“Marigold” went off brilliantly. He never read better nor was
more universally applauded. Mr. Emerson came down to go, and
passed the night here; of course we sat talking until late,
he being much surprised at the artistic perfection of the
performance. It was queer enough to sit by his side, for when
his stoicism did at length break down, he laughed as if he must
crumble to pieces at such unusual bodily agitation, and with
a face on as if it hurt him dreadfully—to look at him was too
much for me, already full of laughter myself. Afterward we all
went in to shake hands for a moment.
When we came back home Mr. Emerson asked me a great many
questions about C. D. and pondered much. Finally he said, “I am
afraid he has too much talent for his genius; it is a fearful
locomotive to which he is bound and can never be free from it
nor set at rest. You see him quite wrong, evidently; and would
persuade me that he is a genial creature, full of sweetness
and amenities and superior to his talents, but I fear he is
harnessed to them. He is too consummate an artist to have a
thread of nature left. He daunts me! I have not the key.”
When Mr. Fields came in he repeated, “Mrs. Fields would
persuade me he is a man easy to communicate with, sympathetic
and accessible to his friends; but her eyes do not see
clearly in this matter, I am sure.” “Look for yourself, dear
Mr. Emerson,” I answered, laughing, “and then report to me
afterward.”
While we were enjoying ourselves in this way, a great change
has come to the country. The telegram arrived during the
Reading bringing the news of the President’s impeachment,
126 against 47. Since Johnson is to be thrust out, and since
another revolution is upon us (Heaven help us that it be a
peaceful one), we can only be thankful that the majority is
so large. Mr. Dickens’s account of the ability of Johnson,
of his apparent integrity and of his present temperance, as
contrasted with the present (reported) failures of Grant in
this respect, have made me shudder, for I presume Grant is
inevitably the next man. Mrs. Agassiz was evidently pleased
with the appearance of General Grant and his wife. She liked
their repose of manner and ease; but I think this rather a
shallow judgment because poise and ease of manner belong to
the coarsest natures and to the finest; in the latter it is
conquest; and this is why these qualities have so high a place
in the esteem of man; but it is likewise the gift of society
people who neither feel nor understand the varied natures with
whom they come in contact.
Longfellow is at work on a tragedy, of which no words are
spoken at present. Today Mr. Dickens does not go out; he is
writing letters home. Yesterday he and J. walked seven miles,
which is about their average generally....
_February 27._—Longfellow’s birthday. Last night Dickens
went to a supper at Lowell’s and J. passed the evening with
Longfellow. L.’s tragedy comes on apace. He looks to Fechter
to help him. Dickens has doubtless done much to quicken him to
write. He has two nearly finished in blank verse, both begun
since this month came in. J. returned at half-past eleven,
bringing an unread newspaper in his pocket which L. had lent
him, telling him to read something to me about Dickens and
return. Ah me! We could have cried as we read! It was the
saddest of sad letters, written at the time the separation from
his wife took place. The gentleman to whom he wrote it has died
and the letter has stolen into print. I only hope the poor man
may never see it.
Tonight he reads “Carol” and “Boots” and sups here with
Longfellow afterward.
An entry in Mrs. Fields’s diary about two years later indicates with some
clearness that she overestimated the sympathy between Longfellow and
Dickens. After a visit from Longfellow, she wrote, May 24, 1870:—
When Mr. L. talks so much and so pleasantly, I am curiously
reminded of Dickens’s saying to Forster, who lamented that he
did not see Longfellow upon his return to London, “It was not
a great loss this time, Forster; he had not a word to say for
himself—he was the most embarrassing man in all England!” It
is a difference of temperament which will never let those two
men come together. They have no handle by which to take hold of
each other. Longfellow told a gentleman at his table when J.
was present that Dickens saved himself for his books, there was
nothing to be learned in private—he never talked!!
To return to Dickens in Boston:—
_Sunday, March 1._—What a week we have had! I feel utterly
weary this morning, although I _did_ start up with exceeding
bravery and walked four miles just after breakfast, in order
to see that the flowers were right at church and to ask some
people to dinner today who could not, however, come. The air
was very keen and exciting and I did not know I was tired until
I came back and collapsed. Our supper came off Thursday, but
_without_ Dickens. His cold had increased upon him seriously
and he was really ill after his long, difficult reading.
