I feel that her 
 ' brothers and sisters, and her mother, have a better right 
 ' than I to be placed beside her. It is but an idea. I 
 'neither think nor hope (God forbid) that our spirits 
 ' would ever mingle there. I ought to get the better of 
 
 BorroTT. 
 
EiQHTEENTH.J EVE OF THE VISIT TO AMERICA. 265 
 
 ' it, but it is very hard. I never contemplated this — and Loudon r 
 'coming so suddenly, and after being ill, it disturbs me 
 
 ' more than it ought. It seems like losing her a second to ' 
 ' time . . . ' ' No,' he wrote the morning after, ' I tried ^' ^' 
 ' that. No, there is no ground on either side to be had. 
 ' I must give it up. I shall drive over there, please God, 
 ' on Thursday morning, before they get there ; and look 
 at her coffin.' 
 
 He suffered more than he let any one perceive, and 
 was obliged again to keep his room for some days. 
 On the second of November he reported himself as pro- 
 gressing and ordered to Eichmond, which, after a week or 
 so, he changed to the White-hart at Windsor, where I At Wind- 
 passed some days with him, Mrs. Dickens, and her younger 
 sister Georgina ; but it was not till near the close of that 
 month he could describe himself as thoroughly on his legs 
 again, in the ordinary state on which he was wont to prido Convales- 
 himself, bolt upright, staunch at the knees, a deep sleeper, '^^^ ' 
 a hearty eater, a good laugher; and nowhere a bit the 
 worse, ' 'bating a little weakness now and then, and a 
 ' slight nervousness at times.' 
 
 We had some days of much enjoyment at the end of the dmsten- 
 year, when Landor came up from Bath for the christening filter, 
 of his godson ; and the ' Britannia,' which was to take the 
 travellers from us in January, brought over to them in 
 December all sorts of cordialities, anticipations, and 
 stretchings-forth of palms, in token of the welcome 
 awaiting them. On new-year's-eve they dined with me, 
 and I with them on new-year's-day; when (his house 
 having beeu taken for the period of his absence by 
 
266 
 
 THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKEJNS. [Ch. XVIIL 
 
 London : 
 184L 
 
 Adieus. 
 
 General Sir Jolin Wilson) we sealed up his wine cellar, 
 after opening therein some sparkling Moselle in honour of 
 the ceremony, and drinking it then and there to his happy- 
 return. Next morning (it was a Sunday) I accompanied 
 them to Liverpool, Maclise having been suddenly stayed 
 by his mother's death ; the intervening day and its occu- 
 pations have been humorously sketched in his American 
 book ; and on the fourth they sailed. I never saw the 
 Britannia after I stepped from her deck back to the small 
 steamer that had taken us to her. ' How little I thought ' 
 (were the last lines of his first American letter), 'the 
 ' first time you mounted the shapeless coat, that I should 
 ' have such a sad association with its back as when I saw 
 ' it by the paddle-box of that small steamer.' 
 
CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA. 
 
 1842. 
 
 The first lines of that letter were written as soon as Banks o? 
 he got sight of earth again, from the banks of New- fohnd- 
 foundland, on Monday the seventeenth of January, the 1342/ 
 fourteenth day from their departure : even then so far 
 from Halifax that they could not expect to make it 
 before Wednesday night, or to reach Boston until Satur- 
 day or Sunday. They had not been fortunate in the 
 passage. During the whole voyage, the weather had Rough 
 
 passage, 
 
 been unprecedentedly bad, the wind for the most part 
 dead against them, the wet intolerable, the sea horribly 
 disturbed, the days dark, and the nights fearful. On 
 the previous Monday night it had blown a hurricane, 
 beginning at five in the afternoon and raging all night. 
 His description of the storm is published, and the pecu- 
 liai'ities of a steamer's behaviour in such circumstances a steamer 
 are hit off as if he had been all his life a sailor. Any ™ * ^^^^ 
 but so extraordinary an observer would have described a 
 steamer in a storm as he would have described a sailing- 
 ship in a storm. But any description of the latter would 
 be as inapplicable to my friend's account of the other as 
 
268 THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. [Chafteb 
 
 New- the ways of a jackass to those of a mad bull. In the 
 LAND ; letter from which it was taken, however, there were some 
 things addressed to myself alone. 'For two or three 
 
 to ■ ' hours we gave it up as a lost thing ; and with many 
 ' thoughts of you, and the children, and those others who 
 
 Resigned • n • i c i 
 
 to the ' are dearest to us, waited quietly for the worst. 1 never 
 
 ' expected to see the day again, and resigned myself to 
 ' God as well as I could. It was a great comfort to think 
 ' of the earnest and devoted friends we had left behind, 
 ' and to know that the darlings would not want.' 
 
 This was not the exaggerated apprehension of a lands- 
 man merely. The head engineer, who had been in one or 
 other of the Gunard vessels since they began running, had 
 never seen such stress of weather ; and I heard Captain 
 Hewitt himself say afterwards that nothing but a steamer, 
 and one of that strength, could have kept her course and 
 stood it out. A sailing vessel must have beaten off and 
 driven where she could; while through all the fury of that 
 
 Bight gale they actually made fifty-four miles headlong through 
 
 onward. o ./ ^ ^ o o 
 
 the tempest, straight on end, not varying their track in 
 the least. 
 
 He stood out against sickness only for the day 
 following that on which they sailed. For the three 
 following days he kept his bed ; miserable enough ; and 
 had not, until the eighth day of the voyage, six days before 
 the date of his letter, been able to get to work at the 
 Of himself dinner table. What he then observed of his fellow- 
 traTeiiers. travellers, and had to tell of their life on board, has been 
 set forth in his Notes with delightful humour ; but in its 
 first freshness I received it in this letter, and some 
 
NT.NETJSEOTH,] FIRST IMPRESSIOHS OF AMEEICA. 269 
 
 FOCND- 
 LAHD : 
 
 1842. 
 
 whimsical passages, then suppi'essed, there will be no New- 
 harm in printing now. 
 
 ' We have 86 passengers ; and such a strange collection 
 ' of beasts never was got together upon the sea, since the \^ ' 
 ' days of the Ark. I have never been in the saloon since ■^- ^^ 
 ' the first day ; the noise, the smell, and the closeness being 
 ' quite intolerable. I have only been on deck once ! — 
 ' and then I was surprised and disappointed at the small- 
 ' ness of the panorama. The sea, running as it does and The Atlan- 
 •' has done, is very stupendous, and viewed from the air or deck. 
 ' some great height would be grand no doubt. But seen 
 ' from the wet and rolling decks, in this weather and these 
 ' circumstances, it only impresses one giddily and pain- 
 ' fully. I was very glad to turn away, and come below 
 ' again. 
 
 ' I have established myself, from the first, in the ladies' 
 ' cabin — you remember it ? I'll describe its other occu- 
 ' pants, and our way of passing the time, to you. 
 
 ' First, for the occupants. Kate, and I, and Anne — The ladies' 
 'when she is out of bed, which is not often. A queer 
 ' little Scotch body, a Mrs. P — ,* whose husband is a silver- 
 ' smith in New York. He married her at Glasgow three 
 ' years ago, and bolted the day after the wedding ; being 
 ' (which he had not told her) heavily in debt. Since then 
 
 • she has been living with her mother ; and she is now 
 
 * going out under the protection of a male cousin, to give 
 
 * The initials used here are in no case those of the real names, being em- 
 ployed in every case for the express purpose of disguising the names. Gene- 
 rally the remark is applicable to all initials used in the letters printed in the 
 coui'se of this work. 
 
 cabin. 
 
270 
 
 THE LIFE OF CHAELES DICKENS. 
 
 [CHAPTEa 
 
 Nbw- 
 
 FODND- 
 lAND : 
 1842. 
 
 C. D. 
 
 to 
 J. F. 
 
 Occupants 
 of ladies' 
 cabin. 
 
 Card-play- 
 ing on tlie 
 Atlantic. 
 
 ' him a year's trial. If she is not comfortable at the 
 ' expiration of that time, she means to go back to Scotland 
 ' again. A Mrs. B — , about 20 years old, whose husband 
 ' is on board with her. He is a young Englishman domi- 
 ' oiled in New York, and by trade (as well as I can make 
 ' out) a wooUen-draper. They have been married a 
 ' fortnight. A Mr. and Mrs. C — , marvellously fond of 
 ' each other, complete the catalogue. Mrs. C — I have 
 • settled, is a publican's daughter, and Mr. C — is running 
 ' away with her, the till, the time-piece off the bar mantel- 
 ' shelf, the mother's gold watch from the pocket at the 
 ' head of the bed ; and other miscellaneous property. The 
 ' women are all pretty ; unusually pretty. I never saw 
 ' such good faces together, anywhere.' 
 
 Their ' way of passing the time ' will be found in the 
 Notes much as it was written to me ; except that there 
 was one point connected with the card-playing which he 
 feared might overtax the credulity of his readers, but which 
 he protested had occurred more than once. ' Apropos of 
 ' rolling, I have forgotten to mention that in playing whist 
 ' we are obliged to put the tricks in our pockets, to keep 
 ' them from disappearing altogether ; and that five or six 
 ' times in the course of every rubber we are all flung from 
 ' our seats, roll out at different doors, and keep on rolling 
 ' until we are picked up by stewards. This has become 
 ' such a matter of course, that we go through it with 
 ' perfect gravity ; and when we are bolstered up on our 
 ' sofas again, resume our conversation or our game at the 
 ■ point where it was interrupted.' The news that excited 
 them from day to day, too, of which little more than a 
 
NraETEENTH.] FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA. Si71 
 
 hint appears in the Notes, is worth giving as oviginally New- 
 
 ... FOUND- 
 
 written. i,ahd : 
 
 'As for news, we have more of that than you would L_ 
 
 ' think for. One man lost fourteen pounds at vingt-un in '^^ ' 
 
 ' the saloon yesterday, or another got drunk before dinner ^- ^• 
 
 ' was over, or another was blinded with lobster sauce spilt 
 
 ' over him by the steward, or another had a fall on deck Ship-news. 
 
 • and fainted. The ship's cook was drunk yesterday morn- 
 
 ' ing (having got at some salt-water-damaged whiskey), 
 
 ' and the captain ordered the boatswain to play upon him 
 
 ' with the hose of the fire engine until he roared for mercy 
 
 ■ — which he didn't get; for he was sentenced to look out, 
 
 ' for four hours at a stretch for four nights running. Cook ia 
 
 disgraxse. 
 
 ' without a great coat, and to have his grog stopped. 
 ' Four dozen plates were broken at dinner. One steward 
 ' Poll down the cabin-stairs with a round of beef, and 
 ' injured his foot severely. Another steward fell down 
 ' after him, and cut his eye open. The baker's taken ill : 
 ' so is the pastry-cook. A new man, sick to death, has 
 ' been required to fill the place of the latter officer, and 
 ' has been dragged out of bed and propped up in a little 
 ' house upon deck, between two casks, and ordered (the 
 ' captain standing over him) to make and roll out pie- A cook 
 
 . T . . . malgr^ lul 
 
 ' crust ; which he protests, with tears m his eyes, it is 
 
 ' death to him in his bilious state to look at. Twelve 
 
 ' dozen of bottled porter has got loose upon deck, and the 
 
 'bottles are rolling about distractedly, over-head. Lord 
 
 ' Mulgxave (a handsome fellow, by the bye, to look at, and 
 
 ' nothing but a good 'un to go) laid a wager with twenty- A wager, 
 
 ' five other men last night, whose berths, like his, are in 
 
272 
 
 THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 [Chapter 
 
 New- 
 found- 
 land : 
 1842. 
 
 C. D. 
 
 to 
 J. F. 
 
 Halifax 
 harbour. 
 
 Ship 
 a^oimd. 
 
 ' the fore-cabin, which can only be got at by crossing the 
 ' deck, that he would reach his cabin first. Watches were 
 ' set by the captain's, and they sallied forth, wrapped up 
 ' in coats and storm caps. The sea broke over the ship so 
 ' violently, that they were jive and twenty minutes holding 
 ' on by the handrail at the starboard paddle-box, drenched 
 ' to the skin by every wave, and not daring to go on or 
 ' come back, lest they should be washed overboard. News ! 
 ' A dozen murders in town wouldn't interest us half as 
 ' much.' 
 
 Nevertheless their excitements were not over. At the 
 very end of the voyage came an incident veiy lightly 
 touched in the Notes, but more freely told to me under 
 date of the 21st January. 'We were running into Halifax- 
 ' harbour on Wednesday night, with little wind and a bright 
 ' moon ; had made the light at its outer entrance, and 
 ' given the ship in charge to the pilot ; were playing our 
 ' rubber, all in good spirits (for it had been comparatively 
 ' smooth for some days, with tolerably dry decks and other 
 ' unusual comforts), when suddenly the ship STRUCK ! A 
 ' rush upon deck followed of course. The men (I mean 
 ' the crew ! think of this) were kicking off their shoes and 
 'throwing off thek jackets preparatory to swimming 
 ■ ashore ; the pilot was beside himself ; the passengers 
 ' dismayed ; and everything in the most intolerable con- 
 ' fusion and hurry. Breakers were roaring ahead ; the land 
 ' within a couple of hundred yards ; and the vessel driving 
 ' upon the surf, although her paddles were worked back- 
 • wards, and everything done to stay her course. It is not 
 'the custom of steamers, it seems, to have an anchor 
 
Nineteenth.] FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA. 273 
 
 ' ready. An accident occurred in getting ours over the Halifax 
 
 , . HABliOUK : 
 
 ' Side ; and tor halt an hour we were throwing up rockets, i842. 
 
 ' burning blue lights, and firing signals of distress, all of o. D. 
 
 ' which remained unanswered, though we were so close to j p 
 
 ' the shore that we could see the waving branches of the Signals of 
 
 distress. 
 
 'trees. All this time, as we veered about, a man was 
 ' heaving the lead every two minutes ; the depths of water 
 ' constantly decreasing ; and nobody self-possessed but 
 ' Hewitt. They let go the anchor at last, got out a boat, 
 ' and sent her ashore with the fourth officer, the pilot, and 
 'four men aboard, to try and find out where we were. 
 ' The pilot had no idea ; but Hewitt put his little finger Captain 
 
 Hewitt. 
 
 ' upon a certain part of the chart, and was as confident of 
 ' the exact spot (though he had never been there in his 
 ' life) as if he had lived there from infancy. The boat's 
 ' return about an hour afterwards proved him to be quite 
 "right. We had got into a place called the Eastern- 
 ' passage, in a sudden fog and through the pilot's folly. 
 'We had struck upon a mud-bank, and driven into a 
 ' perfect little pond, surrounded by banks and rocks and 
 ' shoals of all kinds : the only safe speck in the place. 
 'Eased by this report, and the assurance that the tide 
 ■ was past the ebb, we turned in at three o'clock in the 
 ' morning, to lie there all night.' 
 
 The next day's landing at Halifax, and delivery of the Halifax. 
 mails, are sketched in the Notes; but not his personal part 
 in what followed. ' Then, sir, comes a breathless man Speaker of 
 
 , , . 1 1 ■ 1 • T house of 
 
 ' who has been already into the ship and out again, shout- assembly. 
 ' ing my name as he tears along. I stop, arm in arm with 
 ' the little doctor whom I have taken ashore for oysters. 
 
 VOL. I. T 
 
274 
 
 THE LIFE OF CHAELES DICKENS. 
 
 [Craptek 
 
 Halifax : 
 1842. 
 
 C. D 
 
 to 
 
 J. F. 
 
 OTation in 
 Halifax. 
 
 In the 
 
 house of 
 assembly. 
 
 BoSTOH. 
 
 ' The breathless man introduces himself as The Speaker 
 ' of the house of assembly ; will drag me away to his 
 ' house ; and will have a carriage and his wife sent down 
 ' for Kate, who is laid up with a hideously swoln face. 
 'Then he drags me up to the Governor's house (Lord 
 'Falkland is the governor), and then Heaven knows 
 ' where ; concluding with both houses of parliament, 
 ' which happen to meet for the session that very day, and 
 ' are opened by a mock speech from the throne delivered 
 'by the governor, with one of Lord Grey's sons for his 
 ' aide-de-camp, and a great host of officers about him. I 
 ' wish you could have seen the crowds cheering the 
 ' inimitable * in the streets. I wish you could have seen 
 'judges, law-officers, bishops, and law-makers welcoming 
 ' the inimitable. I wish you could have seen the inimitable 
 ' shown to a great elbow-chair by the Speaker's throne, and 
 ' sitting alone in the middle of the floor of the house of 
 'commons, the observed of all observers, listening with 
 ' exemplary gravity to the queerest speaking possible, and 
 ' breaking in spite of himself into a smile as he thought 
 ' of this commencement to the Thousand and One stories 
 'in reserve for home and Lincoln's-inn fields and Jack 
 ' Straw's-castle. — Ah, Forster ! when I do come back 
 
 ' again ! ' 
 
 He resumed his letter at Tremont-house on Saturday 
 the 28th of January, having reached Boston that day 
 week at five in the afternoon ; and as his first American 
 experience is very lightly glanced at in the Wotes, a fuller 
 
 * This word, applied to him by his old master, Mr. Giles {ante, p. 13), was 
 for a long time the epithet we called him by. 
 
Nineteenth.] FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA. 275 
 
 picture will perhaps be welcome. ' As the Cunard boats Boston : 
 'have a wharf of their owa at the custom-house, and 
 
 D 
 'that a narrow one, we were a long time (an hour at least) to 
 
 ' working in. I was standing in full fig on the paddle-box ' ' 
 
 'beside the captain, staring about me, when suddenly, 
 
 ' long before we were moored to the wharf, a dozen men 
 
 ' came leaping on board at the peril of their lives, with 
 
 ' great bundles of newspapers under their arms ; worsted 
 
 ' comforters (very much the worse for wear) round their 
 
 ' necks ; and so forth. " Aha ! " says I, " this is like our 
 
 ' "London-bridge " : believing of course that these visitors 
 
 ' were news-boys. But what do you think of their being 
 
 'Editors? And what do you think of their tearing incursion 
 
 ' violently up to me and beginning to shake hands like 
 
 ' madmen 1 Oh ! If you could have seen how I wrung 
 
 ' their wrists ! And if you could but know how I hated 
 
 ' one man in very dirty gaiters, and with very protruding 
 
 ' upper teeth, who said to all comers after him, " So you've 
 
 ' " been introduced to our friend Dickens — eh ? " There 
 
 ' was one among them, though, who reaUy was of use ; a 
 
 'Doctor S, editor of the . He ran off here (two 
 
 ' miles at least), and ordered rooms and dinner. And in 
 
 'course of time Kate, and I, and Lord Mulgrave (who 
 
 ' was going back to his regiment at Montreal on At Tre- 
 
 ' Monday, and had agreed to live with us in the mean- Jlo^gg"_ 
 
 'while) sat down in a spacious and handsome room to 
 
 'a very handsome dinner, 'bating peculiarities of putting 
 
 ' on table, and had forgotten the ship entirely. A Mr. 
 
 'Alexander, to whom I had written from England pro- 
 
 ' mising to sit for a portrait, was on board directly 
 
 T 2 
 
276 
 
 THE LIFE OF CHAELES DICKENS. 
 
 [Chapter 
 
 Boston : 
 1842. 
 
 C. D. 
 
 to 
 J. F. 
 
 The wel- 
 come. 
 
 Proposed 
 dinners 
 and balls. 
 
 Deputa- 
 tions, 
 
 ' we touched the land, and brought us here in his car- 
 ' riage. Then, after sending a present of most beautiful 
 'flowers, he left us to ourselves, and we thanked him 
 'for it.' 
 
 What further he had to say of that week's experience, 
 finds its first public utterance here. ' How can I tell you,' 
 he continues, ' what has happened since that first day ? 
 ' How can I give you the faintest notion of my reception 
 ' here ; of the crowds that pour in and out the whole day ; 
 ' of the people that line the streets when I go out ; of the 
 ' cheering when I went to the theatre ; of the copies of 
 ' verses, letters of congratulation, welcomes of all kinds, 
 ' balls, dinners, assemblies without end ? There is to be 
 ' a public dinner to me here in Boston, next Tuesday, and 
 ' great dissatisfaction has been given to the many by the 
 ' high price (three pounds sterling each) of the tickets; 
 ' There is to be a ball next Monday week at New York, 
 ' and 150 names appear on the list of the committee. 
 ' There is to be a dinner in the same place, in the same 
 ' week, to which I have had an invitation with every 
 ' known name in America appended to it. But what 
 ' can I tell you about any of these things which will give 
 ' you the slightest notion of the enthusiastic gi-eeting they 
 ' give me, or the cry that runs through the whole country! 
 ' I have had deputations from the Far West, who have 
 ' come from more than two thousand miles distance : from 
 ' the lakes, the rivers, the back-woods, the log-houses, the 
 ' cities, factories, villages, and towns. Authorities from 
 ' nearly all the States have written to me. I have heard 
 ' from the universities, congress, senate, and bodies, public 
 
KiNETEEKTu.1 FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA. 277 
 
 ' and private, of every sort and kind. " It is no nonsense, Boston : 
 ' " and no common feeling," wrote Dr. Channing to me '— 
 
 C D 
 
 ' yesterday. " It is all heart. There never was, and never to 
 
 T F 
 
 ' " will be, such a triumph." And it is a good thing, is it ' ' 
 
 ' not, .... to find those fancies it has given me and you ning to 
 
 ' the greatest satisfaction to think of, at the core of it all? 
 
 ' It makes my heart quieter, and me a more retiring, 
 
 ' sober, tranquil man to watch the effect of those thoughts 
 
 ' in all this noise and hurry, even than if I sat, pen in 
 
 ' hand, to put them down for the first time. I feel, in the Effect upon 
 
 ' best aspects of this welcome, something of the presence 
 
 ' and influence of that spirit which directs my life, and 
 
 'through a heavy sorrow has pointed upwards with un- 
 
 ' changing finger for more than four years past. And if 
 
 ' I know my heart, not twenty times this praise would 
 
 ' move me to an act of folly.' .... 
 
 There were but two days more before the post left for 
 England, and the close of this part of his letter sketched 
 the engagements that awaited him on leaving Boston. Engage- 
 ' We leave here next Saturday. We go to a place called 
 ' Worcester, about 75 miles off, to the house of the 
 'governor of this place ; and stay with him all Sunday. 
 'On Monday we go on by railroad about 50 miles further 
 'to a town called Springfield, where I am met by a 
 ' " reception committee " from Hartford 20 miles further, 
 'and carried on by the multitude : I am sure I don't know 
 'how, but I shouldn't wonder if they appear with a 
 ' triumphal car. On Wednesday I have a public dinner Public ap- 
 ' there. On Friday I shall be obliged to present myself 
 'in public again, at a place called "Newhaven, about 30 
 
278 THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. . rCHApras 
 
 Boston : ' miles further. On Saturday evening I hope to be at 
 
 — ' New York ; and there I shall stay ten days or a fortnight. 
 
 to '.You will suppose that I have enough to do. I am sitting 
 
 ' for a portrait and for a bust. I have the correspondence 
 
 ' of a secretary of state, and the engagements of a fashion- 
 
 A secretary ' able physician. I have a secretary whom I take on with 
 ' me. He is a young man of the name of Q ; was strongly 
 ' recommended to me ; is most modest, obliging, silent, 
 'and willing; and does his work well. He boards and 
 'lodges at my expense when we travel; and his salary 
 ' is ten dollars per month — about two pounds five of our 
 'English money. There will be dinners and balls at 
 'Washington, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and I believe 
 ' everywhere. In Canada, I have promised to play at the 
 'theatre with the officers, for the benefit of a charity. 
 ' We are ah-eady weary, at times, past all expression ; and 
 'I finish this by means of a pious fraud. We were 
 ' engaged to a party, and have written to say we are both 
 ' desperatelj' ill " Well," I can fancy you saying, 
 
 Bostouians. ' " but about his impressions of Boston and the Americans?" 
 ' — Of the latter, I will not say a word until I have seen 
 ' more of them, and have gone into the interior. I will 
 ' only say, now, that we have never yet been required to 
 ' dine at a table d'hote ; that, thus far, our rooms are as 
 • much our own here, as they would be at the Clarendon ; 
 
 Phrases. ' that but for an odd phrase now and then — such as Snap 
 ' of cold weather ; a tongue-y man for a talkative fellow; 
 ' Possible ? as a solitary interrogation ; and Yes ? for 
 'indeed — I should have marked, so far, no difference 
 ' whatever between the parties here and those I have left 
 
Nineteenth.] FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA. 279 
 
 'behind. The women are very beautiful, but they soon Boston: 
 
 ' fade ; the general breeding is neither stiff nor forward ; — ' — '— 
 
 CD 
 'the good nature, universal. If you ask the way to a to 
 
 J F 
 
 'place — of some common waterside man, who don't know ^ ' ' 
 
 '■ (jeneral 
 
 ' you from Adam — ^he turns and goes with you. Universal charac- 
 teristics. 
 ' deference is paid to ladies ; and they walk about at all 
 
 ' seasons, wholly unprotected. . . . This hotel is a trifle Hotels. 
 
 ' smaller than Finsbury-square ; and is made so infernally 
 
 'hot (I use the expression advisedly) by means of a 
 
 'furnace with pipes running through the passages, that 
 
 ' we can hardly bear it. There are no curtains to the 
 
 'beds, or to the bedroom windows. I am told there 
 
 ' never are, hardly, all through America. The bed- Bedrooms. 
 
 'rooms are indeed very bare of furniture. Ours is 
 
 ' nearly as large as your great room, and has a wardrobe 
 
 'in it of painted wood not larger (I appeal to K) than 
 
 'an English watch box. I slept in this room for two 
 
 'nights, quite satisfied with the belief that it was a 
 
 ' shower bath.' 
 
 The last addition made to this letter, from which 
 
 many vividest pages of the Notes (among them the bright 
 
 quaint picture of Boston streets) were taken with small 
 
 alteration, bore date the 29th of January. 'I hardly know 
 
 'what to add to all this long and unconnected history. Personal 
 
 ' Dana, the author of that Two Years before the Mast' (a 
 
 book which I had praised much to him, thinking it like 
 
 De Foe) ' is a very nice fellow indeed ; and in appearance 
 
 ' not at all the man you would expect. He is short, mild- 
 
 ' looking, and has a care-worn face. His father is exactly 
 
 'like George Cruikshank after a night's jollity — only 
 
280 
 
 THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 [Chapter 
 
 Boston •- 
 1842. 
 
 C. D. 
 
 to 
 J. F. 
 
 Perils of 
 steamers. 
 
 A home 
 thought. 
 
 'shorter. The professors at the Cambridge university, 
 ' Longfellow, Felton, Jared Sparks, are noble fellows. So 
 'is Kenyon's friend, Ticknor. Bancroft is a famous man; 
 ' a straightforward, manly, earnest heart ; and talks much 
 ' of you, which is a great comfort. Doctor Channing I will 
 ' tell you more of, after I have breakfasted alone with him 
 ' next Wednesday. . , . Sunmer is of great service to me. 
 '. . . The president of the Senate here presides at my 
 'dinner on Tuesday. Lord Mulgrave lingered with us 
 'till last Tuesday (we had our little captain to dinner 
 ' on the Monday), and then went on to Canada. Kate is 
 ' quite well, and so is Anne, whose smartness surpasses 
 ' belief They yearn for home, and so do I. 
 
 'Of course you will not see in the papers any true 
 ' account of our voyage, for they keep the dangers of the 
 ' passage, when there are any, very quiet. I observed so 
 ' many perils peculiar to steamers that I am still undecided 
 ' whether we shall not return by one of the New York 
 'liners. On the night of the storm, I was wondering 
 ' within myself where we should be, if the chimney were 
 
 ■ blown overboard : in which case, it needs no great obser- 
 ' vation to discover that the vessel must be instantly on 
 ' fire from stem to stern. When I went on deck next day, 
 ' I saw that it was held up by a perfect forest of chains 
 ' and ropes, which had been rigged in the night. Hewitt 
 ' told me (when we were on shore, not before) that they 
 'had men lashed, hoisted up, and swinging there, all 
 
 ■ through the gale, getting these stays about it. This is 
 
 ■ not agreeable-^is it ? 
 
 ' T wonder whether you will remember that next 
 
lfr.«:iEENTH.] FIRST IMPRESSIONS Oi? AMERICA. 281 
 
 ' Tuesday is my birthday ! This letter will leave here Boston : 
 
 <+u 4. ■ 1842, 
 that morning. . 
 
 ' On looking back through these sheets, I am astonished to 
 ' to find how little I have told you, and how much I have, 
 ■ even now, in store which shall be yours by word of 
 ' mouth. The American poor, the American factories, 
 'the institutions of all kinds — I have a book, already. 
 ' There is no man in this town, or in this State of New 
 ' England, who has not a blazing fire and a meat dinner 
 ' every day of his life. A flaming sword in the air would 
 ' not attract so much attention as a beggar in the streets. Beggary. 
 ' There are no charity uniforms, no wearisome repetition 
 ' of the same dull ugly dress, in that blind school.* All Charity. 
 ' are attired after their own tastes, and every boy and girl 
 ' has his or her individuality as distinct and unimpaired 
 ' as you would find it in their own homes. At the 
 ' theatres, all the ladies sit in the fronts of the boxes. 
 ' The gallery are as quiet as the dress circle at dear 
 ' Drury-lane. A man with seven heads would be no 
 ' sight at all, compared with one who couldn't read and Kiiucation, 
 ' write. 
 
