gg^iTT fl ' . f V LHlliil l 
 
 AMES T. Fl 
 
 M- o p yi 
 
 ^%i>* 
 
 ^
 
 "i^T , cf SERIES 
 
 HE great popularity of the " Little Classics " 
 has proved anew the truth of Dr. Johnson's 
 remark : " Books that you may cairy to the 
 fire, and hold readily in your hand, are the most use- 
 ful after all." The attractive character of their con- 
 tents has been very strongly commended to public 
 favor by the convenient size of the volumes. These 
 were not too large to be carried to the fire or held 
 readily in the hand, and consequently they have been 
 in great request wherever they have become known. 
 
 The Vest-Pocket Series will consist of volumes 
 yet smaller than the "Little Classics," — so small that 
 they can indeed be carried in a vest-pocket of proper 
 dimensions. Their Liliputian size, legible type, and 
 flexible cloth binding adapt them admirably for the 
 beguiling (or improving) of short journeys ; and the
 
 high excellence of their contents makes them desirable 
 always and everywhere. The scries will include the 
 choicest productions of such authors as 
 
 EMERSON, LOWELL, 
 
 LONGFELLOW, HOLMES, 
 
 WHITTIER, HOWELLS, 
 
 HAWTHORNE, HARTE, 
 
 and others of like fame. 
 
 They will be beautifully printed, and bound in flex- 
 ible cloth covers, at a uniform price of 
 
 FIFTY CENTS EACH. 
 
 The first issues will be as follows : — 
 
 SNOW-BOUND. By John Greenleaf Whittier. 
 Illustrated. 
 
 EVANGELINE. By Henry Wadswokth Long- 
 fellow. Illustrated. 
 
 POWER, WEALTH, ILLUSIONS. Essays by 
 Ralph Waldo Emerson. 
 
 CULTURE, BEHAVIOR, BEAUTY. Essays by 
 Ralph Waldo Emerson. 
 
 JAMES R. OSGOOD & CO., 
 
 Publishers. Boston.
 
 Irh cLTxd Out of Doors 
 
 with 
 
 CKcurlas DicPcerts, 
 
 BY 
 
 JAMES T. FIELDS. 
 
 " A man he was to charm and cheat the hours, 
 And bring a sunbeam to the stormiest day ; — 
 In doors or out his countless magic powers 
 Postponed the dark and lightened all the way." 
 
 BOSTON : 
 JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY, 
 
 Late Ticknor &• Fields, a>tci Fieids, Osgood, &• Co. 
 1876.
 
 URL 
 
 ?5 
 
 Copyright, 1S76, by 
 James T. Fields. 
 
 Re-issiied/ro»i " Yesterdays -with Authors.' 
 
 University Press: Welch. Bigelow, & Co., 
 Cambridge.
 
 DICKENS. 
 
 ' friend with heart as gentle for distress, 
 As resolute with wise true thoughts to bind 
 The happiest with the uuhappiest of our kind." 
 John Forster. 
 
 "All men are to an unspeakable degree brothers, each 
 man's life a strange emblem of every man's ; and Human 
 Portraits, faitlifuUy drawn, are of all pictures the welcomest 
 on human walls." — Carlyle.
 
 IN AND OUT OF DOOKS WITH 
 CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 Y chair is placed to-day where the por- 
 traits of Charles Dickens are easiest 
 seen. These are likenesses of him from 
 the age of tAventy-eight down to the year when he 
 passed through " the golden gate," as that wise 
 mystic William Blake calls death. One would 
 hardly believe these pictures represented the same 
 man ! See what a beautiful young person Alex- 
 ander represents in this early likeness of the great 
 author, and then contrast the face with that worn 
 one in the photograph of 1869. The same man, 
 but how different in aspect ! I sometimes think, 
 while looking at these two portraits, I must have 
 known two individuals bearing the same name, at 
 various periods of my own life. Let me speak to- 
 day of the younger Dickens. How well I recall 
 the bleak winter evening in 1842 when I first saw 
 the handsome, glowing face of the young man who
 
 5 IX AXD OUT OF DOORS WITH 
 
 was eveu then famous over half the globe ! He 
 came bounding into the Treraont House, fresh 
 from the steamer that had brought him to our 
 shores, and his cheery voice rang through the liaU, 
 as he gave a quick glance at the new scenes open- 
 ing upon him in a strange laud, on first arriving 
 at a Transatlantic hotel. " Here we are ! " he 
 shouted, as the lights burst upon the merry party 
 just entering the house, and several gentlemen came 
 forward to greet him. Ah, how happy and buoy- 
 ant he was then ! Young, handsome, almost wor- 
 shipped for his genius, belted round by such troops 
 of friends as rarely ever man had, coming to a new 
 country to make new conquests of fame and honor, 
 — surely it was a sight long to be remembered and 
 never wholly to be forgotten. The splendor of his 
 endowments and the jiersonal interest he had won 
 to himself called forth all the enthusiasm of old and 
 young America, and I am glad to have been among 
 the first to witness his arrival. You ask me what 
 was his appearance as he ran, or rather flew, up the 
 steps of the hotel, and sprang into the hall. He 
 seemed all on fire with curiosity, and alive as I 
 never saw mortal before. From top to toe every 
 fibre of his body was unrestrained and alert. What 
 vigor, what keenness, Avhat freshness of spirit, pos- 
 sessed him ! He laughed all over, and did not care 
 who heard him ! He seemed like the Emperor of 
 Cheerfulness on a cruise of pleasure, determined to
 
