[272] Mr. Marcus Stone had, upon the separate issue of the _Tale of Two

Cities_, taken the place of Mr. Hablot Browne as his illustrator. _Hard

Times_ and the first edition of _Great Expectations_ were not

illustrated; but when Pip's story appeared in one volume, Mr. Stone

contributed designs for it.

[273] He thus spoke of it in his "Postscript in lieu of Preface" (dated

2nd of September 1865), which accompanied the last number of the story

under notice. "On Friday the ninth of June in the present year, Mr. and

Mrs. Boffin (in their manuscript dress of receiving Mr. and Mrs. Lammle

at breakfast) were on the South-Eastern Railway with me, in a terribly

destructive accident. When I had done what I could to help others, I

climbed back into my carriage--nearly turned over a viaduct, and caught

aslant upon the turn--to extricate the worthy couple. They were much

soiled, but otherwise unhurt. The same happy result attended Miss Bella

Wilfer on her wedding-day, and Mr. Riderhood inspecting Bradley

Headstone's red neckerchief as he lay asleep. I remember with devout

thankfulness that I can never be much nearer parting company with my

readers for ever, than I was then, until there shall be written against

my life the two words with which I have this day closed this book--THE

END."

[274] I borrow this language from the Bishop of Manchester, who, on the

third day after Dickens's death, in the Abbey where he was so soon to be

laid, closed a plea for the toleration of differences of opinion where

the foundations of religious truth are accepted, with these words. "It

will not be out of harmony with the line of thought we have been

pursuing--certainly it will be in keeping with the associations of this

place, dear to Englishmen, not only as one of the proudest Christian

temples, but as containing the memorials of so many who by their genius

in arts, or arms, or statesmanship, or literature, have made England

what she is--if in the simplest and briefest words I allude to that sad

and unexpected death which has robbed English literature of one of its

highest living ornaments, and the news of which, two mornings ago, must

have made every household in England feel as though they had lost a

personal friend. He has been called in one notice an apostle of the

people. I suppose it is meant that he had a mission, but in a style and

fashion of his own; a gospel, a cheery, joyous, gladsome message, which

the people understood, and by which they could hardly help being

bettered; for it was the gospel of kindliness, of brotherly love, of

sympathy in the widest sense of the word. I am sure I have felt in

myself the healthful spirit of his teaching. Possibly we might not have

been able to subscribe to the same creed in relation to God, but I think

we should have subscribed to the same creed in relation to man. He who

has taught us our duty to our fellow men better than we knew it before,

who knew so well to weep with them that wept, and to rejoice with them

that rejoiced, who has shown forth in all his knowledge of the dark

corners of the earth how much sunshine may rest upon the lowliest lot,

who had such evident sympathy with suffering, and such a natural

instinct of purity that there is scarcely a page of the thousands he has

written which might not be put into the hands of a little child, must be

regarded by those who recognise the diversity of the gifts of the spirit

as a teacher sent from God. He would have been welcomed as a

fellow-labourer in the common interests of humanity by Him who asked the

question 'If a man love not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he

love God whom he hath not seen?'"

CHAPTER XV.

AMERICA REVISITED: NOVEMBER AND DECEMBER 1867.

1867.

In Boston--Warmth of the Greeting--Old and New

Friends--Changes since 1842--Sale of Tickets in

New York--First Boston Reading--Profits--Scene

at First New York Sales--A Fire at the

Hotel--Increase of New York City--Story of

_Black Crook_--Local and General

Politics--Railway Travelling--Police of New

York--Again in Boston--More Fires--New York

Newspapers generally--Cities chosen for

Readings--The Webster Murder in 1849--Again at

New York--Illness--Mr. Fields's Account of

Dickens while in America--Miseries of American

Travel.

IT is the intention of this and the following chapter to narrate the

incidents of the visit to America in Dickens's own language, and in that

only. They will consist almost exclusively of extracts from his letters

written home, to members of his family and to myself.

On the night of Tuesday the 19th of November he arrived at Boston, where

he took up his residence at the Parker House hotel; and his first letter

(21st) stated that the tickets for the first four Readings, all to that

time issued, had been sold immediately on their becoming saleable. "An

immense train of people waited in the freezing street for twelve hours,

and passed into the office in their turns, as at a French theatre. The

receipts already taken for these nights exceed our calculation by more

than L250." Up to the last moment, he had not been able to clear off

wholly a shade of misgiving that some of the old grudges might make

themselves felt; but from the instant of his setting foot in Boston not

a vestige of such fear remained. The greeting was to the full as

extraordinary as that of twenty-five years before, and was given now, as

then, to the man who had made himself the most popular writer in the

country. His novels and tales were crowding the shelves of all the

dealers in books in all the cities of the Union. In every house, in

every car, on every steamboat, in every theatre of America, the

characters, the fancies, the phraseology of Dickens were become familiar

beyond those of any other writer of books. "Even in England," said one

of the New York journals, "Dickens is less known than here; and of the

millions here who treasure every word he has written, there are tens of

thousands who would make a large sacrifice to see and hear the man who

has made happy so many hours. Whatever sensitiveness there once was to

adverse or sneering criticism, the lapse of a quarter of a century, and

the profound significance of a great war, have modified or removed." The

point was more pithily, and as truly, put by Mr. Horace Greeley in the

_Tribune_. "The fame as a novelist which Mr. Dickens had already created

in America, and which, at the best, has never yielded him anything

particularly munificent or substantial, is become his capital stock in

the present enterprise."

The first Reading was appointed for the second of December, and in the

interval he saw some old friends and made some new ones.[275] Boston he

was fond of comparing to Edinburgh as Edinburgh was in the days when

several dear friends of his own still lived there. Twenty-five years had

changed much in the American city; some genial faces were gone, and on

ground which he had left a swamp he found now the most princely streets;

but there was no abatement of the old warmth of kindness, and, with

every attention and consideration shown to him, there was no intrusion.

He was not at first completely conscious of the change in this respect,

or of the prodigious increase in the size of Boston. But the latter grew

upon him from day to day, and then there was impressed along with it a

contrast to which it was difficult to reconcile himself. Nothing

enchanted him so much as what he again saw of the delightful domestic

life of Cambridge, simple, self-respectful, cordial, and affectionate;

and it seemed impossible to believe that within half an hour's distance

of it should be found what might at any time be witnessed in such hotels

as that which he was staying at: crowds of swaggerers, loafers,

bar-loungers, and dram-drinkers, that seemed to be making up, from day

to day, not the least important-part of the human life of the city. But

no great mercantile resort in the States, such as Boston had now become,

could be without that drawback; and fortunate should we account any

place to be, though even so plague-afflicted, that has yet so near it

the healthier influence of the other life which our older world has

wellnigh lost altogether.

"The city has increased prodigiously in twenty-five years," he wrote to

his daughter Mary. "It has grown more mercantile. It is like Leeds mixed

with Preston, and flavoured with New Brighton. Only, instead of smoke

and fog, there is an exquisitely bright light air." "Cambridge is

exactly as I left it," he wrote to me. "Boston more mercantile, and much

larger. The hotel I formerly stayed at, and thought a very big one, is

now regarded as a very small affair. I do not yet notice--but a day, you

know, is not a long time for observation!--any marked change in

character or habits. In this immense hotel I live very high up, and have

a hot and cold bath in my bed room, with other comforts not in existence

in my former day. The cost of living is enormous." "Two of the staff are

at New York," he wrote to his sister-in-law on the 25th of November,

"where we are at our wits' end how to keep tickets out of the hands of

speculators. We have communications from all parts of the country, but

we take no offer whatever. The young under-graduates of Cambridge have

made a representation to Longfellow that they are 500 strong and cannot

get one ticket. I don't know what is to be done, but I suppose I must

read there, somehow. We are all in the clouds until I shall have broken

ground in New York." The sale of tickets, there, had begun two days

before the first reading in Boston. "At the New York barriers," he wrote

to his daughter on the first of December, "where the tickets were on

sale and the people ranged as at the Paris theatres, speculators went up

and down offering twenty dollars for any body's place. The money was in

no case accepted. But one man sold two tickets for the second, third,

and fourth nights; his payment in exchange being one ticket for the

first night, fifty dollars (about L7 10_s._), and a 'brandy-cocktail.'"

On Monday the second of December he read for the first time in Boston,

his subjects being the _Carol_ and the _Trial from Pickwick_; and his

reception, from an audience than which perhaps none more remarkable

could have been brought together, went beyond all expectations formed.

"It is really impossible," he wrote to me next morning, "to exaggerate

the magnificence of the reception or the effect of the reading. The

whole city will talk of nothing else and hear of nothing else to-day.

Every ticket for those announced here, and in New York, is sold. All are

sold at the highest price, for which in our calculation we made no

allowance; and it is impossible to keep out speculators who immediately

sell at a premium. At the decreased rate of money even, we had above

L450 English in the house last night; and the New York hall holds 500

people more. Everything looks brilliant beyond the most sanguine hopes,

and I was quite as cool last night as though I were reading at Chatham."

The next night he read again; and also on Thursday and Friday; on

Wednesday he had rested; and on Saturday he travelled to New York.

He had written, the day before he left, that he was making a clear

profit of thirteen hundred pounds English a week, even allowing seven

dollars to the pound; but words were added having no good omen in them,

that the weather was taking a turn of even unusual severity, and that he

found the climate, in the suddenness of its changes, "and the wide leaps

they take," excessively trying. "The work is of course rather trying

too; but the sound position that everything must be subservient to it

enables me to keep aloof from invitations. To-morrow," ran the close of

the letter, "we move to New York. We cannot beat the speculators in our

tickets. We sell no more than six to any one person for the course of

four readings; but these speculators, who sell at greatly increased

prices and make large profits, will employ any number of men to buy. One

of the chief of them--now living in this house, in order that he may

move as we move!--can put on 50 people in any place we go to; and thus

he gets 300 tickets into his own hands." Almost while Dickens was

writing these words an eye-witness was describing to a Philadelphia

paper the sale of the New York tickets. The pay-place was to open at

nine on a Wednesday morning, and at midnight of Tuesday a long line of

speculators were assembled in _queue_; at two in the morning a few

honest buyers had begun to arrive; at five there were, of all classes,

two lines of not less than 800 each; at eight there were at least 5000

persons in the two lines; at nine each line was more than three-quarters

of a mile in length, and neither became sensibly shorter during the

whole morning. "The tickets for the course were all sold before noon.

Members of families relieved each other in the _queues_; waiters flew

across the streets and squares from the neighbouring restaurant, to

serve parties who were taking their breakfast in the open December air;

while excited men offered five and ten dollars for the mere permission

to exchange places with other persons standing nearer the head of the

line!"

The effect of the reading in New York corresponded with this marvellous

preparation, and Dickens characterised his audience as an unexpected

support to him; in its appreciation quick and unfailing, and highly

demonstrative in its satisfactions. On the 11th of December he wrote to

his daughter: "Amazing success. A very fine audience, far better than at

Boston. _Carol_ and _Trial_ on first night, great: still greater,

_Copperfield_ and _Bob Sawyer_ on second. For the tickets of the four

readings of next week there were, at nine o'clock this morning, 3000

people in waiting, and they had begun to assemble in the bitter cold as

early as two o'clock in the morning." To myself he wrote on the 15th,

adding touches to the curious picture. "Dolby has got into trouble about

the manner of issuing the tickets for next week's series. He cannot get

four thousand people into a room holding only two thousand, he cannot

induce people to pay at the ordinary price for themselves instead of

giving thrice as much to speculators, and he is attacked in all

directions . . . I don't much like my hall, for it has two large

balconies far removed from the platform; but no one ever waylays me as I

go into it or come out of it, and it is kept as rigidly quiet as the

Francais at a rehearsal. We have not yet had in it less than L430 per

night, allowing for the depreciated currency! I send L3000 to England by

this packet. From all parts of the States, applications and offers

continually come in. We go to Boston next Saturday for two more

readings, and come back here on Christmas Day for four more. I am not

yet bound to go elsewhere, except three times (each time for two nights)

to Philadelphia; thinking it wisest to keep free for the largest places.

I have had an action brought against me by a man who considered himself

injured (and really may have been) in the matter of his tickets.

Personal service being necessary, I was politely waited on by a marshal

for that purpose; whom I received with the greatest courtesy, apparently

very much to his amazement. The action was handsomely withdrawn next

day, and the plaintiff paid his own costs. . . . Dolby hopes you are

satisfied with the figures so far; the profit each night exceeding the

estimated profit by L130 odd. He is anxious I should also tell you that

he is the most unpopular and best-abused man in America." Next day a

letter to his sister-in-law related an incident too common in American

cities to disconcert any but strangers. He had lodged himself, I should

have said, at the Westminster Hotel in Irving Place. "Last night I was

getting into bed just at 12 o'clock, when Dolby came to my door to

inform me that the house was on fire. I got Scott up directly; told him

first to pack the books and clothes for the Readings; dressed, and

pocketed my jewels and papers; while the manager stuffed himself out

with money. Meanwhile the police and firemen were in the house tracing

the mischief to its source in a certain fire-grate. By this time the

hose was laid all through from a great tank on the roof, and everybody

turned out to help. It was the oddest sight, and people had put the

strangest things on! After chopping and cutting with axes through

stairs, and much handing about of water, the fire was confined to a

dining-room in which it had originated; and then everybody talked to

everybody else, the ladies being particularly loquacious and cheerful. I

may remark that the second landlord (from both, but especially the

first, I have had untiring attention) no sooner saw me on this agitating

occasion, than, with his property blazing, he insisted on taking me down

into a room full of hot smoke, to drink brandy and water with him! And

so we got to bed again about 2."

