CHAPTER VI.

LAST YEARS.

[1858-1870.]

The last twelve years of Dickens's life were busy years, like the others;

but his activity was no longer merely the expression of exuberant force,

and long before the collapse came he had been repeatedly warned of the

risks he continued to defy. When, however, he first entered upon those

public readings, by persisting in which he indisputably hastened his end,

neither he nor his friends took into account the fear of bodily

ill-effects resulting from his exertions. Their misgivings had other

grounds. Of course, had there been any pressure of pecuniary difficulty or

need upon Dickens when he began, or when on successive occasions he

resumed, his public readings, there would be nothing further to be said.

But I see no suggestion of any such pressure. "My worldly circumstances,"

he wrote before he had finally made up his mind to read in America, "are

very good. I don't want money. All my possessions are free and in the best

order. Still," he added, "at fifty-five or fifty-six, the likelihood of

making a very great addition to one's capital in half a year is an immense

consideration." Moreover, with all his love of doing as he chose, and his

sense of the value of such freedom to him as a writer, he was a man of

simple though liberal habits of life, with no taste for the gorgeous or

capricious extravagances of a Balzac or a Dumas, nor can he have been at

a loss how to make due provision for those whom in the course of nature he

would leave behind him. Love of money for its own sake, or for that of the

futilities it can purchase, was altogether foreign to his nature. At the

same time, the rapid making of large sums has potent attractions for most

men; and these attractions are perhaps strongest for those who engage in

the pursuit for the sake of the race as well as of the prize. Dickens's

readings were virtually something new; their success was not only all his

own, but unique and unprecedented--what nobody but himself ever had

achieved or ever could have achieved. Yet the determining motive--if I

read his nature rightly--was, after all, of another kind. "Two souls dwelt

in his breast;" and when their aspirations united in one appeal it was

irresistible. The author who craved for the visible signs of a sympathy

responding to that which he felt for his multitudes of readers, and the

actor who longed to impersonate creations already beings of flesh and

blood to himself, were both astir in him, and in both capacities he felt

himself drawn into the very publicity deprecated by his friends. He liked,

as one who knew him thoroughly said to me, to be face to face with his

public; and against this liking, which he had already indulged as fully as

he could without passing the boundaries between private and professional

life, arguments were in vain. It has been declared sheer pedantry to speak

of such boundaries; and to suggest that there is anything degrading in

paid readings such as those of Dickens would, on the face of it, be

absurd. On the other hand, the author who, on or off the stage, becomes

the interpreter of his writings to large audiences, more especially if he

does his best to stereotype his interpretation by constantly repeating it,

limits his own prerogative of being many things to many men; and where

the author of a work, more particularly of a work of fiction, adjusts it

to circumstances differing from those of its production, he allows the

requirements of the lesser art to prejudice the claims of the greater.

Dickens cannot have been blind to these considerations; but to others his

eyes were never opened. He found much that was inspiriting in his success

as a reader, and this not only in the large sums he gained, or even in the

"roaring sea of response," to use his own fine metaphor, of which he had

become accustomed to "stand upon the beach." His truest sentiment as an

author was touched to the quick; and he was, as he says himself, "brought

very near to what he had sometimes dreamed might be his fame," when, at

York, a lady, whose face he had never seen, stopped him in the street, and

said to him, "Mr. Dickens, will you let me touch the hand that has filled

my house with many friends?" or when, at Belfast, he was almost

overwhelmed with entreaties "to shake hands, Misther Dickens, and God

bless you, sir; not ounly for the light you've been in mee house, sir--and

God love your face!--this many a year." On the other hand--and this,

perhaps, a nature like his would not be the quickest to perceive--there

was something vulgarising in the constant striving after immediate success

in the shape of large audiences, loud applause, and satisfactory receipts.

The conditions of the actor's art cannot forego these stimulants; and this

is precisely his disadvantage in comparison with artists who are able to

possess themselves in quiet. To me, at least, it is painful to find

Dickens jubilantly recording how at Dublin "eleven bank-notes were thrust

into the pay-box--Arthur saw them--at one time for eleven stalls;" how at

Edinburgh "neither Grisi, nor Jenny Lind, nor anything, nor anybody,

seems to make the least effect on the draw of the readings;" while, every

allowance being made, there is something almost ludicrous in the double

assertion, that "the most delicate audience I had ever seen in any

provincial place is Canterbury; but the audience with the greatest sense

of humour certainly is Dover." What subjects for parody Dickens would have

found in these innocent ecstasies if uttered by any other man!

Undoubtedly, this enthusiasm was closely connected with the very

thoroughness with which he entered into the work of his readings. "You

have no idea," he tells Forster, in 1867, "how I have worked at them.

Finding it necessary, as their reputation widened, that they should be

better than at first, _I have learnt them all_, so as to have no

mechanical drawback in looking after the words. I have tested all the

serious passion in them by everything I know; made the humorous points

much more humorous; corrected my utterance of certain words; cultivated a

self-possession not to be disturbed; and made myself master of the

situation." "From ten years ago to last night," he writes to his son from

Baltimore in 1868, "I have never read to an audience but I have watched

for an opportunity of striking out something better somewhere." The

freshness with which he returned night after night and season after season

to the sphere of his previous successes, was itself a genuine actor's

gift. "So real," he declares, "are my fictions to myself, that, after

hundreds of nights, I come with a feeling of perfect freshness to that

little red table, and laugh and cry with my hearers as if I had never

stood there before."

Dickens's first public readings were given at Birmingham, during the

Christmas week of 1853-'54, in support of the new Midland Institute; but a

record--for the authenticity of which I cannot vouch--remains, that with

true theatrical instinct he, before the Christmas in question, gave a

trial reading of the _Christmas Carol_ to a smaller public audience at

Peterborough. He had since been repeatedly found willing to read for

benevolent purposes; and the very fact that it had become necessary to

decline some of these frequent invitations had again suggested the

possibility--which had occurred to him eleven years before--of meeting the

demand in a different way. Yet it may, after all, be doubted whether the

idea of undertaking an entire series of paid public readings would have

been carried out, had it not been for the general restlessness which had

seized upon Dickens early in 1858, when, moreover, he had no special task

either of labour or of leisure to absorb him, and when he craved for

excitement more than ever. To go home--in this springtime of 1858--was not

to find there the peace of contentment. "I must do _something_," he wrote

in March to his faithful counsellor, "or I shall wear my heart away. I can

see no better thing to do that is half so hopeful in itself, or half so

well suited to my restless state."

So by April the die was cast, and on the 29th of that month he had entered

into his new relation with the public. One of the strongest and most

genuine impulses of his nature had victoriously asserted itself, and

according to his wont he addressed himself to his task with a relentless

vigour which flinched from no exertion. He began with a brief series at

St. Martin's Hall, and then, his invaluable friend Arthur Smith continuing

to act as his manager, he contrived to cram not less than eighty-seven

readings into three months and a half of travelling in the "provinces,"

including Scotland and Ireland. A few winter readings in London, and a

short supplementary course in the country during October, 1859, completed

this first series. Already, in 1858, we find him, in a letter from

Ireland, complaining of the "tremendous strain," and declaring, "I seem to

be always either in a railway carriage, or reading, or going to bed. I get

so knocked up, whenever I have a minute to remember it, that then I go to

bed as a matter of course." But the enthusiasm which everywhere welcomed

him--I can testify to the thrill of excitement produced by his visit to

Cambridge, in October, 1859--repaid him for his fatigues. Scotland thawed

to him, and with Dublin--where his success was extraordinary--he was so

smitten as to think it at first sight "pretty nigh as big as Paris." In

return, the Boots at Morrison's expressed the general feeling in a

patriotic point of view: "'Whaat sart of a hoose, sur?' he asked me.

'Capital.' 'The Lard be praised, for the 'onor o' Dooblin.'"

The books, or portions of books, to which he confined himself during this

first series of readings were few in number. They comprised the _Carol_

and the _Chimes_, and two stories from earlier Christmas numbers of

_Household Words_--may the exclamation of the soft-hearted chambermaid at

the Holly Tree Inn, "It's a shame to part 'em!" never vanish from my

memory!--together with the episodic readings of the _Trial_ in _Pickwick_,

_Mrs. Gamp_, and _Paul Dombey_. Of these the _Pickwick_, which I heard

more than once, is still vividly present to me. The only drawback to the

complete enjoyment of it was the lurking fear that there had been some

tampering with the text, not to be condoned even in its author. But in the

way of assumption Charles Mathews the elder himself could have

accomplished no more Protean effort. The lack-lustre eye of Mr. Justice

Stareleigh, the forensic hitch of Mr. Serjeant Buzfuz, and the hopeless

impotence of Mr. Nathaniel Winkle were alike incomparable. And if the

success of the impersonation of Mr. Samuel Weller was less

complete--although Dickens had formerly acted the character on an amateur

stage--the reason probably was that, by reason of his endless store of

ancient and modern instances, Sam had himself become a quasi-mythical

being, whom it was almost painful to find reproduced in flesh and blood.