 ' I won't speak (I say " speak " ! I wish I could) about 
 ' the dear precious children, because I know how much we 
 ' shall hear about them when we receive those letters from 
 ' home for which we long so ardently.' 
 
 TJnmistakeably to be seen, in this earliest of his letters, is How first 
 the quite fresh and unalloyed impression first received by ™i"®^^^ • 
 
 * His descriptions of this school, and of the ease of Laura Bridgeman, will 
 be found in the Notes ; and have therefore been, of course, omitted here. 
 
282 
 
 THE LIFE OP CHAELES DICKENS. 
 
 [Chapteb 
 
 Boaioir : him at this memorable visit; and it is due, as well to him- 
 
 '- — self as to the great country which welcomed him, that this 
 
 should be considered independently of any modification it 
 afterwards underwent. Of the fervency and universality 
 of the welcome there could indeed be no doubt, and as 
 Reasons for little that it sprang from feelings honorable both to giver 
 ing. and receiver. The sources of Dickens's popularity in Eng- 
 
 land were in truth multiplied many-fold in America. The 
 hearty, cordial, and humane side of his genius, had fasci- 
 nated them quite as much ; but there was also something 
 beyond this. The cheerful temper that had given new 
 beauty to the commonest forms of life, the abounding 
 humour which had added largely to all innocent enjoy- 
 ment, the honorable and in those days rare distinction 
 of America which left no home in the Union inaccessible 
 to such advantages, had made Dickens the, object every- 
 where of grateful admiration, for the most part of personal 
 affection. But even this was not all. I do not ■ say it 
 either to lessen or to increase the value of the tribute, 
 but to express simply what it was; and there cannot be 
 a question that the young English author, whom by hia 
 language they claimed equally for their own, was almost 
 universally regarded by the Americans as a kind of 
 embodied protest against what they believed to be worst 
 in the institutions of England, depressing and over- 
 shadowing in a social sense, and adverse to purely intel- 
 lectual influences. In all the papers of every gi-ade in 
 the Union, of which many were sent to me at the time, 
 the feeling of triumph over the mother-country in this 
 particular is everywhere predominant. You worship titles, 
 
 Why so 
 popular. 
 
 What was 
 welcomed 
 in C. D. 
 
NraETEENTH.] FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA. 283 
 
 they said, and military heroes, and millionaires, and we Boston: 
 of the New World want to show you, by extending the 
 
 kind of homage that the Old World reserves for kings and 2nd New*^ 
 conquerors, to a young man with nothing to distinguish "^°^^^- 
 him but his heart and his genius, what it is we think in 
 these parts worthier of honour, than birth, or wealth, a 
 title, or a sword. Well, there was something in this too, 
 apart from a mere crowing over the mother-country. The 
 Americans had honestly more than a common share in 
 the triumphs of a genius, which in more than one sense 
 had made the deserts and wildernesses of life to blossom 
 like the rose. They were entitled to select for a welcome, 
 as emphatic as they might please to render it, the writer 
 who pre-eminently in his generation had busied himself 
 to ' detect and save,' in human creatures, such sparks of 
 virtue as misery or vice had not availed to extinguish ; to 
 discover what is beautiful and comely, under what com- 
 monly passes for the ungainly and the deformed; to 
 draw happiness and hopefulness from despair itself; 
 and, above all, so to have made known to his own 
 countrymen the wants and sufferings of the poor, the 
 ignorant, and the neglected, that they could be left in 
 absolute neglect no more. ' A triumph has been prepared Tioknor to 
 
 Kenyon. 
 
 'for him,' wrote Mr. Ticknor to our dear friend Kenyon, 'in 
 'which the whole country will join. He wiU have a pro- 
 'gress through the States unequalled since Lafayette's.' 
 Daniel Webster told the Americans that Dickens had Webster ,13 
 done more already to ameliorate the condition of the 
 English poor than all the statesmen Great Britain had 
 sent into parliament. His sympathies are such, exclaimed 
 
284 THE LIFE OE CHARLES DICKENS, [Chapteb 
 
 Boston : Doctor Chanriiiig, as to recommend him in an especial 
 
 manner to us. He seeks out that class, in order to benefit 
 
 them, with whom American institutions and laws sympa- 
 thize most strongly ; and it is in the passions, sufferings, 
 and virtues of the mass that he has found his subjects of 
 
 Channing most thrilling interest. ' He shows that life in its rudest 
 as to. CD. ^ 
 
 ' form may wear a tragic grandeur ; that amidst follies and 
 
 ' excesses, provoking laughter or scorn, the moral feelings 
 
 ' do not wholly die ; and that the haunts of the blackest 
 
 ' crime are sometimes lighted up by the presence and 
 
 ' influence of the noblest souls. His pictures have a 
 
 tendency to awaken sympathy with our race, and to 
 
 • change the unfeeling indifference which has prevailed 
 
 ' towards the depressed multitude, into a sorrowful and 
 
 ' indignant sensibility to their wrongs and woes.' 
 
 Subsequent Whatever may be the turn which we are to see the 
 
 disappoint- ... , , . , 
 
 ments. welcome take, by dissatisfaction that arose on both sides, 
 it is well that we should thus understand what in its first 
 manifestations was honorable to both. Dickens had 
 his disappointments, and the Americans had theirs ; but 
 what was really genuine in the first enthusiasm remained 
 without grave alloy from either ; and the letters, as I 
 proceed to give them, will so naturally explain and 
 illustrate the mis-understanding as to require little 
 further comment. I am happy to be able here to place 
 on record facsimiles of the invitations to the pubhc 
 entertainments in New York which reached him befoi'e 
 he quitted Boston. The mere signatures suffice to show 
 how universal the welcome was from that great city of 
 the Union. 
 
Nc:.KTKENTHi FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA. 285 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 
 •«*w\ 
 
286 THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. [Chapter 
 
 J>^ /J»y^ <S.--*-<— <.J<t^ -^' CK^ezA M^ t^''^cit:l C^^ ^^ '>-J^2**kJi 
 
 t* f^^^ ^tya p^'^'^^^i'^ lcy,i^ /u. /&ZZ n^*^ eA^c^ *t.;6^La 
 JjtA^ ^V^'y ^*«*-i- -^ a^&^ M^^,^i^b*^~^ -fc^ii^ /^^ 
 
Nineteenth.] FIEST IMPRESSIONS OP AMERICA. 
 
 287 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 1l*-i^5~a 
 
 
 
 
 y^^^C^'"-*^ 
 
 
 
288 THE LIFE OP CHAELES DICKERS. 
 
 (Oh,\t>ti.:r 
 
 Q^a..-l.xJUi_ (/T-'U^cn.'i.*^ y^a-^-s^ry 
 
 ^^^^gL.i,-'^ /4'y1r^^..~. ^..^iiii^^a,^ ^!2S:^.:,-<r-^ iSr^^t-A^ 
 
 
NiBsrKKSTH.1 FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA. 289 
 
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290 
 
 THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICEENS. [Ch. XIX. 
 
 
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 i\ 
 
 j^l^±^^^ 
 
CHAPTER XX. 
 
 SECOND IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA. 
 1843. 
 
 His second letter, radiant ■with the same kindly warmth NewTork: 
 that gave always pre-eminent charm to his genius, was 
 
 dated from the Carlton -hotel. New York, on the lith letter. 
 February, but its only allusion of any public interest was 
 to the beginning of his agitation of the question of inter- 
 national copyright. He went to America with no express 
 intention of starting this question in any way ; and cer- 
 tainly with no belief that such remark upon it as a 
 person in his position could alone be expected to make, 
 would be resented strongly by any sections of the American 
 people. But he was not long left in doubt on this 
 head. He had spoken upon it twice publicly, 'to the great 
 ' indignation of some of the editors here, who are attacking 
 ' me for so doing, right and left.' On the other hand all inter- 
 the best men had assured him, that, if only at once followed copjright. 
 up in England, the blow struck might bring about a change 
 in the law ; and, yielding to the pleasant hope that the 
 best men could be a match for the worst, he urged me to 
 enlist on his side what force I could, and in particular, as 
 he had made Scott's claim his war cry, to bring Lockbart 
 
 IT 2 
 
292 THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. [Chaptto 
 
 NhwTokk: into the field. I could not do much, but I did what I 
 
 '— could. 
 
 Three days later he began another letter ; and, as this 
 will be entirely new to the reader, I shall print it as it 
 reached me, with only such omission of matter concern- 
 ing myself as I think it my duty, however reluctantly, to 
 make throughout these extracts. There was nothing in 
 its personal details, or in those relating to international 
 copyright, available for his Notes ; from which they were 
 excluded by the two rules he observed in that book, the 
 first to be altogether silent as to the copyright discussion, 
 and the second to abstain from all mention of individuals. 
 But there can be no harm here in violating either rule, 
 for, as Sydney Smith said with his humorous sadness, 
 ' We are all dead now.' 
 
 TMrd ' Carlton-house, New York : Thursday, February Seven- 
 
 'teenth, 1842 As there is a sailing-packet 
 
 ' from here to England to-morrow which is warranted (by 
 
 CD. 'the owners) to be a marvellous fast sailer, and as it 
 
 to 
 J. F. ' appears most probable that she will reach home (I write 
 
 ' the word with a pang) before the Cunard steamer of next 
 
 ' month, I indite this letter. And lest this letter should 
 
 ' reach you before another letter which I dispatched from 
 
 ' here last Monday, let me say in the first place that I did 
 
 ' dispatch a brief epistle to you on that day, together with 
 
 ' a newspaper, and a pamphlet touching the Boz ball ; and 
 
 ' that I put in the post-ofiSce at Boston another newspaper 
 
 ' for you containing an account of the dinner, which was 
 
 'just about to come off, you remember, when I wrote to 
 
 ' you from that city. 
 
IfwKNTiKTH.] SECOND IMPRESSIONS OF AMEEICA. 293 
 
 'It was a most superb affair ; and the speaking admir- New York: 
 'able. Indeed the general talent for public speaking 
 
 C D 
 'here, is one of the most striking of the things that to ' 
 
 'force themselves upon an Englishman's notice. As ' ' 
 
 . The dinner 
 
 •every man looks on to being a member of Congress, at Boston. 
 ' every man prepares himself for it ; and the result is quite 
 ' surprising. You will observe one odd custom — the 
 ' drinking of sentiments. It is quite extinct with us, but 
 'here everybody is expected to be prepared with an 
 ' epigram as a matter of course. 
 
 ' We left Boston on the fifth, and went away with the At Wor- 
 'governor of the city to stay till Monday at his house at 
 ' Worcester. He married a sister of Bancroft's, and another 
 ' sister of Bancroft's went down with us. The village of 
 ' Worcester is one of the prettiest in New England. . . . 
 ' On Monday morning at nine o'clock we started again by 
 ' railroad and went on to Springfield, where a deputation 
 'of two were waiting, and everything was in readiness that 
 ' the utmost attention could suggest. Owing to the mild- 
 'ness of the weather, the Connecticut river was "open," 
 ' videlicet not frozen, and they had a steamboat ready to 
 ' carry us on to Hartford ; thus saving a land-journey of P™™ 
 
 Springfield 
 
 ' only twenty-fi ve miles, but on such roads at this time of to Hart- 
 
 'year that it takes nearly twelve hours to accomplish! 
 
 ' The boat was very small, the river full of floating blocks 
 
 ' of ice, and the depth where we went (to avoid the ice 
 
 ' and the current) not more than a few inches. After two 
 
 ' hours and a half of this queer travelling we got to Hart- Q«eer •■ 
 
 _ _ traTelling. 
 
 ' ford. There, there was quite an English inn ; except in 
 ' respect of the bed-rooms, which are always uncomfortable ; 
 
294 
 
 THE LIFE OP CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 tCHAPTEH 
 
 New York ; 
 1842. 
 
 0. D. 
 
 to 
 J. F. 
 
 At Hart- 
 jord. 
 
 Levees at 
 Hartford 
 and New- 
 Laven. 
 
 At Wal- 
 lingford, 
 
 ' and the best committee of management that has yet pre- 
 ' sented itself. They kept us more quiet, and were more 
 ' considerate and thoughtful, even to their own exclusion, 
 ' than any I have yet had to deal with. Kate's face being 
 ' horribly bad, I determined to give her a rest here ; and 
 ' accordingly wrote to get rid of my engagement at New- 
 ' haven, on that plea. We remained in this town until the 
 ' eleventh : holding a formal levee every day for two hours, 
 ' and receiving on each from two hundred to three hundred 
 ' people. At five o'clock on the afternoon of the eleventh, 
 'we set off (still by railroad) for Newhaven, which we 
 ' reached about eight o'clock. The moment we had had 
 ' tea, we were forced to open another levee for the students 
 ' and professors of the college (the largest in the States), 
 ' and the townspeople. I suppose we shook hands, before 
 'going to bed, with considerably more than five hundred 
 ' people ; and I stood, as a matter of course, the whole 
 'time .... 
 
 ' Now, the deputation of two had come on with us from 
 ' Hartford ; and at Newhaven there was another com- 
 ' mittee ; and the immense fatigue and worry of all this, 
 ' no words can exaggerate. We had been in the morning 
 'over jails and deaf and dumb asylums ; had stopped on 
 'the journey at a place called Wallingford, where a whole 
 'town had turned out to see me, and to gratify whose 
 ' curiosity the train stopped expressly ; had had a day of 
 ' great excitement and exertion on the Thursday (this 
 'being Friday); and were inexpressibly worn out. And 
 'when at last we got to bed and were "going"' to fall 
 ' asleep, the choristers of the college turned out in a body, 
 
TWEKT1J5IH.] SECOND IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA. 295 
 
 'under the window, and serenaded us ! We had had, by NbwTokk: 
 ' the bye, another serenade at Hartford, from a Mr. Adams 
 
 C. D, 
 
 ' (a nephew of John Quincey Adams) and a German friend. "to ' 
 
 J F 
 ' They were most beautiful singers : and when they began, 
 
 to 6rcn Eulcs 
 
 'in the dead of the night, in a long, musical, echoing at Hartford 
 
 and New- 
 
 ' passage outside our chamber door; singing, m low voices haven. 
 
 ' to guitars, about home and absent friends and other topics 
 
 ' that they knew would interest us ; we were more moved 
 
 ' than I can tell you. In the midst of my sentimentality 
 
 ' though, a thought occurred to me which made me laugh 
 
 'so immoderately that I was obliged to cover my face 
 
 ' with the bedclothes. " Good Heavens ! " I said to Kate, 
 
 '"what a monstrously ridiculous and commonplace 
 
 '"appearance my boots must have, outside the door ! " I Absurdity 
 
 ■ never was so impressed with a sense of the absurdity of 
 
 ' boots, in all my life. 
 
 'The Newhaven serenade was not so good; though there 
 'were a great many voices, and a "reg'lar" band. It 
 'hadn't the heart of the other. Before it was six hours 
 ' old, we were dressing with might and main, and making 
 ' ready for our departure : it being a drive of twenty 
 ' minutes to the steamboat, and the hour of sailing nine 
 'o'clock. After a hasty breakfast we started off; and 
 ' after another levee on the deck (actually on the deck), 
 'and "three times three for Dickens," moved towards 
 ' New York. 
 
 ' I was delighted to find on board a Mr. Felton whom I ComeliuB 
 'had known at Boston. He is the Greek professor at 
 'Cambridge, and was going on to the ball and dinner. 
 ' Like most men of his class whom I have seen, he is a 
 
296 THE LIFE OF CHAELES DICKENS. [Chapteb 
 
 NbwTork : ' most delightful fellow — unaffected, hearty, genial, joUy ; 
 
 1842, 
 
 ' quite an Englishman of the best sort. We drank all the 
 'to ' ' porter on board, ate all the cold pork and cheese, and 
 ' were very merry indeed. I should have told you, in its 
 'proper place, that both at Hartford and Newhaven a 
 'regular bank was subscribed, by these committees, for 
 ' all my expenses. No bill was to be got at the bar, and 
 ' everything was paid for. But as I would on no account 
 ' suffer this to be done, I stoutly and positively refused to 
 'budge an inch until Mr. Q should have received the 
 'bills from the landlord's own hands, and paid them to 
 'the last farthing. Finding it impossible to move me, 
 'they suffered me, most unwillingly, to carry the 
 ' point. 
 
 TheCarlton 'About half past 2, we arrived here. In half an hour 
 ' more, we reached this hotel, where a very splendid suite 
 ' of rooms was prepared for us ; and where everything is 
 ' very comfortable, and no doubt (as at Boston) enormously 
 ' dear. Just as we sat down to dinner, David Golden made 
 ' his appearance ; and when he had gone, and we wero 
 
 Washing- 'taking our wine, Washington Irving came in alone, with 
 rving. . Qpgjj arms. And here he stopped, until ten o'clock at 
 ' night.' (Through Lord Jeffrey, with whom he was con- 
 nected by marriage, and Macready, of whom he was the 
 
 David cordial friend, we already knew Mr. Golden ; and his sub- 
 
 sequent visits to Europe led to many years' intimate inter 
 course, greatly enjoyed by us both.) ' Having got so far, I 
 'shall divide my discourse into four points. First, thp 
 ' ball. Secondly, some slight specimens of a certain phase 
 'of character in the Americans. Thirdly, international 
 
TWENTIETH.] SECOND IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA. 297 
 
 'copyright. Fourthly, my life here, and projects to be NbwYokk; 
 * carried out while I remain. 1_ 
 
 ' Firstly, the ball. It came oif last Monday (vide pam- to ' 
 • phlet). " At a quarter past 9, exactly," (I quote the ^' ^' 
 ' printed order of proceeding), Ave were waited upon by 
 ' " David Colden, Esquire, and General George Morris ; " 
 ' habited, the former in full ball costume, the latter in the 
 ' full dress uniform of Heaven knows what regiment of 
 ' militia. The general took Kate, Colden gave his arm to The ball. 
 ' me, and we proceeded downstairs to a carriage at the door, 
 ' which took us to the stage door of the theatre : greatly 
 ' to the disappointment of an enormous crowd who were 
 ' besetting the main door, and making a most tremendous 
 ' hullaballoo. The scene on our entrance was very striking. 
 ' There were three thousand people present in full dress ; 
 ' from the roof to the floor, the theatre was decorated 
 ' magnificently ; and the light, glitter, glare, show, noise, 
 ' and cheering, baffle my descriptive powers. We were Description 
 
 of it. 
 
 ' walked in through the centre of the centre dress-box, 
 ' the front whereof was taken out for the occasion ; so to 
 ' the back of the stage, where the mayor and other digni- 
 ' taries received us ; and we were then paraded all round 
 ' the enormous ball-room, twice, for the gratification of the 
 ' many-headed. That done, we began to dance — Heaven 
 ' knows how we did it, for there was no room. And we 
 • continued dancing until, being no longer able even to 
 ' stand, we slipped away quietly, and came back to the 
 'hotel All the documents connected with this extra- 
 ' ordinary festival (quite unparalleled here) we have pre- 
 ' served ; so you may suppose that on this head alone we 
 
298 THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. [Chapter 
 
 NettYobk: 'shall have enough to show you when we come home. 
 
 - 1__ ' The bill of fare for supper, is, in its amount and extent, 
 
 to quite a curiosity. 
 
 ^' ' Now, the phase of character in the Americana which 
 
 ' amuses me most, was put before me in its most amusing 
 
 'shape by the circumstances attending this affair. I 
 
 A phase of 'had noticed it before, and have since, but I cannot 
 
 character. i -ti • i i • i 
 
 ' better illustrate it than by reference to this theme. Of 
 ' course I can do nothing but in some shape or other it 
 ' gets into the newspapers. All manner of lies get there, 
 ' and occasionally a truth so twisted and distorted that it 
 ' has as much resemblance to the real fact as Quilp's leg 
 ' to Taglioni's. But with this ball to come off, the news- 
 ' papers were if possible unusually loquacious ; and in 
 Newspaper ' their accounts of me, and my seeings, sayings, and doings 
 
 accounts of • cn 
 
 the ball : ' on the Saturday night and Sunday before, they describe 
 'my manner, mode of speaking, dressing, and so forth. 
 ' In doing this, they report that I am a very charming 
 ' fellow (of course), and have a very free and easy way 
 ' with me ; " which," say they, " at first amused a few 
 ' " fashionables ; " but soon pleased them exceedingly. 
 'Another paper, coming after the ball, dwells upon its 
 ' splendour and brilliancy ; hugs itself and its readers 
 ' upon all that Dickens saw ; and winds up by gravely 
 ' expressing its conviction, that Dickens was never in such 
 • society in England as he has seen in New York, and that 
 'its high and striking tone cannot fail to make an in- 
 ' delible impression on his mind ! For the same reason 
 
 and of the ' I am always represented, whenever I appear in publiC; 
 
 guest. 'as being "very pale;" " apparently thunderstruck ; " 
 
Twentieth,] SECOND IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA. 299 
 
 •and utterly confounded by all I see. . . . You recognize NewYoek: 
 ' the queer vanity whicli is at the root of all this ? I have 
 
 C D 
 
 ' plenty of stories in connection with it to amuse you with to " 
 ' when I return.' 
 
 ' Tmenty-fowHh February. 
 
 ' It is unnecessary to say .... that this letter didn't 
 ' come by the sailing packet, and will come by the Cunard 
 'boat. After the ball I was laid up with a very bad 
 ' sore throat, which confined me to the house four whole 
 ' days ; and as I was unable to write, or indeed to do any- 
 ' thing but doze and drink lemonade, I missed the ship. . . 
 ' I have still a horrible cold, and so has Kate, but in other 
 ' respects we are all right. I proceed to my third head : 
 ' the international copyright question. 
 
 ' I believe there is no country, on the face of the earth, Opinion in 
 
 America. 
 
 ' where there is less freedom of opinion on any subject in 
 ' reference to which there is a broad difference of opinion, 
 ' than in this. — There ! — I write the words with reluctance, 
 ' disappointment, and sorrow ; but I believe it from the 
 ' bottom of my soul. I spoke, as you know, of inter- Inter- 
 
 . , -r, 1 T 1 c • national 
 
 ' national copyright, at Boston ; and I spoke of it again copyright. 
 
 ' at Hartford. My friends were paralysed with wonder at 
 
 ' such audacious daring. The notion that I, a man alone 
 
 ' by himself, in America, should venture to suggest to 
 
 ' the Americans that there was one point on which they 
 
 ' were neither just to their own countrymen nor to us, 
 
 ' actually struck the boldest dumb ! Washington Irving, American 
 
 authors. 
 
 ' Prescott, Hoffman, Bryant, Halleck, Dana, Washington 
 ' AUston — every man who writes in this country is devoted 
 ' to the question, and not one of them dares to raise his 
 
300 THE LIFE OF CHAELES DICKENS. [Chapter 
 
 NewTobk: • mce and complain of the atrocious state of the law. It 
 
 '■ — ' is nothing that of all men living I am the greatest loser 
 
 to " ' by it. It is nothing that I have a claim to speak and 
 
 J F 
 
 'be heard. The wonder is that a breathing man can be 
 
 ' found with temerity enough to suggest to the Americans 
 
 '' the possibility of their having done wrong. I wish you 
 
 ' could have seen the faces that I saw, down both sides of 
 
 ' the table at Hartford, when I began to talk about Scott, 
 
 ' I wish you could have heard how I gave it out. My 
 
 ' blood so boiled as I thought of the monstrous injustice 
 
 ' that I felt as if I were twelve feet high when I thrust it 
 
 ' down their throats. 
 
 Outcry ' I had no sooner made that second speech than such 
 
 guest of ' an outcry began (for the purpose of deterring me from 
 
 '™' ' doing the like in this city) as an Englishman can form 
 
 ' no notion of. Anonymous letters ; verbal dissuasions : 
 
 ' newspaper attacks making Colt (a murderer who is 
 
 ' attracting gi-eat attention here) an angel by comparison 
 
 ' with me ; assertions that I was no gentleman, but a mere 
 
 ' mercenary scoundrel ; coupled with the most monstrous 
 
 ' mis-representations relative to my design and purpose 
 
 ' in visiting the United States ; came pouring in upon me 
 
 ' every day. The dinner committee here (composed of 
 
 ' the first gentlemen in America, remember that) were so 
 
 Asked not ' dismayed, that they besought me not to pursue the 
 
 copyriatt™ ' Subject altlwugh they every one agreed with me. I 
 
 ' answered that I would. That nothing should deter 
 
 ' me. . . . That the shame was theirs, not mine ; and that 
 
 Declines to ' as I would not Spare them when I got home, I would 
 
 eo™p y- . jjQ^ ^g silenced here. Accordingly, when the night 
 
Twentieth.] SECOND IMPEESSIONS OF AMEEICA. 301 
 
 'came, I asserted my right, with all the means I could NewToek: 
 ' coipmand to give it dignity, in face, manner, or words ; 
 
 G D 
 
 • and I believe that if you could have seen and heard me, "to ' 
 
 • you would have loved me better for it than ever you did ' * 
 ' in your life. 
 
 • The New York Herald, which you will receive with ^f^ ^"r* 
 
 Herald. 
 
 ' this, is the Satirist of America ; but having a great cir- 
 'culation (on account of its commercial intelligence and 
 
 • early news) it can afford to secure the best reporters. 
 ' . . . My speech is done, upon the whole, with remark- 
 
 • able accuracy. There are a great many typographical Speech at 
 ' eiTors in it ; and by the omission of one or two words, ^^^^' 
 
 ' or the substitution of one word for another, it is often 
 ' materially weakened. Thus I did not say that I 
 ' " claimed " my right, but that I " asserted " it ; and I 
 'did not say that I had "some claim," but that I had 
 ' "a most righteous claim," to speak. But altogether 
 ' it is very correct.' 
 
 Washington Irving was chairman of this dinner, and Washing- 
 ton Irving 
 having from the first a dread that he should break down in the 
 
 in his speech, the catastrophe came accordingly. Near 
 
 him sat the Cambridge professor who had come with 
 
 Dickens by boat from Newhaven, with whom already a 
 
 warm friendship had been formed that lasted for life, and 
 
 who has pleasantly sketched what happened. Mr. Felton 
 
 saw Irving constantly in the interval of preparation, and 
 
 could not but despond at his daily iterated foreboding of I 
 
 shall certainly break down: though, besides the real dread, 
 
 there was a sly humour which heightened its whimsical 
 
302 THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. lchapter 
 
 KewYokk: horror witli an irresistible drollerv. But the professor 
 
 1842. . 
 
 plucked up hope a little when the night came, and he 
 
 saw that Irving had laid under his plate the manuscript 
 of his speech. During dinner, nevertheless, his old fore- 
 boding cry was still heard, and ' at last the moment 
 ' arrived ; Mr. Irving rose ; and the deafening and long- 
 ' continued applause by no means lessened his appre- 
 ' hension. He began in his pleasant voice ; got through 
 'two or three sentences pretty easily, but in the next 
 
 Irving's ' hesitated : and, after one or two attempts to go on, gave 
 
 break- _ _ _ j. o 
 
 down. ' it up, with a graceful allusion to the tournament and the 
 
 ' troop of knights all armed and eager for the fray ; and 
 ' ended with the toast Chaeles Dickens, the guest of 
 ' THE NATION. There ! said he, as he resumed his seat 
 ' amid applause as great as had greeted his rising, There ! 
 ' I told you I should break down, and I've done it ! ' 
 He was in London a few months later, on his way to 
 Spain ; and I heard Thomas Moore describe * at Eogers's 
 table the difficulty there had been to overcome his 
 reluctance, because of this break-down, to go to the dinner 
 
 At a dinner of the Literary Fund on the occasion of Prince Albert's 
 
 in London 
 
 sanveyear. presiding. 'However,' said Moore, 'I told him only to 
 ' attempt a few words, and I suggested what they should 
 'be, and he said he'd never thought of anything so easy, 
 ' and he went and did famously.' I knew very well, as I 
 listened, that this had not been the result ; but as the 
 distinguished American had found himself, on this second 
 occasion, not among orators as in New York, but among 
 men as unable as himself to speak in public, and equally 
 
 • On the 22nd of May, 1842. 
 
Twentieth.] SECOND IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA. 303 
 
 able to do better things,* he was doubtless more reconciled NewTobk: 
 
 to his own failure. I have been led to this digression by ~1 — 
 
 Dickens's silence on his friend's break-down. He had so 
 great a love for Irving that it was painful to speak of him as 
 at any disadvantage, and of the New York dinner he wrote 
 only in its connection with his own copyright speeches. 
 
 ' The effect of all this copyright agitation at least has been Results of 
 'to awaken a great sensation on both sides of the subject ; speeclies. 
 'the respectable newspapers and reviews taking up the 
 ' cudgels as strongly in my favour, as the others have done 
 ' against me. Some of the vagabonds take great credit to q d_ 
 ' themselves (grant us patience !) for having made me j p 
 
 • popular by publishing my books in newspapers : as if 
 'there were no England, no Scotland, no Germany, no 
 ' place but America in the whole world. A splendid satire 
 ' upon this kind of trash has just occurred. A man came 
 
 ' here yesterday, and demanded, not besought but de- A demand 
 
 • manded, pecuniary assistance ; and fairly bullied Mr. Q for 
 ' money. When I came home, I dictated a letter to this 
 ' effect — that such applications reached me in vast num- 
 ' bers every day ; that if I were a man of fortune, I could 
 'not render assistance to all who sought it; and that, 
 ' depending on my own exertion for all the help I could 
 
 * The dinner was on the 10th of May, and early the following morning I had Laman 
 a letter about it from Mr. Blanohard, containing these words : ' Washington Blanchard 
 ' Irving couldn't utter a word for trembling, and Moore was as little as usual. *° 
 
 ' But, poor Tom Campbell, great Heavens ! what a spectacle ! Amid roars 
 ' of laughter he began a sentence three times about something that Dugald 
 ' Stewart or Lord Bacon had said, and never could get beyond those words. 
 ' The Prince was capital, though deiicedly frightened. He seems unaffected 
 ' and amiable, as well as very clever.' 
 