Dickens had been a week in New York before he was able to identify the

great city which a lapse of twenty-five years had so prodigiously

increased. "The only portion that has even now come back to me," he

wrote, "is the part of Broadway in which the Carlton Hotel (long since

destroyed) used to stand. There is a very fine new park in the

outskirts, and the number of grand houses and splendid equipages is

quite surprising. There are hotels close here with 500 bedrooms and I

don't know how many boarders; but this hotel is quite as quiet as, and

not much larger than, Mivart's in Brook Street. My rooms are all en

suite, and I come and go by a private door and private staircase

communicating with my bed-room. The waiters are French, and one might be

living in Paris. One of the two proprietors is also proprietor of

Niblo's Theatre, and the greatest care is taken of me. Niblo's great

attraction, the _Black Crook_, has now been played every night for 16

months(!), and is the most preposterous peg to hang ballets on that was

ever seen. The people who act in it have not the slightest idea of what

it is about, and never had; but, after taxing my intellectual powers to

the utmost, I fancy that I have discovered Black Crook to be a malignant

hunchback leagued with the Powers of Darkness to separate two lovers;

and that the Powers of Lightness coming (in no skirts whatever) to the

rescue, he is defeated. I am quite serious in saying that I do not

suppose there are two pages of _All the Year Round_ in the whole piece

(which acts all night); the whole of the rest of it being ballets of all

sorts, perfectly unaccountable processions, and the Donkey out of last

year's Covent Garden pantomime! At the other theatres, comic operas,

melodramas, and domestic dramas prevail all over the city, and my

stories play no inconsiderable part in them. I go nowhere, having laid

down the rule that to combine visiting with my work would be absolutely

impossible. . . . The Fenian explosion at Clerkenwell was telegraphed here

in a few hours. I do not think there is any sympathy whatever with the

Fenians on the part of the American people, though political

adventurers may make capital out of a show of it. But no doubt large

sections of the Irish population of this State are themselves Fenian;

and the local politics of the place are in a most depraved condition, if

half of what is said to me be true. I prefer not to talk of these

things, but at odd intervals I look round for myself. Great social

improvements in respect of manners and forbearance have come to pass

since I was here before, but in public life I see as yet but little

change."

He had got through half of his first New York readings when a winter

storm came on, and from this time until very near his return the

severity of the weather was exceptional even for America. When the first

snow fell, the railways were closed for some days; and he described New

York crowded with sleighs, and the snow piled up in enormous walls the

whole length of the streets. "I turned out in a rather gorgeous sleigh

yesterday with any quantity of buffalo robes, and made an imposing

appearance." "If you were to behold me driving out," he wrote to his

daughter, "furred up to the moustache, with an immense white

red-and-yellow-striped rug for a covering, you would suppose me to be of

Hungarian or Polish nationality." These protections nevertheless availed

him little; and when the time came for getting back to Boston, he found

himself at the close of his journey with a cold and cough that never

again left him until he had quitted the country, and of which the

effects became more and more disastrous. For the present there was

little allusion to this, his belief at the first being strong that he

should overmaster it; but it soon forced itself into all his letters.

His railway journey otherwise had not been agreeable. "The railways are

truly alarming. Much worse (because more worn I suppose) than when I was

here before. We were beaten about yesterday, as if we had been aboard

the Cuba. Two rivers have to be crossed, and each time the whole train

is banged aboard a big steamer. The steamer rises and falls with the

river, which the railroad don't do; and the train is either banged up

hill or banged down hill. In coming off the steamer at one of these

crossings yesterday, we were banged up such a height that the rope

broke, and one carriage rushed back with a run down-hill into the boat

again. I whisked out in a moment, and two or three others after me; but

nobody else seemed to care about it. The treatment of the luggage is

perfectly outrageous. Nearly every case I have is already broken. When

we started from Boston yesterday, I beheld, to my unspeakable amazement,

Scott, my dresser, leaning a flushed countenance against the wall of the

car, and _weeping bitterly_. It was over my smashed writing-desk. Yet

the arrangements for luggage are excellent, if the porters would not be

beyond description reckless." The same excellence of provision, and

flinging away of its advantages, are observed in connection with another

subject in the same letter. "The halls are excellent. Imagine one

holding two thousand people, seated with exact equality for every one of

them, and every one seated separately. I have nowhere, at home or

abroad, seen so fine a police as the police of New York; and their

bearing in the streets is above all praise. On the other hand, the laws

for regulation of public vehicles, clearing of streets, and removal of

obstructions, are wildly outraged by the people for whose benefit they

are intended. Yet there is undoubtedly improvement in every direction,

and I am taking time to make up my mind on things in general. Let me add

that I have been tempted out at three in the morning to visit one of the

large police station-houses, and was so fascinated by the study of a

horrible photograph-book of thieves' portraits that I couldn't shut it

up."

A letter of the same date (22nd) to his sister-in-law told of personal

attentions awaiting him on his return to Boston by which he was greatly

touched. He found his rooms garnished with flowers and holly, with real

red berries, and with festoons of moss; and the homely Christmas look of

the place quite affected him. "There is a certain Captain Dolliver

belonging to the Boston custom-house, who came off in the little steamer

that brought me ashore from the Cuba; and he took it into his head that

he would have a piece of English mistletoe brought out in this week's

Cunard, which should be laid upon my breakfast-table. And there it was

this morning. In such affectionate touches as this, these New England

people are especially amiable. . . . As a general rule you may lay it down

that whatever you see about me in the papers is not true; but you may

generally lend a more believing ear to the Philadelphia correspondent of

the _Times_, a well-informed gentleman. Our hotel in New York was on

fire again the other night. But fires in this country are quite matters

of course. There was a large one in Boston at four this morning; and I

don't think a single night has passed, since I have been under the

protection of the Eagle, that I have not heard the Fire Bells dolefully

clanging all over both cities." The violent abuse of his manager by

portions of the press is the subject of the rest of the letter, and

receives farther illustration in one of the same date to me. "A good

specimen of the sort of newspaper you and I know something of, came out

in Boston here this morning. The editor had applied for our

advertisements, saying that 'it was at Mr. D's disposal for paragraphs.'

The advertisements were not sent; Dolby did not enrich its columns

paragraphically; and among its news to-day is the item that 'this chap

calling himself Dolby got drunk down town last night, and was taken to

the police station for fighting an Irishman!' I am sorry to say that I

don't find anybody to be much shocked by this liveliness." It is right

to add what was said to me a few days later. "The _Tribune_ is an

excellent paper. Horace Greeley is editor in chief, and a considerable

shareholder too. All the people connected with it whom I have seen are

of the best class. It is also, a very fine property--but here the _New

York Herald_ beats it hollow, hollow, hollow! Another able and well

edited paper is the _New York Times_. A most respectable journal too is

Bryant's _Evening Post_, excellently written. There is generally a much

more responsible and respectable tone than prevailed formerly, however

small may be the literary merit, among papers pointed out to me as of

large circulation. In much of the writing there is certainly

improvement, but it might be more widely spread."

The time had now come when the course his Readings were to take

independently of the two leading cities must be settled, and the general

tour made out. His agent's original plan was that they should be in New

York every week. "But I say No. By the 10th of January I shall have read

to 35,000 people in that city alone. Put the readings out of the reach

of all the people behind them, for the time. It is that one of the

popular peculiarities which I most particularly notice, that they must

not have a thing too easily. Nothing in the country lasts long; and a

thing is prized the more, the less easy it is made. Reflecting therefore

that I shall want to close, in April, with farewell readings here and in

New York, I am convinced that the crush and pressure upon these

necessary to their adequate success is only to be got by absence; and

that the best thing I can do is not to give either city as much reading

as it wants now, but to be independent of both while both are most

enthusiastic. I have therefore resolved presently to announce in New

York so many readings (I mean a certain number) as the last that can be

given there, before I travel to promised places; and that we select the

best places, with the largest halls, on our list. This will include,

East here--the two or three best New England towns; South--Baltimore and

Washington; West--Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Chicago, and St. Louis; and

towards Niagara--Cleveland and Buffalo. Philadelphia we are already

pledged to, for six nights; and the scheme will pretty easily bring us

here again twice before the farewells. I feel convinced that this is the

sound policy." (It was afterwards a little modified, as will be seen, by

public occurrences and his own condition of health; the West, as well

as a promise to Canada, having to be abandoned; but otherwise it was

carried out.) "I read here to-morrow and Tuesday; all tickets being sold

to the end of the series, even for subjects not announced. I have not

read a single time at a lower clear profit per night (all deductions

made) than L315. But rely upon it I shall take great care not to read

oftener than four times a week--after this next week, when I stand

committed to five. The inevitable tendency of the staff, when these

great houses excite them, is, in the words of an old friend of ours, to

'hurge the hartist hon;' and a night or two ago I had to cut away five

readings from _their_ list."

An incident at Boston should have mention before he resumes his readings

in New York. In the interval since he was first in America, the Harvard

professor of chemistry, Dr. Webster, whom he had at that visit met among

the honoured men who held chairs in their Cambridge University, had been

hanged for the murder, committed in his laboratory in the college, of a

friend who had lent him money, portions of whose body lay concealed

under the lid of the lecture-room table where the murderer continued to

meet his students. "Being in Cambridge," Dickens wrote to Lord Lytton,

"I thought I would go over the Medical School, and see the exact

localities where Professor Webster did that amazing murder, and worked

so hard to rid himself of the body of the murdered man. (I find there is

of course no rational doubt that the Professor was always a secretly

cruel man.) They were horribly grim, private, cold, and quiet; the

identical furnace smelling fearfully (some anatomical broth in it I

suppose) as if the body were still there; jars of pieces of sour

mortality standing about, like the forty robbers in _Ali Baba_ after

being scalded to death; and bodies near us ready to be carried in to

next morning's lecture. At the house where I afterwards dined I heard an

amazing and fearful story; told by one who had been at a dinner-party of

ten or a dozen, at Webster's, less than a year before the murder. They

began rather uncomfortably, in consequence of one of the guests (the

victim of an instinctive antipathy) starting up with the sweat pouring

down his face, and crying out, 'O Heaven! There's a cat somewhere in the

room!' The cat was found and ejected, but they didn't get on very well.

Left with their wine, they were getting on a little better; when Webster

suddenly told the servants to turn the gas off and bring in that bowl of

burning minerals which he had prepared, in order that the company might

see how ghastly they looked by its weird light. All this was done, and

every man was looking, horror-stricken, at his neighbour; when Webster

was seen bending over the bowl with a rope round his neck, holding up

the end of the rope, with his head on one side and his tongue lolled

out, to represent a hanged man!"

Dickens read at Boston on the 23rd and the 24th of December, and on

Christmas day travelled back to New York where he was to read on the

26th. The last words written before he left were of illness. "The low

action of the heart, or whatever it is, has inconvenienced me greatly

this last week. On Monday night, after the reading, I was laid upon a

bed, in a very faint and shady state; and on the Tuesday I did not get

up till the afternoon." But what in reality was less grave took

outwardly the form of a greater distress; and the effects of the cold

which had struck him in travelling to Boston, as yet not known to his

English friends, appear most to have alarmed those about him. I depart

from my rule in this narrative, otherwise strictly observed, in singling

out one of those friends for mention by name: but a business connection

with the Readings, as well as untiring offices of personal kindness and

sympathy, threw Mr. Fields into closer relations with Dickens from

arrival to departure, than any other person had; and his description of

the condition of health in which Dickens now quitted Boston and went

through the rest of the labour he had undertaken, will be a sad though

fit prelude to what the following chapter has to tell. "He went from

Boston to New York carrying with him a severe catarrh contracted in our

climate. He was quite ill from the effects of the disease; but he fought

courageously against them. . . . His spirit was wonderful, and, although he

lost all appetite and could partake of very little food, he was always

cheerful and ready for his work when the evening came round. A dinner

was tendered to him by some of his literary friends in Boston; but he

was so ill the day before that the banquet had to be given up. The

strain upon his strength and nerves was very great during all the months

he remained, and only a man of iron will could have accomplished what he

did. He was accustomed to talk and write a good deal about eating and

drinking, but I have rarely seen a man eat and drink less. He liked to

dilate in imagination over the brewing of a bowl of punch, but when the

punch was ready he drank less of it than any one who might be present.

It was the sentiment of the thing and not the thing itself that engaged

his attention. I scarcely saw him eat a hearty meal during his whole

stay. Both at Parker's hotel in Boston, and at the Westminster in New

York, everything was arranged by the proprietors for his comfort, and

tempting dishes to pique his invalid appetite were sent up at different

hours of the day; but the influenza had seized him with masterful power,

and held the strong man down till he left the country."