I have not hesitated to treat these readings by Dickens as if they had

been the performances of an actor; and the description would apply even

more strongly to his later readings, in which he seemed to make his points

in a more accentuated fashion than before. "His readings," says Mr. C.

Kent, in an interesting little book about them, "were, in the fullest

meaning of the words, singularly ingenious and highly-elaborated

histrionic performances." As such they had been prepared with a care such

as few actors bestow upon their parts, and--for the book was prepared not

less than the reading--not all authors bestow upon their plays. Now, the

art of reading, even in the case of dramatic works, has its own laws,

which even the most brilliant readers cannot neglect except at their

peril. A proper pitch has to be found, in the first instance, before the

exceptional passages can be, as it were, marked off from it; and the

absence of this ground-tone sometimes interfered with the total effect of

a reading by Dickens. On the other hand, the exceptional passages were, if

not uniformly, at least generally excellent; nor am I at all disposed to

agree with Forster in preferring, as a rule, the humorous to the pathetic.

At the same time, there was noticeable in these readings a certain

hardness which competent critics likewise discerned in Dickens's acting,

and which could not, at least in the former case, be regarded as an

ordinary characteristic of dilettanteism. The truth is that he isolated

his parts too sharply--a frequent fault of English acting, and one more

detrimental to the total effect of a reading than even to that of an acted

play.

No sooner had the heaviest stress of the first series of readings ceased

than Dickens was once more at work upon a new fiction. The more immediate

purpose was to insure a prosperous launch to the journal which, in the

spring of 1859, took the place of _Household Words_. A dispute, painful in

its origin, but ending in an amicable issue, had resulted in the purchase

of that journal by Dickens; but already a little earlier he had--as he was

entitled to do--begun the new venture of _All the Year Round_, with which

_Household Words_ was afterwards incorporated. The first number, published

on April 30, contained the earliest instalment of _A Tale of Two Cities_,

which was completed by November 20 following.

This story holds a unique place amongst the fictions of its author.

Perhaps the most striking difference between it and his other novels may

seem to lie in the all but entire absence from it of any humour or attempt

at humour; for neither the brutalities of that "honest tradesman," Jerry,

nor the laconisms of Miss Pross, can well be called by that name. Not that

his sources of humour were drying up, even though, about this time, he

contributed to an American journal a short "romance of the real world,"

_Hunted Down_, from which the same relief is again conspicuously absent.

For the humour of Dickens was to assert itself with unmistakable force in

his next longer fiction, and was even before that, in some of his

occasional papers, to give delightful proofs of its continued vigour. In

the case of the _Tale of Two Cities_, he had a new and distinct design in

his mind which did not, indeed, exclude humour, but with which a liberal

indulgence in it must have seriously interfered. "I set myself," he

writes, "the little task of writing a picturesque story, rising in every

chapter with characters true to nature, but whom the story itself should

express more than they should express themselves by dialogue. I mean, in

other words, that I fancied a story of incident might be written, in place

of the bestiality that is written under that pretence, pounding the

characters out in its own mortar, and beating their own interests out of

them." He therefore renounced his more usual method in favour of one

probably less congenial to him. Yet, in his own opinion at least, he

succeeded so well in the undertaking, that when the story was near its end

he could venture to express a hope that it was "the best story he had

written." So much praise will hardly be given to this novel even by

admirers of the French art of telling a story succinctly, or by those who

can never resist a rather hysterical treatment of the French Revolution.

In my own opinion _A Tale of Two Cities_ is a skilfully though not

perfectly constructed novel, which needed but little substantial

alteration in order to be converted into a not less effective stage-play.

And with such a design Dickens actually sent the proof-sheets of the book

to his friend Regnier, in the fearful hope that he might approve of the

project of its dramatisation for a French theatre. Cleverly or clumsily

adapted, the tale of the Revolution and its sanguinary vengeance was

unlikely to commend itself to the Imperial censorship; but an English

version was, I believe, afterwards very fairly successful on the boards of

the Adelphi, where Madame Celeste was certainly in her right place as

Madame Defarge, an excellent character for a melodrama, though rather

wearisome as she lies in wait through half a novel.

The construction of this story is, as I have said, skilful but not

perfect. Dickens himself successfully defended his use of accident in

bringing about the death of Madame Defarge. The real objection to the

conduct of this episode, however, lies in the inadequacy of the

contrivance for leaving Miss Pross behind in Paris. Too much is also, I

think, made to turn upon the three words "and their

descendants"--non-essential in the original connexion--by which Dr.

Manette's written denunciation becomes fatal to those he loves. Still, the

general edifice of the plot is solid; its interest is, notwithstanding the

crowded background, concentrated with much skill upon a small group of

personages; and Carton's self-sacrifice, admirably prepared from the very

first, produces a legitimate tragic effect. At the same time the

novelist's art vindicates its own claims. Not only does this story contain

several narrative episodes of remarkable power--such as the flight from

Paris at the close, and the touching little incident of the seamstress,

told in Dickens's sweetest pathetic manner--but it is likewise enriched by

some descriptive pictures of unusual excellence: for instance, the sketch

of Dover in the good old smuggling times, and the mezzo-tint of the stormy

evening in Soho. Doubtless the increased mannerism of the style is

disturbing, and this not only in the high-strung French scenes. As to the

historical element in this novel, Dickens modestly avowed his wish that he

might by his story have been able "to add something to the popular and

picturesque means of understanding that terrible time, though no one can

hope to add anything to Mr. Carlyle's wonderful book." But if Dickens

desired to depict the noble of the _ancien regime_, either according to

Carlyle or according to intrinsic probability, he should not have

offered, in his Marquis, a type historically questionable, and unnatural

besides. The description of the Saint Antoine, before and during the

bursting of the storm, has in it more of truthfulness, or of the semblance

of truthfulness; and Dickens's perception of the physiognomy of the French

workman is, I think, remarkably accurate. Altogether, the book is an

extraordinary _tour de force_, which Dickens never repeated.

The opening of a new story by Dickens gave the necessary _impetus_ to his

new journal at its earliest stage; nor was the ground thus gained ever

lost. Mr. W. H. Wills stood by his chief's side as of old, taking, more

especially in later years, no small share of responsibility upon him. The

prospectus of _All the Year Round_ had not in vain promised an identity of

principle in its conduct with that of its predecessor; in energy and

spirit it showed no falling off; and, though not in all respects, the

personality of Dickens made itself felt as distinctly as ever. Besides the

_Tale of Two Cities_ he contributed to it his story of _Great

Expectations_. Amongst his contributors Mr. Wilkie Collins took away the

breath of multitudes of readers; Mr. Charles Reade disported himself

amongst the facts which gave stamina to his fiction; and Lord Lytton made

a daring voyage into a mysterious country. Thither Dickens followed him,

for once, in his _Four Stories_, not otherwise noteworthy, and written in

a manner already difficult to discriminate from that of Mr. Wilkie

Collins. For the rest, the advice with which Dickens aided Lord Lytton's

progress in his _Strange Story_ was neither more ready nor more

painstaking than that which he bestowed upon his younger contributors, to

more than one of whom he generously gave the opportunity of publishing in

his journal a long work of fiction. Some of these younger writers were at

this period amongst his most frequent guests and associates; for nothing

more naturally commended itself to him than the encouragement of the

younger generation.

But though longer imaginative works played at least as conspicuous a part

in the new journal as they had in the old, the conductor likewise

continued to make manifest his intention that the lesser contributions

should not be treated by readers or by writers as harmless necessary

"padding." For this purpose it was requisite not only that the choice of

subjects should be made with the utmost care, but also that the master's

hand should itself be occasionally visible. Dickens's occasional

contributions had been few and unimportant, till in a happy hour he began

a series of papers, including many of the pleasantest, as well as of the

mellowest, amongst the lighter productions of his pen. As usual, he had

taken care to find for this series a name which of itself went far to make

its fortune.