But Longfellow was perfectly lovely, so easily pleased and
so deeply pleased with my little efforts to make this day a
festival time. Dickens and Whittier both sent affectionate and
graceful notes when they found they really could not come. Our
company stayed until two A.M., Emerson never more talkative and
good. He is a noble purifier of the social atmosphere, always
keeping the talk simple as possible but up to the highest pitch
of thought and feeling.
Friday, the Dana girls, Sallie and Charlotte, passed the night
with us and went to the reading and shook hands with Mr.
Dickens afterward. They were perfectly happy when they went
away yesterday....
[The walking match between Dolby and Osgood to which the
following paragraph refers has already been mentioned. The
elaborately humorous conditions of the contest, drawn up by
Dickens, are printed in “Yesterdays with Authors.” “We have had
such a funny paper from Dickens today,” Mrs. Fields had written
in her diary, on February 5th, “that it can only describe
itself—Articles drawn up arranging for a walk and dinner upon
his return here, as if it were some fierce legal document.”]
I had barely time yesterday, after the girls left, to dress
and prepare some flowers and some lunch and make my way in
a carriage, first to the Parker House at Mr. Dickens’s kind
request, to see if all the table arrangements were perfect for
the dinner. I found he had done everything he could think of
to make the feast go off well and had really left nothing for
me to suggest, so I turned about and drove over the mill-dam,
following Messrs. Dickens, Dolby, Osgood, and Fields, who
had left just an hour before on a walking match of six miles
out and six in. This agreement was made and articles drawn
up several weeks ago, signed and sealed in form by all the
parties, to come off without regard to the weather. The wind
was blowing strong from the north-west, very cold, and the snow
blowing, too. They had turned and were coming back when I came
up with them. Osgood was far ahead and, after saluting them all
and giving a cheer for America, discovering too that they had
refreshed on the way, I drove back to Mr. Osgood, keeping near
him and administering brandy all the way in town. The walk was
accomplished in precisely two hours forty-eight minutes. Of
course Mr. Dickens stayed by his man, who was beaten out and
out. They were all exhausted, for the snow made the walking
extremely difficult, and they all jumped into carriages and
drove home with great speed to bathe and sleep before dinner.
At six o’clock we were assembled, eighteen of us, for dinner,
looking our very best (I hope)—at least we all tried for that,
I am sure—and sat punctually down to our elegant dinner. I
have never seen a dinner more beautiful. Two English crowns
of violets were at the opposite ends of the table and flowers
everywhere arranged in perfect taste. I sat at Mr. Dickens’s
right hand and next Mr. Lowell. Mrs. Norton sat the other side
of our host, and he divided his attention loyally between us.
He talked with me about Spiritualism as it is called, the
humbug of which excites his deepest ire, although no one could
believe more entirely than he in magnetism and the unfathomed
ties between man and man. He told me many curious things about
the traps which had been laid by well-meaning friends to bring
him into “spiritual” circles. But he said, “If I go to a
friend’s house for the purpose of exposing a fraud in which she
believes, I am doing a very disagreeable thing and not what she
invited me for. Forster and I were invited to Lord Dufferin’s
to a little dinner with Home. I refused, but Forster went,
saying beforehand to Lord Dufferin that Home would have no
spirits about if he came. Lord Dufferin said, ‘Nonsense,’ and
the dinner came off; but they were hardly seated at table when
Home announced that there was an adverse influence present and
the spirits would not appear. ‘Ah,’ said Forster, ‘my spirits
in this case were clearer than yours, for they told me before I
came that there would be no manifestations tonight.’”