When he arrived in New York on the evening of Christmas Day he found a

letter from his daughter. Answering her next day he told her: "I wanted

it much, for I had a frightful cold (English colds are nothing to those

of this country) and was very miserable. . . . It is a bad country to be

unwell and travelling in. You are one of, say, a hundred people in a

heated car with a great stove in it, all the little windows being

closed; and the bumping and banging about are indescribable, the

atmosphere detestable, the ordinary motion all but intolerable." The

following day this addition was made to the letter. "I managed to read

last night, but it was as much as I could do. To-day I am so very unwell

that I have sent for a doctor. He has just been, and is in doubt whether

I shall not have to stop reading for a while."

His stronger will prevailed, and he went on without stopping. On the

last day of the year he announced to us that though he had been very low

he was getting right again; that in a couple of days he should have

accomplished a fourth of the entire Readings; and that the first month

of the new year would see him through Philadelphia and Baltimore, as

well as through two more nights in Boston. He also prepared his English

friends for the startling intelligence they might shortly expect, of

four readings coming off in a church, before an audience of two thousand

people accommodated in pews, and with himself emerging from a vestry.

FOOTNOTES:

[275] Among these I think he was most delighted with the great

naturalist and philosopher, Agassiz, whose death is unhappily announced

while I write, and as to whom it will no longer be unbecoming to quote

his allusion. "Agassiz, who married the last Mrs. Felton's sister, is

not only one of the most accomplished but the most natural and jovial of

men." Again he says: "I cannot tell you how pleased I was by Agassiz, a

most charming fellow, or how I have regretted his seclusion for a while

by reason of his mother's death." A valued correspondent, Mr. Grant

Wilson, sends me a list of famous Americans who greeted Dickens at his

first visit, and in the interval had passed away. "It is melancholy to

contemplate the large number of American authors who had, between the

first and second visits of Mr. Dickens, 'gone hence, to be no more

seen.' The sturdy Cooper, the gentle Irving, his friend and kinsman

Paulding, Prescott the historian and Percival the poet, the eloquent

Everett, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar A. Poe, N. P. Willis, the genial

Halleck, and many lesser lights, including Prof. Felton and Geo. P.

Morris, had died during the quarter of a century that elapsed between

Dickens's visits to this country, leaving a new generation of writers to

extend the hand of friendship to him on his second coming."--Let me add

to this that Dickens was pleased, at this second visit, to see his old

secretary who had travelled so agreeably with him through his first tour

of triumph. "He would have known him anywhere."

CHAPTER XVI.

AMERICA REVISITED: JANUARY TO APRIL 1868.

1868.

Speculators and the Public--Republican

Self-help--Receipts affected by

Speculators--Again at Boston--Hit of _Marigold_

and of _Boots at Holly Tree_--Chapel Readings

at Brooklyn--Energy of New York Speculators--At

Philadelphia--Irish Element in New

York--Improved Social Ways--Result of

Thirty-four Readings--Shadow to the

Sunshine--Arrangements for Washington--At

Baltimore--Success in Philadelphia--Value of a

Vote--Objections to Coloured People--At

Washington--With Sumner and Stanton--Lincoln's

last Cabinet Council--Lincoln's

Dream--Interview with President

Johnson--Incident at First Reading--One of the

Audience--A Day at the Readings--Proposed

Walking-match--In his Hotel at

Philadelphia--Providence and New

Haven--North-west Tour--President's

Impeachment--Political Excitement--Boston

Audiences--Struggle for Tickets in Remote

Places--At Rochester--At Syracuse and

Buffalo--American Female Beauty--Suspension

Bridge at Niagara--Final Impression of the

Falls--At Utica--Reading at Albany--New England

Engagements--Again attacked by

Lameness--Reading at New Bedford--"Nearly used

up"--Farewell Readings--Last Boston

Readings--New York Farewells--Receipts

throughout--Public Dinner to Dickens.

THE Reading on the third of January closed a fourth of the entire

series, and on that day Dickens wrote of the trouble brought on them by

the "speculators," which to some extent had affected unfavourably the

three previous nights in New York. When adventurers buy up the best

places, the public resent it by refusing the worst; to prevent it by

first helping themselves, being the last thing they ever think of doing.

"We try to withhold the best seats from the speculators, but the

unaccountable thing is that the great mass of the public buy of them

(prefer it), and the rest of the public are injured if we have not got

those very seats to sell them. We have now a travelling staff of six

men, in spite of which Dolby, who is leaving me to-day to sell tickets

in Philadelphia to-morrow morning, will no doubt get into a tempest of

difficulties. Of course also, in such a matter, as many obstacles as

possible are thrown in an Englishman's way; and he may himself be a

little injudicious into the bargain. Last night, for instance, he met

one of the 'ushers' (who show people to their seats) coming in with one

of our men. It is against orders that any one employed in front should

go out during the reading, and he took this man to task in the British

manner. Instantly, the free and independent usher put on his hat and

walked off. Seeing which, all the other free and independent ushers

(some 20 in number) put on _their_ hats and walked off; leaving us

absolutely devoid and destitute of a staff for to-night. One has since

been improvised: but it was a small matter to raise a stir and ill-will

about, especially as one of our men was equally in fault; and really

there is little to be done at night. American people are so accustomed

to take care of themselves, that one of these immense audiences will

fall into their places with an ease amazing to a frequenter of St.

James's Hall; and the certainty with which they are all in, before I go

on, is a very acceptable mark of respect. Our great labour is outside;

and we have been obliged to bring our staff up to six, besides a boy or

two, by employment of a regular additional clerk, a Bostonian. The

speculators buying the front-seats (we have found instances of this

being done by merchants in good position), the public won't have the

back seats; return their tickets; write and print volumes on the

subject; and deter others from coming. You are not to suppose that this

prevails to any great extent, as our lowest house here has been L300;

but it does hit us. There is no doubt about it. Fortunately I saw the

danger when the trouble began, and changed the list at the right

time. . . . You may get an idea of the staff's work, by what is in hand

now. They are preparing, numbering, and stamping, 6000 tickets for

Philadelphia, and 8000 tickets for Brooklyn. The moment those are done,

another 8000 tickets will be wanted for Baltimore, and probably another

6000 for Washington; and all this in addition to the correspondence,

advertisements, accounts, travelling, and the nightly business of the

Readings four times a week. . . . I cannot get rid of this intolerable

cold! My landlord invented for me a drink of brandy, rum, and snow,

called it a 'Rocky Mountain Sneezer,' and said it was to put down all

less effectual sneezing; but it has not yet had the effect. Did I tell

you that the favourite drink before you get up is an Eye-Opener? There

has been another fall of snow, succeeded by a heavy thaw."

The day after (the 4th) he went back to Boston, and next day wrote to

me: "I am to read here on Monday and Tuesday, return to New York on

Wednesday, and finish there (except the farewells in April) on Thursday

and Friday. The New York reading of _Doctor Marigold_ made really a

tremendous hit. The people doubted at first, having evidently not the

least idea what could be done with it, and broke out at last into a

perfect chorus of delight. At the end they made a great shout, and gave

a rush towards the platform as if they were going to carry me off. It

puts a strong additional arrow into my quiver. Another extraordinary

success has been _Nickleby_ and _Boots at the Holly Tree_ (appreciated

here in Boston, by the bye, even more than _Copperfield_); and think of

our last New York night bringing L500 English into the house, after

making more than the necessary deduction for the present price of gold!

The manager is always going about with an immense bundle that looks like

a sofa-cushion, but is in reality paper-money, and it had risen to the

proportions of a sofa on the morning he left for Philadelphia. Well, the

work is hard, the climate is hard, the life is hard: but so far the gain

is enormous. My cold steadily refuses to stir an inch. It distresses me

greatly at times, though it is always good enough to leave me for the

needful two hours. I have tried allopathy, homoeopathy, cold things,

warm things, sweet things, bitter things, stimulants, narcotics, all

with the same result. Nothing will touch it."

In the same letter, light was thrown on the ecclesiastical mystery. "At

Brooklyn I am going to read in Mr. Ward Beecher's chapel: the only

building there available for the purpose. You must understand that

Brooklyn is a kind of sleeping-place for New York, and is supposed to be

a great place in the money way. We let the seats pew by pew! the pulpit

is taken down for my screen and gas! and I appear out of the vestry in

canonical form! These ecclesiastical entertainments come off on the

evenings of the 16th, 17th, 20th, and 21st, of the present month." His

first letter after returning to New York (9th of January) made additions

to the Brooklyn picture. "Each evening an enormous ferry-boat will

convey me and my state-carriage (not to mention half a dozen wagons and

any number of people and a few score of horses) across the river to

Brooklyn, and will bring me back again. The sale of tickets there was an

amazing scene. The noble army of speculators are now furnished (this is

literally true, and I am quite serious) each man with a straw mattress,

a little bag of bread and meat, two blankets, and a bottle of whiskey.

With this outfit, _they lie down in line on the pavement_ the whole of

the night before the tickets are sold: generally taking up their

position at about 10. It being severely cold at Brooklyn, they made an

immense bonfire in the street--a narrow street of wooden houses--which

the police turned out to extinguish. A general fight then took place;

from which the people farthest off in the line rushed bleeding when they

saw any chance of ousting others nearer the door, put their mattresses

in the spots so gained, and held on by the iron rails. At 8 in the

morning Dolby appeared with the tickets in a portmanteau. He was

immediately saluted with a roar of Halloa! Dolby! So Charley has let you

have the carriage, has he, Dolby? How is he, Dolby? Don't drop the

tickets, Dolby! Look alive, Dolby! &c. &c. &c. in the midst of which he

proceeded to business, and concluded (as usual) by giving universal

dissatisfaction. He is now going off upon a little journey to look over

the ground and cut back again. This little journey (to Chicago) is

twelve hundred miles on end, by railway, besides the back again!" It

might tax the Englishman, but was nothing to the native American. It was

part of his New York landlord's ordinary life in a week, Dickens told

me, to go to Chicago and look at his theatre there on a Monday; to pelt

back to Boston and look at his theatre there on a Thursday; and to come

rushing to New York on a Friday, to apostrophize his enormous ballet.

Three days later, still at New York, he wrote to his sister-in-law. "I

am off to Philadelphia this evening for the first of three visits of two

nights each, tickets for all being sold. My cold steadily refuses to

leave me, but otherwise I am as well as I can hope to be under this

heavy work. My New York readings are over (except the farewell nights),

and I look forward to the relief of being out of my hardest hall. On

Friday I was again dead beat at the end, and was once more laid upon a

sofa. But the faintness went off after a little while. We have now cold

bright frosty weather, without snow; the best weather for me." Next day

from Philadelphia he wrote to his daughter that he was lodged in The

Continental, one of the most immense of American hotels, but that he

found himself just as quiet as elsewhere. "Everything is very good, my

waiter is German, and the greater part of the servants seem to be

coloured people. The town is very clean, and the day as blue and bright

as a fine Italian day. But it freezes very very hard, and my cold is not

improved; for the cars were so intolerably hot that I was often obliged

to stand upon the brake outside, and then the frosty air bit me indeed.

I find it necessary (so oppressed am I with this American catarrh as

they call it) to dine at three o'clock instead of four, that I may have

more time to get voice; so that the days are cut short and

letter-writing not easy."

He nevertheless found time in this city to write to me (14th of January)

the most interesting mention he had yet made of such opinions as he had

been able to form during his present visit, apart from the pursuit that

absorbed him. Of such of those opinions as were given on a former page,

it is only necessary to repeat that while the tone of party politics

still impressed him unfavourably, he had thus far seen everywhere great

changes for the better socially. I will add other points from the same

letter. That he was unfortunate in his time of visiting New York, as far

as its politics were concerned, what has since happened conclusively

shows. "The Irish element is acquiring such enormous influence in New

York city, that when I think of it, and see the large Roman Catholic

cathedral rising there, it seems unfair to stigmatise as 'American'

other monstrous things that one also sees. But the general corruption in

respect of the local funds appears to be stupendous, and there is an

alarming thing as to some of the courts of law which I am afraid is

native-born. A case came under my notice the other day in which it was

perfectly plain, from what was said to me by a person interested in

resisting an injunction, that his first proceeding had been to 'look up

the Judge.'" Of such occasional provincial oddity, harmless in itself

but strange in large cities, as he noticed in the sort of half

disappointment at the small fuss made by himself about the Readings, and

in the newspaper references to "Mr. Dickens's extraordinary composure"

on the platform, he gives an illustration. "Last night here in

Philadelphia (my first night), a very impressible and responsive

audience were so astounded by my simply walking in and opening my book

that I wondered what was the matter. They evidently thought that there

ought to have been a flourish, and Dolby sent in to prepare for me. With

them it is the simplicity of the operation that raises wonder. With the

newspapers 'Mr. Dickens's extraordinary composure' is not reasoned out

as being necessary to the art of the thing, but is sensitively watched

with a lurking doubt whether it may not imply disparagement of the

audience. Both these things strike me as drolly expressive.". . .

His testimony as to improved social habits and ways was expressed very

decidedly. "I think it reasonable to expect that as I go westward, I

shall find the old manners going on before me, and may tread upon their

skirts mayhap. But so far, I have had no more intrusion or boredom than

I have when I lead the same life in England. I write this in an immense

hotel, but I am as much at peace in my own rooms, and am left as wholly

undisturbed, as if I were at the Station Hotel in York. I have now read

in New York city to 40,000 people, and am quite as well known in the

streets there as I am in London. People will turn back, turn again and

face me, and have a look at me, or will say to one another 'Look here!

