Bright colors were a constant delight to him; and the gay hues of
flowers were those most welcome to his eye. When the rhododendrons were
in bloom in Cobham Park, the seat of his friend and neighbor, Lord
Darnley, he always counted on taking his guests there to enjoy the
magnificent show. He delighted to turn out for the delectation of his
Transatlantic cousins a couple of postilions in the old red jackets of
the old red royal Dover road, making the ride as much as possible like a
holiday drive in England fifty years ago.
When in the mood for humorous characterization, Dickens's hilarity was
most amazing. To hear him tell a ghost story with a very florid
imitation of a very pallid ghost, or hear him sing an old-time stage
song, such as he used to enjoy in his youth at a cheap London theatre,
to see him imitate a lion in a menagerie-cage, or the clown in a
pantomime when he flops and folds himself up like a jack-knife, or to
join with him in some mirthful game of his own composing, was to become
acquainted with one of the most delightful and original companions in
the world.
On one occasion, during a walk with me, he chose to run into the wildest
of vagaries about _conversation_. The ludicrous vein he indulged in
during that two hours' stretch can never be forgotten. Among other
things, he said he had often thought how restricted one's conversation
must become when one was visiting a man who was to be hanged in half an
hour. He went on in a most surprising manner to imagine all sorts of
difficulties in the way of becoming interesting to the poor fellow.
"Suppose," said he, "it should be a rainy morning while you are making
the call, you could not possibly indulge in the remark, 'We shall have
fine weather to-morrow, sir,' for what would that be to him? For my
part, I think," said he, "I should confine my observations to the days
of Julius Caesar or King Alfred."
At another time when speaking of what was constantly said about him in
certain newspapers, he observed: "I notice that about once in every
seven years I become the victim of a paragraph disease. It breaks out in
England, travels to India by the overland route, gets to America per
Cunard line, strikes the base of the Rocky Mountains, and, rebounding
back to Europe, mostly perishes on the steppes of Russia from inanition
and extreme cold." When he felt he was not under observation, and that
tomfoolery would not be frowned upon or gazed at with astonishment, he
gave himself up without reserve to healthy amusement and strengthening
mirth. It was his mission to make people happy. Words of good cheer were
native to his lips, and he was always doing what he could to lighten the
lot of all who came into his beautiful presence. His talk was simple,
natural, and direct, never dropping into circumlocution nor elocution.
Now that he is gone, whoever has known him intimately for any
considerable period of time will linger over his tender regard for, and
his engaging manner with, children; his cheery "Good Day" to poor people
he happened to be passing in the road; his trustful and earnest "Please
God," when he was promising himself any special pleasure, like rejoining
an old friend or returning again to scenes he loved. At such times his
voice had an irresistible pathos in it, and his smile diffused a
sensation like music. When he came into the presence of squalid or
degraded persons, such as one sometimes encounters in almshouses or
prisons, he had such soothing words to scatter here and there, that
those who had been "most hurt by the archers" listened gladly, and loved
him without knowing who it was that found it in his heart to speak so
kindly to them.
Oftentimes during long walks in the streets and by-ways of London, or
through the pleasant Kentish lanes, or among the localities he has
rendered forever famous in his books, I have recalled the sweet words
in which Shakespeare has embalmed one of the characters in Love's
Labor's Lost:--
"A merrier man,
Within the limit of becoming mirth,
I never spent an hour's talk withal:
His eye begets occasion for his wit;
For every object that the one doth catch
The other turns to a mirth-moving jest,
Which his fair tongue, conceit's expositor,
Delivers in such apt and gracious words
That aged ears play truant at his tales,
And younger hearings are quite ravished;
So sweet and voluble is his discourse."
Twenty years ago Daniel Webster said that Dickens had already done more
to ameliorate the condition of the English poor than all the statesmen
Great Britain had sent into Parliament. During the unceasing demands
upon his time and thought, he found opportunities of visiting personally
those haunts of suffering in London which needed the keen eye and
sympathetic heart to bring them before the public for relief. Whoever
has accompanied him, as I have, on his midnight walks into the cheap
lodging-houses provided for London's lowest poor, cannot have failed to
learn lessons never to be forgotten. Newgate and Smithfield were lifted
out of their abominations by his eloquent pen, and many a hospital is
to-day all the better charity for having been visited and watched by
Charles Dickens. To use his own words, through his whole life he did
what he could "to lighten the lot of those rejected ones whom the world
has too long forgotten and too often misused."
These inadequate, and, of necessity, hastily written, records must stand
for what they are worth as personal recollections of the great author
who has made so many millions happy by his inestimable genius and
sympathy. His life will no doubt be written out in full by some
competent hand in England; but however numerous the volumes of his
biography, the half can hardly be told of the good deeds he has
accomplished for his fellow-men.
And who could ever tell, if those volumes were written, of the subtle
qualities of insight and sympathy which rendered him capable of
friendship above most men,--which enabled him to reinstate its ideal,
and made his presence a perpetual joy, and separation from him an
ineffaceable sorrow?