Speaking of dreams, he said he was convinced that no man
(judging from his own experience, which could not be altogether
singular, but must be a type of the experience of others),
he believed no writer, neither Shakespeare nor Scott nor any
other who had ever invented a character, had ever been known
to dream about the creature of his imagination. It would be
like a man’s dreaming of meeting himself, which was clearly an
impossibility. Things exterior to oneself must always be the
basis of our dreams. This talk about characters led him to say
how mysterious and beautiful the action of the mind was around
any given subject. “Suppose,” he said, “this wine-glass were a
character, fancy it a man, endue it with certain qualities, and
soon fine filmy webs of thoughts almost impalpable coming from
every direction, and yet we know not from where, spin and weave
around it until it assumes form and beauty and becomes instinct
with life....”
Mr. Lowell asked him some question in a low voice about the
country, when I heard him say presently that it was very much
grown up, indeed he should not know oftentimes that he was not
in England, things went on so much the same and with very few
exceptions (hardly worth mentioning) he was let alone precisely
as he would have been there.
He loves to talk of Gad’s Hill and stopped joyfully from other
talk to tell me how his daughter Mary arranged his table with
flowers. He speaks continually of her great taste in combining
flowers. “Sometimes she will have nothing but water-lilies,” he
said, as if the memory were a fragrance.
Some one has said, “We cannot love and be wise.” I will gladly
give away the inconsistent wisdom, for Jamie and I are truly
penetrated with grateful love to C. D.
_Wednesday, March 3._—Mr. Dickens came over last night with
Messrs. Osgood and Dolby, to pass the evening and have a little
punch and supper and a merry game with us....
They left punctually before eleven, having promised the driver
they would not keep him waiting in the cold. Jamie has every
day long walks with him. He has told him much regarding the
forms and habits of his life. He is fond of “Gad’s Hill,” and
his “dear daughters” and their aunt, Miss Hogarth, make his
home circle. What a dear one it is to him can be seen whenever
his thought turns that way; and if his letters do not come
punctually, he is in low spirits. He is a great actor and
artist, but above all a great and loving and well-beloved man.
(This I cling to in memory of Mr. Emerson’s dictum.)
I am deep in Carlyle’s history and every little thing I hear
chimes in with that. After _the_ dinner (at the Parker) the
other night, Mr. Dickens thought he would take a warm bath;
but, the water being drawn, he began playing the clown in
pantomime on the edge of the bath (with his clothes on) for the
amusement of Dolby and Osgood; in a moment and before he knew
where he was, he had tumbled in head over heels, clothes and
all. A second and improved edition of “Les Noyades,” I thought.
Surely this book is a marvel of thought and labor. Why, why
have I left it unknown to myself until now? I fear, unlike
Lowell, it is because I could not read eighteen uninterrupted
hours without apoplexy or some other ’exy, which would destroy
what power I have forever.
_March 6._—Mr. Dickens dined here last night without company
except Messrs. Dolby and Osgood and Howells. We had a very
merry time. They had been to visit the Cambridge Printing
Office in the afternoon and had been shown so many things that
“the chief” said he began to think he should have a bitter
hatred against any mortal who undertook to show him anything
else in the world, and laughed immoderately at J.T.F.’s
proposition to show him the new fruit house afterward. We all
had a game of Nincomtwitch and separated rather early because
we were going to a party; and as C. D. shook me by the hand to
say good-bye, he said he hoped we would have a better time at
this party than _he_ ever had at any party in all _his_ life.
A part of the dinner-time was taken up by half guess and half
calculation of how far Mr. Dickens’s manuscript would extend
in a single line. Mr. Osgood said 40 miles. J. said 100,000
(!!). I believe they are really going to find out. C. D. said
_he_ felt as if it would go farther than 40 miles, and was
inclined to be “down” on Osgood until he saw him doing figures
in his head after a fearful fashion. All this amusing talk
served to give one a strange, weird sensation of the value of
words over time and space; these little marks of immeasurable
value covering so slight a portion of the rough earth! Howells
talked a little of Venice, thought the Ligurians lived better
than the Venetians. C. D. said they ate but little meat when
_he_ lived in Genoa; chiefly “pasta” with a good soup poured
over it....
He leaves Boston today, to return the first of April, so I will
end this poor little surface record here, hoping always that
the new sheet shall have something written down of a deeper,
simpler, and more inseeing nature.