Dickens coming!' But no one ever stops me or addresses me. Sitting

reading in the carriage outside the New York post-office while one of

the staff was stamping the letters inside, I became conscious that a few

people who had been looking at the turn-out had discovered me within.

On my peeping out good-humouredly, one of them (I should say a

merchant's book-keeper) stepped up to the door, took off his hat, and

said in a frank way: 'Mr. Dickens, I should very much like to have the

honour of shaking hands with you'--and, that done, presented two others.

Nothing could be more quiet or less intrusive. In the railway cars, if I

see anybody who clearly wants to speak to me, I usually anticipate the

wish by speaking myself. If I am standing on the brake outside (to avoid

the intolerable stove), people getting down will say with a smile: 'As I

am taking my departure, Mr. Dickens, and can't trouble you for more than

a moment, I should like to take you by the hand sir.' And so we shake

hands and go our ways. . . . Of course many of my impressions come through

the readings. Thus I find the people lighter and more humorous than

formerly; and there must be a great deal of innocent imagination among

every class, or they never could pet with such extraordinary pleasure as

they do, the Boots' story of the elopement of the two little children.

They seem to see the children; and the women set up a shrill

undercurrent of half-pity and half-pleasure that is quite affecting.

To-night's reading is my 26th; but as all the Philadelphia tickets for

four more are sold, as well as four at Brooklyn, you must assume that I

am at--say--my 35th reading. I have remitted to Coutts's in English gold

L10,000 odd; and I roughly calculate that on this number Dolby will have

another thousand pounds profit to pay me. These figures are of course

between ourselves, at present; but are they not magnificent? The

expenses, always recollect, are enormous. On the other hand we never

have occasion to print a bill of any sort (bill-printing and posting are

great charges at home); and have just now sold off L90 worth of

bill-paper, provided beforehand, as a wholly useless incumbrance."

Then came, as ever, the constant shadow that still attended him, the

slave in the chariot of his triumph. "The work is very severe. There is

now no chance of my being rid of this American catarrh until I embark

for England. It is very distressing. It likewise happens, not seldom,

that I am so dead beat when I come off that they lay me down on a sofa

after I have been washed and dressed, and I lie there, extremely faint,

for a quarter of an hour. In that time I rally and come right." One week

later from New York, where he had become due on the 16th for the first

of his four Brooklyn readings, he wrote to his sister-in-law. "My cold

sticks to me, and I can scarcely exaggerate what I undergo from

sleeplessness. I rarely take any breakfast but an egg and a cup of

tea--not even toast or bread and butter. My small dinner at 3, and a

little quail or some such light thing when I come home at night, is my

daily fare; and at the hall I have established the custom of taking an

egg beaten up in sherry before going in, and another between the parts,

which I think pulls me up. . . . It is snowing hard now, and I begin to

move to-morrow. There is so much floating ice in the river, that we are

obliged to have a pretty wide margin of time for getting over the ferry

to read." The last of the readings over the ferry was on the day when

this letter was written. "I finished at my church to-night. It is Mrs.

Stowe's brother's, and a most wonderful place to speak in. We had it

enormously full last night (_Marigold_ and _Trial_), but it scarcely

required an effort. Mr. Ward Beecher being present in his pew, I sent to

invite him to come round before he left. I found him to be an

unostentatious, evidently able, straightforward, and agreeable man;

extremely well-informed, and with a good knowledge of art."

Baltimore and Washington were the cities in which he was now, on

quitting New York, to read for the first time; and as to the latter some

doubts arose. The exceptional course had been taken in regard to it, of

selecting a hall with space for not more than 700 and charging everybody

five dollars; to which Dickens, at first greatly opposed, had yielded

upon use of the argument, "you have more people at New York, thanks to

the speculators, paying more than five dollars every night." But now

other suggestions came. "Horace Greeley dined with me last Saturday," he

wrote on the 20th, "and didn't like my going to Washington, now full of

the greatest rowdies and worst kind of people in the States. Last night

at eleven came B. expressing like doubts; and though they may be absurd

I thought them worth attention, B. coming so close on Greeley." Mr.

Dolby was in consequence sent express to Washington with power to

withdraw or go on, as enquiry on the spot might dictate; and Dickens

took the additional resolve so far to modify the last arrangements of

his tour as to avoid the distances of Chicago, St. Louis, and

Cincinnati, to content himself with smaller places and profits, and

thereby to get home nearly a month earlier. He was at Philadelphia on

the 23rd of January, when he announced this intention. "The worst of it

is, that everybody one advises with has a monomania respecting Chicago.

'Good heavens sir,' the great Philadelphia authority said to me this

morning, 'if you don't read in Chicago the people will go into fits!'

Well, I answered, I would rather they went into fits than I did. But he

didn't seem to see it at all."

From Baltimore he wrote to his sister-in-law on the 29th, in the hour's

interval he had to spare before going back to Philadelphia. "It has been

snowing hard for four and twenty hours--though this place is as far

south as Valentia in Spain; and my manager, being on his way to New

York, has a good chance of being snowed up somewhere. This is one of the

places where Butler carried it with a high hand during the war, and

where the ladies used to spit when they passed a Northern soldier. They

are very handsome women, with an Eastern touch in them, and dress

brilliantly. I have rarely seen so many fine faces in an audience. They

are a bright responsive people likewise, and very pleasant to read to.

My hall is a charming little opera house built by a society of Germans;

quite a delightful place for the purpose. I stand on the stage, with the

drop curtain down, and my screen before it. The whole scene is very

pretty and complete, and the audience have a 'ring' in them that sounds

deeper than the ear. I go from here to Philadelphia, to read to-morrow

night and Friday; come through here again on Saturday on my way back to

Washington; come back here on Saturday week for two finishing nights;

then go to Philadelphia for two farewells--and so turn my back on the

southern part of the country. Our new plan will give 82 readings in

all." (The real number was 76, six having been dropped on subsequent

political excitements.) "Of course I afterwards discovered that we had

finally settled the list on a Friday. I shall be halfway through it at

Washington; of course on a Friday also, and my birthday." To myself he

wrote on the following day from Philadelphia, beginning with a thank

Heaven that he had struck off Canada and the West, for he found the wear

and tear "enormous." "Dolby decided that the croakers were wrong about

Washington, and went on; the rather as his raised prices, which he put

finally at three dollars each, gave satisfaction. Fields is so confident

about Boston, that my remaining list includes, in all, 14 more readings

there. I don't know how many more we might not have had here (where I

have had attentions otherwise that have been very grateful to me), if we

had chosen. Tickets are now being resold at ten dollars each. At

Baltimore I had a charming little theatre, and a very apprehensive

impulsive audience. It is remarkable to see how the Ghost of Slavery

haunts the town; and how the shambling, untidy, evasive, and postponing

Irrepressible proceeds about his free work, going round and round it,

instead of at it. The melancholy absurdity of giving these people votes,

at any rate at present, would glare at one out of every roll of their

eyes, chuckle in their mouths, and bump in their heads, if one did not

see (as one cannot help seeing in the country) that their

enfranchisement is a mere party trick to get votes. Being at the

Penitentiary the other day (this, while we mention votes), and looking

over the books, I noticed that almost every man had been 'pardoned' a

day or two before his time was up. Why? Because, if he had served his

time out, he would have been _ipso facto_ disfranchised. So, this form

of pardon is gone through to save his vote; and as every officer of the

prison holds his place only in right of his party, of course his hopeful

clients vote for the party that has let them out! When I read in Mr.

Beecher's church at Brooklyn, we found the trustees had suppressed the

fact that a certain upper gallery holding 150 was 'the Coloured

Gallery,' On the first night not a soul could be induced to enter it;

and it was not until it became known next day that I was certainly not

going to read there more than four times, that we managed to fill it.

One night at New York, on our second or third row, there were two

well-dressed women with a tinge of colour--I should say, not even

quadroons. But the holder of one ticket who found his seat to be next

them, demanded of Dolby 'what he meant by fixing him next to those two

Gord darmed cusses of niggers?' and insisted on being supplied with

another good place. Dolby firmly replied that he was perfectly certain

Mr. Dickens would not recognize such an objection on any account, but he

could have his money back, if he chose. Which, after some squabbling, he

had. In a comic scene in the New York Circus one night, when I was

looking on, four white people sat down upon a form in a barber's shop to

be shaved. A coloured man came as the fifth customer, and the four

immediately ran away. This was much laughed at and applauded. In the

Baltimore Penitentiary, the white prisoners dine on one side of the

room, the coloured prisoners on the other; and no one has the slightest

idea of mixing them. But it is indubitably the fact that exhalations

not the most agreeable arise from a number of coloured people got

together, and I was obliged to beat a quick retreat from their

dormitory. I strongly believe that they will die out of this country

fast. It seems, looking at them, so manifestly absurd to suppose it

possible that they can ever hold their own against a restless, shifty,

striving, stronger race."

On the fourth of February he wrote from Washington. "You may like to

have a line to let you know that it is all right here, and that the

croakers were simply ridiculous. I began last night. A charming

audience, no dissatisfaction whatever at the raised prices, nothing

missed or lost, cheers at the end of the _Carol_, and rounds upon rounds

of applause all through. All the foremost men and their families had

taken tickets for the series of four. A small place to read in. L300 in

it." It will be no violation of the rule of avoiding private detail if

the very interesting close of this letter is given. Its anecdote of

President Lincoln was repeatedly told by Dickens after his return, and I

am under no necessity to withhold from it the authority of Mr. Sumner's

name. "I am going to-morrow to see the President, who has sent to me

twice. I dined with Charles Sumner last Sunday, against my rule; and as

I had stipulated for no party, Mr. Secretary Stanton was the only other

guest, besides his own secretary. Stanton is a man with a very

remarkable memory, and extraordinarily familiar with my books. . . . He and

Sumner having been the first two public men at the dying President's

bedside, and having remained with him until he breathed his last, we

fell into a very interesting conversation after dinner, when, each of

them giving his own narrative separately, the usual discrepancies about

details of time were observable. Then Mr. Stanton told me a curious

little story which will form the remainder of this short letter.

"On the afternoon of the day on which the President was shot, there was

a cabinet council at which he presided. Mr. Stanton, being at the time

commander-in-chief of the Northern troops that were concentrated about

here, arrived rather late. Indeed they were waiting for him, and on his

entering the room, the President broke off in something he was saying,

and remarked: 'Let us proceed to business, gentlemen.' Mr. Stanton then

noticed, with great surprise, that the President sat with an air of

dignity in his chair instead of lolling about it in the most ungainly

attitudes, as his invariable custom was; and that instead of telling

irrelevant or questionable stories, he was grave and calm, and quite a

different man. Mr. Stanton, on leaving the council with the

Attorney-General, said to him, 'That is the most satisfactory cabinet

meeting I have attended for many a long day! What an extraordinary

change in Mr. Lincoln!' The Attorney-General replied, 'We all saw it,

before you came in. While we were waiting for you, he said, with his

chin down on his breast, "Gentlemen, something very extraordinary is

going to happen, and that very soon."' To which the Attorney-General had

observed, 'Something good, sir, I hope?' when the President answered

very gravely: 'I don't know; I don't know. But it will happen, and

shortly too!' As they were all impressed by his manner, the

Attorney-General took him up again: 'Have you received any information,

sir, not yet disclosed to us?' 'No,' answered the President: 'but I have

had a dream. And I have now had the same dream three times. Once, on the

night preceding the Battle of Bull Run. Once, on the night preceding'

such another (naming a battle also not favourable to the North). His

chin sank on his breast again, and he sat reflecting. 'Might one ask the

nature of this dream, sir?' said the Attorney-General. 'Well,' replied

the President, without lifting his head or changing his attitude, 'I am

on a great broad rolling river--and I am in a boat--and I drift--and I

drift!--But this is not business--' suddenly raising his face and

looking round the table as Mr. Stanton entered, 'let us proceed to

business, gentlemen.' Mr. Stanton and the Attorney-General said, as they

walked on together, it would be curious to notice whether anything

ensued on this; and they agreed to notice. He was shot that night."

On his birthday, the seventh of February, Dickens had his interview with

President Andrew Johnson. "This scrambling scribblement is resumed this

morning, because I have just seen the President: who had sent to me very

courteously asking me to make my own appointment. He is a man with a

remarkable face, indicating courage, watchfulness, and certainly

strength of purpose. It is a face of the Webster type, but without the

'bounce' of Webster's face. I would have picked him out anywhere as a

character of mark. Figure, rather stoutish for an American; a trifle

under the middle size; hands clasped in front of him; manner,

suppressed, guarded, anxious. Each of us looked at the other very

hard. . . . It was in his own cabinet that I saw him. As I came away,

Thornton drove up in a sleigh--turned out for a state occasion--to

deliver his credentials. There was to be a cabinet council at 12. The

room was very like a London club's ante-drawing room. On the walls, two

engravings only: one, of his own portrait; one, of Lincoln's. . . . In the

outer room was sitting a certain sunburnt General Blair, with many

evidences of the war upon him. He got up to shake hands with me, and

then I found that he had been out on the Prairie with me five-and-twenty

years ago. . . . The papers having referred to my birthday's falling

to-day, my room is filled with most exquisite flowers.[276] They came

pouring in from all sorts of people at breakfast time. The audiences

here are really very fine. So ready to laugh or cry, and doing both so

freely, that you would suppose them to be Manchester shillings rather

than Washington half-sovereigns. Alas! alas! my cold worse than ever."