 CHARLES DICKENS. 9 
 
 conquer a realm or two of fun every hour of his 
 overflowing existence. That night impressed itself 
 on my memory for all time, so far as I am con- 
 cerned with things sublunary. It was Dickens, the 
 true " Boz," in flesh and blood, who stood before 
 us at last, and with my companions, three or four 
 lads of my own age, I determined to sit up late that 
 night. None of us then, of course, had the honor 
 of an acquaintance with the delightful stranger, and 
 I little thought that I should afterwards come to 
 know him in the beaten way of friendship, and live 
 with him day after day in years far distant ; that I 
 should ever be so near to him that he would reveal 
 to me his joys and his sorrows, and thus that I 
 should leai-n the story of his life from his own lips. 
 About midnight on that eventful landing, " Boz," 
 — everybody called him "Boz" in those days, — 
 having fluished his supper, came down into the 
 office of the hotel, and, joining the young Earl of 
 
 M , his fellow-voyager, sallied out for a fii'st 
 
 look at Boston streets. It was a stinging night, 
 and the moon was at the full. Every object stood 
 out sharp and glittering, and " Boz," muffled up in 
 a shaggy fur coat, ran over the shining frozen snow, 
 wisely keeping the middle of the street for the most 
 part. We boys followed cautiously behind, but near 
 enough not to lose any of the fun. Of course the 
 two gentlemen soon lost their way on emerging into 
 Washington from Tremont Street. Dickens kept
 
 10 IN AND OUT OF DOORS WITH 
 
 up one continual shout of uproarious laugliter as 
 he went rapidly forward, reading the signs on the 
 shops, and observing the " architecture " of the 
 new country into which he had dropped as if from 
 the clouds. When the two arrived opposite the 
 " Old South Church " Dickens screamed. To this 
 day I could never tell why. Was it because of its 
 fancied resemblance to St. Paul's or the Abbey ? I 
 declare firmly, the mystery of that shout is still a 
 mystery to me ! 
 
 The great event of Boz's first visit to Boston 
 was the dinner of welcome tendered to him by the 
 young men of the city. It is idle to attempt much 
 talk about the banquet given on that Monday night 
 in February, twenty-nine years ago. Papanti's 
 Hall (where many of us learned to dance, under 
 the guidance of that master of legs, now happily 
 still among us and pursuing the same highly use- 
 ful calling which he practised in 1842) was the 
 scene of that festivity. It was a glorious episode 
 in all our lives, and whoever was not there has 
 suffei-ed a loss not easy to estimate. We younger 
 members of that dinner-party sat in the seventh 
 heaven of happiness, and were translated into other 
 spheres. Accidentally, of course, I had a seat just 
 in front of the honored guest ; saw him take a pinch 
 of snuff out of Washington Allston's box, and heard 
 him joke with old President Quincy. Was there 
 ever such a night before in our staid city ? Did
 
 CHARLES DICKENS. 11 
 
 ever mortal preside with such felicitous success as 
 did the younger Mr. Quincy ? How he went on 
 with his delicious compliments to our guest ! How 
 he revelled in quotations from " Pickwick " and 
 " Oliver Twist " and " The Curiosity Shop " ! And 
 how admirably he closed his speech of welcome, 
 calling up the young author amid a perfect volley 
 of applause ! " Health, Happiness, and a Hearty 
 Welcome to Charles Dickens." I can see and hear 
 Mr. Quincy now, as he spoke the words. Were 
 ever heard such cheers before ? And when Dickens 
 stood up at last to answer for himself, so fresh and 
 radiant, with his beautiful eyes moist with feeling, 
 and his whole frame aglow with excitement, how we 
 did hurrah, we young fellows ! Trust me, it was 
 a great night ; and we must have made a mighty 
 noise at our end of the table, for I remember fre- 
 quent messages came down to us from the " Chair," 
 begging that we would hold up a little and moder- 
 ate if possible the rapture of our applause. 
 
 After Dickens left Boston he went on his travels, 
 gathering up materials, as he journeyed, for his 
 "American Notes." He was accompanied as far 
 as New York by a very dear friend, to whom he 
 afterwards addressed several most interesting letters. 
 For that friend he always had the warmest enthusi- 
 asm ; and when he came the second time to America, 
 there was no oue of his old companions whom he 
 missed more. Let us read some of these letters
 
 12 IN AND OUT OF DOOES WITH 
 
 written by Dickens nearly thirty years ago. The 
 friend to whom they Avere addressed was also an 
 intimate and dear associate of mine, and his chil- 
 dren have kindly placed at my disposal the whole 
 correspondence. Here is the lirst letter, time- 
 stained, but preserved with religious care. 
 
 Fuller's Hotel, Washington, 
 Monday, March 14, 1842. 
 
 My dear Felton : I was more deliglited than I can 
 possibly tell you, to receive (last Saturday night) your wel- 
 come letter. We and the oysters missed you terril)ly in 
 New York. You carried away with you more than half the 
 delight and pleasure of my New World ; and I heartily 
 wish you could bring it back agam. 
 
 Tliere are very interesting men in this place, — liighly 
 interesting, of course, — but it 's not a conifortal)le place ; 
 is it ? If spittle could wait at table we should be nol)ly 
 attended, but as that property has not been imparted to it 
 in the present state of mechanical science, we are rather 
 lonely and orphan-like, in respect of " being looked arter." 
 A blithe black was introduced on our arrival, as our j)ecul- 
 iar and especial attendant. He is the only gentleman in 
 the town who has a peculiar delicacy in intruding upon my 
 valuable time. It usually takes seven rings and a threaten- 
 ing message from to produce him ; and when he comes 
 
 lie goes to fetch something, and, forgetting it by the M-ay, 
 comes back no more. 
 