304 
 
 THE LIFE OP CHAELES DICKENS. 
 
 [Chapter 
 
 NbwToek • 
 1842. 
 
 CD. 
 
 to 
 J. F. 
 
 A book- 
 seller in 
 distress. 
 
 A 
 
 tion. 
 
 Henry 
 Clay's 
 opinion. 
 
 ''give, I regretted to say I could afford him none. Upon 
 'this, my gentleman sits down and writes me that he 
 ' is an itinerant bookseller ; that he is the first man who 
 'sold my books in New York; that he is distressed, in 
 ' the city where I am revelling in luxury; that he thinks 
 ' it rather strange that the man who wrote NicMeby 
 ' should be utterly destitute of feeling ; and that he would 
 ' have me " take care I don't repent it." What do you 
 ' think of that ? — as Mac would say. I thought it such a 
 
 • good commentary, that I dispatched the letter to the- 
 
 • editor of the only English newspaper here, and told him 
 ' he might print it if he liked. 
 
 'I will tell you what T should like, my dear friend, 
 ' always supposing that your judgment concurs with mine; 
 ' and that you would take the trouble to get such a docu- 
 ' ment. I should like to have a short letter addressed to 
 ' me, by the principal English authors who signed the 
 ' international copyright petition, expressive of their sens& 
 'that I have done my duty to the cause. I am sure 
 ' I deserve it, but I don't wish it on that ground. It is 
 ' because its publication in the best journals here would 
 'unquestionably do great good. As the gauntlet is 
 ' down, let us go on. Clay has already sent a gentle- 
 ' man to me express from Washington (where I shall 
 'be on the 6th or 7th of next month) to declare his 
 ' strong interest in the matter, his cordial approval of the 
 ' " manly " course I have held in reference to it, and his 
 ' desire to stir in it if possible. I have lighted up such a 
 ' blaze that a meeting of the foremost people on the other 
 ' side (veiy respectfully and properly conducted in refer- 
 
Twentieth.] SECOND IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA. 3O5 
 
 •ence to me, personally, I am bound to say) was held in NewTokk: 
 
 'this town 'tother night. And it would be a thousand ^^^^' 
 
 ' pities if we did not strike as hard as we can, now that ^ ' 
 ' the iron is so hot. ■'■ ^■ 
 
 ' I have come at last, and it is time I did, to mv life !''*« i° 
 
 . 'J NewYork. 
 
 ' here, and intentions for the future. I can do nothing 
 
 ' that I want to do, go nowhere where I want to go, and 
 
 ' see nothing that I want to see. If I turn into the street, 
 
 ' I am followed by a multitude. If I stay at home, the 
 
 ' house becomes, with callers, like a fair. If I visit a public 
 
 ' institution, with only one friend, the directors come down 
 
 'incontinently, waylay me in the yard, and address me in 
 
 ' a long speech. I go to a party in the evening, and am Distressea 
 
 ' so inclosed and hemmed about by people, stand where I larity. 
 
 ' will, that I am exhausted for want of air. I dine out, 
 
 ' and have to talk about everything, to everybody. I go 
 
 ' to church for quiet, and there is a violent rush to the 
 
 ' neighbourhood of the pew I sit in, and the clergyman 
 
 ' preaches at me. I take my seat in a railroad car, and 
 
 ' the very conductor won't leave me alone. I get out at a 
 
 ' station, and can't drink a glass of water, without having 
 
 ' a hundred people looking down my throat when I open 
 
 ' my mouth to swallow. Conceive what all this is ! 
 
 ' Then by every post, letters on letters arrive, all about 
 
 ' nothing, and all demanding an immediate answer. This 
 
 ' man is offended because I won't live in his house ; and 
 
 ' that man is thoroughly disgusted because I won't go out 
 
 ' more than four times in one evening. I have no rest or 
 
 ' peace, and am in a perpetual worry. 
 
 ' Under these febrile circumstances, which this climate 
 
 VOL. I. X 
 
306 THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. [Chapter 
 
 NewTokk: ' especially favors, I have come to the resolution that I 
 '. — ' will not (so far as my will has anything to do with 
 
 C D 
 
 to ' ' the matter) accept any moi'e public entertainments or 
 ' public recognitions of any kind, during my stay in 
 
 Intentions . 
 
 for the 'the United States; and in pursuance of this deter- 
 
 ' mination I have refused invitations from Philadelphia, 
 
 Refusal of 'Baltimore, Washington, Virginia, Albany, and Provi- 
 invitations. 
 
 ' dence. Heaven knows whether this will be effectual, 
 
 ' but I shall soon see, for on Monday morning the 28th we 
 
 'leave for Philadelphia. There, I shall only stay three 
 
 ' days. Thence we go to Baltimore, and there I shall only 
 
 ' stay three days. Thence to Washington, where we may 
 
 ' stay perhaps ten days ; perhaps not so long. Thence to 
 
 Going ' Virginia, where we may halt for one day ; and thence to 
 ' Charleston, where we may pass a week perhaps ; and 
 ' where we shall very likely remain until your March 
 ' letters reach us, through David Golden. I had a design 
 ' of going from Charleston to Columbia in South Carolina, 
 ' and there engaging a caniage, a baggage-tender and 
 ' negro boy to guard the same, and a saddle-horse for 
 ' myself — with which caravan I intended going " right 
 
 and west. ' " away," as they say here, into the west, through the wilds 
 ' of Kentucky and Tennessee, across the Alleghany-moun- 
 ' tains, and so on until we should strike the lakes and 
 ' could get to Canada. But it has been represented to me 
 ' that this is a track only known to travelling merchants ; 
 ' that the roads are bad, the country a tremendous waste, 
 ' the inns log-houses, and the journey one that would play 
 'the very devil with Kate. I am staggered, but not 
 ' deterred. If I find it possible to be done in the time, I 
 
Twentieth.] SECOND IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA. 307 
 
 ' mean to do it ; being quite satisfied that without some New York : 
 iich dash, I can never be a free agent, or see anything 
 forth the telling. 
 'We mean to return home in a packet-ship — not a 
 
 worth the telling. \^' 
 
 J. F. 
 
 As to 
 ' steamer. Her name is the George Washington, and she return. 
 
 ' will sail from here, for Liverpool, on the seventh of June. 
 
 ■ At that season of the year, they are seldom more than 
 
 ' three weeks making the voyage ; and I never wiU trust 
 
 ' myself upon the wide ocean, if it please Heaven, in a 
 
 ' steamer again. When I tell you all that I observed on 
 
 ' board that Britannia, I shall astonish you. Meanwhile, 
 
 ' consider two of their dangers. First, that if the funnel Dangers in- 
 cident to 
 'were blown overboard, the vessel must mstantly be on steamere. 
 
 ' fire, from stem to stern : to comprehend which con- 
 
 ' sequence, you have only to understand that the funnel is 
 
 ' more than 40 feet high, and that at night you see the 
 
 ' solid fire two or three feet above its top. Imagine this 
 
 ' swept down by a strong wind, and picture to yourself the 
 
 ' amount of flame on deck ; and that a strong wind is likely 
 
 'to sweep it down you soon learn, from the precautions 
 
 ' taken to keep it up in a storm, when it is the first thing 
 
 'thought of. Secondly, each of these boats consumes 
 
 ' between London and Halifax 700 tons of coals ; and it T'^" 
 
 named. 
 
 ' is pretty clear, from this enormous difference of weight 
 'in a ship of only 1200 tons burden in all, that she must 
 ' either be too heavy when she comes out of port, or too 
 'light when she goes in. The daily difference in her 
 ' rolling, as she burns the coals out, is something absolutely 
 ' fearful. Add to all this, that by day and night she is 
 ' full of fire and people, that she has no boats, and that the 
 
 X 2 
 
308 
 
 THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 [Chapter 
 
 CD. 
 
 to 
 J. F. 
 
 Pure Ame- 
 ricanisms. 
 
 KewTokk: 'struggling of that enormous machinery in a heavy sea 
 ' seems as though it would rend her into fragments — and 
 ' you may have a pretty con-siderable damned good sort 
 ' of a feeble notion that it don't fit nohow ; and that it 
 ' a'nt calculated to make you smart, overmuch ; and that 
 ' you don't feel 'special bright ; and by no means first rate ; 
 ' and not at all tonguey (or disposed for conversation) ; 
 ' and that however rowdy you may be by natur', it does 
 ' use you up com-plete, and that's a fact ; and makes you 
 ' quake considerable, and disposed toe damn the engine ! — 
 ' All of which phrases, I beg to add, are pure Americanisms 
 
 • of the first water. 
 'When we reach Baltimore, we are in the regions of 
 
 ' slavery. It exists there, in its least shocking and most 
 
 • mitigated form ; but there it is. They whisper, here 
 ' (they dare only whisper, you know, and that below their 
 'breaths), that on that place, and all through the South, 
 'there is a dull gloomy cloud- on which the very word 
 ' seems written. I shall be able to say, one of these days, 
 ' that I accepted no public mark of respect in any place 
 ' where slavery was ; — and that's something. 
 
 ' The ladies of America are decidedly and unquestion- 
 'ably beautiful. Their complexions are not so good as 
 ' those of Enghshwomen ; their beauty does not last so 
 ' long ; and their figures are very inferior. But they are 
 ' most beautiful. I still reserve my opinion of the national 
 ' character — just whispering that I tremble for a radical 
 ' coming here, unless he is a radical on principle, by reason 
 ' and reflection, and from the sense of right. I fear that if 
 'he were anything else, he would return home a tory. 
 
 Ladies of 
 America. 
 
TwKOTiEiH.] SECOND IMPRESSIONS OF AMEEICA. 309 
 
 ' I say no more on that head for two months NewTobk: 
 
 1842 
 
 'from this time, save that I do fear that the heaviest '- — 
 
 CD 
 
 ' blow ever dealt at liberty will be dealt by this country, to ' 
 
 J F 
 
 'in the failure of its example to the earth. The scenes 
 'that are passing in Congress now, all tending to the 
 'separation of the States, fill one with such a deep disgust Party 
 'that I dislike the very name of Washington (meaning 
 'the place, not the man), and am repelled by the mere 
 'thought of approaching it. 
 
 ' Tmenty-seventh Februa/ry. Simday. 
 
 ' There begins to be great consternation here, in A CuDard 
 ■ reference to the Cunard packet which (we suppose) left missing. 
 'Liverpool on the fourth. She has not yet arrived. We 
 ' scarcely know what to do with ourselves in our extreme 
 'anxiety to get letters from home. I have really had 
 'serious thoughts of going back to Boston, alone, to be 
 " nearer news. We have determined to remain here until 
 ' Tuesday afternoon, if she should not arrive before, and to 
 'send Mr. Q and the luggage on to Philadelphia to- 
 ' morrow morning. God grant she may not have gone Misgimgo. 
 ' down : but every ship that comes in brings intelligence 
 ' of a terrible gale (which indeed was felt ashore here) on 
 ' the night of the fourteenth ; and the sea-captains swear 
 ' (not without some prejudice of course) that no steamer 
 ' could have lived through it, supposing her to have been 
 ' in its full fury. As there is no steam packet to go to 
 'England, supposing the Caledonia not to arrive, we are Non-arrival 
 'obliged to send our letters by the Garrick ship, which donia. 
 ' sails early to-morrow morning. Consequently I must 
 
310 THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. [Chafti™ 
 
 NewTobk: 'huddle this up, and dispatch it to the post-office with all 
 
 1_ ' speed. I have so much to say that I could fill quires of 
 
 C I) 
 'to ' ' paper, which renders this sudden pull-up the more pro- 
 
 T -p 
 
 ■ ■ ' yoking. 
 Petition for ' I have in my portmanteau a petition for an inter- 
 ongress. . national copyright law, signed by all the best American 
 'writers with Washington Irving at their head. They 
 ' have requested me to hand it to Clay for presentation, 
 ' and to back it with any remarks I may think proper to 
 ' offer. So " Hoo-roar for the principle, as the money- 
 ' " lender said, ven he vouldn't renoo the bill." 
 
 ' God bless you You know what I would say 
 
 'about home and the darlings. A hundred times God 
 
 ' bless you Fears are entertained for Lord Ash- 
 
 ' burton also. Nothing has been heard of him.' 
 
 A brief letter, sent me next day by the minister's bag, 
 was in effect a postscript to the foregoing ; and expressed 
 still more strongly the doubts and apprehensions his 
 voyage out had impressed him with, and which, though 
 he afterwards saw reason greatly to modify his misgivings, 
 were not so strange at that time as they appear to us now. 
 
 ' Carlton-house, New York, February twenty-eighth, 
 No hope of ' 1842 .... The Caledonia, I grieve and regret to say, has 
 
 the Cale- 
 donia. ' not an-ived. If she left England to her time, she has been 
 
 ' four and twenty days at sea. There is no news of her ; 
 
 ' and on the nights of the fourteenth and eighteenth it 
 
 'blew a terrible gale, which almost justifies the worst 
 
 • suspicions. For myself, I have hardly any hope of her ; 
 
 ' having seen enough, in our passage out, to convince me 
 
TwEsiiETH.] SECOND IMPEESSIONS OF AMERICA. 311 
 
 'that steaming across the ocean in heavy weather is as KbwTork: 
 
 ' yet an experiment of the utmost hazard. J — 
 
 ' As it was supposed- that there would be no steamer '^^ " 
 
 ■ whatever for England this month (since in ordinary "'• ■^■ 
 
 ■ course the Caledonia would have returned with the 
 ' mails on the 2nd of March). J. hastily got the letters ready 
 ' yesterday and sent them by the Garrick ; which may 
 ' perhaps be three weeks oat, but is not very likely to be 
 ' longer. But belonging to the Cunard corapany is a boat 
 ' called the Unicom, which in the summer time plies up 
 ' the St. Lawrence, and brings passengers from Canada to 
 'join the British and North American steamers at Halifax. 
 ' In the winter she lies at the last-mentioned place ; from 
 ' which news has come this morning that they have sent her 
 ' on to Boston for the mails ; and, rather than interrupt the 
 
 ' communication, mean to dispatch her to England in heu gubsti- 
 ' of the poor Caledonia. This in itself, by the way, is a cakdonia.' 
 ' daring deed ; for she was originally built to run between 
 ' Liverpool and Glasgow, and is no more designed for the 
 ' Atlantic than a Calais packet-boat ; though she once 
 ' crossed it, in the summer season. 
 
 ' You may judge, therefore, what the owners think of 
 ' the probability of the Caledonia's arrival. How slight 
 ' an alteration in our plans would have made us passengers 
 ' on board of her ! 
 
 ' It would be difficult to tell you, my dear fellow, what 
 ' an impression this has made upon our minds, or with 
 ' what intense anxiety and suspense we have been waiting 
 'for your letters from home. We were to have gone 
 ' South to-day, but linger here until to-morrow afternoon 
 
312 THE LIFE OF CHAELES DICKENS. [Chapter 
 
 NewTokk: ' (having sent tlie secretary and luggage forward) for one 
 — — '- — ' more chance of news. Love to dear Macready, and to 
 
 C D 
 
 to ' ' dear Mac, and every one we care for. It's useless to 
 
 T -p 
 
 ' speak of the dear children. It seems now as though we 
 
 ' should never hear of them 
 
 Of distin- ' P.S. Washington Irving is a great fellow. "We have 
 
 guished . . , , 
 
 Americans. ' laughed most heartily together. He is just the man he 
 ' ought to be. So is Doctor Channing, with whom I have 
 ' had an interesting correspondence since I saw him last 
 ' at Boston. Halleck is a merry little man. Bryant a sad 
 ' one, and very reserved. Washington AUston the painter 
 ' (who wrote Monaldi) is a fine specimen of a glorious 
 ' old genius. Longfellow, whose volume of poems I have 
 ' got for you, is a frank accomplished man as well as a fine 
 'writer, ard will be in town "next fall." Tell Macready 
 ' that I suspect prices here must have rather altered since 
 
 Hotel Mis. 'ijig time. I paid our fortnight's bill here, last night. 
 ' We have dined out every day (except when I was laid up 
 ' with a sore throat), and only had in all four bottles of 
 ' wine. The bill was 70Z. English ! ! ! 
 
 'You will see, by my other letter, how we have been 
 ' fSted and feasted ; and how there is war to the knife 
 ' about the international copyright ; and how I will 
 ' speak about it, and decline to be put down .... 
 
 Thoughts ' Oh for news from home ! I think of your letters so 
 
 children. ' full of heart and friendship, with perhaps a little scrawl 
 of Charley's or Mamey's, lying at the bottom of the 
 ' deep sea ; and am as full of sorrow as if they had once 
 ' been living creatures. — Well ! they may come, yet.' 
 
•JwENTiETH.] SECOND IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA. 313 
 
 They did reach him, but not by the Caledonia. His NbwTork: 
 fears as to that vessel were but too well founded. On the '- — 
 
 very day when she was due in Boston (the 18th of Feb- Disaster to 
 
 the Cale- 
 
 ruary) it was learnt in London that she had undergone donia. 
 misadventure ; that, her decks having been swept and her 
 rudder torn away, though happily no lives were lost, she 
 had returned disabled to Cork ; and that the Acadia, Acadia 
 having received her passengers and mails, was to sail with ^i^g_ 
 them from Liverpool next day. 
 
 Of the main subject of that letter written on the day 
 preceding ; of the quite unpremeditated impulse, out of 
 which sprang his advocacy of claims which he felt to be inter- 
 represented in his person ; of the injustice done by his copyright, 
 entertainers to their guest in ascribing such advocacy 
 to selfishness ; and of the graver wrong done by them 
 to their own highest interests, nay, even to their com- 
 monest and most vulgar interests, in continuing to reject 
 those claims ; I will add nothing now to what all those 
 years ago I laboured very hard to lay before many 
 readers. It will be enough if I here print, from the 
 authors' letters I sent out to him by the next following 
 mail in compliance with his wish, this which follows from 
 a very dear friend of his and mine. I fortunately had 
 it transcribed before I posted it to him; Mr. Carlyle 
 having in some haste written from ' Templand, 26 March, 
 ' 1842,' and taken no copy. 
 
 ' We learn by the newspapers that you everywhere in Letter to 
 ' America stir up the question of international copyi-ight, from™L 
 ' and thereby awaken huge dissonance where all else ^^'®- 
 ' were triumphant unison for you. I am asked my opinion 
 
314 
 
 THE LIFE OF CHAELES DICKENS. 
 
 fCHAFTEB 
 
 NewYoek: 'of the matter, and requested to write it down va 
 
 1842. 
 
 'words. 
 
 ^arye o 'Several years ago, if memory err not, I was one of 
 ' many English writers, who, under the auspices of Miss 
 ' Martineau, did already sign a petition to congress pray- 
 ' ing for an international copyright between the two 
 ' Nations, — which properly are not two Nations, but one ; 
 ' indivisible by parliament, congress, or any kind of 
 ' human law or diplomacy, being already united by 
 ' Heaven's Act of Parliament, and the everlasting law of 
 ' Nature and Fact. To that opinion I still adhere, and 
 ' am like to continue adhering. 
 
 'In discussion of the matter before any congi'ess or 
 ' parliament, manifold considerations and argumentatione 
 ' will necessarily arise ; which to me are not interesting, 
 ' nor essential for helping me to a decision. They respect 
 ' the time and manner in which the thing should be ; not 
 ' at aU whether the thing should be or not. In an ancient 
 ' book, reverenced I should hope on both sides of the 
 ' Ocean, it was thousands of years ago written down in the 
 ' most decisive and explicit manner, " Thou shalt not steal.'' 
 
 Argument ' That thou belongest to a different " Nation," and canst 
 
 against 
 
 stealing ' steal without being certainly hanged for it, gives thee no 
 ' permission to steal ! Thou shalt not in anywise steal at 
 ' aU ! So it is written down, for Nations and for Men, in 
 ' the Law-Book of the Maker of this Universe. Nay, poor 
 ' Jeremy Bentham and others step in here, and will demon- 
 ' strate that it is actually our true convenience and expe- 
 ' diency not to steal ; which I for my share, on the great 
 ' scale and on the small, and in all conceivable scales and 
 
Twentieth.] SECOND IMPEESSIONS OF AMERICA. 315 
 
 ' shapes, do also firmly believe it to be. For example, if NewTokk: 
 
 ' Nations abstained from stealing, what need were there of '. 
 
 'fighting, — with its butcherings and burnings, decidedly c?a* 
 
 ' the most expensive thing in this world ? How much 
 
 ' more two Nations, which, as I said, are but one Nation ; 
 
 ' knit in a thousand ways by Nature and Practical Inter- 
 
 ' course ; indivisible brother elements of the same great 
 
 ' Saxondom, to which in ail honorable ways be long life ! 
 
 ' When Mr. Robert Roy M'Gregor lived in the district of Rot Boy's 
 ' Menteith on the Highland border two centuries ago, he ^ ° ' 
 ' for his part found it more convenient to supply himself 
 ' with beef by stealing it alive from the adjacent glens, 
 ' than by buying it killed in the Stirling butchers'-market. 
 ' It was Mr. Roy's plan of supplying himself with beef in 
 ' those days, this of stealing it. In many a little " Con- not the 
 
 best. 
 
 ' " gress in the district of Menteith, there was debating, 
 ' doubt it not, and much specious argumentation this way 
 ' and that, before they could ascertain that, really and 
 ' truly, buying was the best way to get your beef ; which 
 ' however in the long run they did with one assent find 
 ' it indisputably to be : and accordingly they hold by it to 
 ' this day.' 
 
 This brave letter was an important service rendered at C. D.'s 
 
 ..,. -_^.- «T«. -r. admiratioQ 
 
 a critical time, and Dickens was very grateful for it. But, ofCadyle. 
 as time went on, he had other and higher causes for grati- 
 tude to its writer. Admiration of Carlyle increased in 
 him with his years ; and there was no one whom in later 
 life he honoured so much, or had a more profound regard 
 for. 
 
CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA, WASHINGTON, AND THE SOUTH. 
 
 1842. 
 
 Philadel- Dickens's next letter was begun in the 'United-s;.--^^ 
 1842. 'hotel, Philadelphia,' and bore date 'Sunday, sixth 
 ' March, 1842.' It treated of much dealt with afterwards 
 at greater length in the Notes, but the freshness and vivacity 
 of the first impressions in it have surprised me. I do not 
 however print any passage here which has not its own 
 interest independently of anything contained in that book. 
 The rule will be continued, as in the portions of letters 
 already given, of not transcribing anything before printed, 
 or anjrthing having even but a near resemblance to des- 
 criptions that appear in the Notes. 
 
 CD 
 
 ■^0 ■ ' As this is likely to be the only 
 
 ' quiet day I shall have for a long time, I devote it 
 ' to writing to you. We have heard nothing from you * 
 ' yet, and only have for our consolation the reflection that 
 ' the Columbia t is now on her way out. No news had 
 
 * At the top of the sheet, above the address and date, are the words ' Kead 
 ' on. We have your precious letters, but you'll think, at first, we have not. 
 'C. D.' 
 
 f The ship next in rotation to the Caledonia from Liverpool. 
 
 J. P. 
 
Ch.xxi.1 PHILADELPHIA AND THE SOUTH. 317 
 
 ' been heard of the Caledonia yesterday afternoon, when Philadei- 
 ' we left New York. We were to have quitted that 1842.' 
 'place last Tuesday, but have been detained there all c. D. 
 ' the week by Kate having so bad a sore throat that she j_ ji_ 
 ' was obliged to keep her bed. We left yesterday after- 
 ' noon at five o'clock, and arrived here at eleven last 
 ' night. Let me say, by the way, that this is a very trying 
 ' climate. 
 
 ' I have often asked Americans in London which were Promise 
 ' the better railroads — ours or theirs ? They have taken railroads. 
 ' time for reflection, and generally replied on mature 
 ' consideration that they rather thought we excelled ; in 
 ' respect of the punctuality with which we arrived at 
 ' our stations, and the smoothness of our travelling. I 
 'wish you could see what an American railroad is, in 
 ' some parts where I now have seen them. I won't 
 'say I wish you could feel what it is, because that 
 ' would be an unchristian and savage aspiration. It is 
 ' never inclosed, or warded off. You walk down the main 
 'street of a large town : and, slap-dash, headlong, pell- 
 ' mell, down the middle of the street ; with pigs burrowing, 
 ' and boys flying kites and playing marbles, and men 
 'smoking, and women talking, and children crawling, 
 ' close to the very rails ; there comes tearing along a mad 
 'locomotive with its train of cars, scattering a red-hot Experience 
 ' shower of sparks (from its wood fire) in all directions ; 
 'screeching, hissing, yelling, and panting; and nobody 
 'one atom more concerned than if it were a hundred 
 ' miles away. You cross a turnpike-road ; and there is no 
 ' gate, no policeman, no signal — nothing to keep the way- 
 
318 
 
 THE LIFE or CHAELES DICKENS. 
 
 [Chapteh 
 
 Philadei- 
 PHiA : 
 i842. 
 
 CD. 
 
 to 
 •T. F. 
 
 cars. 
 
 Charcoal 
 stOYes. 
 
 Ladies' 
 cars. 
 
 'farer or quiet traveller out of the way, but a wooden 
 ' arch on which is written in great letters " Look out for 
 ' " the locomotive." And if any man, woman, or child, 
 ' don't look out, why it's his or her fault, and there's an 
 ' end of it. 
 
 ' The cars are like very shabby omnibuses — only larger ; 
 'holding sixty or seventy people. The seats, instead of 
 'being placed long ways, are put cross -wise, back to 
 ' front. Each holds two. There is a long row of these on 
 ' each side of the caravan, and a naiTow passage up the 
 ' centre. The windows are usually all closed, and there 
 ' is very often, in addition, a hot, close, most intolerable 
 ' charcoal stove in a red-hot glow. The heat and closeness 
 'are quite insupportable. But this is the characteristic 
 ' of all American houses, of all the public institutions, 
 ' chapels, theatres, and prisons. From the constant use 
 ' of the hard anthracite coal in these beastly furnaces, a 
 ' perfectly new class of diseases is springing up in the 
 ' country. Their effect upon an Englishman is briefly 
 ' told. He is always very sick and very faint ; and has an 
 ' intolerable headache, morning, noon, and night. 
 
 'In the ladies' car, there is no smoking of tobacco 
 ' allowed. AU gentlemen who have ladies with them, sit 
 ' in this car ; and it is usually very full. Before it, is the 
 ' gentlemen's car ; which is something narrower. As I 
 ' had a window close to me yesterday which commanded 
 ' this gentlemen's car, I looked at it pretty often, perforce. 
 ' The flashes of saliva flew so perpetually and incessantly 
 • out of the windows all the way, that it looked as though 
 ' they were ripping open feather-beds inside, and letting 
 
TwEmT-FiHST.] PHILADELPHIA AND THE SOUTH. 3I9 
 
 ' the wind dispose of the feathers.* But this spitting is Philadbi- 
 ' universal. In the courts of law, the judge has his 1842. 
 
 ' spittoon on the bench, the counsel have theirs, the c. D. 
 
 ' witness has his, the prisoner his, and the crier his. The j p 
 
 'jury are accommodated at the rate of three men to a 
 
 ' spittoon (or spit-box as they call it here) ; and the spec- 
 
 ' tators in the gallery are provided for, as so many men 
 
 ' who in the course of nature expectorate without cessa- 
 
 ' tion. There are spit-boxes in every steamboat, bar-room, Spittoons. 
 
 ' public dining-room, house of office, and place of general 
 
 ' resort, no matter what it be. In the hospitals, the 
 
 ' students are requested, by placard, to use the boxes 
 
 ' provided for them, and not to spit upon the stairs. I 
 
 'have twice seen gentlemen, at evening parties in New 
 
 ' York, turn aside when they were not engaged in conver- 
 
 ' sation, and spit upon the drawing-room carpet. And in 
 
 ' every bar-room and hotel passage the stone floor looks as 
 
 ' if it were paved with open oysters — from the quantity of 
 
 ' this kind of deposit which tesselates it all over . . . 
 
 ' The institutions at Boston, and at Hartford, are most Contrasts 
 ' admirable. It would be very difficult indeed to improve chusetts 
 'upon them. But this is not so at New York; where York. 
 ' there is an ill-managed lunatic asylum, a bad jail, a 
 'dismal workhouse, and a perfectly intolerable place of 
 'police-imprisonment. A man is found drunk in the 
 ' streets, and is thrown into a cell below the surface of the 
 ' earth ; profoundly dark ; so full of noisome vapours that 
 ' when you enter it with a candle you see a ring about the 
 
 * This comparison is employed in another descriptive passage to be foand in 
 the Notes (p. 67). 
 