"I am both a town and a country traveller, and am always on the road.

Figuratively speaking, I travel for the great house of Human Interest

Brothers, and have rather a large connexion in the fancy goods way.

Literally speaking, I am always wandering here and there from my rooms

in Covent Garden, London--now about the city streets, now about the

country by-roads, seeing many little things, and some great things,

which, because they interest me, I think may interest others."

The whole collection of these _Uncommercial Traveller_ papers, together

with the _Uncommercial Samples_ which succeeded them after Dickens's

return from America, and which begin with a graphic account of his

homeward voyage _Aboard Ship_, where the voice of conscience spoke in the

motion of the screw, amounts to thirty-seven articles, and spreads over a

period of nine years. They are necessarily of varying merit, but amongst

them are some which deserve a permanent place in our lighter literature.

Such are the description of the church-yards on a quiet evening in _The

City of the Absent_, the grotesque picture of loneliness in _Chambers_--a

favourite theme with Dickens--and the admirable papers on _Shy

Neighbourhoods_ and on _Tramps_. Others have a biographical interest,

though delightfully objective in treatment; yet others are mere fugitive

pieces; but there are few without some of the most attractive qualities of

Dickens's easiest style.

Dickens contributed other occasional papers to his journal, some of which

may be forgotten without injury to his fame. Amongst these may be reckoned

the rather dreary _George Silverman's Explanation_ (1868), in which there

is nothing characteristic but a vivid picture of a set of ranters, led by

a clique of scoundrels; on the other hand, there will always be admirers

of the pretty _Holiday Romance_, published nearly simultaneously in

America and England, a nosegay of tales told by children, the only fault

of which is that, as with other children's nosegays, there is perhaps a

little too much of it. I have no room for helping to rescue from partial

oblivion an old friend, whose portrait has not, I think, found a home

amongst his master's collected sketches. Pincher's counterfeit has gone

astray, like _Pincher_ himself. Meanwhile, the special institution of the

Christmas number flourished in connexion with _All the Year Round_ down to

the year 1867, as it had during the last five years of _Household Words_.

It consisted, with the exception of the very last number, of a series of

short stories, in a framework of the editor's own devising. To the authors

of the stories, of which he invariably himself wrote one or more, he left

the utmost liberty, at times stipulating for nothing but that tone of

cheerful philanthropy which he had domesticated in his journal. In the

Christmas numbers, which gradually attained to such a popularity that of

one of the last something like a quarter of a million copies were sold,

Dickens himself shone most conspicuously in the introductory sections; and

some of these are to be reckoned amongst his very best descriptive

character-sketches. Already in _Household Words_ Christmas numbers the

introductory sketch of the _Seven Poor Travellers_ from Watt's Charity at

supper in the Rochester hostelry, and the excellent description of a

winter journey and sojourn at the _Holly Tree Inn_, with an excursus on

inns in general, had become widely popular. The _All the Year Round_

numbers, however, largely augmented this success. After _Tom Tiddler's

Ground_, with the adventures of Miss Kitty Kimmeens, a pretty little

morality in miniature, teaching the same lesson as the vagaries of Mr.

Mopes the hermit, came _Somebody's Luggage_, with its exhaustive

disquisition on waiters; and then the memorable chirpings of _Mrs.

Lirriper_, in both _Lodgings_ and _Legacy_, admirable in the delicacy of

their pathos, and including an inimitable picture of London lodging-house

life. Then followed the _Prescriptions_ of _Dr. Marigold_, the eloquent

and sarcastic but tender-hearted Cheap Jack; and _Mugby Junction_, which

gave words to the cry of a whole nation of hungry and thirsty travellers.

In the tales and sketches contributed by him to the Christmas numbers, in

addition to these introductions, he at times gave the rein to his love for

the fanciful and the grotesque, which there was here no reason to keep

under. On the whole, written, as in a sense these compositions were, to

order, nothing is more astonishing in them than his continued freshness,

against which his mannerism is here of vanishing importance; and,

inasmuch as after issuing a last Christmas number of a different kind,

Dickens abandoned the custom when it had reached the height of popular

favour, and when manifold imitations had offered him the homage of their

flattery, he may be said to have withdrawn from this campaign in his

literary life with banners flying.

In the year 1859 Dickens's readings had been comparatively few; and they

had ceased altogether in the following year, when the _Uncommercial

Traveller_ began his wanderings. The winter from 1859 to 1860 was his last

winter at Tavistock House; and, with the exception of his rooms in

Wellington Street, he had now no settled residence but Gad's Hill Place.

He sought its pleasant retreat about the beginning of June, after the new

experience of an attack of rheumatism had made him recognise "the

necessity of country training all through the summer." Yet such was the

recuperative power, or the indomitable self-confidence, of his nature,

that after he had in these summer months contributed some of the most

delightful _Uncommercial Traveller_ papers to his journal, we find him

already in August "prowling about, meditating a new book."

It is refreshing to think of Dickens in this pleasant interval of country

life, before he had rushed once more into the excitement of his labours as

a public reader. We may picture him to ourselves, accompanied by his dogs,

striding along the country roads and lanes, exploring the haunts of the

country tramps, "a piece of Kentish road," for instance, "bordered on

either side by a wood, and having on one hand, between the road-dust and

the trees, a skirting patch of grass. Wild flowers grow in abundance on

this spot, and it lies high and airy, with a distant river stealing

steadily away to the ocean like a man's life. To gain the mile-stone here,

which the moss, primroses, violets, bluebells, and wild roses would soon

render illegible but for peering travellers pushing them aside with their

sticks, you must come up a steep hill, come which way you may." At the

foot of that hill, I fancy, lay Dullborough town half asleep in the summer

afternoon; and the river in the distance was that which bounded the

horizon of a little boy's vision "whose father's family name was Pirrip,

and whose Christian name was Philip, but whose infant tongue could make of

both names nothing longer or more explicit than Pip."

The story of Pip's adventures, the novel of _Great Expectations_, was

thought over in these Kentish perambulations between Thames and Medway

along the road which runs, apparently with the intention of running out to

sea, from Higham towards the marshes; in the lonely church-yard of Cooling

village by the thirteen little stone-lozenges, of which Pip counted only

five, now nearly buried in their turn by the rank grass; and in quiet

saunters through the familiar streets of Rochester, past the "queer"

Townhall; and through the "Vines" past the fine old Restoration House,

called in the book (by the name of an altogether different edifice) Satis

House. And the climax of the narrative was elaborated on a unique

steamboat excursion from London to the mouth of the Thames, broken by a

night at the "Ship and Lobster," an old riverside inn called "The Ship" in

the story. No wonder that Dickens's descriptive genius should become

refreshed by these studies of his subject, and that thus _Great

Expectations_ should have indisputably become one of the most picturesque

of his books. But it is something very much more at the same time. The

_Tale of Two Cities_ had as a story strongly seized upon the attention of

the reader. But in the earlier chapters of _Great Expectations_ every one

felt that Dickens was himself again. Since the Yarmouth scenes in _David

Copperfield_ he had written nothing in which description married itself to

sentiment so humorously and so tenderly. Uncouth, and slow, and

straightforward, and gentle of heart, like Mr. Peggotty, Joe Gargery is as

new a conception as he is a genuinely true one; nor is it easy to know

under what aspect to relish him most--whether disconsolate in his Sunday

clothes, "like some extraordinary bird, standing, as he did, speechless,

with his tuft of feathers ruffled, and his mouth open as if he wanted a

worm," or at home by his own fireside, winking at his little comrade, and,

when caught in the act by his wife, "drawing the back of his hand across

his nose with his usual conciliatory air on such occasions." Nor since

_David Copperfield_ had Dickens again shown such an insight as he showed

here into the world of a child's mind. "To be quite sure," he wrote to

Forster, "I had fallen into no unconscious repetitions, I read _David

Copperfield_ again the other day, and was affected by it to a degree you

would hardly believe." His fears were unnecessary; for with all its charm

the history of Pip lacks the personal element which insures our sympathy

to the earlier story and to its hero. In delicacy of feeling, however, as

well as in humour of description, nothing in Dickens surpasses the earlier

chapters of _Great Expectations_; and equally excellent is the narrative

of Pip's disloyalty of heart toward his early friends, down to his

departure from the forge, a picture of pitiable selfishness almost

Rousseau-like in its fidelity to poor human nature; down to his comic

humiliation, when in the pride of his new position and his new clothes,

before "that unlimited miscreant, Trabb's boy." The later and especially

the concluding portions of this novel contain much that is equal in power

to its opening; but it must be allowed that, before many chapters have

ended, a false tone finds its way into the story. The whole history of

Miss Havisham, and the crew of relations round the unfortunate creature,

is strained and unnatural, and Estella's hardness is as repulsive as that

of Edith Dombey herself. Mr. Jaggers and his house-keeper, and even Mr.