 We have been in great distress, really in distress, at the 
 non-arrival of the Caledonia. You may conceive what our 
 joy was, when, while we were dining out yesterday, H. 
 arrived with the joyful intelligence of her safety. The 
 very news of her having really arri\e(l seemed to diminisli 
 the distance between ourselves and home, by one half at 
 least.
 
 CHARLES DICKENS, 13 
 
 And tliis morning (tliougli we have not yet received our 
 lieap of despatches, for which we are looking eagerly i'or- 
 ward to tliis night's mail), — this morning there reached us 
 unexpectedly, through the government bag (Heaven knows 
 how tliey came there), two of our many and long-looked- 
 for letters, wherein was a circumstantial account of the 
 whole conduct and behavior of our pets ; with marvellous 
 narrations of Charley's precocity at a Twelfth Night juve- 
 nile party at Macready's ; and tremendous predictions of 
 the governess, dimly suggesting his having got out of pot- 
 hooks and hangers, and darkly insinuating the possibility 
 of his writing us a letter before long ; and many other 
 workings of the same prophetic spirit, in reference to him 
 and his sisters, very gladdening to their mother's heart, and 
 not at all depressing to their father's. There was, also, the 
 doctor's report, which was a clean bill; and tlie nurse's 
 report, which was perfectly electrifying; showing as it did 
 how Master "Walter had been weaned, and had cut a double 
 tooth, and done many other extraordinary things, quite 
 worthy of his high descent. In short, we were made very 
 happy and grateful ; and felt as if the prodigal father and 
 mother had got home again. 
 
 What do you think of this incendiary card being left at 
 my door last night ? " General G. sends compliments to 
 Mr. Dickens, and called with two literary ladies. As the 
 two L. L.'s are ambitious of the honor of a personal intro- 
 duction to Mr. D., General G. requests the honor of an 
 appointment for to-morrow." I draw a veil over my suffer- 
 ings. They are sacred. 
 
 We have altered our route, and don't mean to go to 
 Charleston, for I want to see the West, and have taken it 
 into my head that as I am not obliged to go to Charleston, 
 and don't exactly know why I should go there, I need do no 
 violence to my own inclinations. My route is of Mr. Clay's 
 designing, and I think it a very good one. We go on 
 Wednesday night to Richmond in Virginia, On Monday we 
 return to Baltimore for two davs. On Thursdav morning
 
 14 IN AND OUT OF DOORS WITH 
 
 Ave start for Pittsburg, and so go by the Olro to Ciucinnati, 
 Louisville, Kentucky, Lexington, St. Louis; and either 
 down the Lakes to Buffalo, or back to Philadeli)hia, and ))y 
 New York to that place, where we shall stay a week, and 
 then make a hasty trip into Canada. We shall be in 
 Buffalo, please Heaven, on the 30th of April. If I don't 
 find a letter from you in the care of the postmaster at tliat 
 place, I '11 never write to you from England. 
 
 But if I do find one, my riglit hand shall forget its cun- 
 ning, Ijefore I forget to be your truthful and constant cor- 
 respondent ; not, dear Felton, because I promised it, nor 
 because I have a natural tendency to correspond (which is 
 far from being the case), nor because I am truly grateful to 
 you for, and have been made truly proud Ijy, that affection- 
 ate and elegant tribute which sent me, but because you 
 
 are a man after my own heart, and I love you v:eU. And for 
 the love I bear you, and the pleasure with which I shall 
 always think of you, and the glow I shall feel when I see 
 your handwriting in my own home, I hereby enter into a 
 solemn league and covenant to write as many letters to you 
 as you write to me, at least. Amen. 
 
 Come to England! Come to England ! Our oysters are 
 small, I know ; they are said by Americans to be coppery, 
 but our hearts are of the largest size. We are thought to 
 e.\cel in shrimps, to l)e far from despicable in point of lob- 
 sters, and in periwinkles are considered to challenge the 
 universe. Our oysters, small though they be, are not devoid 
 of the refreshing influence which that species of fish is 
 supposed to e.xercise in these latitudes. Try them and 
 compare. 
 
 Affectionately yours, 
 
 Charles Dickens. 
 
 His next letter is dated from Niagara, and I 
 know every one will relish his allusion to oysters 
 with wet feet, and his reference to the squcczinir of 
 a Quaker.
 
 CHARLES DICKENS. 15 
 
 Clifton House, Niagara Falls, 
 29tli April, lSi2. 
 
 My dear Felton : Before I go any farther, let me ex- 
 plain to you what these great enclosures portend, lest — 
 supposing tliera part and parcel of my letter, and asking to 
 be read — you shall fall into fits, from whicli recovery 
 might be doubtful. 
 
 They are, as you will see, four copies of the same thing. 
 The nature of the document you will discover at a glance. 
 As I hoped and believed, the best of the British brotherhood 
 took fire at my being attacked because 1 spoke my mind and 
 theirs on the subject of an international copyright; and 
 with all good speed, and hearty private letters, transmitted 
 to me this small parcel of gauntlets for immediate casting 
 down. 
 
 Now my first idea was, publicity being the object, to send 
 one copy to you for a Boston newspaper, another to Bryant 
 for his paper, a third to the New York Herald (because of 
 its large circulation), and a fourth to a highly respectaljle 
 journal at "Washington (the property of a gentleman, and a 
 fine fellow named Seaton, whom I knew there), which I 
 think is called the Intelligencer. Then the Knickerbocker 
 stepped into my mind, and then it occurred to me that 
 possibly the North American Review might be the best 
 organ after all, because indisputably the most respectable 
 and honoral)le, and the most concerned in the rights of 
 literature. 
 