So he had written too at the opening of his letter.

The first reading had been four days earlier, and was described to his

daughter in a letter on the 4th, with a comical incident that occurred

in the course of it. "The gas was very defective indeed last night, and

I began with a small speech to the effect that I must trust to the

brightness of their faces for the illumination of mine. This was taken

greatly. In the _Carol_ a most ridiculous incident occurred. All of a

sudden, I saw a dog leap out from among the seats in the centre aisle,

and look very intently at me. The general attention being fixed on me, I

don't think anybody saw this dog; but I felt so sure of his turning up

again and barking, that I kept my eye wandering about in search of him.

He was a very comic dog, and it was well for me that I was reading a

comic part of the book. But when he bounced out into the centre aisle

again, in an entirely new place, and (still looking intently at me)

tried the effect of a bark upon my proceedings, I was seized with such a

paroxysm of laughter that it communicated itself to the audience, and we

roared at one another, loud and long." Three days later the sequel came,

in a letter to his sister-in-law. "I mentioned the dog on the first

night here? Next night, I thought I heard (in _Copperfield_) a

suddenly-suppressed bark. It happened in this wise:--One of our people,

standing just within the door, felt his leg touched, and looking down

beheld the dog, staring intently at me, and evidently just about to

bark. In a transport of presence of mind and fury, he instantly caught

him up in both hands, and threw him over his own head, out into the

entry, where the check-takers received him like a game at ball. Last

night he came again, _with another dog_; but our people were so sharply

on the look-out for him that he didn't get in. He had evidently

promised to pass the other dog, free."

What is expressed in these letters, of a still active, hopeful,

enjoying, energetic spirit, able to assert itself against illness of the

body and in some sort to overmaster it, was also so strongly impressed

upon those who were with him, that, seeing his sufferings as they did,

they yet found it difficult to understand the extent of them. The

sadness thus ever underlying his triumph makes it all very tragical.

"That afternoon of my birthday," he wrote from Baltimore on the 11th,

"my catarrh was in such a state that Charles Sumner, coming in at five

o'clock, and finding me covered with mustard poultice, and apparently

voiceless, turned to Dolby and said: 'Surely, Mr. Dolby, it is

impossible that he can read to-night!' Says Dolby: 'Sir, I have told Mr.

Dickens so, four times to-day, and I have been very anxious. But you

have no idea how he will change, when he gets to the little table.'

After five minutes of the little table I was not (for the time) even

hoarse. The frequent experience of this return of force when it is

wanted, saves me a vast amount of anxiety; but I am not at times without

the nervous dread that I may some day sink altogether." To the same

effect in another letter he adds: "Dolby and Osgood" (the latter

represented the publishing firm of Mr. Fields and was one of the

travelling staff), "who do the most ridiculous things to keep me in

spirits[277] (I am often very heavy, and rarely sleep much), are

determined to have a walking match at Boston on the last day of February

to celebrate the arrival of the day when I can say '_next_ month!' for

home." The match ended in the Englishman's defeat; which Dickens doubly

commemorated, by a narrative of the American victory in

sporting-newspaper style, and by a dinner in Boston to a party of dear

friends there.

After Baltimore he was reading again at Philadelphia, from which he

wrote to his sister-in-law on the 13th as to a characteristic trait

observed in both places. "Nothing will induce the people to believe in

the farewells. At Baltimore on Tuesday night (a very brilliant night

indeed), they asked as they came out: 'When will Mr. Dickens read here

again?' 'Never.' 'Nonsense! Not come back, after such houses as these?

Come. Say when he'll read again.' Just the same here. We could as soon

persuade them that I am the President, as that to-morrow night I am

going to read here for the last time. . . . There is a child in this

house--a little girl--to whom I presented a black doll when I was here

last; and as I have just seen her eye at the keyhole since I began

writing this, I think she and the doll must be outside still. 'When you

sent it up to me by the coloured boy,' she said after receiving it

(coloured boy is the term for black waiter), 'I gave such a cream that

Ma come running in and creamed too, 'cos she fort I'd hurt myself. But I

creamed a cream of joy.' She had a friend to play with her that day, and

brought the friend with her--to my infinite confusion. A friend all

stockings and much too tall, who sat on the sofa very far back with her

stockings sticking stiffly out in front of her, and glared at me, and

never spake a word. Dolby found us confronted in a sort of fascination,

like serpent and bird."

On the 15th he was again at New York, in the thick of more troubles with

the speculators. They involved even charges of fraud in ticket-sales at

Newhaven and Providence; indignation meetings having been held by the

Mayors, and unavailing attempts made by his manager to turn the wrath

aside. "I expect him back here presently half bereft of his senses, and

I should be wholly bereft of mine if the situation were not comical as

well as disagreeable. We can sell at our own box-office to any extent;

but we cannot buy back of the speculators, because we have informed the

public that all the tickets are gone; and even if we made the sacrifice

of buying at their price and selling at ours, we should be accused of

treating with them and of making money by it." It ended in Providence by

his going himself to the town and making a speech; and in Newhaven it

ended by his sending back the money taken, with intimation that he would

not read until there had been a new distribution of the tickets approved

by all the town. Fresh disturbance broke out upon this; but he stuck to

his determination to delay the reading until the heats had cooled down,

and what should have been given in the middle of February he did not

give until the close of March.

The Readings he had promised at the smaller outlying places by the

Canadian frontier and Niagara district, including Syracuse, Rochester,

and Buffalo, were appointed for that same March month which was to be

the interval between the close of the ordinary readings and the

farewells in the two leading cities. All that had been promised in New

York were closed when he returned to Boston on the 23rd of February,

ready for the increase he had promised there; but the check of a sudden

political excitement came. It was the month when the vote was taken for

impeachment of President Johnson. "It is well" (25th of February) "that

the money has flowed in hitherto so fast, for I have a misgiving that

the great excitement about the President's impeachment will damage our

receipts. . . . The vote was taken at 5 last night. At 7 the three large

theatres here, all in a rush of good business, were stricken with

paralysis. At 8 our long line of outsiders waiting for unoccupied

places, was nowhere. To-day you hear all the people in the streets

talking of only one thing. I shall suppress my next week's promised

readings (by good fortune, not yet announced), and watch the course of

events. Nothing in this country, as I before said, lasts long; and I

think it likely that the public may be heartily tired of the President's

name by the 9th of March, when I read at a considerable distance from

here. So behold me with a whole week's holiday in view!" Two days later

he wrote pleasantly to his sister-in-law of his audiences. "They have

come to regard the Readings and the Reader as their peculiar property;

and you would be both amused and pleased if you could see the curious

way in which they show this increased interest in both. Whenever they

laugh or cry, they have taken to applauding as well; and the result is

very inspiriting. I shall remain here until Saturday the 7th; but after

to-morrow night shall not read here until the 1st of April, when I begin

my farewells--six in number." On the 28th he wrote: "To-morrow

fortnight we purpose being at the Falls of Niagara, and then we shall

come back and really begin to wind up. I have got to know the _Carol_ so

well that I can't remember it, and occasionally go dodging about in the

wildest manner, to pick up lost pieces. They took it so tremendously

last night that I was stopped every five minutes. One poor young girl in

mourning burst into a passion of grief about Tiny Tim, and was taken

out. We had a fine house, and, in the interval while I was out, they

covered the little table with flowers. The cough has taken a fresh start

as if it were a novelty, and is even worse than ever to-day. There is a

lull in the excitement about the President: but the articles of

impeachment are to be produced this afternoon, and then it may set in

again. Osgood came into camp last night from selling in remote places,

and reports that at Rochester and Buffalo (both places near the

frontier), tickets were bought by Canada people, who had struggled

across the frozen river and clambered over all sorts of obstructions to

get them. Some of those distant halls turn out to be smaller than

represented; but I have no doubt--to use an American expression--that we

shall 'get along.' The second half of the receipts cannot reasonably be

expected to come up to the first; political circumstances, and all other

surroundings, considered."

His old ill luck in travel pursued him. On the day his letter was

written a snow-storm began, with a heavy gale of wind; and "after all

the hard weather gone through," he wrote on the 2nd of March, "this is

the worst day we have seen. It is telegraphed that the storm prevails

over an immense extent of country, and is just the same at Chicago as

here. I hope it may prove a wind up. We are getting sick of the very

sound of sleigh-bells even." The roads were so bad and the trains so

much out of time, that he had to start a day earlier; and on the 6th of

March his tour north-west began, with the gale still blowing and the

snow falling heavily. On the 13th he wrote to me from Buffalo.

"We go to the Falls of Niagara to-morrow for our own pleasure; and I

take all the men, as a treat. We found Rochester last Tuesday in a very

curious state. Perhaps you know that the Great Falls of the Genessee

River (really very fine, even so near Niagara) are at that place. In the

height of a sudden thaw, an immense bank of ice above the rapids refused

to yield; so that the town was threatened (for the second time in four

years) with submersion. Boats were ready in the streets, all the people

were up all night, and none but the children slept. In the dead of the

night a thundering noise was heard, the ice gave way, the swollen river

came raging and roaring down the Falls, and the town was safe. Very

picturesque! but 'not very good for business,' as the manager says.

Especially as the hall stands in the centre of danger, and had ten feet

of water in it on the last occasion of flood. But I think we had above

L200 English. On the previous night at Syracuse--a most out of the way

and unintelligible-looking place, with apparently no people in it--we

had L375 odd. Here, we had last night, and shall have to-night, whatever

we can cram into the hall.

"This Buffalo has become a large and important town, with numbers of

German and Irish in it. But it is very curious to notice, as we touch

the frontier, that the American female beauty dies out; and a woman's

face clumsily compounded of German, Irish, Western America, and

Canadian, not yet fused together, and not yet moulded, obtains instead.

Our show of Beauty at night is, generally, remarkable; but we had not a

dozen pretty women in the whole throng last night, and the faces were

all blunt. I have just been walking about, and observing the same thing

in the streets. . . . The winter has been so severe, that the hotel on the

English side at Niagara (which has the best view of the Falls, and is

for that reason very preferable) is not yet open. So we go, perforce, to

the American: which telegraphs back to our telegram: 'all Mr. Dickens's

requirements perfectly understood.' I have not yet been in more than two

_very bad_ inns. I have been in some, where a good deal of what is

popularly called 'slopping round' has prevailed; but have been able to

get on very well. 'Slopping round,' so used, means untidyness and

disorder. It is a comically expressive phrase, and has many meanings.

Fields was asking the price of a quarter-cask of sherry the other day.

'Wa'al Mussr Fields,' the merchant replies, 'that varies according to

quality, as is but nay'tral. If yer wa'ant a sherry just to slop round

with it, I can fix you some at a very low figger.'"

His letter was resumed at Rochester on the 18th. "After two most

brilliant days at the Falls of Niagara, we got back here last night.

To-morrow morning we turn out at 6 for a long railway journey back to

Albany. But it is nearly all 'back' now, thank God! I don't know how

long, though, before turning, we might have gone on at Buffalo. . . . We

went everywhere at the Falls, and saw them in every aspect. There is a

suspension bridge across, now, some two miles or more from the Horse

Shoe; and another, half a mile nearer, is to be opened in July. They are

very fine but very ticklish, hanging aloft there, in the continual

vibration of the thundering water: nor is one greatly reassured by the

printed notice that troops must not cross them at step, that bands of

music must not play in crossing, and the like. I shall never forget the

last aspect in which we saw Niagara yesterday. We had been everywhere,

when I thought of struggling (in an open carriage) up some very

difficult ground for a good distance, and getting where we could stand

above the river, and see it, as it rushes forward to its tremendous

leap, coming for miles and miles. All away to the horizon on our right

was a wonderful confusion of bright green and white water. As we stood

watching it with our faces to the top of the Falls, our backs were

towards the sun. The majestic valley below the Falls, so seen through

the vast cloud of spray, was made of rainbow. The high banks, the riven

rocks, the forests, the bridge, the buildings, the air, the sky, were

all made of rainbow. Nothing in Turner's finest water-colour drawings,

done in his greatest day, is so ethereal, so imaginative, so gorgeous in

colour, as what I then beheld. I seemed to be lifted from the earth and

to be looking into Heaven. What I once said to you, as I witnessed the

scene five and twenty years ago, all came back at this most affecting

and sublime sight. The 'muddy vesture of our clay' falls from us as we

look. . . . I chartered a separate carriage for our men, so that they might

see all in their own way, and at their own time.

"There is a great deal of water out between Rochester and New York, and

travelling is very uncertain, as I fear we may find to-morrow. There is

again some little alarm here on account of the river rising too fast.

But our to-night's house is far ahead of the first. Most charming halls

in these places; excellent for sight and sound. Almost invariably built

as theatres, with stage, scenery, and good dressing-rooms. Audience

seated to perfection (every seat always separate), excellent doorways

and passages, and brilliant light. My screen and gas are set up in front

of the drop-curtain, and the most delicate touches will tell anywhere.