320 THE tlFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. lchaptek 
 
 Philadel- ' ligtt, like that which surrounds the moon in wet and 
 
 1842. ' cloudy weather ; and so offensive and disgusting in its 
 
 C. D. ' filthy odours, that you cannot hear its stench. He is 
 
 j_ p_ ' shut up within an iron door, in a series of vaulted pas- 
 
 ' sages where no one stays ; has no drop of water, or ray 
 
 ' of light, or visitor, or help of any kind ; and there he 
 
 ' remains until the magistrate's arrival. If he die (as one 
 
 ' man did not long ago) he is half eaten by the rats in an 
 
 Police- cells 'hour's time (as this man was). I expressed, on seeing 
 
 111 Ngw 
 
 York. ' these places the other night, the disgust I felt, and which 
 
 ' it would be impossible to repress. " Well ; I don't know," 
 ' said the night constable — ^that's a national answer by the 
 ' bye — " Well ; I don't know. I've had six and twenty 
 ' " young women locked up here together, and beautiful 
 
 'And that's ' " ones too, and that's a fact." The cell was certainly no 
 ' larger than the wine-cellar in Devonshire-terrace ; at 
 ' least three feet lower ; and stunk like a common sewer. 
 ' There was one woman in it, then. The magistrate begins 
 ' his examinations at five o'clock in the morning ; the watch 
 ' is set at seven at night ; if the prisoners have been given in 
 ' charge by an officer, they are not taken out before nine 
 ' or ten ; and in the interval they remain in these places, 
 ' where they could no more be heard to cry for help, in 
 ' case of a fit or swoon among them, than a man's voice 
 ' could be heard after he was coffined up in his grave. 
 
 Pi-isons. ' There is a prison in this same city, and indeed in the 
 
 ' same building, where prisoners for grave offences await 
 ' their trial, and to which they are sent back when under 
 ' remand. It sometimes happens that a man or woman 
 ' will remain here for twelve months, waiting the result 
 
TwENTT-FiRST.] PHILADELPHIA AND THE SOUTH. 321 
 
 • of motions for new trial, and in arrest of judgment, and Philadbi,- 
 ' what not. I went into it the other day : without any 1842. 
 
 • notice or preparation, otherwise I find it diiScult to catch c. D. 
 ' them in their work-a-day aspect. I stood in a long, high, j p 
 
 ' nan'ow building, consisting of four galleries one above the 
 ' other, with a bridge across each, on which sat a turnkey, 
 ' sleeping or reading as the case might be. From the roof, 
 ' a couple of windsails dangled and drooped, limp and use- 
 ' less; the skylight being fast closed, and they only designed 
 ' for summer use. In the centre of the building was the House of 
 
 • eternal stove ; and along both sides of every gallery was in New 
 ■ a long row of iron doors — looking like furnace doors 
 'being very small, but black and cold as if the fires 
 
 ' within had gone out. 
 
 ' A man with keys appears, to show us round. A good- 
 ' looking fellow, and, in his way, civil and obliging.' (I 
 omit a dialogue of which the substance has been printed,* 
 and give only that which appears for the first time here.) 
 
 ' " Suppose a man's here for twelve months. Do you 
 '"mean to say he never comes out at that little iron 
 '"door." 
 
 ' " He may walk some, perhaps — -not much." 
 
 ' " Will you show me a few of them ? " 
 
 ' " Ah ! All, if you like." 
 
 ' He threw open a door, and I looked in. An old man A prisoner 
 ' was sitting on his bed, reading. The light came in through 
 ' a small chink, very high up in the wall. Across the room 
 ' ran a thick iron pipe to carry off filth ; this was bored 
 ' for the reception of something like a big funnel in shape • 
 
 * Notes, p. 49. 
 
322 
 
 THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 [Chapteb 
 
 1 BILADEl- 
 
 phia: 
 1812. 
 
 C D. 
 
 to 
 
 J. p. 
 
 Women 
 prisoners. 
 
 Boy 
 prisoner. 
 
 ' and over the funnel was a watercock. This was his wash- 
 ' ing apparatus and water-closet. It was not savoury, but 
 ' not very offensive. He looked up at me ; gave himself 
 ' an odd, dogged kind of shake ; and fixed his eyes on his 
 ' book again. I came out, and the door was shut and 
 ' locked. He had been there a month, and would have to 
 ' wait another month for his trial. " Has he ever walked 
 ' " out now, for instance 1 " " No." . . . 
 
 '"In England, if a man is under sentence of death 
 ' " even, he has a yard to walk in at certain times." 
 
 ' " Possible ?" 
 
 ' . . . Making me this answer with a coolness which is 
 ' perfectly untranslateable and inexpressible, and which is 
 ' quite peculiar to the soil, he took me to the women's 
 ' side ; telling me, upon the way, all about this man, who, 
 'it seems, murdered his wife, and will certainly be 
 ' hanged. The women's doors have a small square aper- 
 ' ture in them ; I looked through one, and saw a 
 ' pretty boy about ten or twelve years old, who seemed 
 ' lonely and miserable enough — as well he might. "What's 
 '"he been doing?" says I. "Nothing" says my friend. 
 '"Nothing!" says I. "No," says he. "He's here for 
 • " safe keeping. He saw his father kiU his mother, and 
 '"is detained to give evidence against him — that was 
 '"his father, you saw just now." "But that's rather 
 '"hard treatment for a witness, isn't it?" — "Well! I 
 ' " don't know. It a'nt a very rowdy life, and that's a fact." 
 ' So my friend, who was an excellent fellow in his way, and 
 ' very obliging, and a handsome young man to boot, took 
 ' me off to show me some more curiosities ; and I was very 
 
TwESTY-rmsT.i PHILADELPHIA AND THE SOUTH. 323 
 
 ■ much obliged to him, for the place was so hot, and I so Philadel- 
 ' giddy, that I could scarcely stand. . . . 1842. 
 
 ' When a man is hanged in New York, he is walked out c. D. 
 
 ' of one of these cells, without any condemned sermon or j_ p_ 
 'other religious formalities, straight into the narrow jail 
 ' yard, which may be about the width of Cranboum-alley. 
 
 'There, a gibbet is erected, which is of curious construe- Capital 
 
 pimish- 
 
 'tion; for the culprit stands on the earth with the rope mentin 
 
 'about his neck, which passes through a pulley in the top 
 
 ' of the " Tree " (see Newgate Calendar passim), and is 
 
 ' attached to a weight something heavier than the man. 
 
 ' This weight being suddenly let go, drags the rope down 
 
 ' with it, and sends the criminal flying up fourteen feet 
 
 'into the air; while the judge, and jury, and five and 
 
 ' twenty citizens (whose presence is required by the law), 
 
 ' stand by, that they may afterwards certify to the fact. 
 
 ' This yard is a very dismal place ; and when I looked at ''^**^'" "^" 
 
 •' ... . ours then 
 
 ' it, I thought the practice infinitely superior to ours : ^as. 
 ' much more solemn, and far less degrading and indecent. 
 
 ' There is another prison near New York which is a 
 ' house of correction. The convicts labour in stone- House of 
 
 1 - •! n correction. 
 
 ' quarries near at hand, but the jail has no covered yards 
 
 ■ or shops, so that when the weather is wet (as it was when 
 ' I was there) each man is shut up in his own little cell, 
 ' all the live-long day. These cells, in all the correction- 
 ' houses I have seen, are on one uniform plan — thus : 
 
S24 
 
 THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 ICHiPTER 
 
 Philadel- 
 phia: 
 1842. 
 
 C. D. 
 
 to 
 J. F. 
 
 A correc- 
 tion-Kouse : 
 
 witK four 
 hundred 
 single cells. 
 
 Compari- 
 eon witli 
 English 
 prisons!. 
 
 ' A, B, C, and D, are the walls of the building with windows 
 'in them, high up in the wall. The shaded place in the 
 ' centre represents four tiers of cells, one above the other, 
 ' with doors of grated iron, and a light grated gallery to 
 ' each tier. Four tiers front to B, and four to D, so that 
 ' by this means you may be said, in walking round, to see 
 ' eight tiers in all. The intermediate blank space you 
 ' walk in, looking up at these galleries ; so that, coming in 
 ' at the door E, and going either to the right or left till 
 ' you come back to the door again, you see all the cells 
 ' under one roof and in one high room. Imagine them in 
 ' number 400, and in every one a man locked up ; this 
 'one with his hands through the bars of his grate, this one 
 'in bed (in the middle of the day, remember), and this 
 'one flung down in a heap upon the ground with bis 
 ' head against the bars like a wild beast. Make the rain 
 'pour down in torrents outside. Put the everlasting 
 ' stove in the midst ; hot, suffocating, and vaporous, as a 
 ' witch's cauldron. Add a smell like that of a thousand 
 ' old mildewed umbrellas wet through, and a thousand 
 ' dirty clothes-bags musty, moist, and fusty, and you will 
 ' have some idea — a very feeble one, my dear friend, on my 
 ' word — of this place yesterday week. You know of course 
 'that we adopted our improvements in prison-discipline 
 'from the American pattern ; but I am confident that the 
 ' writers who have the most lustily lauded the American 
 ' prisons, have never seen Chesterton's domain or Tracey's.* 
 'There is no more comparison between these two prisons 
 'of ours, and any I have seen here YET, than there is 
 
 * See ante, p. 255. 
 
TwENTT-riKST.] PHILADELPHIA AND THE SOUTH. 325 
 
 c. 
 
 D. 
 
 
 to 
 
 J. 
 
 F. 
 
 'between the keepers here, and those two gentlemen. Philadbl- 
 
 ' Putting out of sight the difficulty we have in England of 1842.' 
 
 'finding useful labour for the prisoners (which of course 
 
 ' arises from our being an older country, and having vast 
 
 'numbers of artizans unemployed), our system is more 
 
 ' complete, more impressive, and more satisfactory in every 
 
 ' respect. It is very possible that I have not come to the 
 
 'best, not having yet seen Mount Auburn. I will tell 
 
 ' you when I have. And also when I have come to those 
 
 ' inns, mentioned — vaguely rather — by Miss Martineau, Inns and 
 
 landlords. 
 
 ' where they undercharge literary people for the love the 
 ' landlords bear them. My experience, so far, has been of 
 ' establishments where (perhaps for the same reason) they 
 ' very monstrously and violently overcharge a man whose 
 ' position forbids remonstrance. 
 
 'WASHlNaTON, Sunday, Maroh the Thirteenth, 184-2. 
 ' In allusion to the last sentence, my dear friend, I WASHma 
 ' must tell you a slight experience I had in Philadelphia. 1342! 
 ' My rooms had been ordered for a week, but, in conse- 
 ' quence of Kate's illness, only Mr. Q and the luggage 
 'had gone on. Mr. Q alwaj^s lives at the table d'hote, 
 ' so that while we were in New York our rooms were 
 ' empty. The landlord not only charged me half the 
 'full rent for the time during which the rooms were 
 ' reserved for us (which was quite right), but charged me 
 • also for hoard for myself and Kate and Anne, at the Hotel ex- 
 ' rate of nine dollars per day for the same period, when 
 ' we were actually living, at the same expense, in New 
 ' York ! ! ! I did remonstrate upon this head ; but was 
 
826 
 
 THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 IChaiteb 
 
 C. D. 
 
 to 
 J. F. 
 
 Philadel- 
 phia Peni- 
 tentiary. 
 
 WiSHiua- ' coolly told it was the custom (which I have since been 
 1842. ' assured is a lie), and had nothing for it but to pay the 
 ' amount. What else could I do ? I was going away by 
 'the steamboat at five o'clock in the morning; and the 
 ' landlord knew perfectly well that my disputing an item 
 ' of his bill would draw down upon me the sacred wrath 
 • of the newspapers, which would one and all demand in 
 ' capitals if THIS was the gratitude of the man whom 
 ' Anlerica had received as she had never received any 
 ' other man but La Fayette ? 
 
 ' I went last Tuesday to the Eastern Penitentiary near 
 ' Philadelphia, which is the only prison in the States, or I 
 ' believe in the world, on the principle of hopeless, strict, 
 ' and unrelaxed solitary confinement, during the whole 
 ' term of the sentence. It is wonderfully kept, but a 
 ' most dreadful, fearful place. The inspectors, immediately 
 ' on my ari'ival in Philadelphia, invited me to pass the day 
 ' in the jail, and to dine with them when I had finished 
 ' my inspection, that they might hear my opinion of the 
 
 Thesoiitory ' System. Accordingly I passed the whole day in going 
 'from cell to cell, and conversing with the prisoners. 
 ' Every facihty was given me, and no constraint whatever 
 ' imposed upon any man's free speech. If I were to write 
 ' you a letter of twenty sheets, I could not tell you this 
 ' one day's work ; so I will reserve it until that happy 
 ' time when we shall sit round the table at Jack Straw's 
 ' — ^you, and I, and Mac — and go over my diary. I never 
 ' shall be able to dismiss from my mind, the impressions 
 ' of that day. Making notes of them, as I have done, is 
 ' an absurdity, for they are written, beyond all power of 
 
 system. 
 
TwESTv-riKST] WASHINGTON AND THE SOUTH. 327 
 
 ' erasure, in my brain. I saw men who had been there, Washins- 
 nve years, six years, eleven years, two years, two months, i842. 
 
 ' two days ; some whose term was nearly over, and some c. D. 
 'whose term had only just begun. Women too, under the j p_ 
 • same variety of circumstances. Every prisoner who comes Solitary 
 
 . ... . , prisoners. 
 
 'into the jail, comes at night; is put into a bath, and 
 'dressed in the prison garb; and then a black hood is Howre- 
 ' drawn over his face and head, and he is led to the cell kept. 
 ' from which he never stirs again until his whole period of 
 ' confinement has expired. I looked at some of them with 
 ' the same awe as I should have looked at men who had 
 ' been buried alive, and dug up again. 
 
 ' We dined in the jail : and I told them after dinner Talk with 
 ' how much the sight had affected me, and what an awful spectora. 
 ' punishment it was. I dwelt upon this ; for, although the 
 ' inspectors are extremely kind and benevolent men, I 
 ' question whether they are sufficiently acquainted with the 
 ' human mind to know what it is they are doing. Indeed, 
 ' I am sure they do not know. I bore testimony, as every 
 ' one who sees it must, to the admirable government of the 
 ' institution (Stanfield is the keeper : grown , a little 
 ' younger, that's all) ; but added that nothing could justify 
 ' such a punishment, but its working a reformation in the 
 ' prisoners. That for short terms — say two years for the 
 ' maximum — I conceived, especially after what they had 
 ' told me of its good effects in certain cases, it might 
 ' perhaps be highly beneficial ; but that, carried to so great 
 ' an extent, I thought it cruel and unjustifiable ; and 
 ' further, that their sentences for small offences were very 
 ■ rigorous, not to say savage. All this, they took like men 
 
328 
 
 THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 [Chapteb 
 
 Washihs- 
 
 TON : 
 
 1842. 
 
 C. D. 
 
 to 
 J. F. 
 
 Bookseller 
 Gary. 
 
 A levee. 
 
 Changes of 
 tempera- 
 ture. 
 
 Henry 
 
 Clay. 
 
 ' who were really anxious to have one's free opinion and 
 ' to do right. And we were very much pleased with each 
 ' other, and parted in the friendliest way. 
 
 ' They sent me back to Philadelphia in a carriage they 
 ' had sent for me in the morning ; and then I had to dress 
 ' in a hurry, and follow Kate to Gary's the bookseller's 
 ' where there was a party. He married a sister of Leslie's. 
 ' There are three Miss Leslies here, very accomplished ; 
 
 ■ and one of them has copied all her brother's principal 
 ' pictures. These copies hang about the room. We got 
 ' away from this as soon as we could ; and next morning 
 ' had to turn out at five. In the morning I had received 
 ' and shaken hands with five hundred people, so you may 
 
 suppose that I was pretty well tired. Indeed I am 
 
 obliged to be very careful of myself; to avoid smoking 
 
 ' and drinking ; to get to bed soon ; and to be particular in 
 
 ■ respect of what I eat. . . . You cannot think how bilious 
 ' and trying the climate is. One day it is hot summer, 
 ' without a breath of air ; the next, twenty degrees below 
 '■ freezing, with a wind blowing that cuts your skin like 
 ' steel. These changes have occurred here several times 
 ' since last "Wednesday night. 
 
 'I have altered my route, and don't mean to go to 
 'Charleston. The country, all the way from here, is 
 ' nothing but a dismal swamp ; there is a bad night of 
 ' sea-coasting in the journey ; the equinoctial gales are 
 ' blowing hard ; and Clay (a most charmwig fellow, by the 
 ' bye), whom I have consulted, strongly dissuades me. The 
 ' weather is intensely hot there; the spring fever is coming 
 on ; and there is very little to see, after all. We there- 
 
twEsrr-FiBST.] ■WASHINGTON AND THE SOUTH. 329 
 
 ' fore go next Wednesday night to Eichmond, which we Washino- 
 ' shall reach on Thursday. There, we shall stop three i842. 
 ' days ; my object being to see some tobacco plantations. C. D. 
 ' Then we shall go by James river back to Baltimore, j. f. 
 'which we have already passed through, and where we 
 ' shall stay two days. Then we shall go West at once. Proposed 
 
 joiirney- 
 
 ' straight through the most gigantic part of this continent : logs. 
 ' across the Alleghany-mountains, and over a prairie. 
 
 'Still at Washington, Fifteenth March, 1842. . . . 
 ' It is impossible, my dear friend, to tell you what we 
 ' felt, when Mr. Q (who is a fearfully sentimental genius, 
 ' but heartily interested in all that concerns us) came to 
 ' where we were dining last Sunday, and sent in a note to 
 ' the effect that the Caledonia* had arrived! Being really Arrival of 
 
 Acadia 
 
 ' assured of her safety, we felt as if the distance between with Cale- 
 
 ' us and home were diminished by at least one half mails. 
 
 ' There was great joy everyw^here here, for she had been 
 
 ' quite despaired of, but our joy was beyond all telling. 
 
 ' This news came on by express. Last night your letters 
 
 ' reached us. I was dining with a club (for I can't avoid a 
 
 ' dinner of that sort, now and then), and Kate sent me a 
 
 ' note about nine o'clock to say they were here. But she 
 
 'didn't open them — which I consider heroic — until I came 
 
 ' home. That was about half past ten ; and we read them 
 
 ' until nearly two in the morning. 
 
 'I won't say a word about your letters; except that Letters 
 
 Tr 1 T 1 from Eug- 
 
 'Kate and 1 have come to a conclusion which makes land. 
 ' me tremble in my shoes, for we decide that humourous 
 ' nan-ative is your forte, and not statesmen of the common- 
 
 * This was the Acadia with the Caledonia mails. 
 
330 
 
 THE LIFE OP CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 [Chapmb 
 
 Washiko- 
 
 TON : 
 
 1842. 
 
 C. D. 
 
 to 
 ■T. F. 
 
 Congress 
 and Senate. 
 
 Quincey 
 Adams. 
 
 Leading 
 
 American 
 
 statesmen. 
 
 Preston. 
 
 Inter- 
 national 
 copyright. 
 
 ' wealth. I won't say a word about your news; for how 
 ' could I in that case, while you want to hear what we 
 ' are doing, resist the temptation of expending pages on 
 'those darling children 
 
 ' I have the privilege of appearing on the floor of both 
 ' houses here, and go to them every day. They are very 
 ' handsome and commodious. There is a great deal of bad 
 ' speaking, but there are a great many very remarkable 
 ' men, in the legislature : such as John Quincey Adams, 
 ' Clay, Preston, Calhoun, and others : with whom I need 
 ' scarcely add I have been placed in the friendliest rela- 
 ' tions. Adams is a fine old fellow — seventy-six years old, 
 ' but with most surprising vigour, memory, readiness, and 
 'pluck. Clay is perfectly enchanting; an iiTesistible man. 
 'There are some very noble specimens, too, out of the 
 ' West. Splendid men to look at, hard to deceive, prompt 
 'to act, lions in energy, Crichtons in varied aecomplish- 
 ' ments, Indians in quickness of eye and gesture, Americans 
 'in affectionate and generous impulse. It would be 
 ' difficult to exaggerate the nobility of some of these 
 ' glorious fellows. 
 
 ' When Clay retires, as he does this month, Preston wiU 
 'become the leader of the whig party. He so solemnly 
 ' assures me that the international copyright shall and will 
 ' be passed, that I almost begin to hope ; and I shall be 
 ' entitled to say, if it be, that I have brought it about. 
 'You have no idea how universal the discussion of its 
 ' merits and demerits has become ; or how eager for the 
 ' change I have made a portion of the people. 
 
 ' You remember what was, in England. If you 
 
TwESTYPiRST.i WASHINGTON AND THE SOUTH. 331 
 
 ' could but see him here I If you could only have seen Washing- 
 ton ; 
 'him when he called on us the other day — feigning i842. 
 
 ' abstraction in the dreadful pressure of affairs of state ; c. D. 
 
 ' rubbing his forehead as one who' was a-weary of the j. p. 
 
 ■ world ; and exhibiting a sublime caricature of Lord 
 
 ' Burleigh. He is the only thoroughly unreal man I 
 
 'have seen, on this side the ocean. Heaven help the 
 
 ' President ! All parties are against him, and he appears President 
 
 Tyler. 
 
 ' truly wretched. We go to a levee at his house to-night. 
 ' He has invited me to dinner on Friday, but I am obliged 
 ' to decline ; for we leave, per steamboat, to-mon-ow night. 
 
 ' I said I wouldn't write anything more concerning the Concerning 
 
 the Ameri- 
 
 ' American people, for two months. Second thoughts are can people. 
 
 ' best. I shall not change, and may as well speak out — ^to 
 
 ' you. They are friendly, earnest, hospitable, kind, frank, 
 
 ' very often accomplished, far less prejudiced than you 
 
 ' would suppose, warm-hearted, fervent, and enthusiastic. 
 
 ' They are chivalrous in their universal politeness to women, 
 
 ' courteous, obliging, disinterested; and, when they conceive 
 
 ' a perfect affection for a man (as I may venture to say of 
 
 ' myself), entirely devoted to him. I have received thousands 
 
 • of people of all ranks and grades, and have never once 
 
 ' been asked an offensive or unpolite question — except by 
 
 ' Englishmen, who, when they have been " located " here English- 
 
 men 
 
 ' for some years, are worse than the devil in his blackest 'located ' 
 
 . . in America. 
 
 'painting. The State is a parent to its people; has a 
 ' parental care and watch over all poor children, women 
 'labouring of child, sick persons, and captives. The 
 ' common men render you assistance in the streets, and 
 ' would revolt from the offer of a piece of money. The 
 
S32 
 
 THE LIFE OF CHAELES DICKENS. 
 
 [Chaptee 
 
 Washihs- 
 
 Tou : 
 . 1842. 
 
 0. D. 
 
 to 
 J. F. 
 
 ' Surgit 
 
 amaii 
 
 aliquid.' 
 
 The copy- 
 right peti- 
 tion. 
 
 'desire to oblige Je universal; and I have never once 
 ' travelled in a public conveyance, without making some 
 ' generous acquaintance whom I have been sorry to part 
 ' from, and who has in many cases come on miles, to see 
 ' us again. But I don't like the country. I would not 
 'live here, on any consideration. It goes against the 
 'grain with me. It would with you. I think it impos- 
 ' sible, utterly impossible, for any Englishman to live here, 
 ' and be happy. I have a confidence that I must be right, 
 'because I have everything, God knows, to lead me to the 
 ' opposite conclusion : and yet I cannot resist coming to 
 ' this one. As to the causes, they are too many to enter 
 
 ' upon here 
 
 ' One of two petitions for an international copyright 
 'which I brought here from American authors, with 
 ' Irving at their head, has been presented to the house 
 '.of representatives. Clay retains the other for presenta- 
 ' tion to the senate after I have left Washington. The 
 ' presented one has been referred to a committee ; the 
 ' Speaker has nominated as its chairman Mr. Kennedy, 
 ' member for Baltimore, who is himself an author and 
 ' notoriously favourable to such a law ; and I am going to 
 ' assist him in his report. 
 
 filOHMOITD. 
 
 Washing- 
 ton Irving : 
 
 ' EiCHMOKD, isr VlKGiNiA. Thursday Mght. Marct 17. 
 
 •Irving was with me at Washington yesterday, and 
 ' wept heartily at parting. He is a fine fellow, when you 
 ' know him well ; and you would relish him, my dear friend, 
 ' of all things. We have laughed together at some absur- 
 ' dities we have encountered in company, quite in niy 
 
TwESTy-FiRST.] WASHINGTON AND THE SOUTH. 333 
 
 'vociferous Devonshire-terrace style. The "Merrikin" WAsniHa- 
 
 TON I 
 
 •government have treated him, he says, most hberally i842. 
 
 ' and handsomely in every respect. He thinks of sailing c. D. 
 
 ' for Liverpool on the 7th of April ; passing a short time j_ p 
 ' in London ; knd then going to Paris. Perhaps you may 
 
 ' meet him. If you do, he will know that you are my appointed 
 
 p • 1 1 '11 1 ■ 1 T 1 Minister to 
 
 ' dearest iriend, and will open his whole heart to you at Spain, 
 ' once. His secretary of legation, Mr. Coggleswell, is a 
 ' man of very remarkable information, a great traveller, 
 ' a good talker, and a scholar.' 
 
 ' I am going to sketch you our trip here from Washing- 
 ' ton, as it involves nine miles of a " Virginny Eoad." 
 ' That done, I must be brief, good brother. . . . 
 
 The reader of the American Notes will remember the 
 admirable and most humorous description of the night 
 steamer on the Potomac, and of the black driver over the 
 Virginia-road. Both were in this letter; which, after three 
 days, he resumed ' At Washington again, Monday, March 
 ' the twenty-first. 
 
 ' We had intended to go to Baltimore from Richmond, 
 ' by a place called Norfolk : but one of the boats being 
 ' under repair, I found we should probably be detained at 
 'this Norfolk two days. Therefore we came back here 
 • yesterday, by the road we had travelled before ; lay here 
 ' ia.->t night ; and go on to Baltimore this afternoon, at four 
 ' o'clock. It is a journey of only two hours and a half. 
 ' Eichmond is a prettily situated town ; but, like other Richmond. 
 ' towns in slave districts (as the planters themselves admit), 
 ' has an aspect of decay and gloom which to an unaccus- 
 ' tomed eye is most distressing. In the black car (for they 
 
334 
 
 THE LIFE OF CHAIII,ES DICKENS. 
 
 [Chaftbb 
 
 WASHiua- 
 
 TON : 
 1842. 
 
 C. D. 
 
 to 
 J. F. 
 
 Incidents 
 of slave- 
 life. 
 
 Impossitle 
 to be silent 
 on slavery. 
 
 Discussion 
 with a 
 slave- 
 holder. 
 
 ' don't let them sit with the whites), on the railroad as we 
 ' went there, were a mother and family, whom the steamer 
 
 ■ was conveying away, to sell ; retaining the man (the 
 'husband and father I mean) on his plantation. The 
 'children cried the whole way. Yesterday, on board 
 ' the boat, a slave owner and two constables were our 
 ' feUow-passengers. They were coming here in search of 
 ' two negroes who had run away on the previous day. On 
 'the bridge at Richmond there is a notice against fast 
 ' driving over it, as it is rotten and crazy : penalty — for 
 
 ■ whites, five dollars ; for slaves, fifteen stripes. My heart 
 ' is lightened as if a great load had been taken from it, 
 'when I think that we are turning our backs on this 
 ' accursed and detested system. I really don't think I 
 ' could have borne it any longer. It is all very well to say 
 ' " be silent on the subject." They won't let you be silent. 
 ' They will ask you what you think of it; and ivill expatiate 
 ' on slavery as if it were one of the greatest blessings of 
 ' mankind. " It's not," said a hard, bad-looking fellow to 
 ' me the other day, " it's not the interest of a man to use 
 '"his slaves ill. It's damned nonsense that you hear 
 ' " in England." — I told him quietly that it was not a 
 ' man's interest to get drunk, or to steal, or to game, or to 
 ' indulge in any other vice, but he did indulge in it for 
 ' all that. That cruelty, and the abuse of irresponsible 
 'power, were two of the bad passions of human nature, 
 ' with the gratification of which, considerations of interest 
 ' or of ruin had nothing whatever to do ; and that, whUe 
 ' every candid man must admit that even a slave might 
 ' be happy enough with a good master, all human beings 
 
TwENTT-rmsT.] "WASHINGTON AND THE SOUTH. 335 
 
 'knew that bad masters, cruel masters, and masters WAsmira. 
 
 TON • 
 
 'who disgraced the form they bore, were matters of 1842. 
 ' experience and history, whose existence was as undis- c. D. 
 ' puted as that of slaves themselves. He was a little taken j p_ 
 ' aback by this, and asked me if I believed in the bible. 
 ' Yes, I said, but if any man could prove to me that it 
 ' sanctioned slavery, I would place no further credence in it. 
 ' " Well then," he said, "by God, sir, the niggers must be 
 ' " kept down, and the whites have put down the coloured 
 ' " people wherever they have found them." " That's the 
 ' " whole question " said I. " Yes, and by God," says he, 
 ' " the British had better not stand out on that point when 
 ' " Lord Ashburton comes over, for I never felt so warlike as 
 ' " I do now, — and that's a fact." I was obliged to accept a 
 • public supper in this Richmond, and I saw plainly enough. Peeling of 
 ' there, that the hatred which these Southern States bear England. 
 ' to us as a nation has been fanned up and revived again 
 'by this Creole business, and can scarcely be exaggerated. 
 .... 'We were desperately tired at Eichmond, as 
 ' we went to a great many places, and received a very 
 ' great number of visitors. We appoint usually two hours Levees 
 
 at Kich« 
 
 ' in every day for this latter purpose, and have our room so mond. 
 ' full at that period that it is difficult to move or breathe. 
 ' Before we left Richmond, a gentleman told me, when I 
 ' really was so exhausted that I could hardly stand, that 
 ' " three people of great fashion " were much offended by 
 ' baving been told, when they called last evening, that I 
 ' was tired and not visible, then, but would be " at home " 
 'from twelve to two next day!. Another gentleman (no 
 ' doubt of great fashion also) sent a letter to me two hours 
 
336 
 
 THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 Chapter 
 
 ■Washino- ' aftei" I had gone to bed, preparatory to rising at four next 
 ' morning, with instructions to the slave who brought it to 
 ' knock me up and wait for an answer ! 
 