Wemmick, have an element of artificiality in them, whilst about the Pocket

family there is little, if anything at all, that is real. The story,

however, seems to recover itself as the main thread in its deftly-woven

texture is brought forward again: when on a dark, gusty night, ominous of

coming trouble, the catastrophe of Pip's expectations announces itself in

the return from abroad of his unknown benefactor, the convict whom he had

as a child fed on the marshes. The remainder of the narrative is

successful in conveying to the reader the sense of sickening anxiety which

fills the hero; the interest is skilfully sustained by the introduction of

a very strong situation--Pip's narrow escape out of the clutches of "Old

Orlick" in the lime-kiln on the marshes; and the climax is reached in the

admirably-executed narrative of the convict's attempt, with the aid of

Pip, to escape by the river. The actual winding-up of _Great Expectations_

is not altogether satisfactory; but on the whole the book must be ranked

among the very best of Dickens's later novels, as combining, with the

closer construction and intenser narrative force common to several of

these, not a little of the delightfully genial humour of his earlier

works.

Already, before _Great Expectations_ was completely published, Dickens had

given a few readings at the St. James's Hall, and by the end of October in

the same year, 1861, he was once more engaged in a full course of country

readings. They occupied him till the following January, only ten days

being left for his Christmas number, and a brief holiday for Christmas

itself; so close was the adjustment of time and work by this favourite of

fortune. The death of his faithful Arthur Smith befell most untowardly

before the country readings were begun, but their success was unbroken,

from Scotland to South Devon. The long-contemplated extract from

_Copperfield_ had at last been added to the list--a self-sacrifice _coram

publico_, hallowed by success--and another from _Nicholas Nickleby_, which

"went in the wildest manner." He was, however, nearly worn out with

fatigue before these winter readings were over, and was glad to snatch a

moment of repose before a short spring course in town began. Scarcely was

this finished, when he was coquetting in his mind with an offer from

Australia, and had already proposed to himself to throw in, as a piece of

work by the way, a series of papers to be called _The Uncommercial

Traveller Upside Down_. Meanwhile, a few readings for a charitable purpose

in Paris, and a short summer course at St. James's Hall, completed this

second series in the year 1863.

Whatever passing thoughts overwork by day or sleeplessness at night may

have occasionally brought with them, Dickens himself would have been

strangely surprised, as no doubt would have been the great body of a

public to which he was by this time about the best known man in England,

had he been warned that weakness and weariness were not to be avoided even

by a nature endowed with faculties so splendid and with an energy so

conquering as his. He seemed to stand erect in the strength of his matured

powers, equal as of old to any task which he set himself, and exulting,

though with less buoyancy of spirit than of old, in the wreaths which

continued to strew his path. Yet already the ranks of his contemporaries

were growing thinner, while close to himself death was taking away members

of the generation before, and of that after, his own. Amongst them was his

mother--of whom his biography and his works have little to say or to

suggest--and his second son. Happy events, too, had in the due course of

things contracted the family circle at Gad's Hill. Of his intimates, he

lost, in 1863, Augustus Egg; and in 1864 John Leech, to whose genius he

had himself formerly rendered eloquent homage.

A still older associate, the great painter Stanfield, survived till 1867.

"No one of your father's friends," Dickens then wrote to Stanfield's son,

"can ever have loved him more dearly than I always did, or can have better

known the worth of his noble character." Yet another friend, who, however,

so far as I can gather, had not at any time belonged to Dickens's most

familiar circle, had died on Christmas Eve, 1863--Thackeray, whom it had

for some time become customary to compare or contrast with him as his

natural rival. Yet in point of fact, save for the tenderness which, as

with all humourists of the highest order, was an important element in

their writings, and save for the influences of time and country to which

they were both subject, there are hardly two other amongst our great

humourists who have less in common. Their unlikeness shows itself, among

other things, in the use made by Thackeray of suggestions which it is

difficult to believe he did not in the first instance owe to Dickens. Who

would venture to call Captain Costigan a plagiarism from Mr. Snevellici,

or to affect that Wenham and Wagg were copied from Pyke and Pluck, or that

Major Pendennis--whose pardon one feels inclined to beg for the

juxtaposition--was founded upon Major Bagstock, or the Old Campaigner in

the _Newcomes_ on the Old Soldier in _Copperfield_? But that suggestions

were in these and perhaps in a few other instances derived from Dickens by

Thackeray for some of his most masterly characters, it would, I think, be

idle to deny. In any case, the style of these two great writers differed

as profoundly as their way of looking at men and things. Yet neither of

them lacked a thorough appreciation of the other's genius; and it is

pleasant to remember that, after paying in _Pendennis_ a tribute to the

purity of Dickens's books, Thackeray in a public lecture referred to his

supposed rival in a way which elicited from the latter the warmest of

acknowledgments. It cannot be said that the memorial words which, after

Thackeray's death, Dickens was prevailed upon to contribute to the

_Cornhill Magazine_ did more than justice to the great writer whom England

had just lost; but it is well that the kindly and unstinting tribute of

admiration should remain on record, to contradict any supposition that a

disagreement which had some years previously disturbed the harmony of

their intercourse, and of which the world had, according to its wont, made

the most, had really estranged two generous minds from one another. The

effort which on this occasion Dickens made is in itself a proof of his

kindly feeling towards Thackeray. Of Talfourd and Landor and Stanfield he

could write readily after their deaths, but he frankly told Mr. Wilkie

Collins that, "had he felt he could," he would most gladly have excused

himself from writing the "couple of pages" about Thackeray.

Dickens, it should be remembered, was at no time a man of many friends.

The mere dalliance of friendship was foreign to one who worked so

indefatigably in his hours of recreation as well as of labour; and

fellowship in work of one kind or another seems to have been, in later

years at all events, the surest support to his intimacy. Yet he was most

easily drawn, not only to those who could help him, but to those whom he

could help in congenial pursuits and undertakings. Such was, no doubt, the

origin of his friendship in these later years with an accomplished French

actor on the English boards, whom, in a rather barren period of our

theatrical history, Dickens may have been justified in describing as "far

beyond any one on our stage," and who certainly was an "admirable artist."

In 1864 Mr. Fechter had taken the Lyceum, the management of which he was

to identify with a more elegant kind of melodrama than that long

domesticated lower down the Strand; and Dickens was delighted to bestow on

him counsel frankly sought and frankly given. As an author, too, he

directly associated himself with the art of his friend.[11] For I may

mention here by anticipation that the last of the _All the Year Round_

Christmas numbers, the continuous story of _No Thoroughfare_, was written

by Dickens and Mr. Wilkie Collins in 1867, with a direct eye to its

subsequent adaptation to the stage, for which it actually was fitted by

Mr. Wilkie Collins in the following year. The place of its production, the

Adelphi, suited the broad effects and the rather conventional comic humour

of the story and piece. From America, Dickens watched the preparation of

the piece with unflagging interest; and his innate and irrepressible

genius for stage-management reveals itself in the following passage from a

letter written by him to an American friend soon after his return to

England: "_No Thoroughfare_ is very shortly coming out in Paris, where it

is now in active rehearsal. It is still playing here, but without Fechter,

who has been very ill. He and Wilkie raised so many pieces of stage-effect

here, that, unless I am quite satisfied with the report, I shall go over

and try my stage-managerial hand at the Vaudeville Theatre. I particularly

want the drugging and attempted robbery in the bedroom-scene at the Swiss

Inn to be done to the sound of a water-fall rising and falling with the

wind. Although in the very opening of that scene they speak of the

water-fall, and listen to it, nobody thought of its mysterious music. I

could make it, with a good stage-carpenter, in an hour."

_Great Expectations_ had been finished in 1860, and already in the latter

part of 1861, the year which comprised the main portion of his second

series of readings, he had been thinking of a new story. He had even found

a title--the unlucky title which he afterwards adopted--but in 1862 the

tempting Australian invitation had been a serious obstacle in his way. "I

can force myself to go aboard a ship, and I can force myself to do at that

reading-desk what I have done a hundred times; but whether, with all this

unsettled, fluctuating distress in my mind, I could force an original book

out of it is another question." Nor was it the "unsettled, fluctuating

distress" which made it a serious effort for him to attempt another longer

fiction. Dickens shared with most writers the experience that both the

inventive power and the elasticity of memory decline with advancing years.