 Whether to limit its publication to one journal, or to ex- 
 tend it to several, is a question so very difficult of decision 
 to a stranger, that I have finally resolved to send these 
 papers to you, and ask you (mindful of the conversation we 
 had on this head one day, in that renowned oyster-cellar) 
 to resolve the point for me. You need feel no weighty 
 sense of responsibility, my dear Felton, for whatever you do 
 is sure to please me. If you see Sumner, take him into our 
 councils. The only two things to be borne in mind are,
 
 16 IX AND OUT OF DOORS WITH 
 
 first, that if tliey be published in several quarters, tliey 
 must be published in all simultaneous! 1/ ; secondly, that I 
 hold them in trust, to put them before the people. 
 
 I fear tliis is imposing a heavy tax upon your friendship ; 
 and I don't fear it tlie less, by reason of being well assured 
 that it is one you will most readily pay. I shall be in Mon- 
 treal about the 11th of May. Will you write to me there, 
 to the care of the Earl of Mulgrave, and teU me what you 
 have done? 
 
 So much for that. Bisness first, pleasure artervards, as 
 King Richard the Third said ven he stabbed the tother king 
 in the Tower, afore he murdered the babbies. 
 
 I have long suspected that oysters have a rheumatic ten- 
 dency. Their feet are always wet ; and so much damp com- 
 pany in a man's inside cannot contribute to his peace. But 
 whatever the cause of your indisposition, we are truly 
 grieved and pained to hear of it, and should be more so, 
 but that we hope, from your account of that farewell dinner, 
 that you are all right again. 1 did receive Longfellow's 
 note. Sumner 1 have not yet heard from ; for whicii reason 
 I am constantly bringing telescopes to bear on the ferry- 
 boat, in liopes to see him coming over, accompanied by a 
 modest portmanteau. 
 
 To say anything about this wonderful place would l)e 
 sheer nonsense. It far exceeds my most sanguine expecta- 
 tions, though the impression on my mind has been, from the 
 first, nothing but beauty and peace. I have n't drunk tlie 
 w-ater. Bearing in mind your caution, I have devoted my- 
 self to beer, whereof there is an exceedingly pretty fall in 
 tills house. 
 
 One of the noble hearts who sat for the Cheeryble 
 brothers is dead. If I had been in England, I would cer- 
 tainly have gone into mourning for the loss of such a glori- 
 ous life. His brother is not expected to survive him. I am 
 told that it appears from a memorandum found among the 
 papers of the deceased, that in his lifetime he gave away in 
 charity £ 6C0,000, or three millions of dollars !
 
 CIIAIILES DICKENS. 17 
 
 "What do you say to my acting at tlie Montreal Tlieatrc ? 
 1 am an old hand at such matters, and am f^oing to join 
 the officers of the garrison in a public representation for the 
 benetit of a local charity. We shall have a good house, 
 they say. I am going to enact one Mr. Suobbington in 
 a funny farce called A Good JN'ight's Rest. I «hall want 
 a flaxen Avig and eyebrows; and my nightly rest is bro- 
 ken by visions of there being no such commodities in Can- 
 ada. I wake in the dead of night in a cold perspiration, 
 surrounded by imaginary barbers, all denying the exist- 
 ence or possibility of obtaining such articles. If had 
 
 a flaxen head, I would certainly have it sliaved and get a 
 wig and eyebrows out of him, for a small pecuniary com- 
 pensation. 
 
 By the by, if you could only have seen the man at Har- 
 risbui'g, crushing a friendly Quaker in the parlor door ! It 
 was the greatest sigiit I ever saw. I had told him not to 
 admit anybody whatever, forgetting that I had previously 
 given this lionest Quaker a special invitation to come. Tlie 
 Quaker would not be denied, and H. was stanch. When I 
 came upon them, the Quaker was black in the face, and H. 
 was administering the final squeeze. The Quaker was still 
 rubbing his waistcoat with an expression of acute inward 
 suffering, when I left the town. I have been looking for 
 his death in the newspapers almost daily. 
 
 Do you know one General G. ? He is a weazen-faced 
 warrior, and in his dotage. I had him for a fellow-passenger 
 on board a steamboat. I had also a statistical colonel with 
 me, outside the coach from Cincinnati to Columi)us. A 
 New England poet buzzed about me on the Ohio, like a 
 gigantic bee. A mesmeric doctor, of an impossibly great 
 age, gave me pamphlets at Louisville. I have suffered 
 much, very much. 
 
 If I could get beyond New York to see anybody, it would 
 i)e (as you know) to see you. But I do not expect to reach 
 the " Carlton " until the last day of May, and then we are 
 going with the Coldens somewhere on the banks of the
 
 18 IN AND OUT OF DOORS WITH 
 
 North River for a couple of clays. So you see we shall not 
 have much leisure for our voyagmg preparations. 
 
 You and Dr. Howe (to whom my love) must come to 
 New York. On the 6tli of June, you must engage yourselves 
 to dine with us at the " Carlton " ; and if we don't make a 
 merry evening of it, the fault shall not he in us. 
 
 Mrs. Dickens unites vritli me iu best regards to Mrs. Fel- 
 ton and your little daughter, and I am always, my dear 
 Telton, 
 
 Affectionately your friend, 
 
 Charles Dickens. 
 
 P. S. I saw a good deal of ^Valker at Cincinnati. I like 
 him very much. We took to him mightily at first, because 
 he resembled you in face and figure, we thought. Y'ou will 
 be glad to hear that our news from home is cheering from 
 first to last, all well, happy, and loving. My friend Forster 
 says iu his last letter that he " wants to know you," and 
 looks forward to Longfellow. 
 
 AVhcn Dickens arrived in jMontreal he had, it 
 seems, a busy time of it, and I have often heard of 
 his capital acting in private theatricals while in 
 that city. 
 
 Montreal, Saturday, 21st May, 18i2. 
 
