DICKENS
Thackeray's London was practically bounded on the east by the Temple, or
perhaps by the Fleet Prison, which lay a little beyond the _Punch_ office;
it took in the Strand, Pall Mall, Piccadilly, and stretched out westward
round Belgravia, Mayfair, Chiswick, and such selecter quarters of the
town. But Dickens made the whole of London his province; you cannot go
into any part of it but he has been there before you; if he did not at one
time live there himself, some of his characters did. Go north through
Somers Town and Camden Town: the homes of his boyhood were there in Bayham
Street, in Little College Street, in the house that still stands at 13
Johnson Street, from which he walked daily to school at the Wellington
House Academy in Hampstead Road. He lived in Cleveland Street, Fitzroy
Square, and in Fitzroy Street, and whilst his father was a prisoner in the
Marshalsea for debt and he himself was labelling bottles at the blacking
factory in Hungerford Market, he had lodgings south of London Bridge in
Lant Street, which were the originals of the lodgings he gave to Bob
Sawyer in later years when he came to write _Pickwick_. When he was turned
twenty, and working as a Parliamentary reporter in the House of Commons,
and beginning to contribute his _Sketches by Boz_ to the _Monthly
Magazine_, he lived at 18 Bentinck Street, Cavendish Square. For a time he
had lodgings in Buckingham Street, Strand, and afterwards lodged David
Copperfield in the same rooms; he put up for a short time at Fulham before
his marriage at St. Luke's Church, Chelsea, in April 1836, and after a
brief honeymoon returned with his wife to the chambers in Furnival's Inn
that he had rented since the previous year. He had three other London
houses during his more prosperous days; then he quitted the town and went
to live at Gad's Hill Place, where he died in 1870. But even after he was
thus settled in Kent, he was continually up and down to the office of
_Household Words_, in Wellington Street, Strand, and for some part of
almost every year he occupied a succession of furnished houses round about
Hyde Park.
[Illustration: DICKENS. JOHNSON STREET. CAMDEN TOWN.]
A few months before his marriage he had started to write _Pickwick_, the
first monthly part of which appeared in March 1836. Before the end of next
month, Seymour, the artist who was illustrating that serial, having
committed suicide, Thackeray went up to the Furnival's Inn chambers with
specimens of his drawings in the hope of becoming his successor, but
Dickens rejected him in favour of Hablot K. Browne ("Phiz"), who also
illustrated most of his subsequent books. He had published the _Sketches
by Boz_ in two volumes, illustrated by Cruikshank, had written two
dramatic pieces that were very successfully produced at the St. James's
Theatre, had begun to edit _Bentley's Miscellany_, and was writing _Oliver
Twist_ for it, before he left Furnival's Inn and established his small
household of his wife and their first son and his wife's sister, Mary
Hogarth, at 48 Doughty Street, Mecklenburgh Square.
In later years Sala, who became one of Dickens's principal contributors to
_Household Words_, used to live in Mecklenburgh Square, and at different
times Sidney Smith, Shirley Brooks, and Edmund Yates all lived in Doughty
Street (Shirley Brooks was born there, at No. 52), but Doughty Street's
chief glory is that for the greater part of three years Dickens was the
tenant of No. 48. George Henry Lewes called to see him there, and was
perturbed to find that he had nothing on his bookshelves but three-volume
novels and presentation copies of books of travel; clearly he was not much
of a reader, and had never been a haunter of old bookstalls. But presently
Dickens came in, says Lewes, "and his sunny presence quickly dispelled all
misgivings. He was then, as to the last, a delightful companion, full of
sagacity as well as animal spirits; but I came away more impressed with
the fulness of life and energy than with any sense of distinction."