Already since the time when he was thinking of writing _Little Dorrit_ it

had become his habit to enter in a book kept for the purpose memoranda for

possible future use, hints for subjects of stories,[12] scenes,

situations, and characters; thoughts and fancies of all kinds; titles for

possible books. Of these _Somebody's Luggage_, _Our Mutual Friend_, and

_No Thoroughfare_--the last an old fancy revived--came to honourable use;

as did many names, both Christian and surnames, and combinations of both.

Thus, Bradley Headstone's _praenomen_ was derived directly from the lists

of the Education Department, and the Lammles and the Stiltstalkings, with

Mr. Merdle and the Dorrits, existed as names before the characters were

fitted to them. All this, though no doubt in part attributable to the

playful readiness of an observation never to be caught asleep, points in

the direction of a desire to be securely provided with an armoury of

which, in earlier days, he would have taken slight thought.

Gradually--indeed, so far as I know, more gradually than in the case of

any other of his stories--he had built up the tale for which he had

determined on the title of _Our Mutual Friend_, and slowly, and without

his old self-confidence, he had, in the latter part of 1863, set to work

upon it. "I want to prepare it for the spring, but I am determined not to

begin to publish with less than four numbers done. I see my opening

perfectly, with the one main line on which the story is to turn, and if I

don't strike while the iron (meaning myself) is hot, I shall drift off

again, and have to go through all this uneasiness once more." For,

unfortunately, he had resolved on returning to the old twenty-number

measure for his new story. Begun with an effort, _Our Mutual Friend_--the

publication of which extended from May, 1864, to November, 1865--was

completed under difficulties, and difficulties of a kind hitherto unknown

to Dickens. In February, 1865, as an immediate consequence, perhaps, of

exposure at a time when depression of spirits rendered him less able than

usual to bear it, he had a severe attack of illness, of which Forster says

that it "put a broad mark between his past life and what remained to him

of the future." From this time forward he felt a lameness in his left

foot, which continued to trouble him at intervals during the remainder of

his life, and which finally communicated itself to the left hand. A

comparison of times, however, convinced Forster that the real origin of

this ailment was to be sought in general causes.

In 1865, as the year wore on, and the pressure of the novel still

continued, he felt that he was "working himself into a damaged state," and

was near to that which has greater terrors for natures like his than for

more placid temperaments--breaking down. So, in May, he went first to the

sea-side and then to France. On his return (it was the 9th of June, the

date of his death five years afterwards) he was in the railway train which

met with a fearful accident at Staplehurst, in Kent. His carriage was the

only passenger-carriage in the train which, when the bridge gave way, was

not thrown over into the stream. He was able to escape out of the window,

to make his way in again for his brandy-flask and the MS. of a number of

_Our Mutual Friend_ which he had left behind him, to clamber down the

brickwork of the bridge for water, to do what he could towards rescuing

his unfortunate fellow-travellers, and to aid the wounded and the dying.

"I have," he wrote, in describing the scene, "a--I don't know what to call

it: constitutional, I suppose--presence of mind, and was not in the least

fluttered at the time.... But in writing these scanty words of

recollection I feel the shake, and am obliged to stop." Nineteen months

afterwards, when on a hurried reading tour in the North, he complains to

Miss Hogarth of the effect of the railway shaking which since the

Staplehurst accident "tells more and more." It is clear how serious a

shock the accident had caused. He never, Miss Hogarth thinks, quite

recovered it. Yet it might have acted less disastrously upon a system not

already nervously weakened. As evidence of the decline of Dickens's

nervous power, I hardly know whether it is safe to refer to the gradual

change in his handwriting, which in his last years is a melancholy study.

All these circumstances should be taken into account in judging of

Dickens's last completed novel. The author would not have been himself had

he, when once fairly engaged upon his work, failed to feel something of

his old self-confidence. Nor was this feeling, which he frankly confessed

to Mr. Wilkie Collins, altogether unwarranted. _Our Mutual Friend_[13] is,

like the rest of Dickens's later writings, carefully and skilfully put

together as a story. No exception is to be taken to it on the ground that

the identity on which much of the plot hinges is long foreseen by the

reader; for this, as Dickens told his critics in his postscript, had been

part of his design, and was, in fact, considering the general nature of

the story, almost indispensable. The defect rather lies in the absence of

that element of uncertainty which is needed in order to sustain the

interest. The story is, no doubt, ingeniously enough constructed, but

admiration of an ingenious construction is insufficient to occupy the mind

of a reader through an inevitable disentanglement. Moreover, some of the

machinery, though cleverly contrived, cannot be said to work easily. Thus,

the _ruse_ of the excellent Boffin in playing the part of a skinflint

might pass as a momentary device, but its inherent improbability, together

with the likelihood of its leading to an untoward result, makes its

protraction undeniably tedious. It is not, however, in my opinion at

least, in the matter of construction that _Our Mutual Friend_ presents a

painful contrast with earlier works produced, like it, "on a large

canvas." The conduct of the story as a whole is fully vigorous enough to

enchain the attention; and in portions of it the hand of the master

displays its unique power. He is at his best in the whole of the

water-side scenes, both where "The Six Jolly Fellowship Porters"

(identified by zealous discoverers with a tavern called "The Two Brewers")

lies like an oasis in the midst of a desert of ill-favoured tidal

deposits, and where Rogue Riderhood has his lair at the lock higher up the

river. A marvellous union of observation and imagination was needed for

the picturing of a world in which this amphibious monster has his being;

and never did Dickens's inexhaustible knowledge of the physiognomy of the

Thames and its banks stand him in better stead than in these powerful

episodes. It is unfortunate, though in accordance with the common fate of

heroes and heroines, that Lizzie Hexham should, from the outset, have to

discard the colouring of her surroundings, and to talk the conventional

dialect as well as express the conventional sentiments of the heroic

world. Only at the height of the action she ceases to be commonplace, and

becomes entitled to be remembered amongst the true heroines of fiction. A

more unusual figure, of the half-pathetic, half-grotesque kind for which

Dickens had a peculiar liking, is Lizzie's friend, the doll's dressmaker,

into whom he has certainly infused an element of genuine sentiment; her

protector, Riah, on the contrary, is a mere stage-saint, though by this

character Dickens appears to have actually hoped to redeem the aspersions

he was supposed to have cast upon the Jews, as if Riah could have redeemed

Fagin, any more than Sheva redeemed Shylock.

But in this book whole episodes and parts of the plot through which the

mystery of John Harmon winds its length along are ill-adapted for giving

pleasure to any reader. The whole Boffin, Wegg, and Venus business--if the

term may pass--is extremely wearisome; the character of Mr. Venus, in

particular, seems altogether unconnected or unarticulated with the general

plot, on which, indeed, it is but an accidental excrescence. In the Wilfer

family there are the outlines of some figures of genuine humour, but the

outlines only; nor is Bella raised into the sphere of the charming out of

that of the pert and skittish. A more ambitious attempt, and a more

noteworthy failure, was the endeavour to give to the main plot of this

novel such a satiric foil as the Circumlocution Office had furnished to

the chief action of _Little Dorrit_, in a caricature of society at large,

its surface varnish and its internal rottenness. The Barnacles, and those

who deemed it their duty to rally round the Barnacles, had, we saw, felt

themselves hard hit; but what sphere or section of society could feel

itself specially caricatured in the Veneerings, or in their

associates--the odious Lady Tippins, the impossibly brutal Podsnap,

Fascination Fledgeby, and the Lammles, a couple which suggests nothing but

antimony and the Chamber of Horrors? Caricature such as this,

representing no society that has ever in any part of the world pretended

to be "good," corresponds to the wild rhetoric of the superfluous Betty

Higden episode against the "gospel according to Podsnappery;" but it is,

in truth, satire from which both wit and humour have gone out. An angry,

often almost spasmodic, mannerism has to supply their place. Amongst the

personages moving in "society" are two which, as playing serious parts in

the progress of the plot, the author is necessarily obliged to seek to

endow with the flesh and blood of real human beings. Yet it is precisely

in these--the friends Eugene and Mortimer--that, in the earlier part of

the novel at all events, the constraint of the author's style seems least

relieved; the dialogues between these two Templars have an unnaturalness

about them as intolerable as euphuism or the effeminacies of the Augustan

age. It is true that, when the story reaches its tragic height, the

character of Eugene is borne along with it, and his affectations are

forgotten. But in previous parts of the book, where he poses as a wit, and

is evidently meant for a gentleman, he fails to make good his claims to

either character. Even the skilfully contrived contrast between the rivals

Eugene Wrayburn and the school-master, Bradley Headstone--through whom and

through whose pupil, Dickens, by-the-way, dealt another blow against a

system of mental training founded upon facts alone--fails to bring out the

conception of Eugene which the author manifestly had in his mind. Lastly,

the old way of reconciling dissonances--a marriage which "society" calls a

_mesalliance_--has rarely furnished a lamer ending than here; and, had the

unwritten laws of English popular fiction permitted, a tragic close would

have better accorded with the sombre hue of the most powerful portions of

this curiously unequal romance.

