"It was a fine new house, with red walls and four bow-windows, and
a jutting entrance supported by pillars; in the gable a large
window. A dense hedge of cherry-laurel surrounded the house, in
front of which extended a neat lawn, and on the opposite side rose
two mighty cedars of Lebanon, whose crooked branches spread their
green far over another large lawn surrounded by ivy and wild
vines, the hedge being so dense and dark that no sunbeam could
penetrate it.
"As soon as I stepped into the house, Dickens came to meet me
kindly and cordially. He was now in the prime of life, still so
youthful, so active, so eloquent, so rich in the most pleasant
humor, through which his sterling kind-heartedness always beamed
forth. As he stood before me in the first hour, so he was and
remained during all the weeks I passed in his company,--merry,
good-natured, and full of charming sympathy. Dickens at home seems
to be perpetually jolly, and enters into the interests of games
with all the ardor of a boy. My bedroom was the perfection of a
sleeping-apartment; the view across the Kentish hills, with a
distant peep of the Thames, charming. In every room I found a table
covered with writing-materials, headed notepaper, envelopes, cut
quill-pens, wax, matches, sealing-wax, and all scrupulously neat
and orderly. There are magnificent specimens of Newfoundland dogs
on the grounds, such animals as Landseer would love to paint. One
of these, named Bumble, seems to be a favorite with Dickens."