No creature but my own men ever near me."

His anticipation of the uncertainty that might beset his travel back had

dismal fulfilment. It is described in a letter written on the 21st from

Springfield to his valued friend, Mr. Frederic Ouvry, having much

interest of its own, and making lively addition to the picture which

these chapters give. The unflagging spirit that bears up under all

disadvantages is again marvellously shown. "You can hardly imagine what

my life is with its present conditions--how hard the work is, and how

little time I seem to have at my disposal. It is necessary to the daily

recovery of my voice that I should dine at 3 when not travelling; I

begin to prepare for the evening at 6; and I get back to my hotel,

pretty well knocked up, at half-past 10. Add to all this, perpetual

railway travelling in one of the severest winters ever known; and you

will descry a reason or two for my being an indifferent correspondent.

Last Sunday evening I left the Falls of Niagara for this and two

intervening places. As there was a great thaw, and the melted snow was

swelling all the rivers, the whole country for three hundred miles was

flooded. On the Tuesday afternoon (I had read on the Monday) the train

gave in, as under circumstances utterly hopeless, and stopped at a place

called Utica; the greater part of which was under water, while the high

and dry part could produce nothing particular to eat. Here, some of the

wretched passengers passed the night in the train, while others stormed

the hotel. I was fortunate enough to get a bed-room, and garnished it

with an enormous jug of gin-punch; over which I and the manager played a

double-dummy rubber. At six in the morning we were knocked up: 'to come

aboard and try it.' At half-past six we were knocked up again with the

tidings 'that it was of no use coming aboard or trying it.' At eight all

the bells in the town were set agoing, to summon us to 'come aboard'

instantly. And so we started, through the water, at four or five miles

an hour; seeing nothing but drowned farms, barns adrift like Noah's

arks, deserted villages, broken bridges, and all manner of ruin. I was

to read at Albany that night, and all the tickets were sold. A very

active superintendent of works assured me that if I could be 'got along'

he was the man to get me along: and that if I couldn't be got along, I

might conclude that it couldn't possibly be fixed. He then turned on a

hundred men in seven-league boots, who went ahead of the train, each

armed with a long pole and pushing the blocks of ice away. Following

this cavalcade, we got to land at last, and arrived in time for me to

read the _Carol_ and _Trial_ triumphantly. My people (I had five of the

staff with me) turned to at their work with a will, and did a day's

labour in a couple of hours. If we had not come in as we did, I should

have lost L350, and Albany would have gone distracted. You may conceive

what the flood was, when I hint at the two most notable incidents of our

journey:--1, We took the passengers out of two trains, who had been in

the water, immovable all night and all the previous day. 2, We released

a large quantity of sheep and cattle from trucks that had been in the

water I don't know how long, but so long that the creatures in them had

begun to eat each other, and presented a most horrible spectacle."[278]

Beside Springfield, he had engagements at Portland, New Bedford, and

other places in Massachusetts, before the Boston farewells began; and

there wanted but two days to bring him to that time, when he thus

described to his daughter the labour which was to occupy them. His

letter was from Portland on the 29th of March, and it will be observed

that he no longer compromises or glozes over what he was and had been

suffering. During his terrible travel to Albany his cough had somewhat

spared him, but the old illness had broken out in his foot; and, though

he persisted in ascribing it to the former supposed origin ("having been

lately again wet, from walking in melted snow, which I suppose to be the

occasion of its swelling in the old way"), it troubled him sorely,

extended now at intervals to the right foot also, and lamed him for all

the time he remained in the States. "I should have written to you by the

last mail, but I really was too unwell to do it. The writing day was

last Friday, when I ought to have left Boston for New Bedford (55 miles)

before eleven in the morning. But I was so exhausted that I could not be

got up, and had to take my chance of an evening train's producing me in

time to read--which it just did. With the return of snow, nine days ago,

my cough became as bad as ever. I have coughed every morning from two or

three till five or six, and have been absolutely sleepless. I have had

no appetite besides, and no taste.[279] Last night here, I took some

laudanum; and it is the only thing that has done me good, though it made

me sick this morning. But the life, in this climate, is so very hard!

When I did manage to get to New Bedford, I read with my utmost force and

vigour. Next morning, well or ill, I must turn out at seven, to get

back to Boston on my way here. I dined at Boston at three, and at five

had to come on here (a hundred and thirty miles or so) for to-morrow

night: there being no Sunday train. To-morrow night I read here in a

very large place; and Tuesday morning at six I must again start, to get

back to Boston once more. But after to-morrow night I have only the

farewells, thank God! Even as it is, however, I have had to write to

Dolby (who is in New York) to see my doctor there, and ask him to send

me some composing medicine that I can take at night, inasmuch as without

sleep I cannot get through. However sympathetic and devoted the people

are about one, they CAN NOT be got to comprehend, seeing me able to do

the two hours when the time comes round, that it may also involve much

misery." To myself on the 30th he wrote from the same place, making like

confession. No comment could deepen the sadness of the story of

suffering, revealed in his own simple language. "I write in a town three

parts of which were burnt down in a tremendous fire three years ago. The

people lived in tents while their city was rebuilding. The charred

trunks of the trees with which the streets of the old city were planted,

yet stand here and there in the new thoroughfares like black spectres.

The rebuilding is still in progress everywhere. Yet such is the

astonishing energy of the people that the large hall in which I am to

read to-night (its predecessor was burnt) would compare very favourably

with the Free Trade Hall at Manchester! . . . I am nearly used up. Climate,

distance, catarrh, travelling, and hard work, have begun (I may say so,

now they are nearly all over) to tell heavily upon me. Sleeplessness

besets me; and if I had engaged to go on into May, I think I must have

broken down. It was well that I cut off the Far West and Canada when I

did. There would else have been a sad complication. It is impossible to

make the people about one understand, however zealous and devoted (it is

impossible even to make Dolby understand until the pinch comes), that

the power of coming up to the mark every night, with spirits and spirit,

may coexist with the nearest approach to sinking under it. When I got

back to Boston on Thursday, after a very hard three weeks, I saw that

Fields was very grave about my going on to New Bedford (55 miles) next

day, and then coming on here (180 miles) _next_ day. But the stress is

over, and so I can afford to look back upon it, and think about it, and

write about it." On the 31st he closed his letter at Boston, and he was

at home when I heard of him again. "The latest intelligence, my dear old

fellow, is, that I have arrived here safely, and that I am certainly

better. I consider my work virtually over, now. My impression is, that

the political crisis will damage the farewells by about one half. I

cannot yet speak by the card; but my predictions here, as to our

proceedings, have thus far been invariably right. We took last night at

Portland, L360 English; where a costly Italian troupe, using the same

hall to-night, had not booked L14! It is the same all over the country,

and the worst is not seen yet. Everything is becoming absorbed in the

Presidential impeachment, helped by the next Presidential election.

Connecticut is particularly excited. The night after I read at Hartford

this last week, there were two political meetings in the town; meetings

of two parties; and the hotel was full of speakers coming in from

outlying places. So at Newhaven: the moment I had finished, carpenters

came in to prepare for next night's politics. So at Buffalo. So

everywhere very soon."

In the same tone he wrote his last letter to his sister-in-law from

Boston. "My notion of the farewells is pretty certain now to turn out

right. We had L300 English here last night. To-day is a Fast Day, and

to-night we shall probably take much less. Then it is likely that we

shall pull up again, and strike a good reasonable average; but it is not

at all probable that we shall do anything enormous. Every pulpit in

Massachusetts will resound with violent politics to-day and to-night."

That was on the second of April, and a postscript was added. "Friday

afternoon the 3rd. Catarrh worse than ever! and we don't know (at four

o'clock) whether I can read to-night or must stop. Otherwise, all well."

Dickens's last letter from America was written to his daughter Mary from

Boston on the 9th of April, the day before his sixth and last farewell

night. "I not only read last Friday when I was doubtful of being able to

do so, but read as I never did before, and astonished the audience quite

as much as myself. You never saw or heard such a scene of excitement.

Longfellow and all the Cambridge men have urged me to give in. I have

been very near doing so, but feel stronger to-day. I cannot tell whether

the catarrh may have done me any lasting injury in the lungs or other

breathing organs, until I shall have rested and got home. I hope and

believe not. Consider the weather! There have been two snow storms since

I wrote last, and to-day the town is blotted out in a ceaseless whirl of

snow and wind. Dolby is as tender as a woman, and as watchful as a

doctor. He never leaves me during the reading, now, but sits at the side

of the platform, and keeps his eye upon me all the time. Ditto George

the gasman, steadiest and most reliable man I ever employed. I have

_Dombey_ to do to-night, and must go through it carefully; so here ends

my report. The personal affection of the people in this place is

charming to the last. Did I tell you that the New York Press are going

to give me a public dinner on Saturday the 18th?"

In New York, where there were five farewell nights, three thousand two

hundred and ninety-eight dollars were the receipts of the last, on the

20th of April; those of the last at Boston, on the 8th, having been

three thousand four hundred and fifty-six dollars. But on earlier nights

in the same cities respectively, these sums also had been reached; and

indeed, making allowance for an exceptional night here and there, the

receipts varied so wonderfully little, that a mention of the highest

average returns from other places will give no exaggerated impression of

the ordinary receipts throughout. Excluding fractions of dollars, the

lowest were New Bedford ($1640), Rochester ($1906), Springfield ($1970),

and Providence ($2140). Albany and Worcester averaged something less

than $2400; while Hartford, Buffalo, Baltimore, Syracuse, Newhaven, and

Portland rose to $2600. Washington's last night was $2610, no night

there having less than $2500. Philadelphia exceeded Washington by $300,

and Brooklyn went ahead of Philadelphia by $200. The amount taken at the

four Brooklyn readings was 11,128 dollars.

The New York public dinner was given at Delmonico's, the hosts were more

than two hundred, and the chair was taken by Mr. Horace Greeley. Dickens

attended with great difficulty,[280] and spoke in pain. But he used the

occasion to bear his testimony to the changes of twenty-five years; the

rise of vast new cities; growth in the graces and amenities of life;

much improvement in the press, essential to every other advance; and

changes in himself leading to opinions more deliberately formed. He

promised his kindly entertainers that no copy of his _Notes_, or his

_Chuzzlewit_, should in future be issued by him without accompanying

mention of the changes to which he had referred that night; of the

politeness, delicacy, sweet temper, hospitality, and consideration in

all ways for which he had to thank them; and of his gratitude for the

respect shown, during all his visit, to the privacy enforced upon him by

the nature of his work and the condition of his health.

He had to leave the room before the proceedings were over. On the

following Monday he read to his last American audience, telling them at

the close that he hoped often to recall them, equally by his winter fire

and in the green summer weather, and never as a mere public audience but

as a host of personal friends. He sailed two days later in the "Russia,"

and reached England in the first week of May 1868.

FOOTNOTES:

[276] few days later he described it to his daughter. "I couldn't help

laughing at myself on my birthday at Washington; it was observed so much

as though I were a little boy. Flowers and garlands of the most

exquisite kind, arranged in all manner of green baskets, bloomed over

the room; letters radiant with good wishes poured in; a shirt pin, a

handsome silver travelling bottle, a set of gold shirt studs, and a set

of gold sleeve links, were on the dinner table. Also, by hands unknown,

the hall at night was decorated; and after _Boots at the Holly Tree_,

the whole audience rose and remained, great people and all, standing and

cheering, until I went back to the table and made them a little speech."

[277] Mr. Dolby unconsciously contributed at this time to the same happy

result by sending out some advertisements in these exact words: "The

Reading will be comprised within _two minutes_, and the audience are

earnestly entreated to be seated _ten hours_ before its commencement."

He had transposed the minutes and the hours.

[278] What follows is from the close of the letter. "On my return, I

have arranged with Chappell to take my leave of reading for good and

all, in a hundred autumnal and winter Farewells _for ever_. I return by

the Cunard steam-ship 'Russia.' I had the second officer's cabin on

deck, when I came out; and I am to have the chief steward's going home.

Cunard was so considerate as to remember that it will be on the sunny

side of the vessel."

[279] Here was his account of his mode of living for his last ten weeks

in America. "I cannot eat (to anything like the necessary extent) and

have established this system. At 7 in the morning, in bed, a tumbler of

new cream and two tablespoonsful of rum. At 12, a sherry cobbler and a

biscuit. At 3 (dinner time) a pint of champagne. At five minutes to 8,

an egg beaten up with a glass of sherry. Between the parts, the

strongest beef tea that can be made, drunk hot. At a quarter past 10,

soup, and any little thing to drink that I can fancy. I do not eat more

than half a pound of solid food in the whole four-and-twenty hours, if

so much."

[280] Here is the newspaper account: "At about five o'clock on Saturday

the hosts began to assemble, but at 5.30 news was received that the

expected guest had succumbed to a painful affection of the foot. In a

short time, however, another bulletin announced Mr. Dickens's intention

to attend the dinner at all hazards. At a little after six, having been

assisted up the stairs, he was joined by Mr. Greeley, and the hosts

forming in two lines silently permitted the distinguished gentlemen to

pass through. Mr. Dickens limped perceptibly; his right foot was

swathed, and he leaned heavily on the arm of Mr. Greeley. He evidently

suffered great pain."