Mrs. Cowden Clarke, who saw him in his Doughty Street days, speaks of him
as "genial, bright, lively-spirited, pleasant-toned," and says he "entered
into conversation with a grace and charm that made it feel perfectly
natural to be chatting and laughing as if we had known each other from
childhood." His eyes she describes as "large, dark blue, exquisitely
shaped, fringed with magnificently long and thick lashes--they now swam in
liquid, limpid suffusion, when tears started into them from a sense of
humour or a sense of pathos, and now darted quick flashes of fire when
some generous indignation at injustice, or some high-wrought feeling of
admiration at magnanimity, or some sudden emotion of interest and
excitement touched him. Swift-glancing, appreciative, rapidly observant,
truly superb orbits they were, worthy of the other features in his manly,
handsome face. The mouth was singularly mobile, full-lipped, well-shaped,
and expressive; sensitive, nay restless, in its susceptibility to
impressions that swayed him, or sentiment that moved him." Which tallies
sufficiently with Carlyle's well-known description of him a few months
later: "A fine little fellow, Boz, I think. Clear, blue, intelligent eyes,
eyebrows that he arches amazingly; large, protrusive, rather loose mouth,
a face of most extreme mobility which he shuttles about--eyebrows, eyes,
mouth and all--in a very singular manner while speaking. Surmount this
with a loose coil of common-coloured hair, and set it on a small, compact
figure, very small, and dressed _â la_ D'Orsay rather than well--this is
Pickwick. For the rest, a quiet, shrewd-looking little fellow, who seems
to guess pretty well what he is and what others are." Forster sketches
his face at this same period with "the quickness, keenness, and practical
power, the eager, restless, energetic outlook on each several feature,
that seemed to tell so little of a student and writer of books, and so
much of a man of action and business in the world. Light and motion
flashed from every part of it." "It was as if made of steel," said Mrs.
Carlyle; and "What a face is his to meet in a drawing-room," wrote Leigh
Hunt. "It has the life and soul in it of fifty human beings."
Dickens's weakness, then and all his life through, was for something too
dazzling and ornate in the way of personal adornment. We hear of a green
overcoat with red cuffs. "His dress was florid," says one who met him: "a
satin cravat of the deepest blue relieved by embroideries, a green
waistcoat with gold flowers, a dress coat with a velvet collar and satin
facings, opulence of white cuff, rings in excess, made up a rather
striking whole." And there is a story of how, when an artist friend of
both was presented by somebody with a too gaudy length of material, Wilkie
Collins advised him to "Give it to Dickens--he'll make a waistcoat out of
it!"
[Illustration: DICKENS' HOUSE. DOUGHTY STREET.]
That jest belongs to a later year, but here you have a sufficiently vivid
presentment of the man as he was when he could be seen passing in and out
of the house in Doughty Street. He may have been dandified in appearance,
but in all his other habits he was a hard and severely methodical worker.
"His hours and days were spent by rule," we are told. "He rose at a
certain time, he retired at another, and though no precisian, it was not
often that his arrangements varied. His hours of writing were between
breakfast and luncheon, and when there was any work to be done no
temptation was sufficiently strong to cause it to be neglected. This order
and regularity followed him through the day. His mind was essentially
methodical, and in his long walks, in his recreations, in his labour, he
was governed by rules laid down by himself, rules well studied beforehand
and rarely departed from."
[Illustration: CHARLES DICKENS]
His rise out of poverty and obscurity into affluence and fame makes a more
wonderful story than that of how Byron woke one morning and found himself
famous. For Dickens had everything against him. He was indifferently
educated, had no social advantages, and no influential friends behind him.
In 1835 he was an unknown young author, writing miscellaneous stories and
sketches for the papers; by the end of 1836 everybody was reading and
raving of and laughing over _Pickwick_, and he was the most talked-of
novelist of the hour. "It sprang into a popularity that each part carried
higher and higher," says Forster, "until people at this time talked of
nothing else, tradesmen recommended their goods by using its name, and its
sale, outstripping at a bound that of all the most famous books of the
century, had reached an almost fabulous number." Judges, street boys, old
and young in every class of life, devoured each month's number directly it
appeared, and looked forward impatiently to the next one. Carlyle told
Forster that "an archdeacon, with his own venerable lips, repeated to me
the other night a strange, profane story of a solemn clergyman who had
been administering ghostly consolation to a sick person; having finished,
satisfactorily as he thought, and got out of the room, he heard the sick
person ejaculate: 'Well, thank God, _Pickwick_ will be out in ten days,
any way!'"