 'I am going to break my resolution of accepting no 
 ' more public entertainments, in favour of the originators 
 • of the printed document overleaf. They live upon the 
 ' confines of the Indian territory, some two thousand miles 
 ' or more west of New York ! Think of my dining there ! 
 ' And yet, please God, the festival will come off — I should 
 ' say about the 12th or 15th of next month.' .... 
 
 The printed document was a series of resolutions, moved 
 at a public meeting attended by all the principal citizens, 
 iudges, professors, and doctors, of St. Louis, urgently in- 
 viting, to that city of the Far West, the distinguished 
 writer then the guest of America, eulogizing his genius, 
 and tendering to him their warmest hospitalities. He 
 was at Baltimore when he closed his letter. 
 
 TON : 
 
 1842. 
 
 C. D. 
 
 to 
 J. F. 
 
 One more 
 
 banquet 
 
 accepted. 
 
 My gift of 
 Shake- 
 speare. 
 
 'Baltimgeb, Tussday, March 22nd, 
 
 ' I have a great diffidence in running counter to any 
 impression formed by a man of MacUse's genius, on a sub- 
 ject he has fully considered.' (Referring apparently to 
 some remark by myself on the picture of the Play-scene 
 in Hamlet, exhibited this year.) ' But I quite agree with 
 you, about the King in Samlet. Talking of Hamlet, I 
 constantly carry in my great-coat pocket the Shakespeare 
 you bought for me in Liverpool. What an unspeakable 
 source of delight that book is to me ! 
 ' Your Ontario letter, I found here to-night : sent on 
 ' by the vigilant and faithful Golden, who makes every 
 
TWENTY-FIRST.] "WASHINGTON AND' THE SOUTH. 337 
 
 ' thing having reference to us, or our affairs, a labour of Balm- 
 ' the heartiest love. We devoured its contents, greedily. i842. 
 
 ' Good Heaven, my dear fellow, how I miss you ! and c. D. 
 ' how I count the time 'twixt this and coming home again. j p 
 ' Shall I ever forget the day of our parting at Liverpool ! Letters 
 
 from home 
 
 ' when even became jolly and radiaut in his sympathy 
 
 ■ with our separation ! Never, never shall I forget that 
 ' time. Ah ! how seriously I thought then, and how 
 ' seriously I have thought many, many times since, of the 
 ' terrible folly of ever quarrelling with a true friend, on 
 ' good for nothing trifles ! Every little hasty word that 
 ' has ever passed between us, rose up before me like a 
 ' reproachful ghost. At this great distance, I seem to look Self-re- 
 
 ( , . . proach of 
 
 back upon any miserable small interruption of our affec- a noMe 
 ' tionate intercourse, though only for the instant it has 
 ' never outlived, with a sort of pity for myself as if I were 
 ' another creature. 
 
 ' I have bought another accordion. The steward lent 
 ' me one, on the passage out, and I regaled the ladies' 
 ' cabin with my performances. You can't think with 
 ' what feeling I play Home Sweet Rome every night, or 
 
 ' how pleasantly sad it makes us And so God bless 
 
 ' you I leave space for a short postscript before seal- 
 
 ' ing this, but it will probably contain nothing. The dear, 
 ' dear children ! what a happiness it is to know that they 
 ' are in such hands. 
 
 ' P.S. Twenty-third March, 1842. Nothing new. And 
 ' all well. I have not heard that the Columbia is in, but 
 'she is hourly expected. Washington Irving has come 
 
338 
 
 THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 [Ch. XXI. 
 
 BilTl- 
 
 MORE : 
 
 1842. 
 
 C. D. 
 
 to 
 J. F, 
 
 ' on for another leave-taking,* and dines with me to-day. 
 ' We start for the West, at half after eight to-morrow 
 ' morning. I send you a newspaper, the most respectable 
 ' in the States, with a very just copyright article.' 
 
 Irving's 
 leave- 
 taking. 
 
 C. D. 
 
 to Mr. 
 Lauman. 
 
 * At his second visit to America, when in Washington in Fehruary 1868, 
 Dickens, replying to a letter in which Irving was named, thus describes the 
 last meetirig and leave-taking to which he alludes above. ' Your reference to 
 ' ray dear friend, VVashington Irving, renews the vivid impressions reawakened 
 ' in my mind at Baltimore but the other day. I saw his fine face for the last 
 ' time in that city. He came there from New York to pass a day or two with 
 ' me before I went westward ; and they were made among the most memorable 
 ' of my life by his delightful fancy and genial humor. Some unknown admirer 
 ' of his books and mine sent to the hotel a most enormous mint-julep, wreathed 
 ' with flowers. "We sat, one on either side of it, with great solemnity (it filled 
 ' a respectably-sized round table), but the solemnity was of very short dura- 
 ' tion. It was quite an enchanted Julep, and earned us among innumerable 
 ' people and places that we both knew. The julep held out far into the night, 
 ' and my" memory never saw him afterwards otherwise than as bending over it, 
 ' with his straw, with an attempted air of gravity (after some anecdote involv- 
 ' ing some wonderfully droll and delicate observation of character), and then, 
 ' as his eye caught mine, melting into that captivating laugh of his, which 
 • was the brightest and best I have ever heard. ' 
 
CHAPTEE XXII. 
 
 CANAL BOAT JOUENKYS : BOUND PAR WEST. 
 1842. 
 
 It would not be possible that a more vivid or exact Amerioa: 
 
 ^ 1842. 
 
 impression, than that which is derivable from these letters, 
 
 111- /•■ii • IT !• Character 
 
 could be given of either the genius or the character of in the 
 the writer. The whole man is here in the supreme hour 
 of his life, and in all the enjoyment of its highest sensa- 
 tions. Inexpressibly sad to me has been the task of going 
 over them, but the surprise has equalled the sadness. I 
 had forgotten what was in them. That they contained, in 
 their first vividness, all the most prominent descriptions of 
 his published book, I knew. But the reproduction of any 
 part of these was not permissible here ; and believing that 
 the substance of them had been thus almost wholly em- 
 bodied in the American Notes, when they were lent to 
 assist in its composition, I turned to them with very small 
 expectation of finding anything available for present use. 
 Yet the difficulty has been, not to find but to reject ; 
 and the rejection when most unavoidable has not been 
 
 most easy. Even where the subjects recur that are in the The Notes 
 • /• T !• n '^^^ satis- 
 
 printed volume, there is a freshness of first impressions in factory. 
 
 the letters that renders it no small trial to act strictly on 
 
 z 2 
 
340 
 
 THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 [Chapter 
 
 Ameeioa : 
 1842. 
 
 A oliarm 
 in letters 
 excluded 
 from Notes. 
 
 Personal 
 narrative 
 in them. 
 
 The copy- 
 right dilTe- 
 
 the rule adhered to in these extracts from them. In the 
 Notes there is of course very much, masterly in observation 
 and description, of which there is elsewhere no trace ; but 
 the passages amplified from the letters have not been im- 
 proved, and the manly force and directness of some of their 
 views and reflections, conveyed by touches of a picturesque 
 completeness that no elaboration could give, have here and 
 there not been strengthened by rhetorical additions in the 
 printed work. There is also a charm in the letters which 
 the plan adopted in the book necessarily excluded from 
 it. It will always of course have value as a deliberate 
 expression of the results gathered from the American 
 experiences, but the personal narrative of this famous 
 visit to America is in the letters alone. In what way his 
 experiences arose, the desire at the outset to see nothing 
 that was not favourable, the slowness with which adverse 
 impressions were formed, and the eager recognition of 
 every truthful and noble quality that arose and remained 
 above the fault-finding, are discoverable only in the 
 letters. 
 
 Already it is manifest from them that the before-named 
 disappointments, as well of the guest in his entertainers 
 as of the entertainers in their guest, had their beginning 
 in the copyright differences ; but it is not less plain that 
 the social dissatisfactions on his side were of even earlier 
 date, and with the country itself had certainly nothing to 
 do. It was objected to him, I well remember, that in 
 making such unfavourable remarks as his published book 
 did on many points, he was assailing the democratic insti- 
 tutions that had formed the character of the nation : but 
 
Twenty-second.] CANAL BOAT JOURNEYS. 34I 
 
 the answer is obvious, that, democratic institutions being America : 
 
 universal in America, they were as fairly entitled to share '. — 
 
 in the good as in the bad; and in what he praised, of gatMac-'^' 
 
 which there is here abundant testimony, he must be held *^'"'^' 
 to have exalted those institutions as much, as in what he 
 blamed he could be held to depreciate them. He never 
 
 sets himself up in judgment on the entire people. As Paimess of 
 
 judgment. 
 
 we see, from the way the letters show us that the 
 opinions he afterwards published were formed, he does not 
 draw conclusions while his observation is only half-con- 
 cluded ; and he refrains throughout from the example too 
 strongly set him, even in the very terms of his welcome 
 by the writers of America,* of flinging one nation in the 
 other's face. He leaves each upon its own ground. His 
 great business in his publication, as in the first impressions 
 recorded here, is to exhibit social influences at work as 
 he saw them himself; and it would surely have been of 
 all bad compliments the worst, when resolving, in the The real 
 tone and with the purpose of a friend, to make public to America, 
 what he had observed in America, if he had supposed 
 that such a country would take truth amiss. 
 
 There is however one thing to be especially remembered, 
 as well in reading the letters as in judging of the book 
 which was founded on them. It is a point to which I 
 believe Mr. Emerson directed the attention of his country- 
 men. Everything of an objectionable kind, whether the A fact to 
 author would have it so or not, stands out more promi- bered. 
 nently and distinctly than matter of the opposite descrip- 
 tion. The social sin is a more tangible thing than the 
 
 • See ante, p. 282-3. 
 
342 THE LIFE OF CHAELES DICKENS. [Chapteb 
 
 Amekioa : social virtue. Pertinaciously to insist upon the charities 
 
 '— and graces of life, is to outrage their quiet and unobtrusive 
 
 character ; but we incur the danger of extending the vul- 
 garities and indecencies, if we seem to countenance by 
 omitting to expose them. And if this is only kept in 
 view in reading what is here given, the proportion of 
 censure will be found not to overbalance the just admira- 
 tion and unexaggerated praise. 
 Literary Apart from such considerations, it is to be also said, 
 
 the letters, the letters, from which I am now printing exactly as they 
 were written, have claims, as mere literature, of an 
 unusual kind. Unrivalled quickness of observation, 
 the rare faculty of seizing out of a multitude of things 
 the thing only that is essential, the irresistible play of 
 humour, such pathos as only humourists of this high 
 order possess, and the unwearied unforced vivacity of ever 
 fresh, buoyant, bounding animal spirits, never found more 
 How natural, variously easy, or picturesque expression. Written 
 
 written. . ... ^ . 
 
 amid such distraction, fatigue, and weariness as they 
 describe, amid the jarring noises of hotels and streets, 
 aboard steamers, on canal boats, and in log huts, there is 
 not an erasure -in them. Not external objects only, but 
 feelings, reflections, and thoughts, are photographed into 
 visible forms with the same unexampled ease. They 
 borrow no help from the matters of which they treat. 
 They would have given, to the subjects described, old 
 acquaintance and engrossing interest if they had been 
 Personal about a people in the moon. Of the personal character at 
 
 character 
 
 pourtrayed. the same time self-pourtrayed, others, whose emotions it less 
 vividly awakens, will judge more calmly and clearly than 
 
Twenty-second.] CANAL BOAT JOURXETS. 343 
 
 myself. Yet to myself only can it be known how small Canal 
 
 Boat fob 
 were the services of friendship that sufficed to rouse all Pms- 
 
 the sensibilities of this beautiful and noble nature. 1342. ' 
 Throughout our life-long intercourse it was the same. 
 His keenness of discrimination failed him never excepting 
 here, when it was lost in the limitless extent of his appre- 
 ciation of all kindly things ; and never did he receive 
 what was meant for a benefit that he was not eager to 
 return it a hundredfold. No man more truly generous 
 ever lived. 
 
 His next letter was begun from ' on board the canal On board. 
 ' boat. Going to Pittsburgh. Monday, Mai-ch twenty- 
 ' eighth, 1842 ; ' and the difficulties of rejection, to which 
 reference has just been made, have been nowhere felt 
 by me so much. Several of the descriptive master- 
 pieces of the book are in it, with such touches of original 
 freshness as might fairly have justified a reproduction of 
 them in their first form. Among these are the Hanis- choicest 
 burgh coach on its way through the Susquehanah valley ; of iV^«S. 
 the railroad across the mountain ; the brown-forester of 
 the Mississippi, the interrogative man in pepper-and-salt, 
 and the affecting scene of the emigrants put ashore as the 
 stea.mer passes up the Ohio. But all that I may here 
 give, bearing any resemblance to what is given in the 
 Notes, are, the opening sketch of the small creature on the 
 top of the queer stage coach, to which the printed version 
 fails to do adequate justice ; and an experience to which 
 the interest belongs of having suggested the settlement 
 
 of Eden in Martin Chuzzleivit ' We left Baltimore 
 
 ' last Thursday the twenty-fourth at half-past eight in the 
 
344 THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. ICuaptidb 
 
 Cauai 'morning, by railroad; and got to a place called York, 
 
 Pitts- ' about twelve. There we dined, and took a stage-coach 
 
 ^18i2. ' ' fo^ Harrisburgh ; twenty-five miles further. This stage- 
 
 Q j)_ ' coach was like nothing so much as the body of one of 
 
 j*p 'the swings you see at a fair set upon four wheels and 
 
 ' roofed and covered at the sides with pointed canvas. 
 
 ' There were twelve inside ! I, thank my stars, was on 
 
 ' the box. The luggage was on the roof ; among it, a 
 
 Queer ' good-sized dining table, and a big rocking-chair. We 
 
 stage- I g^jgQ took up an intoxicated gentleman, who sat for ten 
 
 ' miles between me and the coachman ; and another in- 
 
 'toxicated gentleman who got up behind, but in the 
 
 ' course of a mile or two fell off without hurting himself, 
 
 ' and was seen in the distant perspective reeling back to 
 
 ' the grog-shop where we had found him. There were 
 
 ' four horses to this land-ark, of course ; but we did not 
 
 'perform the journey until after half-past six o'clock 
 
 'that night. . . . The first half of the journey was tame 
 
 ' enough, but the second lay through the valley of the 
 
 ' Susquehanah (I think I spell it right, but I haven't 
 
 ' that American Geography at hand) which is veiy beau- 
 
 'tiful 
 
 ' I think I foimerly made a casual remark to you 
 ' touching the precocitv of the youth of this country. 
 ' When we changed horses on this journey I got down 
 ' to stretch my legs, refresh myself with a glass of 
 SometMng ' whiskey and water, and shake the wet off my great 
 ' coat — for it was raining very heavily, and continued to 
 ' do so, all night. Mounting to my seat again, I observed 
 ' something lying on the roof of the coach, which I took 
 
TwENTr-BEooND.] CANAL BOAT JOURNEYS. 345 
 
 ' to be a rather large fiddle in a brown bag. In the course Canai 
 
 • T. J Boat tok 
 
 ' of ten miles or so, however, I discovered that it had a Pitts- 
 
 ' pair of dirty shoes at one end, and a glazed cap at the 1842. 
 
 ' other ; and further observation demonstrated it to be a c. D. 
 
 ' small boy, in a snuff-coloured coat, with his arms quite j_ p 
 
 •pinioned to his sides by deep forcing into his pockets. 
 
 'He was, I presume, a relative or friend of the coach- 
 
 " man's, as he lay a-top of the luggage, with his face 
 
 ' towards the rain ; and, except when a change of position 
 
 ' brought his shoes in contact with my hat, he appeared 
 
 ' to be asleep. Sir, when we stopped to water the horses, 
 
 'about two miles from Harrisburgh, this thing slowly 
 
 ' upreared itself to the height of three foot eight, and ^^^^ 
 
 'fixing its eyes on me with a mingled expression of 
 
 ' complacency, patronage, national independence, and 
 
 'sympathy for all outer barbarians and foreigners, said, 
 
 'in shrill piping accents, "Well now, stranger, I guess 
 
 ' " you find this, a'most like an English a'ternoon, — hey ? " 
 
 ' It is unnecessary to add that I thirsted for his blood. . . . 
 
 ' We had all next morning in Harrisburgh, as the canal- At Han-ie- 
 
 burgli. 
 
 ' boat was not to start until three o'clock in the afternoon. 
 
 ' The officials called upon me before I had finished break- 
 
 ' fast ; and as the town is the seat of the Pennsylvanian 
 
 ' legislature, I went up to the capitol. I was very much 
 
 'interested in looking over a number of treaties made Treaties 
 
 ' with the poor Indians, their signatures being rough Indians. 
 
 ' drawings of the creatures or weapons they are called 
 
 ' after ; and the extraordinary draAving of these emblems, 
 
 ' showing the queer, unused, shaky manner in which 
 
 • each man has held the pen, struck me very mucL 
 
346 THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. [Chapter 
 
 Cahal ' You know my small respect for our house of com- 
 
 PiTTs- 'mons. These local legislatures are too insufferably 
 
 1842. ' ' apish of mighty legislation, to he seen without bile , 
 
 Q j)_ ' for which reason, and because a great crowd of senators 
 
 ' j*p 'and ladies had assembled in both houses to behold 
 
 Local legis- ' the inimitable, and had already begun to pour in upon 
 
 latures. , . . , , . . 
 
 nim even m the secretary s private room, I went 
 ' back to the hotel, with all speed. The members of 
 'both branches of the legislature followed me there, 
 
 A levee. ' however, so we had to hold the usual levee before our 
 ' half-past one o'clock dinner. We received a great 
 ' number of them. Pretty nearly every man spat upon 
 ' the carpet, as usual ; and one blew his nose with his 
 ' fingers — also on the carpet, which was a very neat one, 
 ' the room given up to us being the private parlor of 
 ' the landlord's wife. This has become so common 
 ' since, however, that it scarcely seems worth mentioning. 
 ' Please to observe that the gentleman in question was a 
 ' member of the senate, which answers (as they very often 
 ' tell me) to our house of lords. 
 
 A model- 'The innkeeper was the most attentive, civil, and 
 
 innkeeper. 
 
 ' obliging person I ever saw in my life. On being asked 
 ' for his bill, he said there was no bill : the honor and 
 'pleasure &c. being more than sufficient.* I did not 
 ' permit this, of course ; and begged Mr. Q to explain to 
 ' him, that, travelling four strong, I could not hear of it on 
 'any account. 
 Tie canal ' And now I come to the Canal Boat. Bless your heart 
 
 boat. 
 
 ' and soul, my dear fellow, — if you could only see us on board 
 
 * Miss Martiueau was perhaps partly right then ? Ante, p. 325. 
 
Twenty-second.] CANAL BOAT JOURNETS. 347 
 
 'the canal boat! Let me think, for a moment, at what Canal 
 
 SoAT I'OR 
 
 ' time of the day or night I should best like you to see us. Phts- 
 ' In the morning ? Between five and six in the morning, 1342. 
 
 ' shall I say 1 Well ! you would like to see me, standing cTdT" 
 
 ' on the deck, fishing the dirty water out of the canal with j*^ 
 
 ' a tin ladle chained to the boat by a long chain ; pouring In the 
 
 ' the same into a tin-basin (also chained up in like manner) ; 
 
 ' and scrubbing my face with the jack towel. At night, 
 
 ' shall I say ? I don't know that you would like to look 
 
 ' into the cabin at night, only to see me lying on a 
 
 ' temporary shelf exactly the width of this sheet of paper 
 
 ' when it's open (7 measured it this morning),* with one 
 
 'man above me, and another below ; and, in all, eight and At night. 
 
 ' twenty in a low cabin, which you can't stand upright in 
 
 ' with your hat on. I don't think you would like to look 
 
 ' in at breakfast time either, for then these shelves have 
 
 'only just been taken down and put away, and the 
 
 ' atmosphere of the place is, as you may suppose, by no 
 
 ' means fresh ; though there are upon the table tea and A* break- 
 fast. 
 ' coffee, and bread and butter, and salmon, and shad, and 
 
 ' liver, and steak, and potatoes, and pickles, and ham, and 
 
 'pudding, and sausages; and three and thirty people 
 
 ' sitting round it, eating and drinking ; and savoury bottles 
 
 'of gin, and whiskey, and brandy, and rum, in the bar 
 
 'hard by; and seven and twenty out of the eight and 
 
 ' twenty men, in foul linen, with yellow streams from half- 
 
 ' chewed tobacco trickling down their chins. Perhaps 
 
 'the best time for you to take a peep would be the After 
 
 breakfast, 
 
 ' present : eleven o'clock in the forenoon : when the barber 
 
 * 16 inches exactly. 
 
348 THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. [Chapteb 
 
 Cakal ' is at his shaving, and the gentlemen are lounging about 
 
 Pitts- 'the stove waiting for their turns, and not more than 
 
 ^1842. 'seventeen are spitting in concert, and two or three are 
 
 Q J) ' walking overhead (lying down on the luggage every time 
 
 J *° ' the man at the helm calls " Bridge ! "), and I am writing 
 
 'this in the ladies' -cabin, which is a part of the gentle- 
 
 ' men's, and only screened off by a red curtain. Indeed it 
 
 ' exactly resembles the dwarf's private apartment in a 
 
 ' caravan at a fair ; and the gentlemen, generally, repre- 
 
 The ladies' ' sent the Spectators at a penny-a-head. The place is just 
 ' as clean and just as large as that caravan you and I were 
 ' in at Greenwich-fair last past. Outside, it is exactly like 
 ' any canal-boat you have seen near the Regent's-park, or 
 ' elsewhere. 
 
 ' You never can conceive what the hawking and spitting 
 ' is, the whole night through. Last night was the worst. 
 ' Upon my honor and word I was obliged, this morning, 
 ' to lay my fur-coat on the deck, and wipe the half dried 
 ' flakes of spittle from it with my handkerchief : and the 
 ' only surprise seemed to be, that I should consider it 
 ' necessary to do so. When I turned in last night, I put 
 ' it on a stool beside me, and there it lay, under a cross fire 
 ' from five men — three opposite ; one above ; and one 
 
 Making the ' below. I make no complaints, and shew no disgust. I 
 ' am looked upon as highly facetious at night, for T crack 
 'jokes with everybody near me untO. we fall asleep. I 
 ' am considered very hardy in the morning, for I run up, 
 'bare-necked, and plunge my head into the half-frozen 
 
 Hardy ' Water, by half past five o'clock. I am respected for my 
 ' activity, inasmuch as I jump from the boat to the towiug- 
 
 ble. 
 
Twenty-second.] 
 
 CANAL BOAT JOURNEYS. 
 
 349 
 
 Gas All 
 Boat fob 
 
 PlTTS- 
 BUKGH : 
 
 1842. 
 
 C. D. 
 
 to 
 J. F. 
 
 'path, and walk five or six miles before breakfast; keeping 
 'up with the horses all the time. In a word, they are 
 ' quite astonished to find a sedentary Englishman roughing 
 'it so well, and taking so much exercise; and question me 
 'very much on that head. The greater part of the men 
 ' will sit and shiver round the stove all day, rather than 
 'put one foot before the other. As to having a window 
 • open, that's not to be thought of. 
 
 ' We expect to reach Pittsburgh to-night, between eight 
 ' and nine o'clock ; and there we ardently hope to find your 
 ' March letters awaiting us. We have had, with the excep- 
 ' tion of Friday afternoon, exquisite weather, but cold. 
 ' Clear starlight and moonlight nights. The canal has run, 
 'for the most part, by the side of the Susquehanah and 
 ' Iwanata. rivers ; and has been carried through tremendous 
 'obstacles. Yesterday, we crossed the mountain. This 
 ' is done hy railroad. . . . You dine at an inn upon the By rail 
 ' mountain ; and, including the half hour allowed for the mountaiD. 
 'meal, are rather more than five hours performing this 
 'strange part of the journey. The people north and 
 ' " down east " have terrible legends of its danger ; but 
 'they appear to be exceedingly careful, and don't go to 
 ' work at all wildly. There are some queer precipices close 
 'to the rails, certainly; but every precaution is taken, 
 ' I am inclined to think, that such difficulties, and such a 
 'vast work, will admit of. 
 
 'The scenery, before you reach the mountains, and Mountain 
 ' when you are on them, and after you have left them, is °"^' 
 ' very grand and fine; and the canal winds its way through 
 ' some deep, sullen gorges, which, seen by moonlight, are 
 
550 
 
 THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 [Chapter 
 
 Canal 
 Boat foe 
 
 PlTTS- 
 EUE8H : 
 
 1842. 
 
 C. D. 
 
 to 
 J. F. 
 
 New 
 settlers. 
 
 Original 
 of Ohmzle- 
 vyit settle- 
 ment. 
 
 View from 
 heights of 
 a moun- 
 tain. 
 
 ■ veiy impressive : though immeasurably inferior to Glencoe, 
 ' to whose terrors I have not seen the smallest approach. 
 ' We have passed, both in the mountains and elsewhere, 
 ' a great number of new settlements, and detached log- 
 ' houses. Their utterly forlorn and miserable appearance 
 ' baffles all description. I have not seen six cabins out of 
 ' six hundred, where the vandows have been whole. Old 
 'hats, old clothes, old boards, old fragments of blanket 
 ' and paper, are stuffed into the broken glass ; and their 
 ' air is misery and desolation. It pains the eye to see the 
 ' stumps of great trees thickly strewn in every field of 
 ' wheat ; and never to lose the eternal swamp and dull 
 ' morass, with hundreds of rotten trunks, of elm and pine 
 ' and sycamore and logwood, steeped in its unwholesome 
 ' water ; where the frogs so croak at night that after dark 
 ' there is an incessant sound as if millions of phantom 
 ' teams, with bells, were travelling through the upper air, 
 ' at an enormous distance off. It is quite an oppressive 
 ' circumstance, too, to come upon great tracks, where 
 ' settlers have been burning down the trees ; and where 
 ' their wounded bodies lie about, like those of murdered 
 ' creatures ; while here and there some charred and 
 ' blackened giant rears two bare arms aloft, and seems to 
 ' curse his enemies. The prettiest sight I have seen was 
 'yesterday, when we — on the heights of the mountain, 
 ' and in a keen wind — looked down into a valley full of 
 ' light and softness : catching glimpses of scattered cabins ; 
 ' children running to the doors ; dogs bursting out to 
 ' bark ; pigs scampering home, like so many prodigal 
 ' sons ; families sitting out in their gardens ; cows gazing 
 
TwEKTv-sacoND.] CANAL BOAT JOUENEYS. 35I 
 
 ' upward, with a stupid indifference ; men in their shirt- Canai, 
 
 'sleeves, looking on at their unfinished houses, and plan- Pitts-°^ 
 
 'ning work for to-morrow; — and the train riding on, high ^JslI ' 
 
 ' above them, like a storm. But I know this is beautiful — ^"^ 
 
 ' veiy — very beautiful ! *" 
 
 J. F. 
 
 ' . . I wonder whether you and Mac mean to go to Green- 
 ' wich-fair ! Perhaps you dine at the Crown-and-sceptre 
 ' to-day, for it's Easter-Monday — who knows ! I wish you 
 ' drank punch, dear Forster. It's a shabby thing, not to 
 ' be able to picture you with that cool green glass . . . 
 
 ' I told you of the many uses of the word " fix." I Useful 
 ' ask Mr. Q on board a steamboat if breakfast be nearly ^""^ ' 
 ' ready, and he tells me yes he should think so, for when 
 ' he was last below the steward was " fixing the tables " 
 ' — in other words, laying the cloth. When we have 
 ' been writing, and I beg him (do you remember any- 
 ' thing of my love of order, at this distance of time ?) 
 ' to collect our papers, he answers that he'll " fix 'em 
 ' " presently." So when a man's dressing he's " fixing " 
 'himself, and when you put yourself under a doctor he 
 ' " fixes " you in no time. T'other night, before we came on 
 ' board here, when I had ordered a bottle of mulled claret 
 ' and waited some time for it, it was put on table with an 
 ' apology from the landlord (a lieutenant-colonel) that 
 ' " he feared it wasn't fixed properly." And here, on 
 ' Saturday morning, a Western man, handing the potatoes 
 ' to Mr. Q at breakfast, enquired if he wouldn't take some 
 'of "these fixings " with his meat. I remained as grave pixinga, 
 ' as a judge. I catch them looking at me sometimes, and 
 ' feel that they think I don't take any notice. Politics 
 
352 
 
 THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 [Ctjapier 
 
 Steam 
 Boat to 
 
 ClNOIH- 
 NATI : 
 
 1842. 
 
 C. D. 
 
 to 
 J. F. 
 
 Party in 
 America. 
 
 News from 
 tome. 
 