The effort--for such it was--of _Our Mutual Friend_ had not been over for

more than a few months, when Dickens accepted a proposal for thirty

nights' readings from the Messrs. Chappell; and by April, 1866, he was

again hard at work, flying across the country into Lancashire and

Scotland, and back to his temporary London residence in Southwick Place,

Hyde Park. In any man more capable than Dickens of controlling the

restlessness which consumed him the acceptance of this offer would have

been incomprehensible; for his heart had been declared out of order by his

physician, and the patient had shown himself in some degree awake to the

significance of this opinion. But the readings were begun and accomplished

notwithstanding, though not without warnings, on which he insisted on

putting his own interpretation. Sleeplessness aggravated fatigue, and

stimulants were already necessary to enable him to do the work of his

readings without discomfort. Meanwhile, some weeks before they were

finished, he had been induced to enter into negotiations about a further

engagement to begin at the end of the year. Time was to be left for the

Christmas number, which this year could hardly find its scene anywhere

else than at a railway junction; and the readings were not to extend over

forty nights, which seem ultimately to have been increased to fifty. This

second series, which included a campaign in Ireland, brilliantly

successful despite snow and rain, and Fenians, was over in May. Then came

the climax, for America now claimed her share of the great author for her

public halls and chapels and lecture-theatres; and the question of the

summer and autumn was whether or not to follow the sound of the distant

dollar. It was closely debated between Dickens and his friend Forster and

Wills, and he describes himself as "tempest-tossed" with doubts; but his

mind had inclined in one direction from the first, and the matter was

virtually decided when it resolved to send a confidential agent to make

enquiries on the spot. Little imported another and grave attack in his

foot; the trusty Mr. Dolby's report was irresistible. Eighty readings

within half a year was the estimated number, with profits amounting to

over fifteen thousand pounds. The gains actually made were nearly five

thousand pounds in excess of this calculation.

A farewell banquet, under the presidency of Lord Lytton, gave the

favourite author Godspeed on his journey to the larger half of his public;

on the 9th of November he sailed from Liverpool, and on the 19th landed at

Boston. The voyage, on which, with his old buoyancy, he had contrived to

make himself master of the modest revels of the saloon, seems to have done

him good, or at least to have made him, as usual, impatient to be at his

task. Barely arrived, he is found reporting himself "so well, that I am

constantly chafing at not having begun to-night, instead of this night

week." By December, however, he was at his reading-desk, first at Boston,

where he met with the warmest of welcomes, and then at New York, where

there was a run upon the tickets, which he described with his usual

excited delight. The enthusiasm of his reception by the American public

must have been heightened by the thought that it was now or never for them

to see him face to face, and, by-gones being by-gones, to testify to him

their admiration. But there may have been some foundation for his

discovery that some signs of agitation on his part were expected in

return, and "that it would have been taken as a suitable compliment if I

would stagger on the platform, and instantly drop, overpowered by the

spectacle before me." It was but a sad Christmas which he spent with his

faithful Dolby at their New York inn, tired, and with a "genuine American

catarrh upon him," of which he never freed himself during his stay in the

country. Hardly had he left the doctor's hands than he was about again,

reading in Boston and New York and their more immediate

neighbourhood--that is, within six or seven hours by railway--till

February; and then, in order to stimulate his public, beginning a series

of appearances at more distant places before returning to his

starting-points. His whole tour included, besides a number of New England

towns, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, and in the north Cleveland

and Buffalo. Canada and the West were struck out of the programme, the

latter chiefly because exciting political matters were beginning to absorb

public attention.

During these journeyings Dickens gave himself up altogether to the

business of his readings, only occasionally allowing himself to accept the

hospitality proffered him on every side. Thus only could he breast the

difficulties of his enterprise; for, as I have said, his health was never

good during the whole of his visit, and his exertions were severe, though

eased by the self-devotion of his attendants, of which, as of his constant

kindness, both serious and sportive, towards them it is touching to read.

Already in January he describes himself as not seldom "so dead beat" at

the close of a reading "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," and as suffering from intolerable sleeplessness at night. His

appetite was equally disordered, and he lived mainly on stimulants. Why

had he condemned himself to such a life?

When at last he could declare the stress of his work over he described

himself as "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." Indeed, but for his wonderful

energy and the feeling of exultation which is derived from a heavy task

nearly accomplished, he would have had to follow the advice of "Longfellow

and all the Cambridge men," and give in nearly at the last. But he

persevered through the farewell readings, both at Boston and at New York,

though on the night before the last reading in America he told Dolby that

if he "had to read but twice more, instead of once, he couldn't do it."

This last reading of all was given at New York on April 20, two days after

a farewell banquet at Delmonico's. It was when speaking on this occasion

that, very naturally moved by the unalloyed welcome which had greeted him

in whatever part of the States he had visited, he made the declaration

already mentioned, promising to perpetuate his grateful sense of his

recent American experiences. This apology, which was no apology, at least

remains one amongst many proofs of the fact that with Dickens kindness

never fell on a thankless soil.

The merry month of May was still young in the Kentish fields and lanes

when the master of Gad's Hill Place was home again at last. "I had not

been at sea three days on the passage home," he wrote to his friend Mrs.

Watson, "when I became myself again." It was, however, too much when "a

'deputation'--two in number, of whom only one could get into my cabin,

while the other looked in at my window--came to ask me to read to the

passengers that evening in the saloon. I respectfully replied that sooner

than do it I would assault the captain and be put in irons." Alas! he was

already fast bound, by an engagement concluded soon after he had arrived

in Boston, to a final series of readings at home. "Farewell" is a

difficult word to say for any one who has grown accustomed to the

stimulating excitement of a public stage, and it is not wonderful that

Dickens should have wished to see the faces of his familiar friends--the

English public--once more. But the engagement to which he had set his hand

was for a farewell of a hundred readings, at the recompense of eight

thousand pounds, in addition to expenses and percentage. It is true that

he had done this before he had fully realized the effect of his American

exertions; but even so there was a terrible unwisdom in the promise. These

last readings--and he alone is, in common fairness, to be held responsible

for the fact--cut short a life from which much noble fruit might still

have been expected for our literature, and which in any case might have

been prolonged as a blessing beyond all that gold can buy to those who

loved him.

Meanwhile he had allowed himself a short respite before resuming his

labours in October. It was not more, his friends thought, than he needed,

for much of his old buoyancy seemed to them to be wanting in him, except

when hospitality or the intercourse of friendship called it forth. What a

charm there still was in his genial humour his letters would suffice to

show. It does one good to read his description to his kind American

friends Mr. and Mrs. Fields of his tranquillity at Gad's Hill: "Divers

birds sing here all day, and the nightingales all night. The place is

lovely, and in perfect order. I have put five mirrors in the Swiss chalet

where I write, and they reflect and refract in all kinds of ways the

leaves that are quivering at the windows, and the great fields of waving

corn, and the sail-dotted river. My room is up amongst the branches of the

trees, and the birds and the butterflies fly in and out, and the green

branches shoot in at the open windows, and the lights and shadows of the

clouds come and go with the rest of the company. The scent of the flowers,

and indeed of everything that is growing for miles and miles, is most

delicious."