 My dear Felton -. I was delighted to receive your letter 
 yesterday, and M-as well pleased with its contents. I an- 
 ticipated objection to Carlyle's letter. I called particular 
 attention to it for three reasons. Firstly, because he boldly 
 said what all the others think, and therefore deserved to be 
 manfully supported. Secondly,- because it is my deliberate 
 opinion that I have been assailed on this subject in a manner 
 in which no man with any pretensions to public respect or 
 with the remotest right to express an opinion on a subject 
 of universal literary interest would he assailed in any other 
 country
 
 CHARLES DICKEXS. 19 
 
 I really cannot sufficiently thank you, clear Felton, for 
 your warm and hearty interest in these proceedings. But it 
 would 1)6 idle to pursue that theuie, so let it pass. 
 
 Tlie wig and whiskers are in a state of the highest preser- 
 vation. The play comes off next Wednesday night, the 25th. 
 What would I give to see you in the front row of the centre 
 box, your snectacles gleaming not unlike those of my dear 
 friend PickwWc, your face radiant with as broad a grin as a 
 staid i)rofessor may indulge in, and your very coat, waist- 
 coat, and shoulders expressive of what we should take to- 
 gether when the performance was over! I would give 
 something (not so much, but still a good round sum) if you 
 could only stumble into that very dark and dusty theati-e in 
 the daytime (at any miniite between twelve and three), and 
 see me with my coat off, the stage manager and universal 
 director, iirging impracticable ladies and impossible gentle- 
 men on to the very confines of insanity, sliouting and driv- 
 ing about, in my own person, to an extent which would 
 justify any philanthropic stranger in clapping me into a 
 strait-waistcoat without further inquiry, endeavoring to 
 goad II. into some dim and faint understanding of a prompt- 
 er's duties, and struggling in such a vortex of noise, dirt, 
 bustle, confusion, and inextricable entanglement of speech 
 aud action as you would grow giddy in contemplating. We 
 perform A Iloland for an Oliver, A Good Night's Rest, and 
 Deaf as a Post. This kind of voluntary hard labor used to 
 be my great delight. The furor has come strong upon me 
 again, and I begin to be once more of opinion that nature 
 intended me for the lessee of a national theatre, and that 
 pen, ink, and paper have spoiled a manager. 
 
 0, how I look forward across that rolling water to home 
 and its small tenantry ! How I busy myself in thinking 
 how my books look, and where the tables are, and in what 
 positions the chairs stand relatively to the other furniture ; 
 and whether we shall get there in the night, or in the 
 morning, or in the afternoon ; and whether we shall be able 
 to burpiisa them, or whethsr they will be too sharply look-
 
 20 IN AND OUT OF DOORS WITH 
 
 injr out for ns ; and Avliat our pets will say ; and how they '11 
 look, and who will he the first to come and shake hands, 
 aral so forth ! If I could hut tell you how I have set my 
 heart on rushing into Forster's study (he is my great friend, 
 and writes at the hottoni of all his letters, " My love to 
 I'elton "), and into Maclise's painting-room, and into Mac- 
 ready's managerial ditto, without a moment's warning, and 
 how I picture every little trait and circumstance of our 
 arrival to myself, down to the very color of the how on the 
 cook's cap, you would almost think I had changed places 
 with my eldest son, and was still in pantaloons of the 
 thinnest texture. I left all these things — God only knows 
 what a love I have for them — as coolly and calmly as any 
 animated cucumher ; hut when I come upon them again I 
 shall have lost all power of self-restraint, and shall as cer- 
 tainly make a fool of myself (in the popular meaning of that 
 expression) as ever Grimaldi did in his Avay, or George III. 
 in his. 
 
 And not the less so, dear Felton, for having found some 
 warm hearts, and left some instalments of earnest and sin- 
 cere affection, hehind me on this continent. And whenever 
 I turn my mental telescope hitherward, trust me that one of 
 the first figures it will descry will wear spectacles so like 
 yours that the maker could n't tell the difference, and shall 
 address a Greek class in such an exact imitation of your 
 voice, that the very students hearing it should cry, " That 's 
 he! Three cheers. H.)o-ray-ay-ay-ay-ay ! " 
 
 Ahout those joints of yours, I think you are mistaken. 
 They can't he stiff. At the worst they merely want the air 
 of New York, which, heing impregnated with the flavor of 
 last year's oysters, has a surprising effect in rendering the 
 human frame supple and flexible in all cases of rust. 
 
 A terrible idea occurred to me as I wrote those words. 
 The oyster-cellars, — what do they do when oysters are not 
 in season? Is pickled salmon vended there? Do they sell 
 crabs, shrimps, winkles, herrings ? The oyster-openers, — 
 what do they do ? Do they commit suicide in despair, or
 
 CHARLES DICKENS. 21 
 
 wrench open tight drawers and cupboards and hermetically 
 sealed bottles for practice ? Perhaps they are dentists out 
 of the oyster season. Who knows ? 
 
 Affectionately j'ours, 
 
 Chakles Dickens. 
 
