"Eminently social and domestic, he exercised a liberal hospitality,
and though he lived well as his means allowed, avoided excesses. It
is said of him that he never lost a friend, never made an enemy."
From all sources comes the same report of his geniality, of his devotion
to his children and their devotion to him, of his constant generosity
and good-humor. Byron's old servant said that Lady Byron was the only
woman he ever saw who could not manage his master. Was this also true of
Mrs. Dickens? Was she the only one who found him "ill to live with"? It
may be; and yet one can easily imagine him to have been a man of moods,
and that in some of these moods it would be best to give him a wide
berth. The very excess of his animal spirits may have been wearying to
one who could not share them; and that he was egotistical to a degree,
and vain, and fond of flattery, goes without saying. A lady in the
"English-woman's Magazine" tells this story of his wild and reckless
fun, and it is matched by many others. They were down on the seashore in
the moonlight, and had been dancing there.
"We then strolled farther down to watch the fading light. The tide
came rippling in. The night grew darker,--starless, moonless.
Dickens seemed suddenly to be possessed with the spirit of
mischief; he threw his arm around me, and ran me down the inclined
plane to the end of the jetty till we reached the toll-post. He put
his other arm around this, and exclaimed in theatrical tones that
he intended to hold me there till the sad sea waves should submerge
us. 'Think of the sensation we shall create.' Here I implored him
to let me go, and struggled hard to release myself. 'Let your mind
dwell upon the column in the "Times" wherein will be vividly
described the pathetic fate of the lovely E. P., drowned by Dickens
in a fit of dementia. Don't struggle, poor little bird; you are
helpless.' By this time the last gleam of light had faded out, and
the water close to us looked uncomfortably black. The tide was
coming up rapidly, and surged over my feet. I gave a loud shriek,
and tried to bring him back to common-sense by reminding him that
my dress--my best dress, my only silk dress--would be ruined. Even
this climax did not soften him; he still went on with his
serio-comic nonsense, shaking with laughter all the time, and
panting with his struggles to hold me. 'Mrs. Dickens,' I shrieked,
'help me! Make Mr. Dickens let me go--the waves are up to my
knees.' 'Charles,' cried Mrs. Dickens, 'how can you be so silly?
You will both be carried off by the tide!' And it was not until my
dress had been completely ruined that I succeeded in wresting
myself from him. Upon two other occasions he seized me and ran with
me under the cataract, and held me there until I was thoroughly
baptized and my bonnets a wreck of lace and feathers."
The same writer says,--and she is one who writes from familiar personal
acquaintance,--"To describe Dickens as always amiable, always just, and
always in the right, would be simply false and untrue to Nature;" and
she relates several anecdotes going to prove that he was sometimes
capricious, not always responsive to appeals for help, and other things
of that sort; all of which may be true and not be very damaging. This
writer tells still another story of his reckless fun-making, as
follows:--
"We were about to make an excursion to Pegwell Bay, and lunch
there. Presently Dickens came in in high glee, flourishing about a
yard of ballads, which he had bought from a beggar in the street.
'Look here,' he cried exultingly, 'all for a penny. One song alone
is worth a Jew's eye,--quite new and original, the subject being
the interesting announcement by our gracious Queen.' He commenced
to give us a specimen, but after hearing one verse there arose a
cry of universal execration. He pretended to be vexed at our
'shutting him up.' said there was nothing wrong in it, he had
written a great deal worse himself; and when we were going to enter
the carriages he said: 'Now, look here! I give due notice to all
and sundry, that I mean to sing that song, and a good many others,
during the ride; so those ladies who think them vulgar can go in
the other carriages. I am not going to invest my hard-earned penny
for nothing.' I was quite certain that Charles Dickens was the last
man in the world to shock the modesty of any female, and too much
of a gentleman to do anything that was annoying to us, but I
thought it as well to go in the other carriage; and so he had no
ladies with him but his wife and Mrs. S----. I was not sorry,
however, to be where I was, as I heard for the next half-hour
portions of those songs wafted on the breeze; and the bursts of
laughter from ladies and gentlemen and the mischievous twinkle in
Dickens's eye proved that he was in such a madcap mood that it was
as well there were none but married people with him,--the subject
being of a 'Gampish' nature. But he was not always full of spirits
or even-tempered,--indeed, I was sometimes puzzled by the
variability of his moods."
Anecdotes like the following, told by Blanchard Jerrold, abound in all
writers who wrote of Dickens from personal knowledge:--
"A very dear friend of mine, and of many others to whom literature
is a staff, had died. To say that his family had claims upon
Dickens is to say that they were promptly acknowledged and
satisfied, with the grace and heartiness which double the gift,
sweeten the bread, and warm the wine. I asked a connection of our
dead friend whether he had seen the poor wife and children. 'Seen
them?' he answered. 'I was there to-day. They are removed into a
charming cottage. They have everything about them; and just think
of this: when I burst into the room, in my eager survey of the new
home, I saw a man in his shirt-sleeves up some steps, hammering
away lustily. He turned. It was Charles Dickens, and he was hanging
the pictures for the widow. . . . Dickens was the soul of truth and
manliness as well as kindness, so that such a service as this came
as naturally to him as help from his purse.'"