Part of this rare leisure he generously devoted to the preparation for the

press of a volume of literary remains from the pen of an old friend. The

_Religious Opinions of Chauncey Hare Townshend_ should not be altogether

overlooked by those interested in Dickens, to whom the loose undogmatic

theology of his friend commended itself as readily as the sincere

religious feeling underlying it. I cannot say what answer Dickens would

have returned to an enquiry as to his creed, but the nature of his

religious opinions is obvious enough. Born in the Church of England, he

had so strong an aversion from what seemed to him dogmatism of any kind,

that he for a time--in 1843--connected himself with a Unitarian

congregation; and to Unitarian views his own probably continued during his

life most nearly to approach. He described himself as "morally wide

asunder from Rome," but the religious conceptions of her community cannot

have been a matter of anxious enquiry with him, while he was too

liberal-minded to be, unless occasionally, aggressive in his

Protestantism. For the rest, his mind, though imaginative, was without

mystical tendencies, while for the transitory superstitions of the day it

was impossible but that he should entertain the contempt which they

deserved. "Although," he writes--

"I regard with a hushed and solemn fear the mysteries between which,

and this state of existence, is interposed the barrier of the great

trial and change that fall on all the things that live; and, although

I have not the audacity to pretend that I know anything of them, I

cannot reconcile the mere banging of doors, ringing of bells, creaking

of boards, and such like insignificances, with the majestic beauty and

pervading analogy of all the Divine rules that I am permitted to

understand."

His piety was undemonstrative and sincere, as his books alone would

suffice to prove; and he seems to have sought to impress upon his children

those religious truths with the acceptance and practice of which he

remained himself content. He loved the New Testament, and had, after some

fashion of his own, paraphrased the Gospel narrative for the use of his

children; but he thought that "half the misery and hypocrisy of the

Christian world arises from a stubborn determination to refuse the New

Testament as a sufficient guide in itself, and to force the Old Testament

into alliance with it--whereof comes all manner of camel-swallowing and of

gnat-straining." Of Puritanism in its modern forms he was an

uncompromising, and no doubt a conscientious, opponent; and though, with

perfect sincerity, he repelled the charge that his attacks upon cant were

attacks upon religion, yet their _animus_ is such as to make the

misinterpretation intelligible. His Dissenting ministers are of the

_Bartholomew Fair_ species; and though, in his later books, a good

clergyman here and there makes his modest appearance, the balance can

hardly be said to be satisfactorily redressed.

The performance of this pious office was not the only kind act he did

after his return from America. Of course, however, his own family was

nearest to his heart. No kinder or more judicious words were ever

addressed by a father to his children than those which, about this time,

he wrote to one of his sons, then beginning a successful career at

Cambridge, and to another--the youngest--who was setting forth for

Australia, to join an elder brother already established in that country.

"Poor Plorn," he afterward wrote, "is gone to Australia. It was a hard

parting at the last. He seemed to me to become once more my youngest and

favourite child as the day drew near, and I did not think I could have

been so shaken."

In October his "farewell" readings began. He had never had his heart more

in the work than now. Curiously enough, not less than two proposals had

reached him during this autumn--one from Birmingham and the other from

Edinburgh--that he should allow himself to be put forward as a candidate

for Parliament; but he declined to entertain either, though in at least

one of the two cases the prospects of success would not have been small.

His views of political and parliamentary life had not changed since he had

written to Bulwer Lytton in 1865: "Would there not seem to be something

horribly rotten in the system of political life, when one stands amazed

how any man, not forced into it by his position, as you are, can bear to

live it?" Indeed, they had hardly changed since the days when he had come

into personal contact with them as a reporter. In public and in private he

had never ceased to ridicule our English system of party, and to express

his contempt for the Legislature and all its works. He had, however,

continued to take a lively interest in public affairs, and his letters

contain not a few shrewd remarks on both home and foreign questions. Like

most liberal minds of his age, he felt a warm sympathy for the cause of

Italy; and the English statesman whom he appears to have most warmly

admired was Lord Russell, in whose good intentions neither friends nor

adversaries were wont to lose faith. Meanwhile his Radicalism gradually

became of the most thoroughly independent type, though it interfered

neither with his approval of the proceedings in Jamaica as an example of

strong government, nor with his scorn of "the meeting of jawbones and

asses" held against Governor Eyre at Manchester. The political questions,

however, which really moved him deeply were those social problems to which

his sympathy for the poor had always directed his attention--the Poor-law,

temperance, Sunday observance, punishment and prisons, labour and strikes.

On all these heads sentiment guided his judgment, but he spared no pains

to convince himself that he was in the right; and he was always generous,

as when, notwithstanding his interest in _Household Words_, he declared

himself unable to advocate the repeal of the paper duty for a moment, "as

against the soap duty, or any other pressing on the mass of the poor."

Thus he found no difficulty in adhering to the course he had marked out

for himself. The subject which now occupied him before all others was a

scheme for a new reading, with which it was his wish to vary and to

intensify the success of the series on which he was engaged. This was no

other than a selection of scenes from _Oliver Twist_, culminating in the

scene of the murder of Nancy by Sikes, which, before producing it in

public, he resolved to "try" upon a select private audience. The trial was

a brilliant success. "The public," exclaimed a famous actress who was

present, "have been looking out for a sensation these last fifty years or

so, and, by Heaven, they have got it!" Accordingly, from January, 1869, it

formed one of the most frequent of his readings, and the effort which it

involved counted for much in the collapse which was to follow. Never were

the limits between reading and acting more thoroughly effaced by Dickens,

and never was the production of an extraordinary effect more equally

shared by author and actor. But few who witnessed this extraordinary

performance can have guessed the elaborate preparation bestowed upon it,

which is evident from the following notes (by Mr. C. Kent) on the book

used in it by the reader:

"What is as striking as anything in all this reading, however--that

is, in the reading copy of it now lying before us as we write--is the

mass of hints as to the by-play in the stage directions for himself,

so to speak, scattered up and down the margin. 'Fagin raised his right

hand, and shook his trembling forefinger in the air,' is there on page

101 in print. Beside it, on the margin in MS., is the word '_Action_.'

Not a word of it was said. It was simply _done_. Again, immediately

below that, on the same page--Sikes _loquitur_: 'Oh! you haven't,

haven't you?' passing a pistol into a more convenient pocket

('_Action_' again in MS. on the margin.) Not a word was said about the

pistol.... So again, afterwards, as a rousing self-direction, one sees

notified in MS. on page 107 the grim stage direction, '_Murder

coming!_'"

The "Murder" was frequently read by Dickens not less than four times a

week during the early months of 1869, in which year, after beginning in

Ireland, he had been continually travelling to and fro between various

parts of Great Britain and town. Already in February the old trouble in

his foot had made itself felt, but, as usual, it had long been

disregarded. On the 10th of April he had been entertained at Liverpool, in

St. George's Hall, at a banquet presided over by Lord Dufferin, and in a

genial speech had tossed back the ball to Lord Houghton, who had

pleasantly bantered him for his unconsciousness of the merits of the House

of Lords. Ten days afterwards he was to read at Preston, but, feeling

uneasy about himself, had reported his symptoms to his doctor in London.

The latter hastened down to Preston, and persuaded Dickens to accompany

him back to town, where, after a consultation, it was determined that the

readings must be stopped for the current year, and that reading combined

with travelling must never be resumed. What his sister-in-law and daughter

feel themselves justified in calling "the beginning of the end" had come

at last.

With his usual presence of mind Dickens at once perceived the imperative

necessity of interposing, "as it were, a fly-leaf in the book of my life,

in which nothing should be written from without for a brief season of a

few weeks." But he insisted that the combination of the reading and the

travelling was alone to be held accountable for his having found himself

feeling, "for the first time in my life, giddy, jarred, shaken, faint,

uncertain of voice and sight and tread and touch, and dull of spirit."

Meanwhile, he for once kept quiet, first in London, and then at Gad's

Hill. "This last summer," say those who did most to make it bright for

him, "was a very happy one," and gladdened by the visits of many friends.

On the retirement, also on account of ill-health, from _All the Year

Round_ of his second self, Mr. W. H. Wills, he was fortunately able at

once to supply the vacant place by the appointment to it of his eldest

son, who seems to have inherited that sense of lucid order which was

amongst his father's most distinctive characteristics. He travelled very

little this year, though in September he made a speech at Birmingham on

behalf of his favourite Midland Institute, delivering himself, at its

conclusion, of an antithetical Radical commonplace, which, being

misreported or misunderstood, was commented upon with much unnecessary

wonderment. With a view to avoiding the danger of excessive fatigue, the

latter part of the year was chiefly devoted to writing in advance part of

his new book, which, like _Great Expectations_, was to grow up, and to be

better for growing up, in his own Kentish home, and almost within sound of

the bells of "Cloisterham" Cathedral. But the new book was never to be

finished.