 Dickens always greatly rejoiced in the tlieatre ; 
 and, having seen him act with the Amatenr Com- 
 l^any of the Guild of Literature and Art, I can well 
 imagine the delight his impersonations in ]\rontreal 
 must have occasioned. I have seen him play Sir 
 Charles Coldstream, in the comedy of Used Up, 
 with such perfection that all other performers in 
 the same part have seemed dull by comparison. 
 Even jNIatthews, superb artist as he is, could not 
 rival Dickens in the character of Sir Charles. Once 
 I saw Dickens, Mark Lemon, and Wilkie Collins 
 on the stage together. The play was called INIrs. 
 Nightingale's Diary (a farce in one act, the joint 
 production of Dickens and Mark Lemon), and Dick- 
 ens played six characters in the piece. ISTever have 
 I seen such wonderful changes of face and form as 
 he gave us that night. He was alternately a rat- 
 thng lawyer of the Middle Temple, a boots, an 
 eccentric pedestrian and cold-water" drinker, a deaf 
 sexton, an invalid captain, and an old woman. 
 What fun it was, to be sure, and how we roared 
 over the performance ! Here is the playbill which 
 I held in my hand nineteen years ago, while the 
 great writer was proving himself to be as pre-
 
 22 IN AND OUT OF DOORS WITH 
 
 eminent an actor as he was an anthor. One can 
 see by reading the bill that Dickens was manager of 
 the company, and that it was under his direction 
 that the plays were produced. Observe the clear 
 evidence of his hand in the very wording of the 
 bill : — 
 
 " On "Wednesday evening, September 1, 1852. 
 "THE AMATEUR COMPANY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 GUILD OF LITERATURE AND ART ; 
 
 To encourage Life Assurance and other provident habits 
 among Authors and Artists ; to render such assistance to 
 both as shall never compromise their independence ; and to 
 found a new Institution where honorable rest from arduous 
 labors shall still be associated with the discharge of con- 
 genial duties ; 
 " Will have the lionor of presenting," etc., etc. 
 
 But let us go on with the letters. Here is the 
 first one to his friend after Dickens arrived home 
 again in England. It is delightful, through and 
 through. 
 
 London, 1 Devonshire Terrace, York Gate, 
 Regent's Park, Sunday, July 31, 1842. 
 
 My dear Felton : Of all the monstrous and incalculable 
 amount of occupation that ever beset one unfortunate man, 
 mine has been the most stupendous since I came Lome. The 
 dinners I have had to eat, the places I have had to go to, the 
 letters I have had to answer, the sea of business and of 
 pleasure in which I have been plunged, not even the genius 
 of an or the pen of a could describe.
 
 CHARLES DICKENS. 23 
 
 Wlierefore I indite a monstrously short and wildly unin- 
 teresting epistle to the American Dando; but perhaps you 
 don't know who Dando was. He was an oyster-eater, my 
 dear Felton. He used to go into oyster-shops, without a 
 fartliing of money, and stand at the counter eating natives, 
 until the man who opened them grew pale, cast down his 
 knife, staggered backward, struck his white forehead with 
 his open hand, and cried, " You are Dando ! ! ! " He has 
 been known to cat twenty dozen at one sitting, and would 
 liave eaten forty, if the truth had not llaslied upon the shop- 
 keeper. For these offences he was constantly committed to 
 the House of Correction. During his last imprisonment he 
 was taken ill, got worse and worse, and at last began knock- 
 ing violent double-knocks at Death's door. The doctor 
 stood beside his bed, with his fingers on his pulse. " He is 
 going," says the doctor. " I see it in his eye. There is 
 only one thing that would keep life in him for another hour, 
 and that is — oysters." They were immediately brought. 
 Dando swallowed eight, and feebly took a ninth. He 
 held it in his mouth and looked round the bed strangely. 
 " Not a bad one, is it ? " says the doctor. The patient 
 shook his head, rubbed his trembling hand upon his stom- 
 ach, bolted the oyster, and fell back — dead. They buried 
 him in the prison yard, and paved his grave with oyster- 
 shells. 
 
 We are all well and hearty, and have ali'cady begun to 
 wonder what time next year you and Mrs. Felton and Dr. 
 Howe will come across tlie briny sea together. To-morrow 
 we go to the seaside for two months. I am looking out for 
 news of Longfellow, and shall be delighted when I know 
 that he is on his way to London and this house. 
 
 I am bent upon striking at the piratical newspapers with 
 the sharpest edge I can put upon my small axe, and hope in 
 the next session of Parliament to stop their entrance into 
 Canada. For the first time Mithin the memory of man, the 
 professors of English literature seem disposed to act together 
 on this question. It is a good thing to aggravate a scoxmdrel,
 
 2-1 IN AND OUT OF DOORS WITH 
 
 if one can do nothing else, and I think vre can make them 
 smart a little iu this way 
 
 1 wish you had been at Greenwich the other day, where 
 a party of friends gave me a private dinner; public ones I 
 have refused. C. was perfectly wild at the reunion, and, afier 
 singing all manner of marine songs, wound up the enter- 
 taiument by coming home (six miles) in a little open phaeton 
 of mine, on his head, to the mingled delight and indignation 
 of the metropolitan police. "Wc were very jovial indeed ; 
 and I assure you that 1 drank your health with fearful vigor 
 and energy. 
 
 On board that ship coming home I established a club, 
 called the United Vagabonds, to tlie large amusement of the 
 rest of the passengers. This holy brotherhood committed 
 all kinds of absurdities, and dined always, with a variety 
 of solemn fonns, at one end of the table, below the mast, 
 away from all the rest. The captain being ill when we 
 were three or four days out, I i)roduced my medicine-chest 
 and recovered him. \Vc had a few more sick men after that, 
 and 1 went round " the wards " every day in great state, 
 accompanied by two Vagaljonds, hal)ited as Ben Allen and 
 Bob Sawyer, bearing enormous rolls of plaster and huge 
 pairs of scissors. "We were really very merry all the way, 
 breakfasted iu one party at Liverpool, shook hands, and 
 
 parted most cordially 
 
 Aifectionately 
 
 Your faithful friend, 
 
 C. D. 
 
 P. S. I have looked over my journal, and have decided 
 to produce my American trip in two volumes. I have writ- 
 ten about half the first since I came home, and hope to be 
 out in October. This is " exclusive news," to be communi- 
 cated to any friends to whom you may like to intrust it, my 
 dear ¥. 
 