 ■ are very high here ; dreadfully strong ; handbills, denun- 
 ' ciations, invectives, threats, and quarrels. The question 
 ' is, who shall he the next President. The election conies 
 ' o£f in three years cmd a half from this time.' 
 
 He resumed his letter, ' on board the steam boat from 
 ' Pittsburgh to Cincinnati, April the first, 1842. A very 
 ' tremulous steam boat, which makes my hand shake. 
 ' This morning, my dear friend, this very morning, which, 
 ' passing by without bringing news from England, would 
 have seen us on our way to St. Louis (vi^ Cincin- 
 ' nati and Louisville) with sad hearts and dejected coun- 
 ' tenances, and the prospect of remaining for at least three 
 ' weeks longer without any intelligence of those so inex- 
 ' pressibly dear to us — this very morning, bright and 
 ' lucky morning that it was, a great packet was brought 
 ' to our bed-room door, from HOME. How I have read 
 ' and re-read your affectionate, hearty, interesting, funny, 
 ' serious, delightful, and thoroughly Eorsterian Columbia 
 ' letter, I will not attempt to tell yoa ; or how glad I am 
 ' that you liked my first ; or how afraid I am that my 
 ' second was not written in such good spirits as it should 
 ' have been ; or how glad I am again to think that my 
 ' third was; or how I hope you will find some amusement 
 ' from my fourth : this present missive. All this, and 
 ' more affectionate and earnest words than the post office 
 ' would convey at any price, though they have no sharp 
 
 ■ edges to hurt the stamping-clerk — you will understand, I 
 ' know, without expression, or attempt at expression. So 
 ' having got over the first agitation of so much pleasure ; 
 'and having walked the deck; and being now in the 
 
TwmiTY-sBooND.] CANAL BOAT JOURNEYS. 353 
 
 ' cabin, where one party are playing at chess, and another Steam 
 
 ' party are asleep, and another are talking round the stove, Cinoi™ 
 
 ' and all are spitting ; and a persevering bore of a horrible ^g^g' 
 
 ' New Englander with a droning voice like a gigantic " ~yj 
 
 'bee will sit down beside me, though I am wi-iting, and .*° 
 'talk incessantly, in my very ear, to Kate; — here goes 
 ■ again. 
 
 J. F. 
 
 ' Let me see. I should tell you, first, that we got to Pitts- At Pitts- 
 ' burgh between eight and nine o'clock of the evening of 
 'the day on which I left off at the top of this sheet ; and 
 ' were there received by a little man (a very little man) 
 'whom I knew years ago in London. He rejoiceth in the 
 'name of D G; and, when I knew him, was in partner- Meets an 
 
 early ao- 
 
 'ship With his father on the stock-exchange, and lived quaintance. 
 
 'handsomely at Dalston. They failed in business soon 
 
 'afterwards, and then this little man began to turn to 
 
 'account what had previously been his amusement and 
 
 'accomplishment, by painting little subjects for the fancy 
 
 ' shops. So I lost sight of him, nearly ten years ago ; and 
 
 ' here he turned up 'tother day, as a portrait painter in ' Smallness 
 
 of the 
 
 'Pittsburgh ! He had previously written me a letter -world.' 
 
 ' which moved me a good deal, by a kind of quiet independ- 
 
 ' ence and contentment it breathed, and still a painful 
 
 ' sense of being alone, so very far from home. 1 received 
 
 ' it in Philadelphia, and answered it. He dined with us 
 
 ' every day of our stay in Pittsburgh (they were only three), 
 
 ' and was truly gratified and delighted to find me unchanged 
 
 ' — more so than I can tell you. I am very glad to-night 
 
 'to think how much happiness we have fortunately been 
 
 ' able to give him. 
 
354 
 
 THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 [Chapteb 
 
 Steam 
 Boat to 
 CiNOiir- 
 
 HATI : 
 1842. 
 
 C. D. 
 
 to 
 J. F. 
 
 Of Pitts- 
 burgh. 
 
 Queer cus- 
 tomers at 
 the leyees. 
 
 Our anui- 
 rersary. 
 
 ' Pittsburgli is like BirmingLam — at least its townsfolks 
 ' say so ; and I didn't contradict them. It is, in one respect. 
 'There is a great deal of smoke in it. I quite offended a 
 ' man at our yesterday's levee, who supposed I was " now 
 ' " quite at home," by telling him that the notion of London 
 'being so dark a place was a popular mistake. "We had 
 ' very queer customers at our receptions, I do assure you. 
 ' Not least among them, a gentleman with his inexpressibles 
 'imperfectly buttoned and his waistband resting on his 
 'thighs, who stood behind the half-opened door, and could 
 'by no temptation or inducement be prevailed upon to 
 ' come out. There was also another gentleman, with one 
 'eye and one fixed gooseberry, who stood in a corner, 
 ' motionless like an eight-day clock, and glared upon me, 
 ' as I courteously received the Pittsburgians. There were 
 'also two red-headed brothers — boys — young dragons 
 'rather — who hovered about Kate, and wouldn't go. A 
 ' great crowd they were, for three days ; and a very queer 
 
 ' one.' 
 
 ' Still in the same Boat. April tJie Second, 184:2. 
 
 'Many, many, happy returns of the day. It's only 
 ' eight o'clock in the morning now, but we mean to drink 
 'your health after dinner, in a bumper; and scores of 
 ' Richmond dinners to us ! We have some wine (a present 
 'sent on board by our Pittsburgh landlord) ia our own 
 'cabin ; and we shall tap it to good purpose, I assure you; 
 ' wishing you all manner and kinds of happiness, and a long 
 ' life to ourselves that we may be partakers of it. We have 
 'wondered a hundred times already, whether you and Mac 
 ' will dine anywhere together, in honour of the day. I say 
 
TwENTY-sEcoND.] CaNAL BOAT JOURNETS. 355 
 
 'yes, but Kate says no. She predicts that you'll ask Steam 
 
 Boat to 
 'Mac, and he won't go. I have not yet heard from Cinoin- 
 
 liim. 1842. 
 
 ' We have a better cabin here, than we had on board c. D. ~ 
 ' the Britannia ; the berths being much wider, and the j *p_ 
 
 den having two doors : one opening on the ladies' cabin, 
 ' and one upon a little gallery in the stern of the boat. 
 'We expect to be at Cincinnati some time on Monday 
 ' morning, and we carry about fifty passengers. The cabin The Cia- 
 ' for meals goes right through the boat, from the prow to steamer. 
 ' the stern, and is very long ; only a small portion of it being 
 ' divided off, by a partition of wood and ground-glass, for 
 ' the ladies. We breakfast at half after seven, dine at one, 
 ' and sup at six. Nobody will sit down to any one of these Deference 
 ■ meals, though the dishes are smoking on the board, until 
 ' the ladies have appeared, and taken their chairs. It was 
 ' the same in the canal boat. 
 
 ' The washing department is a little more civilized than 
 ' it was on the canal, but bad is the best. Indeed the 
 ' Americans when they ai'e travelling, as Miss Martineau 
 ' seems disposed to admit, are exceedingly negligent : not 
 ' to say dirty. To the best of my making out, the ladies. Frugality 
 
 .1 J. • J. i. J. -j-i .in water 
 
 under most circumstances, are content with smearing g^^^ jjj,g„_ 
 ' their hands and faces in a very small quantity of water. 
 ' So are the men ; who superadd to that mode of ablution, 
 ' a hasty use of the common brush and comb. It is quite 
 ' a practice, too, to wear but one cotton shirt a week, and 
 ' three or four fine linen fronts. Anne reports that thij 
 ' is Mr. Q's course of proceeding : and my portrait-paint- 
 ' ing friend told me that it was the case with pretty nearly 
 
356 
 
 THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 fCHAITEB 
 
 Steam 
 Boat to 
 
 ClNCIN- 
 NATT : 
 
 1842. 
 C. I). 
 
 t,0 
 
 J. F. 
 
 Magnetic 
 experi- 
 ments. 
 
 ' all his sitters ; so that when he bought a piece of cloth 
 ' not long ago, and instructed the sempstress to make it 
 ' all into shirts, not fronts, she thought him deranged. 
 
 ' My friend the New Englander, of whom I wrote last 
 ' night, is perhaps the most intolerable bore on this vast 
 ' continent. He drones, and snuffles, and writes poems, 
 ' and talks small philosophy and metaphysics, and never 
 ' will be quiet, under any circumstances. He is going to 
 ' a great temperance convention at Cincinnati ; along 
 ' with a doctor of whom I saw something at Pitts- 
 ' burgh. The doctor, in addition to being everything that 
 ' the New Englander is, is a phrenologist besides. I dodge 
 ' them about the boat. Whenever I appear on deck, I see 
 ' them bearing down upon me — and fly. The New Eng- 
 ' lander was very anxious last night that he and I should 
 ' " form a magnetic chain," and magnetize the doctor, for 
 ' the benefit of all incredulous passengers ; but I declined, 
 ■ on the plea of tremendous occupation in the way of letter- 
 ' writing. 
 
 'And speaking of magnetism, let me tell you that 
 ' the other night at Pittsburgh, there being present 
 ' only Mr. Q and the portrait-painter, Kate sat down, 
 ' laughing, for me to try my hand upon her. I had 
 ' been holding forth upon the subject rather luminously, 
 ' and asserting that I thought I could exercise the influ- 
 ' ence, but had never tried. In six minutes, I magnetized 
 ' her into hysterics, and then into the magnetic sleep. I 
 ' tried again next night, and she fell into the slumber in 
 ' little more than two minutes. ... I can wake her with 
 ' perfect ease ; but I confess (not being prepared for any» 
 
sen.'ers. 
 
 ■I'wENTT-aEcoND.] CAKAL BOAT JOURNEYS. 357 
 
 ' thing so sudden and complete), I was on the first occa- Steam 
 •sion rather alarmed. . . . The Western parts being cihoin- 
 ' sometimes hazardous, I have fitted out the whole of my l^Hl 
 'little company with Life Pkeservees, which I inflate q q 
 'with great solemnity when we get aboard any boat, j*p 
 ■ and keep, as Mrs. Cluppins did her umbrella in the Life pre- 
 ' court of common pleas, ready for use upon a moment's 
 ' notice.' . . . 
 
 He resumed his letter, on ' Sunday, April the third,' with 
 allusion to a general who had called upon him in Wash- 
 ington with two literary ladies, and had written to him 
 next day for an immediate interview, as ' the two LL's ' 
 were ambitious of the honour of a personal introduction. 
 'Besides the doctor and the dread New Englander, we 
 'have on board that valiant general who wrote to me 
 'about the "two LL's." He is an old, old man with a 
 ' weazen face, and the remains of a pigeon-breast in his 
 ' military surtout. He is acutely gentlemanly and officer- 
 ' like. The breast has so subsided, and the face has 
 ' become so strongly marked; that he seems, like a pigeon- 
 ' pie, to show only the feet of the bird outside, and to keep 
 ' the rest to himself He is perhaps the most horrible bore Bores. 
 ' in this country. And I am quite serious when I say that 
 ' I do not believe there are, on the whole earth besides, 
 ' so many intensified bores as in these United States. No 
 ' man can form an adequate idea of the real meaning of 
 ' the word, without coming here. There are no particular 
 ' characters on board, with these three exceptions. Indeed 
 ' I seldom see the passengers but at meal-times, as I read 
 'and write in our own little state room. ... I have 
 
358 
 
 THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 [Chatteb 
 
 Steam 
 Boat to 
 
 ClKOIN- 
 HATI : 
 
 1842. 
 
 C. D. 
 
 to 
 J. F. 
 
 Habits of 
 neatness. 
 
 The Ohio. 
 
 Wearying 
 for homo. 
 
 2ncl AiM-il. 
 
 ' smuggled two chairs into our crib ; and write this on 
 'a book upon my knee. Everything is in the neatest 
 ' order, of course ; and my shaving tackle, dressing case, 
 ' brushes, books, and papers, are arranged with as much 
 ' precision as if we were going to remain here a m.onth. 
 ■ Thank God we are not. 
 
 ' The average width of the river rather exceeds that of 
 ' the Thames at Greenwich. In parts it is much broader ; 
 ' and then there is usually a green island, covered with 
 ' trees, dividing it into two streams. Occasionally we stop 
 ' for a few minutes at a small town, or village (I ought to 
 ' say city, everything is a city here) ; but the banks are 
 ' for the most part deep solitudes, overgrown with trees, 
 'which, in these western latitudes, are already in leaf, 
 ' and very green 
 
 ' All this I see, as I write, from the little door into the 
 ' stern-gallery which I mentioned just now. It don't 
 ' happen six times in a day that any other passenger 
 ' comes near it ; and, as the weather is amply warm enough 
 ' to admit of our sitting with it open, here we remain from 
 ' morning until night : reading, writing, talking. What 
 ' our theme of conversation is, I need not tell you. No 
 ' beauty or variety makes us weary less for home. We 
 ' count the days, and say, " When May comes, and we can 
 '"say — next month — the time will seem almost gone." 
 ' We are never tired of imagining what you are all about. 
 ' I allow of no calculation for the difference of clocks, but 
 ' insist on a corresponding minute in London. It is much 
 ' the shortest way, and best. . . . Yesterday, wc drank your 
 ' health and many happy returns — in wine, after dinner ; 
 
TwENTT-SEOoND.] CANAL BOAT JOUENETS. 359 
 
 'in a small milk-pot jug of gin-punch, at night. And Steam 
 • when I made a temporary table, to hold the little candle- CiHora- 
 ' stick, of one of my dressing-case trays; cunningly inserted 1842. 
 ' under the mattress of my berth with a weight a-top of it c d 
 ' to keep it in its place, so that it made a perfectly exqui- j*p 
 ' site bracket ; we agi-eed, that, please God, this should be 
 'a joke at the Star-and-garter on the second of April 
 ' eighteen hundred and forty-three. If your blank can 
 'be surpassed . . . believe me ours transcends it. My 
 ' heart gets, sometimes, soee for home. 
 
 'At Pittsburgh I saw another solitary confinement Another 
 'prison: Pittsburgh being also in Pennsylvania. A ^°^l^_ 
 'horrible thought occurred to me when I was recalling 
 ' all I had seen, that night. 'What if ghosts be one of the 
 ' terrors of these jails ? I have pondered on it often, since 
 ' then. The utter solitude by day and night ; the many 
 ' hours of darkness ; the silence of death ; the mind for 
 'ever brooding on melancholy themes, and having no 
 ' relief ; sometimes an evil conscience very busy ; imagine New terror 
 'a prisoner covering up his head in the bedclothes and 
 ' looking out from time to time, with a ghastly dread of 
 ' some inexplicable silent figure that always sits upon his 
 ' bed, or stands (if a thing can be said to stand, that never 
 ' walks as men do) in the same corner of his cell. The 
 ' more I think of it, the more certain I feel that not 
 ' a few of these men (during a portion of their im- 
 'prisonment at least) are nightly visited by spectres. I 
 ' did ask one man in this last jail, if he dreamed much. 
 'He gave me a most extraordinary look, and said — 
 'imder his breath— in a whisper— "No." . . . 
 
S60 
 
 THE LIFE OP CHAELES DICKENS. 
 
 [Chafteb 
 
 CiNOiN- 'Cincinnati. MurtJi April, 16i2. 
 
 NAM : 
 
 1842. ' We arrived here this morning : about three o'clock, 
 
 CD. 'I believe, but I was fast asleep in my berth. I turned 
 
 J. p. ■ out soon after six, dressed, and breakfasted on board. 
 
 'About half after eight, we came ashore and drove to 
 
 'the hotel, to which we had wi-itten on from Pittsburgh 
 
 ' ordering rooms ; and which is within a stone's throw of 
 
 'the boat wharf. Before I had issued an of&cial notifi- 
 
 Two judges ' cation that we were " not at home," two Judges called, 
 
 in attend- 
 ance. ' on the part of the inhabitants, to know when we would 
 
 'receive the townspeople. We appointed to-morrow 
 
 ' morning, from half-past eleven to one ; arranged to go 
 
 ' out, with these two gentlemen, to see the town, at one ; 
 
 ' and were fixed for an evening party to-morrow night at 
 
 ' the house of one of them. On Wednesday morning we 
 
 • go on by the mail-boat to Louisville, a trip of fourteen 
 
 'hours ; and from that place proceed in the next good 
 
 ' boat to St. Louis, which is a voyage of four days. Finding 
 
 ' from my judicial friends (well-informed and most agree- 
 
 ' able gentlemen) this morning, that the prairie travel to 
 
 ' Chicago is a veiy fatiguing one, and that the lakes are 
 
 'stormy, sea-sicky, and not over-safe at this season, I 
 
 'wrote by our captain to St. Louis (for the boat that 
 
 'brought us here goes on there) to the effect that I 
 
 'should not take the lake route, but should come back 
 
 'here; and should visit the prairies, which are within 
 
 'thirty miles of St. Louis, immediately on my arrival 
 
 ' there. .... 
 
 ' I have walked to the window, since I turned this page, 
 
 'to see what aspect the town wears. We are in a wide 
 
 Change of 
 route. 
 
Twenty-second.] CANAL BOAT JOUENEYS. 3(31 
 
 ' street : paved in the carriage way with small white Cinoin- 
 ' stones, and in the footway with small red tiles. The i842.' 
 ' houses are for the most part one story high ; some are o. D. 
 'of wood; others of a clean white brick. Nearly all j% 
 'have green blinds outside every window. The principal Description 
 'shops over the way, are, according to the inscriptions 
 ' over them, a Large Bread Bakery ; a Book Bindery ; 
 ' a Dry Goods Store ; and a Carriage Repository ; the last 
 'named establishment looking very like an exceedingly 
 'small retail coal-shed. On the pavement under our 
 'window, a black man is chopping wood; and another 
 'black man is talking (confidentially) to a pig. The 
 'public table, at this hotel and at the hotel opposite, 
 'has just now finished dinner. The diners are collected 
 ' on the pavement, on both sides of the way, picking their 
 'teeth, and talking. The day being warm, some of them 
 ' have brought chairs into the street. Some are on three On the 
 
 _ pavement. 
 
 ' chairs ; some on two ; and some, in defiance of all known 
 ' laws of gravity, are sitting quite comfortably on one : with 
 'three of the chair's legs, and their own two, high up in 
 'the air. The loungers, underneath our window, are 
 'talking of a great Temperance convention which comes 
 'off here to-morrow. Others, about me. Others, about 
 ' England. Sir Eobert Peel is popular here, with every- 
 'body. . . .' 
 
CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 THE FAR "WEST: TO NIAGARA FALLS. 
 1842. 
 
 The next letter described his experiences in the Far 
 
 V/est, his stay in St. Louis, his visit to a Prairie, the return 
 
 to Cincinnati, and, after a stage-coach ride from that city 
 
 to Cokimbus, the travel thence to Sandusky, and so, by 
 
 ' Lake Erie, to the Falls of Niagara. All these subjects 
 
 Deacrip- appear in the Notes, but nothing printed there is repeated 
 
 tions in . 
 
 letters and in the extracts now to be given. Of the closing passages 
 of his journey, when he turned from Columbus in the 
 direction of home, the story, here for the first time told, 
 is in his most characteristic vein ; the account that will 
 be found of the Prairie will probably be preferred to what 
 is given in the Notes; the Cincinnati sketches are very 
 pleasant ; and even such a description as that of the 
 Niagara Falls, of which so much is made in the book, has 
 here an independent novelty and freshness. The first vivid- 
 ness is in hif5 letter. The naturalness of associating no image 
 or sense but of repose, with a grandeur so mighty and resist- 
 less, is best presented suddenly; and, in a few words, we have 
 the material as well as moral beauty of a scene unrivalled 
 in its kind upon the earth. The instant impression we find 
 to be worth more than the eloquent recollection. 
 
CB.lxin.] THE PAR "WEST: TO NIAGARA FALLS. S63 
 
 The captain of the boat that had dropped them at baok to 
 
 Cincinnati and gone to St. Louis, had stayed in the latter hati^ 
 place until they were able to j oin and return with him ; this 
 
 letter bears date accordingly, 'On board the Messenger ^■^■ 
 
 ' again. Going from St. Louis back to Cincinnati. Friday, ■'• ^• 
 
 'fifteenth April, 1842;' and its first paragraph is an 
 
 outline of the movements which it afterwards describes Outline of 
 
 in detail. 'We remained in Cincinnati one whole day trareL 
 
 ' after the date of my last, and left on Wednesday morning 
 
 ' the 6th. We reached Louisville soon after midnight on 
 
 ' the same night ; and slept there. Next day at one 
 
 'o'clock we put ourselves on board another steamer, 
 
 ' and travelled on until last Sunday evening the tenth ; 
 
 ' when we reached St. Louis at about nine o'clock. The 
 
 'next day we devoted to seeing the city. Next day, 
 
 ' Tuesday the twelfth, I started off with a party of men 
 
 ' (we were fourteen in all) to see a prairie ; returned to 
 
 ' St. Louis about noon on the thirteenth ; attended a 
 
 ' soirde and ball^not a dinner — ^given in my honor that 
 
 ' night ; and yesterday afternoon at four o'clock we turned 
 
 ' oar faces homewards. Thank Heaven ! 
 
 ' Cincinnati is only fifty years old, but is a very beauti- An Ara- 
 bian-night 
 ' ful city : I think the prettiest place I have seen here, city. 
 
 'except Boston. It has risen out of the forest Uke an 
 
 ' Arabian-night city ; is well laid out ; ornamented in the 
 
 ' suburbs with pretty villas ; and above all, for this is 
 
 ' a very rare feature in America, has smooth turf-plots 
 
 • and weU kept gardens. There happened to be a great Temper- 
 ance 
 ' temperance festi\sal ; and the procession mustered under, festival. 
 
 'and passed, our windows early in the morning. I 
 
se4 
 
 THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICK:ENS. 
 
 [CHAPTiat 
 
 Back to 
 Cincin- 
 nati : 
 1842. 
 
 C. D. 
 
 to 
 J. F. 
 
 Dry speak- 
 ing. 
 
 A party at 
 
 Judge 
 
 Walker's. 
 
 ' suppose they were tweaty thousand strong, at least. 
 ' Some of the banners were quaint and odd enough. The 
 ' ship-carpenters, for instance, displayed on one side of 
 ' their flag, the good Ship Temperance in full sail ; on the 
 'other, the Steamer Alcohol blowing up sky-high. The 
 ' Irishmen had a portrait of Father Mathew, you may be 
 ' sure. And Washington's broad lower jaw (by the bye, 
 ' Washington had not a pleasant face) figured in all parts 
 ' of the ranks. In a kind of square at one outskirt of the 
 'city, they divided into bodies, and were addressed by 
 ' different speakers. Drier speaking I never heard. I 
 ' own that I felt quite uncomfortable to think they could 
 ' take the taste of it out of their mouths with nothing better 
 ' than water. 
 
 ' In the evening we went to a party at Judge Walker's, 
 ' and were introduced to at least one hundred and fifty 
 'first-rate bores, separately and singly. I was required 
 ' to sit down by the gi-eater part of them, and talk ! * In 
 
 Tte party 
 from an- 
 i)ther view. 
 
 * A young lady's account of tliis party, ■written next morning, and quoted in 
 one of the American memoirs of Dickens, enables us to contemplate his suffer- 
 ing from the point of view of those who inflicted it. ' I went last evening to a 
 ' party at Judge Walker's, given to the hero of the day. . . . When we 
 ' reached the house Mr. Dickens had left the crowded rooms, and was in the 
 ' hall with his wife, about taking his departure when we entered the door. 
 ' We were introduced to him in our wrapping ; and in the flurry and embarrass- 
 ' ment of the meeting, one of the party dropped a parcel, containing shoes, 
 ' gloves, &c. Mr. Dickens, stooping, gathered them up and restored them with 
 ' a laughing remark, and we bounded upstairs to get our things off. Hastening 
 ' down again, we found him with Mrs. Dickens seated upon a sofa, surrounded 
 ' by a group of ladies ; Judge Walker having requested him to delay Ms 
 " departure for a few moments, for the gratiflcation of some tardy friends 
 ' who had just arrived, ourselves among the number. Declining to re-enter 
 ' the rooms where he had already taken leave of the guests, he had seated 
 ' himself in the hall. He is young and handsome, has a mellow, beautiful 
 
TwisNTr-rHiRo] TH^E PAR "WEST: TO NIAGARA FALLS. 
 
 365 
 
 ' tjie niglit we were serenaded (as we usually are in every Baok to 
 
 ClNOIN- 
 NATI : 
 
 18i2. 
 
 C. D. 
 
 to 
 J. F. 
 
 ' place we come to), and very well serenaded, I assure you. 
 
 'But we were very mucli knocked up. I really think 
 
 ' my face' has acquired a fixed expression of sadness from 
 
 'the constant and unmitigated boring I endure. The 
 
 'LL's have carried away all my cheerfulness. There 
 
 ' is a line in my chin (on the right side of the under-lip), 
 
 ' indelibly fixed there by the New-Englander I told you Mournful 
 
 ' of in my last. I have the print of a crow's foot on the boredom. 
 
 ■ outside of my left eye, which I attribute to the literary 
 
 ' characters of small towns. A dimple has vanished from 
 
 ' my cheek, which I felt myself robbed of at the time by 
 
 ' eye, fine trow, and abundant hair. Hia moutli is large, and his smile so 
 ' bright it seemed to shed light and happiness all about him. His manner is 
 ' easy, negligent, but not elegant. His dress was foppish ; in fact, he was 
 ' overdressed, yet his garments were worn so easily they appeared to be a 
 ' necessary part of him. (!) He had a dark coat, with lighter pantaloons ; a 
 ' black waistcoat, embroidered with colored flowers ; and about his neck, 
 
 ■ covering his white shirt-front, was a black neckcloth, also embroidered in 
 
 * colors, in which were placed two large diamond pins connected by a chain. 
 ' A gold watch-chain, and a large red rose in his button-hole, completed his 
 ' toilet. He appeared a little weary, but answered the remarks made to him 
 ' — for he originated none — in an agreeable manner. Mr. Beard's portrait 
 
 ■ of Fagin was so placed in the room that we could see it from where we stood 
 ' surrounding him. One of the ladies asked him if it was his idea of the Jew. 
 ' He replied, "Very nearly." Another, laughingly, requested that he would 
 ' give her the rose he wore, as a memento. He shook his head and said : 
 ' " That will not do ; he could not give it to one ; the others would be 
 ' " jealous." A half dozen then insisted on having it, whereupon he proposed 
 ' to divide the leaves among them. In taking the rose from his coat, either 
 ' by design or accident, the leaves loosened and fell upon the floor, and amid 
 ' considerable laughter the ladies stooped and gathered them. He remained 
 
 * some twenty minutes, perhaps, in the hall, and then took his leave. I must 
 ' confess to considerable disappointment in the personal of my idol. I felt 
 'that his throne was shaken, although it never could be destroyed.' This 
 
 appalling picture supplements and very sufiiciently explains the mournful 
 passage in the text. 
 
 Young 
 lady's de- 
 scription of 
 C. D. 
 
366 
 
 THE LIFE OP CHARLES DICEJINS. 
 
 [Chactbb 
 
 Fkom Cin- 
 
 cinhati to 
 
 St. Lonis : 
 
 1842. 
 
 CD. 
 
 to 
 J. F. 
 
 Down tlie 
 Missis- 
 sippi. 
 
 Listening 
 and watcli- 
 iiig. 
 
 • a wise legislator. But on the other hand I am really 
 ' indebted for a good broad grin to P. . E. . , literary critic of 
 ' Philadelphia, and sole proprietor of the English language 
 ' in its grammatical and idiomatical purity ; to P. . E. . , with 
 ' the shiny straight hair and turned-down shirt collar, who 
 ' taketh all of us English men of letters to task in print, 
 ' roundly and uncompromisingly, but told me, at the same 
 ' time, that I had " awakened a new era " ia his mind. . . . 
 
 ' The last 200 miles of the voyage from Cincinnati to 
 'St. Louis are upon the Mississippi, for you come down 
 ' the Ohio to its mouth. It is well for society that this 
 ' Mississippi, the renowned father of waters, had no children 
 'who take after him. It is the beastliest river in the 
 ' world.' . . . (His description is in the Notes.) 
 
 ' Conceive the pleasure of rushing down this stream by 
 ' night (as we did last night) at the rate of fifteen miles 
 ' an hour ; striking against floating blocks of timber 
 
 • every instant ; and dreading some infernal blov/ at every 
 ' bump. The helmsman in these boats is in a little glass- 
 ' house upon the roof. In the Mississippi, another man 
 
 stands in the very head of the vessel, listening and 
 ' watching intently ; listening, because they can tell in 
 ' dark nights by the noise when any great obstniction is at 
 'hand. This man holds the rope of a large bell which 
 ' hangs close to the wheel-house, and whenever he pulls it, 
 ' the engine is to stop directly, and not to stir until he 
 ' rings again. Last night, this bell rang at least once in 
 'every five minutes; and at each alarm there was a 
 ' concussion which nearly flung one out of bed. . . . While I 
 ' have been writing this account, we have shot out of that 
 
TwENTT-THiKD.j THE FAR WEST: TO NIAGARA FALLS. 
 