The first number of _The Mystery of Edwin Drood_ was not published till

one more short series of twelve readings, given in London during a period

extending from January to March, was at an end. He had obtained Sir Thomas

Watson's consent to his carrying out this wish, largely caused by the

desire to compensate the Messrs. Chappell in some measure for the

disappointment to which he had been obliged to subject them by the

interruption of his longer engagement. Thus, though the Christmas of 1869

had brought with it another warning of trouble in the foot, the year 1870

opened busily, and early in January Dickens established himself for the

season at 5 Hyde Park Place. Early in the month he made another speech at

Birmingham; but the readings were strictly confined to London. On the

other hand, it was not to be expected that the "Murder" would be excluded

from the list. It was read in January to an audience of actors and

actresses; and it is pleasant to think that he was able to testify to his

kindly feeling towards their profession on one of the last occasions when

he appeared on his own stage. "I set myself," he wrote, "to carrying out

of themselves and their observation those who were bent on watching how

the effects were got; and, I believe, I succeeded. Coming back to it

again, however, I feel it was madness ever to do it so continuously. My

ordinary pulse is seventy-two, and it runs up under this effort to one

hundred and twelve." Yet this fatal reading was repeated thrice more

before the series closed, and with even more startling results upon the

reader. The careful observations made by the physician, however, show that

the excitement of his last readings was altogether too great for any man

to have endured much longer. At last, on March 16, the night came which

closed fifteen years of personal relations between the English public and

its favourite author, such as are, after all, unparalleled in the history

of our literature. His farewell words were few and simple, and referred

with dignity to his resolution to devote himself henceforth exclusively to

his calling as an author, and to his hope that in but two short weeks'

time his audience "might enter, in their own homes, on a new series of

readings at which his assistance would be indispensable."

Of the short time which remained to him his last book was the chief

occupation; and an association thus clings to the _Mystery of Edwin Drood_

which would, in any case, incline us to treat this fragment--for it was to

be no more--with tenderness. One would, indeed, hardly be justified in

asserting that this story, like that which Thackeray left behind him in

the same unfinished state, bade fair to become a masterpiece in its

author's later manner; there is much that is forced in its humour, while

as to the working out of the chief characters our means of judgment are,

of course, incomplete. The outline of the design, on the other hand,

presents itself with tolerable clearness to the minds of most readers of

insight or experience, though the story deserves its name of a mystery,

instead of, like _Our Mutual Friend_, seeming merely to withhold a

necessary explanation. And it must be allowed few plots have ever been

more effectively laid than this, of which the untying will never be known.

Three such personages in relation to a deed of darkness as Jasper for its

contriver, Durden for its unconscious accomplice, and Deputy for its

self-invited witness, and all so naturally connecting themselves with the

locality of the perpetration of the crime, assuredly could not have been

brought together except by one who had gradually attained to mastership in

the adaptation of characters to the purposes of a plot. Still, the

strongest impression left upon the reader of this fragment is the evidence

it furnishes of Dickens having retained to the last powers which were most

peculiarly and distinctively his own. Having skilfully brought into

connexion, for the purposes of his plot, two such strangely-contrasted

spheres of life and death as the cathedral close at "Cloisterham" and an

opium-smoking den in one of the obscurest corners of London, he is

enabled, by his imaginative and observing powers, not only to _realise_

the picturesque elements in both scenes, but also to convert them into a

twofold background, accommodating itself to the most vivid hues of human

passion. This is to bring out what he was wont to call "the romantic

aspect of familiar things." With the physiognomy of Cloisterham--otherwise

Rochester--with its cathedral, and its "monastery" ruin, and its "Minor

Canon Corner," and its "Nuns' House"--otherwise "Eastgate House," in the

High Street--he was, of course, closely acquainted; but he had never

reproduced its features with so artistic a cunning, and the Mystery of

Edwin Drood will always haunt Bishop Gundulph's venerable building and its

tranquil precincts. As for the opium-smoking, we have his own statement

that what he described he saw--"exactly as he had described it, penny

ink-bottle and all--down in Shadwell" in the autumn of 1869. "A couple of

the Inspectors of Lodging-houses knew the woman, and took me to her as I

was making a round with them to see for myself the working of Lord

Shaftesbury's Bill." Between these scenes John Jasper--a figure conceived

with singular force--moves to and fro, preparing his mysterious design. No

story of the kind ever began more finely; and we may be excused from

enquiring whether signs of diminished vigour of invention and freshness of

execution are to be found in other and less prominent portions of the

great novelist's last work.

Before, in this year 1870, Dickens withdrew from London to Gad's Hill,

with the hope of there in quiet carrying his all but half-finished task to

its close, his health had not been satisfactory; he had suffered from time

to time in his foot, and his weary and aged look was observed by many of

his friends. He was able to go occasionally into society; though at the

last dinner-party which he attended--it was at Lord Houghton's, to meet

the Prince of Wales and the King of the Belgians--he had been unable to

mount above the dining-room floor. Already in March the Queen had found a

suitable opportunity for inviting him to wait upon her at Buckingham

Palace, when she had much gratified him by her kindly manner; and a few

days later he made his appearance at the levee. These acknowledgments of

his position as an English author were as they should be; no others were

offered, nor is it a matter of regret that there should have been no

titles to inscribe on his tomb. He was also twice seen on one of those

public occasions which no eloquence graced so readily and so pleasantly as

his: once in April, at the dinner for the Newsvenders' Charity, when he

spoke of the existence among his humble clients of that "feeling of

brotherhood and sympathy which is worth much to all men, or they would

herd with wolves;" and once in May--only a day or two before he went home

into the country--when, at the Royal Academy dinner, he paid a touching

tribute to the eminent painter, Daniel Maclise, who in the good old days

had been much like a brother to himself. Another friend and companion,

Mark Lemon, passed away a day or two afterwards; and with the most

intimate of all, his future biographer, he lamented the familiar faces of

their companions--not one of whom had passed his sixtieth year--upon which

they were not to look again. On the 30th of May he was once more at Gad's

Hill.

Here he forthwith set to work on his book, taking walks as usual, though

of no very great length. On Thursday, the 9th of June, he had intended to

pay his usual weekly visit to the office of his journal, and accordingly,

on the 8th, devoted the afternoon as well as the morning to finishing the

sixth number of the story. When he came across to the house from the

chalet before dinner he seemed to his sister-in-law, who alone of the

family was at home, tired and silent, and no sooner had they sat down to

dinner than she noticed how seriously ill he looked. It speedily became

evident that a fit was upon him. "Come and lie down," she entreated. "Yes,

on the ground," he said, very distinctly--these were the last words he

spoke--and he slid from her arm and fell upon the floor. He was laid on a

couch in the room, and there he remained unconscious almost to the last.

He died at ten minutes past six on the evening of the 9th--by which time

his daughters and his eldest son had been able to join the faithful

watcher by his side; his sister and his son Henry arrived when all was

over.

His own desire had been to be buried near Gad's Hill; though at one time

he is said to have expressed a wish to lie in a disused graveyard, which

is still pointed out, in a secluded corner in the moat of Rochester

Castle. Preparations had been made accordingly, when the Dean and Chapter

of Rochester urged a request that his remains might be placed in their

Cathedral. This was assented to; but at the last moment the Dean of

Westminster gave expression to a widespread wish that the great national

writer might lie in the national Abbey. There he was buried on June 14,

without the slightest attempt at the pomp which he had deprecated in his

will, and which he almost fiercely condemned in more than one of his

writings. "The funeral," writes Dean Stanley, whose own dust now mingles

with that of so many illustrious dead, "was strictly private. It took

place at an early hour in the summer morning, the grave having been dug in

secret the night before, and the vast solitary space of the Abbey was

occupied only by the small band of the mourners, and the Abbey clergy,

who, without any music except the occasional peal of the organ, read the

funeral service. For days the spot was visited by thousands. Many were the

tears shed by the poorer visitors. He rests beside Sheridan, Garrick, and

Henderson"--the first actor ever buried in the Abbey. Associations of

another kind cluster near; but his generous spirit would not have

disdained the thought that he would seem even in death the players'

friend.

A plain memorial brass on the walls of Rochester Cathedral vindicates the

share which the ancient city and its neighbourhood will always have in his

fame. But most touching of all it is to think of him under the trees of

his own garden on the hill, in the pleasant home where, after so many

labours and so many wanderings, he died in peace, and as one who had

earned his rest.