 "What a capital epistolary pen Dickens held ! He 
 seems never to have -written the shortest note with-
 
 CHARLES DICKEXS. 25 
 
 out something piquant in it ; and when he attempted 
 a letter, he always made it entertaining from sheer 
 force of habit. 
 
 When I think of this man, and all the lasting 
 good and abounding pleasure he has brought into 
 the world, I wonder at the superstition that dares 
 to arraign him. A sound philosopher once said : 
 " He that thinks any innocent pastime foolish has 
 either to grow wiser, or is past the ability to do 
 so " ; and I have always counted it an impudent 
 liftion that playfulness is inconsistent Avith great- 
 ness. Many men and women have died of Dignity, 
 but the disease which sent them to the tomb was 
 not contracted from Charles Dickens. Not long 
 ago, I met in the street a bleak old character, full 
 of dogmatism, egotism, and rheumatism, who com- 
 plained that Dickens had "too much exuberant 
 sociality " in his books for him, and he wondered 
 how any one coidd get through Pickwick. My 
 solemn friend evidently preferi-cd the dropping- 
 down-deaduess of manner, which he had been accus- 
 tomed to tind in Hervcy's " Meditations," and other 
 kindred authors, where it always seems to be urged 
 that life would be endurable but for its pleasures. 
 A person once commended to ray acquaintance an 
 individual whom he described as " a fine, pompous, 
 gentlemanly man," and I thought it prudent, under 
 the circumstances, to decline the prolfered introduc- 
 tion.
 
 26 IN AND OUT OF DOORS WITH 
 
 But I will 2)roceed witli those outbursts of briglit- 
 heartedness vouchsafed to us in Dickens's letters. 
 To me tliese epistles are good as fresh " Uncom- 
 mercials," or uupublished " Sketches by Boz." 
 
 1 Devonshirk Terrace, York Gate, Regent's Park, 
 London, 1st September, 1812. 
 
 Mv DEAR Felton : Of COURSE that letter in the papers 
 
 was as foul a forgery as ever felon swung for I have 
 
 not contradicted it publicly, nor shall I. When I tilt at 
 such wriugiugs out of the -dirtiest mortality, I shall be 
 another man — indeed, almost the creature they would 
 make me. 
 
 1 gave your message to Forster, who sends a despatch- 
 bo.\ full of kind remembrances in return. He is in a great 
 state of delight with the first volume of my American book 
 (which I have just linished), and swears loudly by it. It is 
 True, and Honorable I know, and I shall liope to send it 
 you, complete, by the first steamer in jN'ovembcr. 
 
 Your description of the porter and the carpet-bags pre- 
 pares me for a first-rate facetious novel, brimful of the 
 richest humor, on which I have no doubt you are engaged. 
 What is it called? Sometimes I imagine the title-page 
 thus : — 
 
 O Y S T E B S 
 
 IN 
 
 EVERY STYLE 
 
 OR 
 
 OPENINGS 
 
 or 
 LIFE 
 
 BY 
 
 YOUNG DANDO.
 
 CHARLES DICKENS. 27 
 
 As to tlie man putting the luggage on his head, as a sort 
 of sign, I adopt it from tliis hour. 
 
 I date tliis from Loudon, where I have come, as a good, 
 profligate, graceless bachelor, for a day or two ; leaving my 
 
 wife and babbies at the seaside Heavens ! if you 
 
 were but here at this minute ! A piece of salmon and a 
 steak are cooking in tlie kitchen ; it 's a very wet day, and I 
 have had a fire lighted; the wine sparkles on a side-table; the 
 room looks tlie more snug from being the only ?<«dismantled 
 one in the house ; plates are warming for Forster and 
 Maclise, whose knock I am momentarily expecting ; that 
 groom I told you of, who never comes into the house, 
 except when we are all out of town, is walking about in 
 his shirt-sleeves without the smallest consciousness of im- 
 propriety ; a great mound of proofs are waiting to be read 
 aloud, after dinner. AVith Avhat a shout I would clap you 
 down into the easiest chair, my genial Felton, if you could 
 but appear, and order you a pair of slippers instantly! 
 
 Since I have written this, the aforesaid groom — a very 
 small man (as the fashion is), with fiery-red hair ("as the 
 fashion is not) — has looked very hai'd at me and fluttered 
 about me at the same time, like a giant butterfly. After a 
 pause, he says, in a Sam Wellcrish kind of way : " I vent 
 to the club this morniu', sir. There voru't no letters, sir." 
 "Very good. Topping." "How's missis, sir?" "Pretty 
 well, Topping." " Glad to hear it, sir. Mij missis ain't 
 wery well, sir." " No ! " " No, sir, she 's a goin', sir, to 
 have a hincrease wery soon, and it makes her rather nervous, 
 sir ; and ven a young voman gets at all down at sich a time, 
 sir, she goes down wery deep, sir." To this sentiment I 
 replied attirniati\ely, and then he adds, as he stirs the fire 
 (as if he were thinking out lowL, "Wot a mystery it is! 
 Wot a go is natur' ! " With which scrap of philosophy, he 
 gradually gets nearer to the door, and so fades out of the room. 
 
 This same man asked me one day, soon after I came home, 
 what Sir John Wilson was. This is a friend of mine, who 
 took our house and servants, and everything as it stood,
 
 28 IN AND OUT OF DOORS WITH 
 
 during our absence in America. I told him an officer. " A 
 wot, sir?" "An officer." And then, for fear he should 
 think I meant a police-officer, I added, " An officer in the 
 army." " I beg yoxir pardon, sir," he said, touching his 
 hat, " but the club as I always drove him to wos the United 
 Servants." 
 