 367 
 
 'hideous river, thanks be to God; never to see it again, I St. Lotus: 
 ' hope, but in a nightmare. "We are now on the smooth ^^^^' - 
 'Ohio, and the change is like the transition from pain to *^to"' 
 ■ perfect ease. J- ^• 
 
 ' We had a veiy crowded levee in St. Louis. Of course 
 ' the paper had an account of it. If I were to di-op a letter 
 'in the street, it would be in the newspaper next day, 
 ' and nobody would think its publication an outrage. The A levee at 
 'editor objected to my hair, as not curling sufficiently. ^*- ^°"'^- 
 'He admitted an eye; but objected again to dress, as 
 'being somewhat foppish, "and indeed perhaps rather 
 '"flash." — "But such," he benevolently adds, "are the 
 '"differences between American and English taste — 
 '"rendered more apparent, perhaps, by all the other 
 '"gentlemen present being dressed in black." Oh, that 
 'you could have seen the other gentlemen ! . . . . 
 
 'A St. Louis lady complimented Kate upon her voice Compli- 
 'and manner of speaking: assuring her that she should 
 'never have suspected her of being Scotch, or even 
 ' English. She was so obliging as to add that she would 
 ' have taken her for an American, anywhere : which she 
 ' (Kate) was no doubt aware was a very great compliment, 
 'as the Americans were admitted on all hands to have 
 ' greatly refined upon the English language ! I need not 
 ' tell you that out of Boston and New York a nasal drawl PecuUari. 
 ' is universal, but I may as well hint that the prevailing ^^^°j^_ 
 ■grammar is also more than doubtful; that the oddest 
 ' vulgarisms are received idioms; that all the women who 
 'have been bred in slave-states speak more or less like 
 ' negroes, from having been constantly in their childhood 
 
368 
 
 THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 [Chapter 
 
 St. Lonia: 
 1842. 
 
 C. D. 
 
 to 
 J. F. 
 
 Lord Ash- 
 burton's 
 arriTal. 
 
 Talk with 
 a judge on 
 slavery. 
 
 ' with black nurses ; and that the most fashionable and 
 ' aristocratic (these are two words in great use), instead of 
 ' asking you in what place you were born, enquire where 
 'you "hail from?"!! 
 
 ' Lord Ashburton arrived at Annapolis t'other day, after 
 ' a voyage of forty odd days in heavy weather. Straight- 
 ' way the newspapers state, on the authority of a. corres- 
 • pendent who ''rowed round the ship" (I leave you to 
 ' fancy her condition), that America need fear no superiority 
 ' from England, in respect of her wooden walls. The 
 ' same correspondent is " quite pleased " with the frank 
 ' manner of the English ofHcers ; and patronizes them as 
 ' being, for John Bulls, quite refined. My face, like Haji 
 ' Baba's, turns upside down, and my liver is changed to 
 ' water, when I come upon such things, and think -who 
 ' writes and who read them. . . . 
 
 'They won't let me alone about slavery. A cerUin 
 ' Judge in St. Louis went so far yesterday, that I fell upon 
 ' him (to the indescribable horror of the man who brought 
 ' him) and told him a piece of my mind. I said that I 
 ' was very averse to speaking on the subject here, and 
 ' always forbore, if possible : but when he pitied our 
 ' national ignorance of the truths of slavery, I must remind 
 ' him that we went upon indisputable records, obtained 
 ' after many years of careful investigation, and at all soi-ts 
 ' of self-sacrifice ; and that I believed we were much more 
 ' competent to judge of its atrocity and horror, than he 
 ' who had .been brought up in the midst of it. I told him 
 ' that I could sympathise with men who admitted it to 
 ' be a dreadful evil, but frankly confessed their inability 
 
TwENTT-THiKD.] THE FAR WEST: TO NIAGARA FALLS. 369 
 
 ' to devise a means of getting rid of it : but that men who St. Louis-. 
 * spoke of it as a blessing, as a matter of course, as a 
 
 C D 
 
 ' state of things to be desired, were out of the pale of 'to ' 
 ' reason ; and that for them to speak of ignorance or pre- 
 'judice was an absurdity too ridiculous to be combated. . . 
 
 ' It is not six years ago, since a slave in this very same 
 ' St. Louis, being arrested (I forget for what), and knowing 
 ' he had no chance of a fair trial, be his offence what it 
 ■might, drew his bowie knife and ripped the constable 
 ' across the body. A scuffle ensuing, the desperate negro 
 'stabbed two others with the same weapon. The mob 
 'who gathered round (among whom were men of mark, 
 ' wealth, and influence in the place) overpowered him by 
 ' numbers ; carried him away to a piece of open ground 
 ' beyond the city ; and burned him alive. This, I say, A negro 
 ' was done within six years in broad day ; in a city with alWe. 
 ' its courts, lawyers, tipstaffs, judges, jails, and hangman ; 
 ' and not a hair on the head of one of those men has 
 ' been hurt to this day. And it is, believe me, it is the 
 ' miserable, wretched independence in small things ; the 
 ' paltry republicanism which recoils from honest service to 
 'an honest man, but does not shrink fi-om every trick, 
 ' artifice, and knavery in business ; that makes these 
 ' slaves necessary, and will render them so, until the in- 
 ' dignation of other countries sets them free. 
 
 ' They say the slaves are fond of their masters. Look Feeling of 
 
 slaves 
 
 'at this pretty vignette* (part of the stock-in-trade of a themselves. 
 
 • ' Etinattat NEaEO in Jail' was the heading of the adTertisement enclosed, 
 which had a woodcut of master and slave in its corner, and announced that 
 Wilford Gamer, sheriff and jailer of Chicot County, Arkansas, requested 
 
 owner to come and prove property — or 
 
 VOL. I. * S 
 
370 THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. ICbapmb 
 
 St. Louis: 'newspaper), and judge how you would feel, when men, 
 
 — '- — ' looking in your face, told you such tales with the news- 
 
 to ' ' paper lying on the table. In all the slave districts, 
 ' advertisements for runaways are as much matters of 
 ' course as the announcement of the play for the evening 
 ' with us. The poor creatures themselves fairly worship 
 ' EngHsh people : they would do anything for them. They 
 'are perfectly acquainted with all that takes place in 
 ' reference to emancipation ; and of course their attach- 
 'ment to us grows out of their deep devotion to their 
 ' owners. I cut this illustration out of a newspaper which 
 "had a leader in reference to the aboTninable and hellish 
 ' doctriTie of Abolition — repugncmt alike to every law 
 Dr. Bart- ' of God and Nature. " I know something " said a Dr. 
 'Bartlett (a very accomplished man), late a fellow-pas- 
 ' senger of ours : " I know something of their fondness for 
 ' " their masters. I live in Kentucky ; and I can assert 
 ' " upon my honour, that, in my neighbourhood, it is as 
 ' " common for a runaway slave, retaken, to draw his bowie 
 ' " knife and rip his owner's bowels open, as it is for you 
 ' " to see a drunken fight in London." 
 
 ' Same Boat, Satwrday, Siscteenth April, 1842. 
 
 Pretty ' Let me tell you, my dear Forster, before I forget it, a 
 
 ' pretty little scene we had on board the boat between 
 ' Louisville and St. Louis, as we were going to the latter 
 ' place. It is not much to tell, but it was very pleasant 
 ' and interesting to witness.' 
 
 What follows has been printed in the Notes, and ought 
 not, by the rule I have laid down, to be given here. But, 
 
TwENTY-THiED.1 THE FAB "WEST: TO NIAGAEA PALLS. 37] 
 
 beautiful as the printed description is, it has not profited St. Lonis : 
 by the alteration of some touches and the omission of ^ 
 
 others in the first fresh version of it, which, for that reason, 
 I here preserve — one of the most charming soul-felt 
 pictures of character and emotion that ever warmed the 
 heart in fact or fiction. It was, I think, Jeffrey's favorite 
 passage in all the writings of Dickens : and certainly, if 
 anyone would learn the secret of their popularity, it is to 
 be read in the observation and description of this little 
 incident. 
 
 ' There was a little woman on board, with a little baby ; A little 
 
 , . motler : 
 
 'and both little woman and little child were cheerful, 
 
 'good-looking, bright-eyed, and fair to see. The little 
 
 ' woman had been passing a long time with a sick mother 
 
 ' in New York, and had left her home in St. Louis in that 
 
 ' condition in which ladies who truly love their lords desire 
 
 ' to be. The baby had been born in her mother's house, 
 
 ' and she had not seen her husband (to whom she was now returning 
 
 ' returning) for twelve months : having left him a month husband. 
 
 ' or two after their marriage. Well, to be sure, there never 
 
 ' was a little woman so full of hope, and tenderness, and 
 
 ' love, and anxiety, as this little woman was : and there she 
 
 ' was, all the livelong day, wondering whether " he" would 
 
 ' be at the wharf ; and whether " he " had got her letter ; 
 
 ' and whether, if she sent the baby on shore by somebody 
 
 ' else, " he " would know it, meeting it in the street : which, 
 
 ' seeing that he had never set eyes upon it in his life, was 
 
 ' not very likely in the abstract, but was probable enough 
 
 'to the young mother. She was such an artless little 
 
 ' creature ; and was in such a sunny, beaming, hopeful 
 
372 
 
 THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 [Chapteb 
 
 St. Loots : 
 1842. 
 
 CD. 
 
 to 
 J. F. 
 
 The ladies 
 and tlie 
 captain. 
 
 The little 
 mother and 
 her baby. 
 
 St. Loais 
 in sight. 
 
 ' state ; and let out all this matter, clinging close about 
 ' her heart, so freely ; that all the other lady passengers 
 ' entered into the spirit of it as much as she : and the 
 ' captain (who heard all about it from his wife) was won- 
 ' drous sly, I promise you : enquiring, every time we met 
 ' at table, whether she expected anybody to meet her at 
 ' St. Louis, and supposing she wouldn't want to go ashore 
 ' the night we reached it, and cutting many other dry 
 'jokes which convulsed all his hearers, but especially the 
 ' ladies. There was one little, weazen, dried-apple old 
 ' woman among them, who took occasion to doubt the 
 ' constancy of husbands under such circumstances of 
 ' bereavement ; and there was another lady (with a lap 
 ' dog), old enough to moralize on the lightness of human 
 ' affections, and yet not so old that she could help nursing 
 ' the baby now and then, or laughing with the rest when 
 ' the little woman called it by its father's name, and asked 
 ' it all manner of fantastic questions concerning him, in 
 ' the joy of her heart. It was something of a blow to the 
 ' little woman, that when we were within twenty miles of 
 ' our destination, it became clearly necessary to put the 
 ' baby to bed ; but she got over that with the same good 
 - humour, tied a little handkerchief over her little head, 
 ' and came out into the gallery with the rest. Then, such 
 ' an oracle as she became in reference to the localities ! 
 ' and such facetiousness as was displayed by the married 
 ' ladies ! and such sympathy as was shown by the single 
 ' ones ! and such peals of laughter as the little woman 
 ' herself (who would just as soon have cried) greeted every 
 'jest with ! At last, there were the lights of St. Louis — 
 
c. 
 
 D. 
 
 
 to 
 
 J. 
 
 F. 
 
 TwENiY-iHiKD.] THE FAR "WEST: TO NIAGARA FALLS. 373 
 
 ' and here was the wharf— and those were the steps — and St. Louis .- 
 
 ' the little woman, covering her face with her hands, and 
 
 ' laughing, or seeming to laugh, more than ever, ran into 
 
 'her own cabin, and shut herself up tight. I have no 
 
 ' doubt, that, in the charming inconsistency of such excite- 
 
 ' ment, she stopped her ears lest she should hear " him " 
 
 ' asking for her ; but I didn't see her do it. Then a great 
 
 ' crowd of people rushed on board, though the boat was 
 
 ' not yet made fast, and was staggering about among the 
 
 • other boats to find a landing-place ; and everybody looked 
 
 ' for the husband, and nobody saw him ; when all of a 
 
 ' sudden, right in the midst of them — God knows how she 
 
 ' ever got there — there was the httle woman hugging with The 
 
 meeting 
 
 ' both arms round the neck of a fine, good-looking, sturdy 
 'fellow! And in a moment afterwards, there she was again, 
 ' dragging him through the small door of her small cabin, 
 ' to look at the baby as he lay asleep ! — What a good thing 
 ' it is to know that so many of us would have been quite 
 ' downhearted and sorry if that husband had failed to 
 ' come.' 
 
 He then resumes : but in what follows nothing is 
 repeated that will be found in his printed description 
 of the jaunt to the looking-glass prairie. 
 
 ' But about the Prairie — ^it is not, I must confess, so Trip to a 
 
 prairie. 
 
 ' good in its way as this ; but I'll tell you all about that 
 'too, and leave you to judge for yourself. Tuesday the 
 ' 12th was the day fixed ; and we were to start at five in 
 ' the morning — shai-p. I turned out at four ; shaved and 
 ' dressed ; got some bread and milk ; and throwing up the 
 'window, looked down into the street. Deuce a coach 
 
374 
 
 THE LIFE OP CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 [Chapter 
 
 St. Louia : 
 1842. 
 
 0. D. 
 
 to 
 J. F. 
 
 A good inn. 
 
 On the 
 
 prairie at 
 sunset. 
 
 General 
 character 
 of scenery. 
 
 ' was there, nor did anybody seem to be stirring in the 
 ' house. I waited until half-past five ; but no preparations 
 ' being visible even then, I left Mr. Q to look out, and lay 
 'down upon the bed again. There I slept until nearly 
 ' seveUj when I was called. . . . Exclusive of Mr. Q and 
 ' myself, there were twelve of my committee in the party : 
 'all lawyers except one. He was an intelligent, mild, 
 ' well-informed gentleman of my own age — the unitarian 
 • minister of the place. With him, and two other com- 
 ' panions, I got into the first coach. . . . 
 
 'We halted at so good an inn at Lebanon that we 
 ' resolved to return there at night, if possible. One would 
 ' scarcely find a better village alehouse of a homely kind 
 ' in England. During our halt I walked into the village, 
 ' and met a d/welling-house coming down-hill at a good 
 ' round trot, drawn by some twenty oxen ! We resumed 
 ■ our journey as soon as possible, and got upon the 
 ' looking-glass prairie at sunset. We halted near a soli- 
 ' tary log-house for the sake of its water ; unpacked the 
 ' baskets ; formed an encampment with the carriages ; and 
 ' dined. 
 
 'Now, a prairie is undoubtedly worth seeing— but 
 ' more, that one may say one has seen it, than for any 
 ' sublimity it possesses in itself. Like most things, great 
 ' or small, in this country, you hear of it with considerable 
 ' exaggerations. Basil Hall was really quite right in 
 ' depreciating the general character of the scenery. The 
 ' widely-famed Far West is not to be compared with even 
 ' the tamest portions of Scotland or Wales. You stand 
 ' upon the prairie, and see the unbroken horizon all round 
 
Twenty-third.] THE FAB WEST: TO NIAGARA FALLS. 875 
 
 'you. You are on a great plain, which ia like a sea St. Lotus: 
 
 ■without water. I am exceedingly fond of wild and ^li*-^:_. 
 
 'lonely scenery, and believe that I have the faculty of ^'t^' 
 
 ' being as much impressed by it as any man living. But "^ ^" 
 
 ' the prairie fell, by far, short of my preconceived idea. I 
 
 ' felt no such emotions as I do in crossing Salisbury plain. 
 
 ' The excessive flatness of the scene makes it dreary, but 
 
 'tame. Grandeur is certainly not its characteristic. I 
 
 'retired from the rest of the party, to understand my 
 
 ' own feelings the better ; and looked all round, again and 
 
 ' again. It was fine. It was worth the ride. The sun The prairie 
 
 ' was going down, very red and bright ; and the prospect 
 
 ' looked like that ruddy sketch of Catlin's, which attracted 
 
 ' our attention (you remember ?) ; except that there was 
 
 'not so much ground as he represents, between the 
 
 ' spectator and the horizon. But to say (as the fashion is, 
 
 ' here) that the sight is a landmark in one's existence, and 
 
 ' awakens a new set of sensations, is sheer gammon. I Disappoint- 
 
 ' °_ _ ment. 
 
 'would say to every man who can't see a prairie — go to 
 ' Salisbury plain, Marlborough downs, or any of the broad, 
 ' high, open lands near the sea Many of them are fully 
 ' as impressive ; and Salisbury plain is decidedly more so. 
 'We had brought roast fowls, buffalo's tongue, ham, 
 ' bread, cheese, butter, biscuits, sherry, champagne, lemons 
 ' and sugar for punch, and abundance of ice. It was a Enjoyment. 
 ' delicious meal : and as they were most anxious that I 
 ' should be pleased, I warmed myself into a state of sur- 
 ' passing jollity; proposed toasts from the coach-box (which 
 ' was the chair) ; ate and drank with the best ; and made, 
 'I believe, an excellent companion to a very friendly 
 
376 
 
 THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 [ChaPPEj^ 
 
 St. Louis ; 
 1842. 
 
 C. D. 
 
 to 
 J. F. 
 
 Soiree 
 at the 
 Planter's- 
 house. 
 
 Planters' 
 inns. 
 
 Good fare. 
 
 No grey 
 heads in 
 St. Louis. 
 
 ' companionable party. In an hour or so, we packed up, 
 
 ' and drove back to the inn at Lebanon. While supper 
 
 ' was preparing, I took a pleasant walk with my unitarian 
 
 ' friend ; and when it was over (we drank nothing with it 
 
 • but tea and coffee) we went to bed. The clergyman and I 
 
 ' had an exquisitely clean little chamber of our own : and 
 
 ' the rest of the party were quartered overhead 
 
 ' We got back to St. Louis soon after twelve at noon ; 
 
 ■ and I rested during the remainder of the day. The soirfe 
 
 ' came off at night, in a very good ball-room at our inn — 
 
 ' the Planter's-house. The whole of the guests were intro- 
 
 ' duced to us, singly. We were glad enough, you may 
 
 ' believe, to come away at midnight ; and were very tired. 
 
 ' Yesterday, I wore a blouse. To-day, a fur-coat. Trying 
 
 ' changes ! 
 
 'In the same Boat. 
 ' Swnday, Sixteenth April, 1842. 
 
 'The inns in these outlandish corners of the world, 
 ' would astonish you by their goodness. The Planter 's- 
 ' house is as large as the Middlesex-hospital and built 
 ' very much on our hospital plan, with long wards abun- 
 ' dantly ventilated, and plain whitewashed walls. They 
 ' had a famous notion of sending up at breakfast-time 
 ' large glasses of new milk with blocks of ice in them as 
 ' clear as crystal. Our table was abundantly supplied 
 ' indeed at every meal. One day when Kate and I were 
 ' dining alone together, in our own room, we counted 
 ' sixteen dishes on the table at the same time. 
 
 ' The society is pretty rough, and intolerably conceited. 
 ' All the inhabitants are young. / did/n't see one grey 
 
TwKNTY-TiiiBD.] THE FAE WEST: TO NIAGARA FALLS. 377 
 
 ' head in St. Louis. There is an island close by, called Sasdtjszi . 
 
 ' bloody island. It is the duelling ground of St. Louis ; ■ ^^^^' ■ 
 
 • and is so called from the last fatal duel which was fought ^to°' 
 
 ' there. It was a pistol duel, breast to breast, and both "'■ ^• 
 
 ' parties fell dead at the same time. One of our prairie 
 
 ' P^ty (a young man) had acted as second there, in several 
 
 ' encounters. The last occasion was a duel with rifles, at Duelling. 
 
 ' forty paces ; and coming home he told us how he had 
 
 ' bought his man a coat of green linen to fight in, woollen 
 
 ' being usually fatal to rifle wounds. Prairie is variously 
 
 ' called (on the refinement principle I suppose) Paraarer ; 
 
 •parearer; and paroarer. I am afraid, my dear fellow, 
 
 ' you will have had great difficulty in reading all tbe 
 
 'foregoing text. I have written it, very laboriously, on 
 
 ' my knee ; and the engine throbs and starts as if the boat 
 
 ' were possessed with a devil. 
 
 ' Sauduskt. 
 ' Stmday, Tmenty-fourth April, 1842. 
 
 ' We went ashore at Louisville this night week, where From 
 ' I left off, two lines above ; and slept at the hotel, in t^ cincin 
 ' which we had put up before. The Messenger being "^ *" 
 ' abominably slow, we got our luggage out next morning, 
 ' and started on again at eleven o'clock in the Benjamin 
 ' Franklin mail boat : a splendid vessel with a cabin 
 ' more than two hundred feet long, and little state-rooms 
 'affording proportionate conveniences. She got in at 
 ' Cincinnati by one o'clock next morning, when we landed 
 'in the dark and went back to our old hotel. As we 
 ' made our way on foot over the broken pavement, Anne 
 'measured her length upon the ground, but didn't hurt 
 
878 
 
 THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 [Chapter 
 
 Sanddskt •- 
 1842. 
 
 C. D. 
 
 to 
 J. F. 
 
 Mrs. 
 
 Dickens aa 
 a traTeUer. 
 
 From Cin- 
 cinnati to 
 Columbng. 
 
 A levee at 
 Columbns. 
 
 ' herself. I say nothing of Kate's troubles — but you recol- 
 'lect her propensity? She falls into, or out of, every 
 ' coach or boat we enter ; scrapes the skin off her legs ; 
 ' brings great sores and swellings on her feet ; chips lai-ge 
 'fragments out of her ankle-bones; and makes herself 
 'blue with bruises. She really has, however, since we 
 ' got over the first trial of being among circumstances so 
 ' new and so fatiguing, made a most admirable traveller 
 ' in every respect. She has never screamed or expressed 
 ' alarm under circumstances that would have fully justified 
 ' her in doing so, even in my eyes ; has never given way 
 ' to despondency or fatigue, though we have now been 
 ' travelling incessantly, through a very rough country, for 
 ' more than a month, and have been at times, as you may 
 'readily suppose, most thoroughly tired; has always 
 ' accommodated herself, well and cheerfully, to everything ; 
 ' and has pleased me veiy much, and proved herself per- 
 ' fectly game. 
 
 ' We remained at Cincinnati-, all Tuesday the nineteenth, 
 ' and all that night. At eight o'clock on Wednesday morn- 
 ' ing the twentieth, we left in the mail stage for Columbus : 
 ' Anne, Kate, and Mr. Q inside ; I on the box. The dis- 
 ' tance is a hundred and twenty miles ; the road macadam- 
 ' ized ; and for an American road, very good. We were 
 ' three "and twenty hours performing the journey. We 
 'travelled all night; reached Columbus at seven in the 
 ' morning ; breakfasted ; and went to bed until dinner time. 
 ' At night we held a levee for half an hour, and the people 
 ' poured in as they always do : each gentleman with a lady 
 ' on each arm, exactly like the Chorus to God Save the 
 
TwEKTT-THiBD.] THE FAR WEST: TO NIAGARA PALLS. 379 
 
 'Queen. I wish you could see them, that you might Satousky: 
 'know what a splendid comparison this is. They wear 
 
 C D 
 'their clothes, precisely as the chorus people do; and 'to 
 
 * stand — supposing Kate and me to be in the centre of the 
 ■ stage, with our backs to the footlights — just as the com- 
 
 • pany would, on the first night of the season. They shake What a 
 
 levee ifl 
 
 ' hands exactly after the manner of the guests at a ball at like. 
 ' the Adelphi or the Haymarket ; receive any facetious- 
 ' ness on my part, as if there were a stage direction " all 
 ' "laugh;" and have rather more difficulty in "getting off" 
 'than the last gentlemen, in white pantaloons, polished 
 ' boots, and berlins, usually display, under the most trying 
 ' circumstances. 
 
 ' Next morning, that is to say on Friday the 22nd at Prom Co- 
 
 lumbns to 
 
 ' seven o'clock exactly, we resumed our journey. The stage Sandusky. 
 
 ' from Columbus to this place only running thrice a week, 
 
 ' and not on that day, I bargained for an " exclusive extra" 
 
 ' with four horses, for which I paid forty dollars, or eight 
 
 ' pounds English : the horses changing, as they would if it 
 
 ' were the regular stage. To ensure our getting on properly, 
 
 ' the proprietors sent an agent on the box ; and, with no 
 
 'other company but him and a hamper full of eatables 
 
 ' and drinkables, we went upon our way. It is impossible 
 
 ' to convey an adequate idea to you of the kind of road A corduroj 
 
 ' over which we travelled. I can only say that it was, at 
 
 ' the best, but a tra-ck through the wild forest, and among 
 
 'the swamps, bogs, and morasses of the withered bush. 
 
 'A great portion of it was what is called a "corduroy 
 
 ' " road : " which is made by throwing round logs or whole 
 
 'trees into a swamp, and leaving them to settle there. 
 
380 
 
 THE LIFE OP CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 ((JUAPTEB 
 
 Sandtjskt : 
 1842. 
 
 C. D. 
 
 to 
 J. F 
 
 ' Good Heaven ! if you only felt one of the least of the 
 'jolts with which the coach falls from log to log ! It is 
 ' like nothing but going up a steep flight of stairs in an 
 ' omnibus. Now the coach flung us in a heap on its floor, 
 ' and now crushed our heads against its roof. Now one 
 ' side of it was deep in the mire, and we were holding 
 ' on to the other. Now it was lying on the horses' tails, 
 ' and now again upon its back. But it never, never, was 
 ' in any position, attitude, or kind of motion, to which we 
 ' are accustomed in coaches; or made the smallest approach 
 ' to our experience of the proceedings of any sort of vehicle 
 ' that goes on wheels. Still, the day was beautiful, the 
 
 The travel- ' air delicious, and we were alcme : with no tobacco spittle, 
 ' or eternal prosy conversation about dollars and politics 
 ' (the only two subjects they ever converse about, or can 
 ' converse upon) to bore us. We really enjoyed it ; made 
 ' a joke of the being knocked about ; and were quite 
 ' merry. At two o'clock we stopped in the wood to open 
 ' our hamper and dine ; and we drank to our darlings and 
 ' all friends at home. Then we started again and went on 
 ' until ten o'clock at night : when we reached a place 
 ' called Lower Sandusky, sixty-two miles from our starting 
 ' point. The last three hours of the journey were not 
 
 A thunder ' very pleasant, for it lightened — awfully : every flash very 
 ' vivid, very blue, and very long : and, the wood being so 
 'dense that the branches on either side of the track 
 'rattled and broke against the coach, it was rather a 
 ' dangerous neighbourhood for a thunder storm. 
 
 A log-house 'The inn at which we halted was a rough log-house. 
 
 inn. 
 
 ' The people were all abed, and we had to knock them up. 
 
TwENiY-THiRD.] THE FAR WEST. TO NIAGARA FALLS. 381 
 
 ' We had the queerest sleeping room, with two doors, one Sanbitskt : 
 ' opposite the other ; both opening directly on the wild '— 
 
 C D 
 
 ' black country, and neither having any lock or bolt. The 'to ' 
 
 ' effect of these opposite doors was, that one was always ' ' 
 
 ^ blowing the other open : an ingenuity in the art of 
 
 'building, which I don't remember to have met with 
 
 'before. You should have seen me, in my shirt, blockad- 
 
 ' ing them with portmanteaus, and desperately endeavour- 
 
 ' ing to make the room tidy ! But the blockading was Making 
 
 'really needful, for in my dressing case I have about 
 
 ' 2501. in gold ; and for the amount of the middle figure 
 
 'in that scarce metal, there are not a few men in the 
 
 'West who would murder their fathers. Apropos of this 
 
 ' golden store, consider at your leisure the strange state of 
 
 'things in this country. It has no money; really no A monetary 
 
 _, - , ,, ,, crisis. 
 
 'Tnoney. The bank paper wont pass; the newspapers 
 ' are full of advertisements from tradesmen who sell by 
 ' barter ; and American gold is not to be had, or pur- 
 ' chased. I bought sovereigns, English sovereigns, at first : 
 'but as I could get none of them at Cincinnati, to this 
 ' day, I have had to purchase French gold ; 20-franc pieces ; 
 ' with which I am travelling as if I were in Paris ! 
 
 ' But let's go back to Lower Sandusky. Mr. Q went to 
 ' bed up in the roof of the log-house somewhere, but was 
 
 • so beset by bugs that he got up after an hour and lay 
 'm the coach where he was obliged to wait till 
 
 ' breakfast time. We breakfasted, driver and all, in the Breakfast 
 
 • one common room. It was papered with newspapers, ^ ® '""" 
 
 • and was as rough a place as need be. At half past seven 
 
 • we started again, and we reached Sandusky at six o'clock 
 
382 
 
 THE LIFE OF CHAELES DICKENS. 
 
 [Chapteb 
 
 C. D. 
 
 to 
 J. F. 
 
 Indians. 
 
 Sandusky: 'yesterday afternoon. It is on Lake Erie, twenty-four 
 'hours' journey by steamboat from Buffalo. We found 
 'no boat here, nor has there been one, since. We are 
 ' waiting, with every thing packed up, ready to start on 
 'the shortest notice; and are anxiously looking out for 
 ' smoke in the distance. 
 
 ' There was an old gentleman in the Log inn at Lower 
 'Sandusky who treats with the Indians on the part of 
 'the American government, and has just concluded a 
 ' treaty with the Wyandot Indians at that place to remove 
 ' next year to some land provided for them west of the 
 'Mississippi: a little way beyond St. Louis. He de- 
 ' scribed his negotiation to me, and their reluctance to 
 'go, exceedingly well They are a fine people, but 
 'degraded and broken down. If you could see any of 
 ' their men and women on a , race-course in England, you 
 ' would not know them from gipsies. 
 