CHAPTER XVII.

LAST READINGS.

1868-1870.

At Home--Project for Last Readings--What the

Readings did and undid--Profit from all the

Readings--Noticeable Changes--Proposed Reading

from _Oliver Twist_--Parting from his Youngest

Son--Death of his Brother Frederick--Old

Friends--_Sikes and Nancy_ Reading--Reading

stopped--Mr. Syme's Opinion of the

Lameness--Emerson Tennent's Funeral--Public

Dinner in Liverpool--His Description of his

Illness--Brought to Town--Sir Thomas Watson's

Note of the Case--Close of Career as Public

Reader.

FAVOURABLE weather helped him pleasantly home. He had profited greatly

by the sea voyage, perhaps greatly more by its repose; and on the 25th

of May he described himself to his Boston friends as brown beyond

belief, and causing the greatest disappointment in all quarters by

looking so well. "My doctor was quite broken down in spirits on seeing

me for the first time last Saturday. _Good Lord! seven years younger!_

said the doctor, recoiling." That he gave all the credit to "those fine

days at sea," and none to the rest from such labours as he had passed

through, the close of the letter too sadly showed. "We are already

settling--think of this!--the details of my farewell course of

readings."

Even on his way out to America that enterprise was in hand. From Halifax

he had written to me. "I told the Chappells that when I got back to

England, I would have a series of farewell readings in town and country;

and then read No More. They at once offer in writing to pay all expenses

whatever, to pay the ten per cent. for management, and to pay me, for a

series of 75, six thousand pounds." The terms were raised and settled

before the first Boston readings closed. The number was to be a hundred;

and the payment, over and above expenses and per centage, eight thousand

pounds. Such a temptation undoubtedly was great; and though it was a

fatal mistake which Dickens committed in yielding to it, it was not an

ignoble one. He did it under no excitement from the American gains, of

which he knew nothing when he pledged himself to the enterprise. No man

could care essentially less for mere money than he did. But the

necessary provision for many sons was a constant anxiety; he was proud

of what the Readings had done to abridge this care; and the very strain

of them under which it seems certain that his health had first given

way, and which he always steadily refused to connect especially with

them, had also broken the old confidence of being at all times available

for his higher pursuit. What affected his health only he would not

regard as part of the question either way. That was to be borne as the

lot more or less of all men; and the more thorough he could make his

feeling of independence, and of ability to rest, by what was now in

hand, the better his final chances of a perfect recovery would be. That

was the spirit in which he entered on this last engagement. It was an

opportunity offered for making a particular work really complete before

he should abandon it for ever. Something of it will not be

indiscernible even in the summary of his past acquisitions, which with a

pardonable exultation he now sent me.

"We had great difficulty in getting our American accounts squared to the

point of ascertaining what Dolby's commission amounted to in English

money. After all, we were obliged to call in the aid of a money-changer,

to determine what he should pay as his share of the average loss of

conversion into gold. With this deduction made, I think his commission

(I have not the figures at hand) was L2,888; Ticknor and Fields had a

commission of L1,000, besides 5 per cent. on all Boston receipts. The

expenses in America to the day of our sailing were 38,948

dollars;--roughly 39,000 dollars, or L13,000. The preliminary expenses

were L614. The average price of gold was nearly 40 per cent., and yet my

profit was within a hundred or so of L20,000. Supposing me to have got

through the present engagement in good health, I shall have made by the

Readings, _in two years_, L33,000: that is to say, L13,000 received from

the Chappells, and L20,000 from America. What I had made by them before,

I could only ascertain by a long examination of Coutts's books. I should

say, certainly not less than L10,000: for I remember that I made half

that money in the first town and country campaign with poor Arthur

Smith. These figures are of course between ourselves; but don't you

think them rather remarkable? The Chappell bargain began with L50 a

night and everything paid; then became L60; and now rises to L80."

The last readings were appointed to begin with October; and at the

request of an old friend, Chauncy Hare Townshend, who died during his

absence in the States, he had accepted the trust, which occupied him

some part of the summer, of examining and selecting for publication a

bequest of some papers on matters of religious belief, which were issued

in a small volume the following year. There came also in June a visit

from Longfellow and his daughters, with later summer visits from the

Eliot Nortons; and at the arrival of friends whom he loved and honoured

as he did these, from the great country to which he owed so much,

infinite were the rejoicings of Gadshill. Nothing could quench his old

spirit in this way. But in the intervals of my official work I saw him

frequently that summer, and never without the impression that America

had told heavily upon him. There was manifest abatement of his natural

force, the elasticity of bearing was impaired, and the wonderful

brightness of eye was dimmed at times. One day, too, as he walked from

his office with Miss Hogarth to dine at our house, he could read only

the halves of the letters over the shop doors that were on his right as

he looked. He attributed it to medicine. It was an additional

unfavourable symptom that his right foot had become affected as well as

the left, though not to anything like the same extent, during the

journey from the Canada frontier to Boston. But all this disappeared,

upon any special cause for exertion; and he was never unprepared to

lavish freely for others the reserved strength that should have been

kept for himself. This indeed was the great danger, for it dulled the

apprehension of us all to the fact that absolute and pressing danger did

positively exist.

He had scarcely begun these last readings than he was beset by a

misgiving, that, for a success large enough to repay Messrs. Chappell's

liberality, the enterprise would require a new excitement to carry him

over the old ground; and it was while engaged in Manchester and

Liverpool at the outset of October that this announcement came. "I have

made a short reading of the murder in _Oliver Twist_. I cannot make up

my mind, however, whether to do it or not. I have no doubt that I could

perfectly petrify an audience by carrying out the notion I have of the

way of rendering it. But whether the impression would not be so horrible

as to keep them away another time, is what I cannot satisfy myself upon.

What do you think? It is in three short parts: 1, Where Fagin sets Noah

Claypole on to watch Nancy. 2, The scene on London Bridge. 3, Where

Fagin rouses Claypole from his sleep, to tell his perverted story to

Sikes. And the Murder, and the Murderer's sense of being haunted. I have

adapted and cut about the text with great care, and it is very powerful.

I have to-day referred the book and the question to the Chappells as so

largely interested." I had a strong dislike to this proposal, less

perhaps on the ground which ought to have been taken of the physical

exertion it would involve, than because such a subject seemed to be

altogether out of the province of reading; and it was resolved, that,

before doing it, trial should be made to a limited private audience in

St. James's Hall. The note announcing this, from Liverpool on the 25th

of October, is for other reasons worth printing. "I give you earliest

notice that the Chappells suggest to me the 18th of November" (the 14th

was chosen) "for trial of the _Oliver Twist_ murder, when everything in

use for the previous day's reading can be made available. I hope this

may suit you? We have been doing well here; and how it was arranged,

nobody knows, but we had L410 at St. James's Hall last Tuesday, having

advanced from our previous L360. The expenses are such, however, on the

princely scale of the Chappells, that we never begin at a smaller, often

at a larger, cost than L180. . . . I have not been well, and have been

heavily tired. However, I have little to complain of--nothing, nothing;

though, like Mariana, I am aweary. But think of this. If all go well,

and (like Mr. Dennis) I 'work off' this series triumphantly, I shall

have made of these readings L28,000 in a year and a half." This did not

better reconcile me to what had been too clearly forced upon him by the

supposed necessity of some new excitement to ensure a triumphant result;

and even the private rehearsal only led to a painful correspondence

between us, of which a few words are all that need now be preserved. "We

might have agreed," he wrote, "to differ about it very well, because we

only wanted to find out the truth if we could, and because it was quite

understood that I wanted to leave behind me the recollection of

something very passionate and dramatic, done with simple means, if the

art would justify the theme." Apart from mere personal considerations,

the whole question lay in these last words. It was impossible for me to

admit that the effect to be produced was legitimate, or such as it was

desirable to associate with the recollection of his readings.

Mention should not be omitted of two sorrows which affected him at this

time. At the close of the month before the readings began his youngest

son went forth from home to join an elder brother in Australia. "These

partings are hard hard things" (26th of September), "but they are the

lot of us all, and might have to be done without means or influence, and

then would be far harder. God bless him!" Hardly a month later, the last

of his surviving brothers, Frederick, the next to himself, died at

Darlington. "He had been tended" (24th of October) "with the greatest

care and affection by some local friends. It was a wasted life, but God

forbid that one should be hard upon it, or upon anything in this world

that is not deliberately and coldly wrong."

Before October closed the renewal of his labour had begun to tell upon

him. He wrote to his sister-in-law on the 29th of sickness and sleepless

nights, and of its having become necessary, when he had to read, that he

should lie on the sofa all day. After arrival at Edinburgh in December

he had been making a calculation that the railway travelling over such a

distance involved something more than thirty thousand shocks to the

nerves; but he went on to Christmas, alternating these far-off places

with nights regularly intervening in London, without much more complaint

than of an inability to sleep. Trade reverses at Glasgow had checked the

success there,[281] but Edinburgh made compensation. "The affectionate

regard of the people exceeds all bounds and is shown in every way. The

audiences do everything but embrace me, and take as much pains with the

readings as I do. . . . The keeper of the Edinburgh hall, a fine old

soldier, presented me on Friday night with the most superb red camellia

for my button-hole that ever was seen. Nobody can imagine how he came by

it, as the florists had had a considerable demand for that colour, from

ladies in the stalls, and could get no such thing."

The second portion of the enterprise opened with the New Year, and the

_Sikes and Nancy_ scenes, everywhere his prominent subject, exacted the

most terrible physical exertion from him. In January he was at Clifton,

where he had given, he told his sister-in-law, "by far the best Murder

yet done;" while at the same date he wrote to his daughter: "At Clifton

on Monday night we had a contagion of fainting; and yet the place was

not hot. I should think we had from a dozen to twenty ladies taken out

stiff and rigid, at various times! It became quite ridiculous." He was

afterwards at Cheltenham. "Macready is of opinion that the Murder is two

Macbeths. He declares that he heard every word of the reading, but I

doubt it. Alas! he is sadly infirm." On the 27th he wrote to his

daughter from Torquay that the place into which they had put him to

read, and where a pantomime had been played the night before, was

something between a Methodist chapel, a theatre, a circus, a

riding-school, and a cow-house. That day he wrote to me from Bath:

"Landor's ghost goes along the silent streets here before me. . . . The

place looks to me like a cemetery which the Dead have succeeded in

rising and taking. Having built streets, of their old gravestones, they

wander about scantly trying to 'look alive.' A dead failure."

In the second week of February he was in London, under engagement to

return to Scotland (which he had just left) after the usual weekly

reading at St. James's Hall, when there was a sudden interruption. "My

foot has turned lame again!" was his announcement to me on the 15th,

followed next day by this letter. "Henry Thompson will not let me read

to-night, and will not let me go to Scotland to-morrow. Tremendous house

here, and also in Edinburgh. Here is the certificate he drew up for

himself and Beard to sign. 'We the undersigned hereby certify that Mr.

C. D. is suffering from inflammation of the foot (caused by

over-exertion), and that we have forbidden his appearance on the

platform this evening, as he must keep his room for a day or two.' I

have sent up to the Great Western Hotel for apartments, and, if I can

get them, shall move there this evening. Heaven knows what engagements

this may involve in April! It throws us all back, and will cost me some

five hundred pounds."

A few days' rest again brought so much relief, that, against the urgent

entreaties of members of his family as well as other friends, he was in

the railway carriage bound for Edinburgh on the morning of the 20th of

February, accompanied by Mr. Chappell himself. "I came down lazily on a

sofa," he wrote to me from Edinburgh next day, "hardly changing my

position the whole way. The railway authorities had done all sorts of

things, and I was more comfortable than on the sofa at the hotel. The

foot gave me no uneasiness, and has been quiet and steady all

night."[282] He was nevertheless under the necessity, two days later, of

consulting Mr. Syme; and he told his daughter that this great authority

had warned him against over-fatigue in the readings, and given him some

slight remedies, but otherwise reported him in "joost pairfactly

splendid condition." With care he thought the pain might be got rid of.

"'Wa'at mad' Thompson think it was goot?' he said often, and seemed to

take that opinion extremely ill." Again before leaving Scotland he saw

Mr. Syme, and wrote to me on the second of March of the indignation with

which he again treated the gout diagnosis, declaring the disorder to be

an affection of the delicate nerves and muscles originating in cold. "I

told him that it had shewn itself in America in the other foot as well.

'Noo I'll joost swear,' said he, 'that ayond the fatigue o' the readings

ye'd been tramping i' th' snaw, within twa or three days.' I certainly

had. 'Wa'al,' said he triumphantly, 'and hoo did it first begin? I' th'

snaw. Goot! Bah!--Thompson knew no other name for it, and just ca'd it

Goot--Boh!' For which he took two guineas." Yet the famous pupil, Sir

Henry Thompson, went certainly nearer the mark than the distinguished

master, Mr. Syme, in giving to it a more than local character.