On the return of Dickens to Boston, Mrs. Fields dined with him at the
Parker House, March 31, 1868, and, commenting on his lack of “talent” for
sleeping, wrote in her diary:—
I remember Carlyle says, “When Dulness puts his head upon
his mattresses, Dulness sleeps,” referring to the apathetic
people who went on their daily habits and avocations in Paris
while men were guillotined by thousands in the next street.
Mr. Dickens talked as usual, much and naturally—first of the
various hotels of which he had late experience. The one in
Portland was particularly bad, the dinner, poor as it was,
being brought in small dishes, “as if Osgood and I should
quarrel over it,” everything being very bad and disgusting
which the little dishes contained.
At last they came to the book, “Ecce Homo,” in which Dickens
can see nothing of value, any more than we. He thinks
Jesus foresaw and guarded as well as he could against the
misinterpreting of his teaching, that the four Gospels are
all derived from some anterior written Scriptures—made up,
perhaps, with additions and interpolations from the “Talmud,”
in which he expressed great interest and admiration. Among
other things which prove how little the Gospels should be taken
literally is the fact that _broad phylacteries_ were not in
use until some years after Jesus lived, so that the passage in
which this reference occurs, at least, must only be taken as
conveying the spirit and temper, not the actual form of speech,
of our Lord. Mr. Dickens spoke reverently and earnestly, and
said much more if I could recall it perfectly.
Then he came to “spiritualism” again, and asked if he had ever
told us his interview with Colchester, the famous medium. He
continued that, being at Knebworth one day, Lytton, having
finished his dinner and retired to the comfort of his pipe,
said: “Why don’t you see some of these famous men? What a
pity Home has just gone.” (Here Dickens imitated to the
life Lytton’s manner of speaking, so I could see the man.)
“Well,” said D., “he went on to say so much about it that
I inquired of him who was the next best man. He said there
was one Colchester, if possible better than Home. So I took
Colchester’s address, got Charley Collins, my son-in-law, to
write to him asking an interview for five gentlemen and for
any day he should designate, the hour being two o’clock. A day
being fixed, I wrote to a young French conjuror, with whom
I had no acquaintance but had observed his great cleverness
at his business before the public, to ask him to accompany
us. He acceded with alacrity. Therefore, with poor Chauncey
Townshend, just dead, and one other person whom I do not at
this moment recall, we waited upon Mr. Colchester. As we
entered the room, I leading the way, the man, recognizing me
immediately, turned deadly pale, especially when he saw me
followed by the conjuror and Townshend, who, with his colored
imperial and beard and tight-fitting wig, looked like a member
of the detective police. He trembled visibly, became livid
to the eyes, all of which was visible in spite of paint with
which his face was covered to the eyes. He withdrew for a few
minutes, during which we heard him in hot discussion with his
accomplice, telling him how he was cornered and trying to
imagine some way in which to get out of the trap, the other
evidently urging him to go through with it now the best way he
could. He returned, therefore, and placed himself with his back
to the light, while it shone upon our faces. We sat awhile in
silence until he began, insolently turning to me: ‘Take up the
alphabet and think of somebody who is dead, pass your hands
over the letters, and the spirit will indicate the name.’ I
thought of Mary and took the alphabet, and when I came to M, he
rapped; but I was sure that I had unconsciously signified by
some movement and determined to be more skilful the next time.
For the next letter, therefore, he went on to H, and then asked
me if that was right. I told him I thought the spirits ought
to know. He then began with some one else, but doing nothing
he became hotter and hotter, the perspiration pouring from his
face, until he got up, said the spirits were against him, and
was about to withdraw. I then rose and told him that it was the
most shameless imposition, that he had got us there with the
intent to deceive and under false pretences, that he had done
nothing and could do nothing. He offered to return our money—I
said the fact of his taking the money at all was the point. At
last the wretch said, turning to the Frenchman, ‘I did tell
you one name, Valentine.’ ‘Yes,’ answered the young conjuror,
with a sudden burst of English, ‘Yes, but I showed it to you!’
indicating with a swift movement of the hand how he had given
him a chance.” Then it was all up with Colchester, and more
scathing words than those spoken by Dickens to him have been
seldom spoken by mortal.