Dickens's favourite recreation in those early years was riding, and
frequently he would set out with Forster "at eleven in the morning for 'a
fifteen mile ride out, ditto in, and lunch on the road,' with a wind-up of
six o'clock dinner in Doughty Street." Other times he would send a note
round to Forster, who lived at 58 Lincoln's Inn Fields, and if he could be
persuaded to come, as generally he could, they would set out for a brisk
walk to Hampstead and over the Heath, and have "a red-hot chop for dinner
and a glass of good wine" at Jack Straw's Castle.
His daughter Mamie was born in Doughty Street, and there the first great
grief of his life completely overwhelmed him for a time, when his wife's
young sister, Mary Hogarth, died at the age of seventeen. There are
several letters from that address in 1838 concerning his progress with
_Oliver Twist_. In one, when he could not work, he says he is "sitting
patiently at home waiting for Oliver Twist, who has not yet arrived." In
another he writes, "I worked pretty well last night--very well indeed; but
although I did eleven close slips before half-past twelve I have four to
write to close the chapter; and as I foolishly left them till this
morning, have the steam to get up afresh." "Hard at work still," he writes
to Forster in August 1838. "Nancy is no more. I showed what I had done to
Kate last night, who is in an unspeakable '_state_'; from which and my own
impression I augur well. When I have sent Sykes to the devil I must have
yours." And "No, no," he wrote again to Forster next month, "don't, don't
let us ride till to-morrow, not having yet disposed of the Jew, who is
such an out-and-outer that I don't know what to make of him." Then one
evening Forster went to Doughty Street and sat in Dickens's study and
talked over the last chapter of _Oliver Twist_ with him, and remained
reading there whilst he wrote it.
From Doughty Street Dickens and "Phiz" set out together on that journey
into Yorkshire to see the notorious school that was to become famous as
Squeers's, and in due course there are letters from that street telling of
the progress of _Nicholas Nickleby_. Early in 1839 the letters tell of how
he is house-hunting, and in the intervals working "at racehorse speed" on
_Barnaby Rudge_, and near the end of the year he moved to 1 Devonshire
Terrace, at the corner of Marylebone Road.
The Doughty Street house remains as he left it, but 1 Devonshire Terrace
has been rather considerably altered. The new residence was such a much
more imposing one than the other that absurd rumours got about that he was
lapsing into extravagance and living beyond his income, and "I perfectly
remember," writes Sala, "when he moved from his modest residence in
Doughty Street to a much grander but still not very palatial house in
Devonshire Terrace, an old gentleman calling one day upon my mother and
telling her, with a grave countenance, that Dickens had pawned his plate,
and had been waited upon for the last fortnight by bailiffs in livery." It
was about this time, too, that the _Quarterly_ made its famous prediction
that in the case of work such as Dickens was doing "an ephemeral
popularity will be followed by an early oblivion." But there was no ground
for any of these fears. His life was a triumphal procession; he went
forward from victory to victory. At Devonshire Terrace he wrote most of
_Barnaby Rudge_: and the prototype of Grip, Barnaby's raven, the special
playmate of Dickens's children, died there; from here he went on his first
visit to America, and on his return, with intervals of holiday at
Broadstairs, in Cornwall, and in Italy, wrote the _American Notes_,
_Martin Chuzzlewit_, _The Chimes_, _The Cricket on the Hearth_, _Pictures
from Italy_, _Dombey and Son_, and commenced the writing of _David
Copperfield_. Whilst he was here, too, he was for a brief space the first
editor of the _Daily News_, and in March 1850 opened his Wellington Street
office and started _Household Words_. Incidentally, he was taking an
active share in a dozen or more public movements; acting as chairman at
meetings and dinners, managing and playing in private theatricals, writing
miscellaneous articles for his new magazine, and attending closely to its
business organisation. Never was a more strenuous literary worker, or one
who brought more enthusiasm to whatever he undertook.