The whole of that March month he went on with the scenes from _Oliver

Twist_. "The foot goes famously," he wrote to his daughter. "I feel the

fatigue in it (four Murders in one week[283]) but not overmuch. It

merely aches at night; and so does the other, sympathetically I

suppose." At Hull on the 8th he heard of the death of the old and dear

friend, Emerson Tennent, to whom he had inscribed his last book; and on

the morning of the 12th I met him at the funeral. He had read the

_Oliver Twist_ scenes the night before at York; had just been able to

get to the express train, after shortening the pauses in the reading, by

a violent rush when it was over; and had travelled through the night. He

appeared to, me "dazed" and worn. No man could well look more so than he

did, that sorrowful morning.

The end was near. A public dinner, which will have mention on a later

page, had been given him in Liverpool on the 10th of April, with Lord

Dufferin in the chair, and a reading was due from him in Preston on the

22nd of that month. But on Sunday the 18th we had ill report of him from

Chester, and on the 21st he wrote from Blackpool to his sister-in-law.

"I have come to this Sea-Beach Hotel (charming) for a day's rest. I am

much better than I was on Sunday; but shall want careful looking to, to

get through the readings. My weakness and deadness are all on the left

side; and if I don't look at anything I try to touch with my left hand,

I don't know where it is. I am in (secret) consultation with Frank

Beard, who says that I have given him indisputable evidences of overwork

which he could wish to treat immediately; and so I have telegraphed for

him. I have had a delicious walk by the sea to-day, and I sleep soundly,

and have picked up amazingly in appetite. My foot is greatly better too,

and I wear my own boot." Next day was appointed for the reading at

Preston; and from that place he wrote to me, while waiting the arrival

of Mr. Beard. "Don't say anything about it, but the tremendously severe

nature of this work is a little shaking me. At Chester last Sunday I

found myself extremely giddy, and extremely uncertain of my sense of

touch, both in the left leg and the left hand and arms. I had been

taking some slight medicine of Beard's; and immediately wrote to him

describing exactly what I felt, and asking him whether those feelings

_could be_ referable to the medicine? He promptly replied: 'There can be

no mistaking them from your exact account. The medicine cannot possibly

have caused them. I recognise indisputable symptoms of overwork, and I

wish to take you in hand without any loss of time.' They have greatly

modified since, but he is coming down here this afternoon. To-morrow

night at Warrington I shall have but 25 more nights to work through. If

he can coach me up for them, I do not doubt that I shall get all right

again--as I did when I became free in America. The foot has given me

very little trouble. Yet it is remarkable that it is _the left foot

too_; and that I told Henry Thompson (before I saw his old master Syme)

that I had an inward conviction that whatever it was, it was not gout. I

also told Beard, a year after the Staplehurst accident, that I was

certain that my heart had been fluttered, and wanted a little helping.

This the stethoscope confirmed; and considering the immense exertion I

am undergoing, and the constant jarring of express trains, the case

seems to me quite intelligible. Don't say anything in the Gad's

direction about my being a little out of sorts. I have broached the

matter of course; but very lightly. Indeed there is no reason for

broaching it otherwise."

Even to the close of that letter he had buoyed himself up with the hope

that he might yet be "coached" and that the readings need not be

discontinued. But Mr. Beard stopped them at once, and brought his

patient to London. On Friday morning the 23rd, the same envelope brought

me a note from himself to say that he was well enough, but tired; in

perfectly good spirits, not at all uneasy, and writing this himself that

I should have it under his own hand; with a note from his eldest son to

say that his father appeared to him to be very ill, and that a

consultation had been appointed with Sir Thomas Watson. The statement of

that distinguished physician, sent to myself in June 1872, completes for

the present the sorrowful narrative.

"It was, I think, on the 23rd of April 1869 that I was asked to see

Charles Dickens, in consultation with Mr. Carr Beard. After I got home I

jotted down, from their joint account, what follows.

"After unusual irritability, C. D. found himself, last Saturday or

Sunday, giddy, with a tendency to go backwards, and to turn round.

Afterwards, desiring to put something on a small table, he pushed it and

the table forwards, undesignedly. He had some odd feeling of insecurity

about his left leg, as if there was something unnatural about his heel;

but he could lift, and he did not drag, his leg. Also he spoke of some

strangeness of his left hand and arm; missed the spot on which he wished

to lay that hand, unless he carefully looked at it; felt an unreadiness

to lift his hands towards his head, especially his left hand--when, for

instance, he was brushing his hair.

"He had written thus to Mr. Carr Beard.

"'Is it possible that anything in my medicine can have made me extremely

giddy, extremely uncertain of my footing, especially on the left side,

and extremely indisposed to raise my hands to my head. These symptoms

made me very uncomfortable on Saturday (qy. Sunday?) night, and all

yesterday, &c.'

"The state thus described showed plainly that C. D. had been on the

brink of an attack of paralysis of his left side, and possibly of

apoplexy. It was, no doubt, the result of extreme hurry, overwork, and

excitement, incidental to his Readings.

"On hearing from him Mr. Carr Beard had gone at once to Preston, or

Blackburn (I am not sure which), had forbidden his reading that same

evening, and had brought him to London.

"When I saw him he _appeared_ to be well. His mind was unclouded, his

pulse quiet. His heart was beating with some slight excess of the

natural impulse. He told me he had of late sometimes, but rarely, lost

or misused a word; that he forgot names, and numbers, but had always

done that; and he promised implicit obedience to our injunctions.

"We gave him the following certificate.

"'The undersigned certify that Mr. Charles Dickens has been seriously

unwell, through great exhaustion and fatigue of body and mind consequent

upon his public Readings and long and frequent railway journeys. In our

judgment Mr. Dickens will not be able with safety to himself to resume

his Readings for several months to come.

"'THOS. WATSON, M.D.

"'F. CARR BEARD.'

"However, after some weeks, he expressed a wish for my sanction to his

endeavours to redeem, in a careful and moderate way, some of the reading

engagements to which he had been pledged before those threatenings of

brain-mischief in the North of England.

"As he had continued uniformly to seem and to feel perfectly well, I did

not think myself warranted to refuse that sanction: and in writing to

enforce great caution in the trials, I expressed some apprehension that

he might fancy we had been too peremptory in our injunctions of mental

and bodily repose in April; and I quoted the following remark, which

occurs somewhere in one of Captain Cook's Voyages. 'Preventive measures

are always invidious, for when most successful, the necessity for them

is the least apparent.'

"I mention this to explain the letter which I send herewith,[284] and

which I must beg you to return to me, as a precious remembrance of the

writer with whom I had long enjoyed very friendly and much valued

relations.

"I scarcely need say that if what I have now written can, _in any way_,

be of use to you, it is entirely at your service and disposal--nor need

I say with how much interest I have read the first volume of your late

friend's Life. I cannot help regretting that a great pressure of

professional work at the time, prevented my making a fuller record of a

case so interesting."

The twelve readings to which Sir Thomas Watson consented, with the

condition that railway travel was not to accompany them, were farther to

be delayed until the opening months of 1870. They were an offering from

Dickens by way of small compensation to Messrs. Chappell for the

breakdown of the enterprise on which they had staked so much. But here

practically he finished his career as a public reader, and what remains

will come with the end of what is yet to be told. One effort only

intervened, by which he hoped to get happily back to his old pursuits;

but to this, as to that which preceded it, sterner Fate said also No,

and his Last Book, like his Last Readings, prematurely closed.

FOOTNOTES:

[281] "I think I shall be pretty correct in both places as to the run

being on the Final readings. We had an immense house here" (Edinburgh,

12th of December) "last night, and a very large turnaway. But Glasgow

being shady and the charges very great, it will be the most we can do, I

fancy, on these first Scotch readings, to bring the Chappells safely

home (as to them) without loss."

[282] The close of the letter has an amusing picture which I may be

excused for printing in a note. "The only news that will interest you is

that the good-natured Reverdy Johnson, being at an Art Dinner in Glasgow

the other night, and falling asleep over the post-prandial speeches

(only too naturally), woke suddenly on hearing the name of 'Johnson' in

a list of Scotch painters which one of the orators was enumerating; at

once plunged up, under the impression that somebody was drinking his

health; and immediately, and with overflowing amiability, began

returning thanks. The spectacle was then presented to the astonished

company, of the American Eagle being restrained by the coat tails from

swooping at the moon, while the smaller birds endeavoured to explain to

it how the case stood, and the cock robin in possession of the

chairman's eye twittered away as hard as he could split. I am told that

it was wonderfully droll."

[283] I take from the letter a mention of the effect on a friend. "The

night before last, unable to get in, B. had a seat behind the screen,

and was nearly frightened off it, by the Murder. Every vestige of colour

had left his face when I came off, and he sat staring over a glass of

champagne in the wildest way."

[284] In this letter Dickens wrote: "I thank you heartily" (23rd of June

1869) "for your great kindness and interest. It would really pain me if

I thought you could seriously doubt my implicit reliance on your

professional skill and advice. I feel as certain now as I felt when you

came to see me on my breaking down through over fatigue, that the

injunction you laid upon me to stop in my course of Readings was

necessary and wise. And to its firmness I refer (humanly speaking) my

speedy recovery from that moment. I would on no account have resumed,

even on the turn of this year, without your sanction. Your friendly aid

will never be forgotten by me; and again I thank you for it with all my

heart."

CHAPTER XVIII.

LAST BOOK.

1869-1870.

First Fancy for _Edwin Drood_--Story as planned

in his Mind--Nothing written of his

Intentions--Merits of the Fragment--Comparison

of his Early and his Late MSS.--Discovery of

Unpublished Scene--Probable Reason for writing

it in Advance--How Mr. Sapsea ceased to be a

Member of the Eight Club.

THE last book undertaken by Dickens was to be published, in illustrated

monthly numbers, of the old form, but to close with the twelfth.[285] It

closed, unfinished, with the sixth number, which was itself

underwritten by two pages.

His first fancy for the tale was expressed in a letter in the middle of

July. "What should you think of the idea of a story beginning in this

way?--Two people, boy and girl, or very young, going apart from one

another, pledged to be married after many years--at the end of the book.

The interest to arise out of the tracing of their separate ways, and the

impossibility of telling what will be done with that impending fate."

This was laid aside; but it left a marked trace on the story as

afterwards designed, in the position of Edwin Drood and his betrothed.

I first heard of the later design in a letter dated "Friday the 6th of

August 1869," in which after speaking, with the usual unstinted praise

he bestowed always on what moved him in others, of a little tale he had

received for his journal,[286] he spoke of the change that had occurred

to him for the new tale by himself. "I laid aside the fancy I told you

of, and have a very curious and new idea for my new story. Not a

communicable idea (or the interest of the book would be gone), but a

very strong one, though difficult to work." The story, I learnt

immediately afterward, was to be that of the murder of a nephew by his

uncle; the originality of which was to consist in the review of the

murderer's career by himself at the close, when its temptations were to

be dwelt upon as if, not he the culprit, but some other man, were the

tempted. The last chapters were to be written in the condemned cell, to

which his wickedness, all elaborately elicited from him as if told of

another, had brought him. Discovery by the murderer of the utter

needlessness of the murder for its object, was to follow hard upon

commission of the deed; but all discovery of the murderer was to be

baffled till towards the close, when, by means of a gold ring which had

resisted the corrosive effects of the lime into which he had thrown the

body, not only the person murdered was to be identified but the locality

of the crime and the man who committed it.[287] So much was told to me

before any of the book was written; and it will be recollected that the

ring, taken by Drood to be given to his betrothed only if their

engagement went on, was brought away with him from their last

interview. Rosa was to marry Tartar, and Crisparkle the sister of

Landless, who was himself, I think, to have perished in assisting Tartar

finally to unmask and seize the murderer.

Nothing had been written, however, of the main parts of the design

excepting what is found in the published numbers; there was no hint or

preparation for the sequel in any notes of chapters in advance; and

there remained not even what he had himself so sadly written of the book

by Thackeray also interrupted by death. The evidence of matured designs

never to be accomplished, intentions planned never to be executed, roads

of thought marked out never to be traversed, goals shining in the

distance never to be reached, was wanting here. It was all a blank.

Enough had been completed nevertheless to give promise of a much greater

book than its immediate predecessor. "I hope his book is finished,"

wrote Longfellow when the news of his death was flashed to America. "It

is certainly one of his most beautiful works, if not the most beautiful

of all. It would be too sad to think the pen had fallen from his hand,

and left it incomplete." Some of its characters were touched with

subtlety, and in its descriptions his imaginative power was at its best.

Not a line was wanting to the reality, in the most minute local detail,

of places the most widely contrasted; and we saw with equal vividness

the lazy cathedral town and the lurid opium-eater's den.[288] Something

like the old lightness and buoyancy of animal spirits gave a new

freshness to the humour; the scenes of the child-heroine and her

luckless betrothed had both novelty and nicety of character in them; and

Mr. Grewgious in chambers with his clerk and the two waiters, the

conceited fool Sapsea, and the blustering philanthropist Honeythunder,

were first-rate comedy. Miss Twinkleton was of the family of Miss La

Creevy; and the lodging-house keeper, Miss Billickin, though she gave

Miss Twinkleton but a sorry account of her blood, had that of Mrs.

Todgers in her veins. "I was put in life to a very genteel

boarding-school, the mistress being no less a lady than yourself, of

about your own age, or it may be, some years younger, and a poorness of

blood flowed from the table which has run through my life." Was ever

anything better said of a school-fare of starved gentility?