It was the righteous anger of one trying to avenge and help the
world. Mr. Dickens always seems to me like one who, working
earnestly with his eyes fixed on the immutable, nevertheless
finds to his own surprise that his words place him among the
prophets. He does not arrogate a place to himself there; indeed
he is singularly humble (as it seems to us) in the moral
position he takes; but for all that is led by the Divine Hand
to see what a power he is and in an unsought-for manner finds
himself among the teachers of the earth. He says nowhere is
a man placed in such an unfair position as at church. If one
could only be allowed to get up and state his objections, it
would be very well, but under the circumstances he declines
being preached to.
A few days later Mrs. Fields heard Dickens read the “Christmas Carol” for
the last time in Boston.
_Such_ a wonderful evening as it was!! We were on fire with
enthusiasm and in spite of some people who went with us ...
looking, as C. D. said, as if they were sorry they had come,
they were really filled with enthusiasm, and enjoying as fully
as their critical and crossed natures would allow. He himself
was full of fun and put in all manner of queer things for our
amusement; but what he put in, involuntarily, when he turned
on a man who was standing staring fixedly at him with an opera
glass, was almost more than we could bear. The stolidity of
the man, the fixed glass, the despairing, annihilating look of
Dickens were too much for our equanimity.
_Thursday._—Anniversary of C. D.’s marriage day and of John
Forster’s birthday. C. D. not at all well, coughing all the
time and in low spirits. Mr. Dolby came in when J. was there in
the morning to say there were two gentlemen from New Bedford
(friends of Mr. Osgood’s) who wished to see him. Would he allow
them to come in? “No, I’ll be damned if I will,” he said, like
a spoiled child, starting up from his chair! J. was equally
amused and astonished at the outburst, but sleeplessness,
narcotics, and the rest of the crew of disturbers have done
their worst. My only fear is he may be ill. However, they had a
walk together towards noon and he revived, but coughed badly in
the evening. I think, too, only $1300 in the house was bad for
his spirits!
_April 7._—Dickens ... told Jamie the other day in walking
that he wrote “Nicholas Nickleby” and “Oliver Twist” at the
same time for rival magazines from month to month. Once he was
taken ill, with both magazines waiting for unwritten sheets. He
immediately took steamer for Boulogne, took a room in an inn
there, secure from interruption, and was able to return just in
season for the monthly issues with his work completed. He sees
now how the work of both would have been better done had he
worked only upon one at a time.
After the exertion of last evening he looked pale and
exhausted. Longfellow and Norton joined with us in trying
to dissuade him from future Readings after these two. He
does not recover his vitality after the effort of reading,
and his spirits are naturally somewhat depressed by the
use of soporifics, which at length became a necessity....
“Copperfield” was a tragedy last night—less vigor but great
tragic power came out of it.
_April 8._—In spite of a deluge of rain last night there was a
large audience to hear Dickens, and Longfellow came as usual.
He read with more vigor than the night before and seemed
better.... The time approaches swiftly for our flight to New
York. We dread to leave home and would only do it for _him_,
besides, the pleasure must be much in the fact of trying to
do something rather than in really doing anything, for I fear
he will be too ill and utterly fatigued to care much about
anything but rest.
_Friday, April 10._—Left home at eight o’clock in the morning,
found our dearly beloved friend C. D. already awaiting us, with
two roses in his coat and looking as fresh as possible. It was
my first ride in America in a compartment car. Mr. Dolby made
the fourth in our little party and we had a table and a game of
“Nincom” and “Casino” and talked and laughed and whiled away
the time pleasantly until we arrived here at the Westminster
Hotel in time for dinner at six. I was impressed all day long
with the occasional languor which came over C. D. and always
with the exquisite delicacy and quickness of his perception,
something as fine as the finest woman possesses, which combined
itself wondrously with the action of the massive brain and the
rapid movement of those strong, strong hands. I felt how deeply
we had learned to love him and how hard it would be for us to
part.