In the autumn of 1851, in the flowing and rising tide of his prosperity,
he removed to the now vanished Tavistock House, in Tavistock Square, and
in the next six years, before his removal to Gad's Hill, wrote _Bleak
House_, _Hard Times_, and _Little Dorrit_, to say nothing of the numerous
short stories and articles he contributed to _Household Words_, and began
to give those public readings from his books that were in his last decade
to occupy so much of his time, add so enormously to his income and his
personal popularity, and play so sinister a part in the breaking down of
his health and the shortening of his career.
Writing immediately after Dickens's death, Sala said that twenty years ago
the face and form of Sir Robert Peel were familiar to almost everybody who
passed him in the street, and "there were as few last week who would have
been unable to point out the famous novelist, with his thought-lined face,
his grizzled beard, his wondrous searching eyes, his bluff presence and
swinging gait as, head aloft, he strode, now through crowded streets,
looking seemingly neither to the right nor the left, but of a surety
looking at and into everything--now at the myriad aspects of London life,
the ever-changing raree-show, the endless roundabout, the infinite
kaleidoscope of wealth and pauperism, of happiness and misery, of good and
evil in this Babylon--now over the pleasant meads and breezy downs which
stretched round his modest Kentish demesne hard by the hoary tower of
Rochester.... Who had not heard him read, and who had not seen his
photographs in the shop windows? The omnibus conductors knew him, the
street boys knew him; and perhaps the locality where his recognition would
have been least frequent--for all that he was a member of the Athenæum
Club--was Pall Mall. Elsewhere he would make his appearance in the oddest
places, and in the most inclement weather: in Ratcliff Highway, on
Haverstock Hill, on Camberwell Green, in Gray's Inn Lane, in the
Wandsworth Road, at Hammersmith Broadway, in Norton Folgate, and at Kensal
New Town.... His carriage was remarkably upright, his mien almost
aggressive in its confidence--a bronzed, weatherworn, hardy man, with
somewhat of a seaman's air about him." London folks would draw aside, he
continues, "as the great writer--who seemed always to be walking a match
against Thought--strode on, and, looking after him, say, 'There goes
Charles Dickens!' The towering stature, the snowy locks, the glistening
spectacles, the listless, slouching port, as that of a tired giant, of
William Makepeace Thackeray were familiar enough likewise but,
comparatively speaking, only to a select few. He belonged to Clubland, and
was only to be seen sauntering there or in West End squares, or on his
road to his beloved Kensington.... Thackeray in Houndsditch, Thackeray in
Bethnal Green or at Camden Town, would have appeared anomalous ... but
Charles Dickens, when in town, was ubiquitous."
There are statues in London of many smaller men, of many who mean little
or nothing in particular to London, but there is none to Dickens, and
perhaps he needs none. Little critics may decry him, but it makes no
difference, it takes nothing from his immortality. "It is fatuous," as
Trollope said of his work, "to condemn that as deficient in art which has
been so full of art as to captivate all men." And to the thousands of us
who know the people and the world that he created he is still ubiquitous
in London here, even though he has his place for ever, as Swinburne says,
among the stars and suns that we behold not:
"Where stars and suns that we behold not burn,
Higher even than here, though highest was here thy place,
Love sees thy spirit laugh and speak and shine
With Shakespeare and the soft bright soul of Sterne,
And Fielding's kindliest might and Goldsmith's grace;
Scarce one more loved or worthier love than thine."