 ' We are in a small house here, but a very comfortable 
 'one, and the people are exceedingly obliging. Their 
 ' demeanour in these country parts is invariably morose, 
 ' sullen, clownish, and repulsive. I should think there 
 'is not, on the face of the earth, a people so entirely 
 ' destitute of humour, vivacity, or the capacity of enjoy- 
 ' ment. It is most remarkable. I am quite serious when 
 'I say that I have not heard a hearty laugh these six 
 ' weeks, except my own ; nor have I seen a merry face 
 ' on any shoulders but a black man's. Lounging listlessly 
 ' about ; idling in bar-rooms ; smoking ; spitting ; and 
 'lolling on the pavement in rocking-chairs, outside the 
 ' shop doors ; are the only recreations. I don't think the 
 
 American 
 people 
 not given 
 to humour. 
 
 The only 
 recreatlonit. 
 
TwENTY-THiKo.] THE FAR WEST: TO NIAGARA FALLS. 383 
 
 ' national shrewdness extends beyond the Yankees ; that Niagara 
 'is, the Eastern men. The rest are heavy, dull, and uil 
 'ignorant. Our landlord here is from the East. He is c. D. 
 'a handsome, obliging, civil fellow. He comes into the j_*p_ 
 •room with his hat on ; spits in the fire place as he talks ; 
 'sits down on the sofa with his hat on; pulls out his A landlord, 
 'newspaper, and reads ; but to all this I am accustomed. 
 ' He is anxious to please — and that is enough. 
 
 ' We are wishing very much for a boat ; for we hope to 
 ' find our letters at Buffalo. It is half past one ; and as 
 ' there is no boat in sight, we are fain (sorely against 
 ' our wiUs) to order an early dinner. 
 
 ' Tuesday, ApHl Twenty-sixth, 1842. 
 ' Niagara Falls 1 1 ! (upon the English * Side). 
 
 ' I don't know at what length I might have written Prom San- 
 ■you from Sandusky, my beloved fiiend, if a steamer Busyo. 
 'had not come in sight just as I finished the last unintel- 
 'Ugible sheet (oh ! the ink in these parts !) : whereupon I 
 ' was obliged to pack up bag and baggage, to swallow a 
 'hasty apology for a dinner, and to hurry my train on 
 'board with all the speed I might. She was a fine steam- 
 ' ship, four hundred tons burden, name the Constitution, 
 ' had very few passengers on board, and had bountiful and 
 'handsome accommodation. It's all very fine talking 
 "about Lake Erie, but it won't do for persons who are 
 'liable to sea-sickness. We were all sick. It's almost On Lake 
 
 Erie. 
 
 ' as bad in that respect as the Atlantic. The waves are 
 'very short, and horribly constant. We reached Buffalo 
 
 * Ten dashes undemeatli the word. 
 
884 
 
 THE LIFE OP CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 rCHAPTKT. 
 
 NlAQAUA 
 
 Falls : 
 1842. 
 
 C. D. 
 
 to 
 J. F. 
 
 Graced at. 
 
 Rude re- 
 ception of 
 a mayor : 
 
 hia conso- 
 lation. 
 
 From Buf- 
 falo to 
 Niagara. 
 
 ' at six this morning ; went ashore to breakfast ; sent to 
 ' the post-office forthwith ; and received — oh ! who or what 
 ' can say with how much pleasure and what unspeakable 
 • delight ! — our English letters ! 
 
 ' We lay all Sunday night, at a town (and a beautiful 
 ' town too) called Cleveland ; on Lake Erie. The people 
 ' poured on board, in crowds, by six on Monday morning, to 
 ' see me ; and a party of " gentlemen " actually planted 
 'themselves before our little cabin, and stared in at the 
 ' door and windows while I was washing, and Kate lay 
 ' in bed. I was so incensed at this, and at a certain news- 
 ' paper published in that town which I had accidentally 
 ' seen in Sandusky (advocating war with England to the 
 'death, saying that Britain must be "whipped again," and 
 ' promising all true Americans that within two years they 
 ' should sing Yankee-doodle in Hyde-park and Hail 
 ' Columbia in the courts of Westminster), that when the 
 ' mayor came on board to present himself to me, according 
 ' to custom, I refused to see him, and bade Mr. Q tell him 
 ' why and wherefore. His honor took it veiy coolly, and 
 ' retired to the top of the wharf, with a big stick and a 
 ' whittling knife, with which he worked so lustily (staring 
 ' at the closed door of our cabin all the time) that long 
 ' before the boat left, the big stick was no bigger than a 
 ' cribbage peg ! 
 
 ' I never in my life was in such a state of excitement 
 ' as coming from Buffalo here, this morning. You come 
 ' by railroad ; and are nigh two hours upon the way. I 
 ' looked out for the spray, and listened for the roar, as far 
 ' beyond the bounds of possibility, as though, landing in 
 
Twenty-third.] THE FAR "WEST: TO NIAGARA FALLS. 385 
 
 ' Liverpool, I -were to listen for the music of your pleasant Niasara 
 
 ( • • T • 1 > • ■ Falls : 
 
 voice m Lincoln s-mn-fields. At last, when the train i842. 
 
 'stopped, I saw two great white clouds rising up from c. D. 
 
 ' the depths of the earth — ^nothing more. They rose up j, F. 
 
 'slowly, gently, majestically, into the air. I dragged Kate Nearing 
 
 the Falls, 
 'down a deep and slippery path leading to the ferry boat ; 
 
 'bullied Aime for not coming fast enough; perspired at 
 
 ' every pore ; and felt, it is impossible to say how, as the 
 
 ' sound grew louder and louder in my ears, and yet nothing 
 
 ' could be seen for the mist. 
 
 ' There were two English officers with us (ah ! what 
 
 'gentlemen, what noblemen of nature they seemed), and 
 
 "they hurried off with me; leaving Kate and Anne on 
 
 ' a crag of ice ; and clambered after me over the rocks 
 
 'at the foot of the small Fall, while the ferryman was Nearer 
 
 'getting the boat ready. I was not disappointed — but 
 
 ' I could make out nothing. In an instant, I was blinded 
 
 'by the spray, and wet to the skin. I saw the water 
 
 'tearing madly down from some immense height, but 
 
 'could get no idea of fehape, or situation, or anything 
 
 ' but vague immensity. But when we were seated in the 
 
 'boat, and crossing at the very foot of the cataract — then 
 
 ' I began to feel what it was. Directly I had changed my 
 
 'clothes at the inn I went out again, taking Kate with 
 
 ' me ; and hurried to the Horse-shoe-fall. I went down Horse- 
 
 ' alone, into the very basin. It would be hard for a man 
 
 'to stand nearer God than he does there. There was a 
 
 'bright rainbow at my feet; and from that I looked 
 
 'up to — great Heaven! to what a fall of bright green 
 
 • water ! The broad, deep, mighty stream seems to die 
 
 Vf>T. I 
 
386 
 
 THE LIFE OF CHAELES DICKENS. 
 
 [Chapteb 
 
 1842. 
 
 CD. 
 
 to 
 J. F. 
 
 A fancy. 
 
 NiAOiBA ' in the act of falling ; and, from its unfathomable gi-ave. 
 Falls ; . t , r ■ ■< ■ ^ 
 
 'arises that tremendous ghost of spray and mist whish 
 
 'is never laid, and has been haunting this place with 
 
 'the same dread solemnity-^— perhaps from the creation 
 
 ' of the world. 
 
 ' We puipose remaining here a week. In my next, I 
 
 ■ will try to give you some idea of my impressions, and to 
 
 ' teU you how they change with every day. At present it 
 
 Effect upon ' is impossible. I can only say that the first effect of this 
 
 Niagara. ' tremendous spectacle on me, was peace of mind^tran- 
 
 ' quillity — great thoughts of eternal rest and happiness 
 
 ' — nothing of terror. I can shudder at the recollection 
 
 ' of Glencoe (dear friend, with Heaven's leave we must 
 
 ' see Glencoe together), but whenever I think of Niagara, 
 
 ' I shall think of its beauty. 
 
 ' If you could hear the roar that is in my ears as I write 
 
 'this. Both Falls are under our windows. From our 
 
 • sitting-room and bed-room we look down straight upon 
 
 ' them. There is not a soul in the house but ourselves. 
 
 ' What would I give if you and Mac were here, to shaie 
 
 ' the sensations of this time ! I was going to add, what 
 
 ' would I give if the dear girl whose ashes lie in Kensal- 
 
 ' green, had lived to come so far along with us — but she 
 
 ' has been here many times, I doubt not, since her sweet 
 
 ' face faded from my earthly sight. 
 
 Tlie old re- 
 collection. 
 
 ' One word on the precious letters before I close. You 
 ' are right, my dear fellow, about the papers ; and you are 
 'right (I grieve to say) about the people. Am T right ? 
 ' quoth the conjuror. Yes ! from gallery, pit, and boxes. 
 
CD. 
 
 to 
 
 J. F. 
 
 TwENTY-THmD ] THE FAR WEST: TO NIAGARA FALLS. 387 
 
 ' I did let out those things, at first, against my will, but Niagara 
 'when I come to tell you all — well; only wait — only wait 1842. 
 ' — till the end of July. I say no more. 
 
 'I do perceive a perplexiugly divided and subdivided 
 ' duty, in the matter of the book of travels. Oh ! the sub- 
 ' limated essence of comicality that I could distil, from the 
 ' materials I have ! . . . You are a part, and an essential 
 ' part, of our home, dear friend, and I exhaust my imagi- Looking 
 ' nation in picturing the circumstances under which I shall 
 ' surprise you by walking into 58, Lincoln' s-inn fields. We 
 ' are truly grateful to God for the health and happiness 
 'of our inexpressibly dear children and all our friends. 
 'But one letter more — only one. . . . I don't seem to 
 ' have been half affectionate enough, but there are thoughts, 
 'you know, that lie too deep for words.' 
 
 8 
 
CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 NlAGAKA 
 
 Falls : 
 1842. 
 
 Jjast two 
 letters. 
 
 Dickens 
 van- 
 quished. 
 
 KIA&ARA AND MONTREAL. 
 1842. 
 
 Mt friend was better than his word, and two more 
 letters reached me before his return. The opening of 
 the first was written from Niagara on the third, and its 
 close from Montreal on the twelfth, of May ; from which 
 latter city also, on the 26th of that month, the last of 
 all was written. 
 
 Much of the first of these letters had reference to the 
 international copyright agitation, and gave strong expres- 
 sion to the indignation awakened in him (nor less in some 
 of the best men of America) by the adoption, at a public 
 meeting in Boston itself, of a memorial against any change 
 of the law, in the course of which it was stated, that, if 
 English authors were invested with any control over the 
 republication of their own books, it would be no longer pos- 
 sible for American editors to alter and adapt them to the 
 American taste. This dehberate declaration however, un- 
 sparing as Dickens's anger at it was, in effect vanquished 
 him. He saw the hopelessness of pursuing further any 
 present effort to bring about the change desired ; and he 
 took the determination, not only to drop any allusion to 
 
Ca. xxivj NIAGARA AND MONTREAL. 389 
 
 it in his proposed book, but to try what effect might be Nuqara 
 produced, when he should again be in England, by a 18^2- 
 league of English authors to suspend further intercourse 
 with American publishers while the law should remain 
 as it is. On his return he made accordingly a public 
 appeal to this effect, stating his own intention for the 
 future to forego all profit derivable from the authorized 
 transmission of early proofs across the Atlantic ; but his 
 hopes in this particular also were doomed to disappoint- 
 ment. I now leave the subject, quoting only from his 
 present letter the general remarks with which it is dis- 
 missed by himself. 
 
 •NiAGAKA Falls. c. D. 
 
 ' Tuesday, T/iird May, 1842. to 
 
 J. F. 
 ' I'll tell you what the two obstacles to the passing of an Two 
 
 'international copyright law with England, are : fii'stly, j^jg^. 
 
 'the national love of "doing" a man in any bargain or ^^^^l^.^ 
 
 ' matter of business ; secondly, the national vanity. Both 
 
 'these characteristics prevail to an extent which no 
 
 'stranger can possibly estimate. 
 
 ' With regard to the first, I seriously believe that it is The first. 
 
 'an essential part of the pleasure derived from the 
 
 'perusal of a popular English book, that the author 
 
 'gets nothing for it. It is so dar-nation 'cute — so 
 
 'knowing in Jonathan to get his reading on those 
 
 'terms. He has the Englishman so regularly on the 
 
 'hip that his eye twinkles with slyness, cunning, and 
 
 ' delight ; and he chuckles over the humour of the page 
 
 'with an appreciation of it, quite inconsistent with, 
 
 ' and apart from, its honest purchase. The raven hasn't 
 
390 THE LIFE OF CHAELES DICKENS. [Chapter 
 
 NiAOABA 'more joy in eating a stolen piece of meat, than the 
 
 rALLS t 
 
 1842. 'American has in reading the English hook which he 
 C. D. ' gets for nothing. 
 
 to 
 
 J. F. ' With regard to the second, it reconciles that better 
 
 ' and more elevated class who are above this sort of 
 'satisfaction, with sui-prising ease. The man's read in 
 ' America ! The Americans like him ! They are glad 
 ' to see him when he comes here ! They flock about 
 'him, and tell him that they are grateful to him for 
 
 Tlie second. ' spirits in sickness ; for many hours of delight in health ; 
 ' for a hundred fanciful associations which are constantly 
 'interchanged between themselves, and their wives aad 
 ' children at home ! It is nothing that all this takes 
 ' place in countries where he is paid : it is nothing that 
 'he has won fame for himself elsewhere, and profit too. 
 ' The Americans read him ; the free, enlightened, inde- 
 ' pendent Americans ; and what more would he have ? 
 'Here's reward enough for any man. The national 
 ' vanity swallows up all other countries on the face of 
 'the earth, and leaves but this above the ocean. Now, 
 'mark what the real value of this American reading is. 
 'Find me in the whole range of literature one single 
 
 Value of ' solitary English book which becomes popular with them, 
 
 literary 
 
 popularity 'before, by going through the ordeal at home and 
 ' becoming popular there, it has forced itself on their 
 'attention — and I am content that the law should 
 ' remain as it is, for ever and a day. I must make one 
 "exception. There are some mawkish tales of fashion- 
 'able life before which crowds fall down as they were 
 ' gilded calves, which have been snugly enshrined in cir- 
 
Twenty-fourth.] NIAGAEA AND MONTREAX. 391 
 
 ' culating libraries at home, from the date of their publica- Niaqara 
 
 Falls : 
 ' tion. 1842. 
 
 ' As to telling them, they will have no literature of their c. D. 
 
 ■ own, the universal answer (out of Boston) is, " We don't j. p. 
 '"want one. Why should we pay for one when we can 
 
 ' " get it for nothing 1 Our people don't think of poetry, 
 
 ' " sir. Dollars, banks, and cotton are our books, sir." A substi- 
 
 ' And they certainly are in one sense ; for a lower average literature, 
 
 ' of general information than exists in this country on all 
 
 ' other topics, it would be very hard to find. So much, at 
 
 ' present, for international copyright.' 
 
 The same letter kept the promise made in its predecessor 
 
 that one or two more sketches of character should be 
 
 sent. ' One of the most amusing phrases in use all through 
 
 ' the country, for its constant repetition, and adaptation to 
 
 ' every emergency, is " Yes, Sir." Let me give you a 'Yes, sir.' 
 
 ' specimen.' (The specimen was the dialogue, in the Notes, 
 
 of straw-hat and brown-hat, during the stage-coach ride 
 
 to Sandusky.) ' I am not joking, upon my word. This is 
 
 ' exactly the dialogue. Nothing eke occurring to me at 
 
 'this moment, let me give you the secretary's portrait. 
 
 'Shall II 
 
 ' He is of a sentimental turn — strongly sentimental ; The secre- 
 tary. 
 ' and tells Anne as June approaches that he hopes " we 
 
 ' " shall sometimes think of him " in our own country. He 
 
 ' wears a cloak, like Hamlet ; and a very tall, big, limp, 
 
 ' dusty black hat, which he exchanges on long journeys 
 
 ' for a cap like Harlequin's. ... He sings ; and in some of 
 
 ■ our quarters, when his bedroom has been near ours, we 
 ' have heard him gi-unting bass notes through the keyhole 
 
892 
 
 THE LIFE OP CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 [Chapter 
 
 NlASAEA 
 
 Falls : 
 ,1842. 
 
 C. D. 
 
 to 
 J. F. 
 
 Frightful 
 suggestion. 
 
 Mr. Q's 
 paintings. 
 
 The lion 
 and 
 
 ' of }u& door, to attract our attention. His desire that I 
 ' should formally ask him to sing, and his devices to make 
 ' me do so, are in-esistibly absurd. There was a piano in 
 ' our room at Hartford (you recollect our being there, early 
 'in Febniary?) — and he asked me one night, when we 
 • were alone, if " Mrs. D " played. " Yes, Mr. Q." Oh 
 ' " indeed Sir ! I sing : so whenever you want a little 
 ' " soothing —" You may imagine how hastily I left the 
 ' room, on some false pretence, without hearing more. 
 
 ' He paints. . . An enormous box of oil colours is the 
 ' main part of his luggage: and with these he blazes away, 
 ' in his own room, for hours together. Anne got hold of some 
 ' big-headed, pot-bellied sketches he made of the passengers 
 ' on board the canal-boat (including me in my fur-coat), the 
 ' recollection of which brings the tears into my eyes at this 
 ' minute. He painted the Falls, at Niagara, superbly; and 
 ' is supposed now to be engaged on a full-length represen- 
 ' tation of me : waiters having reported that chamber- 
 ' maids have said that there is a picture in his room which 
 ' has a great deal of hair. One girl opined that it was 
 ' " the beginning of the King's-arms " ; but I am pretty 
 ' sure that the Lion is myself. .... 
 
 ' Sometimes, but not often, he commences a conversa- 
 ' tion. That usually occurs when we are walking the 
 ' deck after dark ; or when we are alone together in a 
 ' coach. It is his practice at such times to relate the 
 ' most notorious and patriarchial Joe Miller, as something 
 'that occurred in his own family. When travelling by 
 ' coach, he is particularly fond of imitating cows and pigs ; 
 ' and nearly challenged a fellow passenger the other day, 
 
TwEMTY-roosTH] NIAGARA AND MONTREAL. 393 
 
 ' who had been moved by the display of this accomplish- Niaoaka 
 ' inent into telUng him that he was " a Pei-fect Calf." He ^tm.' 
 • thinks it an indispensable act of politeness and attention c. D. ~ 
 ' to enquire constantly whether we're not sleepy, or, to use j*p 
 ' his own words, whether we don't " suffer for sleep." If Suffering 
 ' we have taken a long nap of fourteen hours or so, after " ^ ^°^'' 
 ' a long journey, he is sure to meet me at the bedroom 
 ' door when I turn out in the morning, with this enquiry. 
 'But apart from the amusement he gives us, I could not 
 ' by possibility have lighted on any one who would have 
 ' suited my purpose so well. I have raised his ten dollars 
 ' per month to twenty ; and mean to make it up for six 
 ' months.' 
 
 The conclusion of this letter was dated from ' Montreal, 
 ' Thursday, twelfth May ; ' and was little more than an 
 eager yearning for home. ' This will be a very short and 
 'stupid letter, my dear friend; for the post leaves here 
 ' much earlier than I expected, and all my grand designs 
 'for being unusually brilliant fall to the ground. I will 
 ' write you one line by the next Cunard boat — reserving 
 'all else until our happy and long long looked-for 
 ' meeting. 
 
 ' We have been to Toronto, and Kingston; experiencing Toryism of 
 
 Toronto. 
 
 ' attentions at each which I should have difficulty in de- 
 ' scribing. The wild and rabid toryism of Toronto, is, I speak 
 'seriously, appalling. English kindness is very different 
 ' from American. People send their horses and carriages 
 'for your use, but they don't exact as payment the right of 
 'being always under your nose. We had no less than five 
 ' carriages at Kingston waiting our pleasure at one time ; 
 
394 THE LIFE OP CHAELES DICKENS. [Chapteb 
 
 Monikeal: 'not to mention the commodore's barge and crew, and a 
 
 '■ — 'beautiful government steamer. We dined with Sir 
 
 CD. 
 to ' Charles Bagot last Sunday. Lord Mulgrave was to have 
 
 T P 
 
 ' met us yesterday at Lachine ; but as he was wind-bound 
 
 'in his yacht and couldn't get in. Sir Richard Jackson 
 
 Canadian < ggj^^ jjj[g ^j.^g four-in-hand, with two other young fellows 
 
 who are also his aides, and in we came in grand style. 
 
 ' The Theatricals (I think I told you* I had been invited 
 
 ' to play with the officers of the Coldstream guards here) 
 
 ' are, A Roland for an Oliver ; Two o'clock in the 
 
 'Morning; and either the Young Widow, or Deaf as a 
 
 ' Post. Ladies (unprofessional) are going to play, for the 
 
 ' first time. I wrote to Mitchell at New York for a wig 
 
 ' for Mr. Snobbington, which has arrived, and is brilliant. 
 
 Proposed ' If they had done Love, Law and PhysicJc, as at first pro- 
 private ... 
 theatricals. ' posed, I was already " up " in Flexible, having played it 
 
 ' of old, before my authorship days ; but if it should be 
 
 ' Splash in the Young Widow, you will have to do me the 
 
 ' favor to imagine me in a smart livery-coat, shiny black 
 
 ' hat and cockade, white knee-cords, white top-boots, blue 
 
 ' stock, small whip, red cheeks and dark eyebrows. Con- 
 
 ' ceive Topping's state of mind if I bring this dress home 
 
 ' and put it on unexpectedly ! . . . God bless you, dear 
 
 ' friend. I can say nothing about the seventh, the day on 
 
 ' which we sail. It is impossible. Words cannot express 
 
 ' what we feel now that the time is so near. . . . .' 
 
 His last letter, dated from 'Peasco's Hotel, Montreal, 
 
 'Canada, twenty-sixth of May,' described the private 
 
 theatricals, and enclosed me a bill of the play. 
 
 * See ante, p. 278. 
 
TwENTT-rouMH.] NIAGARA AND MONTREAL. 395 
 
 ' This, like my last, will be a stupid letter, because both Montreal: 
 "Kate and I are thrown into such a state of excitement by ^^'^^' 
 ' the near approach of the seventh of June, that we can ^\f' 
 ' do nothing, and think of nothing. ''■ ^■ 
 
 c rri, 1 ~, I'S^' letter. 
 
 ihe play came off last night. The audience, between 
 ' five and six hundred strong, were invited as to a party ; 
 'a regular table with refreshments being spread in the 
 'lobby and saloon. "We had the band of the twenty-third The private 
 ' (one of the finest in the service) in the orchestra, the ^ '^^' 
 ' theatre was lighted with gas, the scenery was excellent, 
 ' and the properties were all brought from private houses. 
 'Sir Charles Bagot, Sir Eichard Jackson, and their 
 ' staffs were present ; and as the military portion of the 
 ' audience were all in full uniform, it was really a splendid 
 ' scene. 
 
 ' We " went " also splendidly ; though with nothing very 
 'remarkable in the acting way. We had for Sir Mark 
 ' Chase a genuine odd fish, with plenty of humour ; but 
 ' our Tristram Sappy was not up to the marvellous repu- 
 ' tation he has somehow or other acquired here. I am not 
 'however, let me tell you, placarded as stage-manager 
 'for nothing. Everybody was told they would have to 
 ' submit to the most iron despotism ; and didn't I come 
 ' Macready over them ? Oh no. By no means. Certainly 
 ' not. The pains I have taken with them, and the perspi- 
 ' ration I have expended, during the last ten days, exceed 
 ' in amount anything you can imagine. I had regular plots stage 
 'of the scenery made out, and lists of the properties rep^.^'^ 
 ' wanted ; and had them nailed up by the prompter's chair. 
 ' Every letter that was to be delivered, was written ; every 
 
396 THE LIFE OP CHARLES DICKENS. [Ch, xiiv. 
 
 Montbeal: • piece of money that had to be given, provided; and not a 
 ■ — ^ ' single thing lost sight of. I prompted, myself, when I 
 
 C. D. 
 
 to ' was not on ; when I was, I made the regular prompter 
 J. F. 
 
 ' of the theatre my deputy ; and I never saw anything so 
 
 ' perfectly touch and go, as the first two pieces. The bed- 
 
 ' room scene in the interlude was as well furnished as 
 
 ' Vestris had it ; with a " practicable " fireplace blazing 
 
 ' away like mad, and everything in a concatenation accord- 
 
 ' ingly. I really do believe that I was very funny : at least 
 
 ' I know that I laughed heartily at myself, and made the 
 
 Mr. Snob- ' part a character, such as you and I know very well : a 
 
 bington, 
 
 'mixture of T , Harley, Yates, Keeley, and Jerry 
 
 ' Sneak. It went with a roar, all through ; and, as I am 
 ' closing this, they have told me I was so well made up 
 ' that Sir Charles Bagot, who sat in the stage box, had 
 ' no idea who played Mr. Snobbington, until the piece was 
 ' over. 
 The lady ' But only think of Kate playing ! and playing devilish 
 
 performers. 
 
 ' well, I assure you ! All the ladies were capital, and we 
 ' had no wait or hitch for an instant. You may suppose 
 ' this, when I tell you that we began at eight, and had 
 ' the curtain down at eleven. It is their custom here, to 
 'prevent heartburnings in a very heartburning town, 
 ' whenever they have played in private, to repeat the 
 ' performances in public. So, on Saturday (substituting, 
 ' of course, real actresses for the ladies), we repeat the 
 ' two first pieces to a paying audience, for the manager's 
 'benefit. . . . 
 
 'I send you a bill, to which I have appended a 
 ' key. 
 
IPnfaat^ Cl^^alrkals, 
 
 C OMMITTE E. 
 
 Mrs. TOREENS. I Mrs. PBBEY. 
 
 W. C. ERMATINGER, Esq. | Captain TOEEENS. 
 THE EAEL OF MULGEAVB. 
 
 STAGE MANAGER—MR. CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 QUEEN'S THEATRE, MONTREAL. 
 
 ON WEDNESDAY EVENING, MAY 25th, 1842, 
 "WILL BE PERFORMED, 
 
 A ROLAND FOR AN OLIVER. 
 
 MRS. SELEORNE. ^ '^'T^ ■ 
 
 MARIA DARLINGTON. <!^* fi'''*7r1l^ 
 
 MRS. FIXTURE. -^S^V* In^tnayrZiL^i/i. . 
 
 MR. SELEORNE. ^-cuC 'hu*l«<evti.. 
 
 ALFRED HIGHFLYER.- lu^ cla^MJ A^CKjmJ 
 
 SIR MARK CHASE. /feiyiA<?/fc, %j: hjii^^h4^JU%, 
 
 FIXTURE. Cut^lJtu^ UUe4n<^jUy. 
 
 GAMEKEEPER. Ccujbilu^ S-u^,*MrLUJi^ 
 
 ATTER WHlCn, AN INTERLUDE IN ONE SCENE, (FROM THE FRENCH,) CALLED 
 
 THE STRANGER. CA^avio lia,tv4^S££Aj 
 
 ME. SNOBBINGTON. XAc^xi^^c^ fi~lo^£Ai^ 
 
 TO CONCLnDE WITH THE FARCE, IN ONE ACT, ENTITLED 
 
 MRS. PLUMPLEY. . 4:// JmAt-^U ffUfffl 
 
 AMY TEMPLETON. AiAT tibJUj fi^A^OtnJ 
 
 SOPHY "WALTON. \^^:Af»y. 
 
 SALLY MAGGS. ^- '>y<2dif ^H^i^lo 
 
 CAPTAIN TEMPLETON. — Cei^cujiii Xvu^i^^ 
 
 MR. WALTON. L^v^-^UaaL tiiX£ffiiJ>A^. 
 
 TRISTRAM SAPPY. ^TtM^ ^V^Sw ' 
 
 CRUPPER. T^/''**^'^/^ e 
 
 GALLOP. ~ htP.CHa^Ac4 mcyfOi.M^. 
 
 Montreal, May 24, 1842. gazette opfice. 
 
398 THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS. [Ch. XXIV. 
 
 Montreal: ' I haTe not told you half enough. But I promise you 
 
 1842. 
 
 1 shall make you shake your sides about this play. 
 
 to ' Wasn't it worthy of Crummies that when Lord Mulgrave 
 
 J F 
 
 'and I went out to the door to receive the Govemor- 
 
 ' general, the regular prompter followed us in agony with 
 
 'four tall candlesticks with wax candles in them, and 
 
 A touch of ' besought us with a bleeding heart to carry two apiece, 
 
 Ciammles. 
 
 ' in accordance with all the precedents ? , . . 
 
 ' I have hardly spoken of our letters, which reached us 
 'yesterday, shortly before the play began. A hundred 
 'thousand thanks for your delightful mainsail of that 
 ' gallant little packet. I read it again and again ; and 
 ' had it all over again at breakfast time this morning. I 
 ' heard also, by the same ship, from Talfourd, Miss Coutts, 
 ' Brougham, Rogers, and others. A delicious letter from 
 ' Mac too, as good as his painting I swear. Give my 
 ' hearty love to him. . . . God bless you, my dear friend. 
 ' As the time draws nearer, we get fevered with anxiety 
 ' for home. . . . Kiss our darlings for us. We shall soon 
 ' meet, please God, and be happier and merrier than ever 
 ' we were, in all our lives. . . . Oh home — home — home — 
 ' home— home— home— HOME !!!!!!!!!!!' 
 
 END OF THE FIEST VOLUME. 
 
 IlRADBCJtV, AGXEW, & CO,, PRlKTEKa, WHITEFRIAl-il. 
 
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" \M, 
 
 
 ■iV't.H^