 The real name of this club is the United Service, but I 
 have no doubt he thought it was a high-life-below-stairs 
 kind of resort, and that this gentleman was a retired butler 
 or superannuated footman. 
 
 There 's the knock, and the Great Western sails, or steams 
 rather, to-morrow. Write soon again, dear Felton, and ever 
 believe me, .... » 
 
 Your affectionate friend, 
 
 Chakles Dickens. 
 
 P. S. All good angels prosper Dr. Howe. He, at least, 
 will not like me the less, 1 hope, for what I shall say of Laura. 
 
 Lo.xDON, 1 Devoxshike Terrace, York Gate, 
 IIegent's Park, 31st December, 18i2. 
 
 My dear Felton : Many and many happy New Years 
 to you and yours ! As many happy children as may be 
 quite convenient (no more) ! and as many happy meetings 
 between them and our children, and between you and us, 
 as the kind fates in their utmost kindness shall favorably 
 decree ! 
 
 The American book (to begin with that) has been a most 
 complete and thorough-going success. Four large editions 
 have now been sold and paid for, and it lias won golden 
 
 opinions from all sorts of men, except our fi'ieud in F , 
 
 who is a miserable creature ; a disappointed man in great 
 poverty, to whom I have ever been most kind and consider- 
 ate (I need scarcely say that) ; and another friend in B , 
 
 no less a person than an illustrious gentleman named , 
 
 who wi-ote a story called . They have done no barm, 
 
 and have fallen short of their mark, which, of course, was
 
 CHARLES DICKENS. 29 
 
 to aunoY me. Now I am perfectly free from any diseased 
 curiosity in siicli respects, and whenever 1 hear of a notice 
 of this kind, 1 never read it; wliereby 1 always concei\e 
 (don't you ?) that 1 get the victory. "Witlx regard to your 
 slave-owners, they may cry, till they are as black in the 
 face as their own slaves, that Dickens lies. Dickens does 
 not write for their satisfaction, and Dickens will not explain 
 for their comfort. Dickens has the name and date of every 
 newspaper in which every one of those advertisements 
 appeared, as they know perfectly well; but Dickens does 
 not choose to give tlieni, and will not nt auy time between 
 this and the day of judgment 
 
 I have been hard at work on my new book, of which the 
 first number has just appeared. The Paul Joneses who 
 pursue happiness and profit at other men's cost will no 
 doubt enable you to read it, almost as soon as you recei>e 
 this. I hope you will like it. And I particularly com- 
 mend, my dear Felton, one Mr. Pecksniff and his daughters 
 to your tender regards. 1 ha\e a kind of liking for them 
 myself. 
 
 Blessed star of morning, such a trip as we had into Corn- 
 wall, just after Longfellow went away ! The " we " means 
 Lorster, ilaclise, .Stanfield (the renowned marine painter), 
 and the Inimitable Boz. We went down into Devonshire 
 by the raihoad, and there we hired an open cari'iage from 
 an innkeeper, patriotic in all Pickwick matters, and went 
 on witli post horses. Sometimes we travelled all night, 
 sometimes all day, sometimes both. I kept the joint-stock 
 ])urse, ordered all the dinners, paid all the turnpikes, con- 
 ducted facetious conversations witli the post-boys, and regu- 
 lated the pace at which we travelled. Stanfield (m\ old 
 sailor) consulted an enormous ma]) on all disputed points of 
 wayfai'ing ; and referred, morcovei", to a pocket-compass 
 and other scientific instruments. The luggage was in 
 Forster's department ; and Maclise, having nothing par- 
 ticular to do, sang songs. Hea\ens ! If you could have 
 seen the necks of bottles — distracting in their immense
 
 00 IX AND OUT OF DOORS ^VITH 
 
 varieties of shape — peering out of the carriage pockets! 
 If you could liave wituessed the deep devotion of the ])osl- 
 boys, the wild attachment of the hostlers, tlic maniac glee 
 of the waiters ! If you could have followed us into the 
 earthy old cliurches we visited, and into the strange caverns 
 on the gloomy sea-shore, and down into the depths of mines, 
 and up to the tops of giddy heights where tlie unspeakably 
 green water was roaring, I don't know how many liundred 
 feet below ! If you could have seen but one gleam of the 
 bright fires by which we sat in the big rooms of ancient 
 inns at night, until long after the small hours liad come and 
 gone, or smelt but one ste.im of the hot punch (not white, 
 dear Felton, like that amazing compound I sent you a taste 
 of, but a rich, genial, glowing browni which came in every 
 evening in a huge broad china l)owl ! I never laughed in 
 my life as I did on this journey. It would have done you 
 good to hear me. I was choking and gasping and bursting 
 the buckle off the back of my stock, all the way. And 
 Stanfield (who is very much of your figure and temperament, 
 but fifteen years older) got into such apoplectic entangle- 
 ments that we were often obliged to beat liim on the back 
 with portmanteaus before we could recover him. Seriously, 
 
 1 do believe there never was such a trip. And they made 
 such sketches, those two men, in the most romantic of our 
 halting-])laces, that you would have sworn we had the 
 Spirit of Beauty with us, as well as the Spirit of Fun. But 
 stop till you come to England, — I say no more. 
 
 The actuary of the national debt could n't calculate the 
 number of chikhen who are coming here on Twelfth Night, 
 in honor of Charley's birthday, for which occasion I have 
 provided a magic lantern and divers other tremendous en- 
 gines of that nature. But the best of it is that Forstcr and 
 I have ])urchased between us the entire stock in trade of a 
 conjurer, the practice and display whereof is intrusted to 
 me. And my dear eyes, Felton, if you could see me con- 
 juring the company's watches into impossible tea-caddies, 
 and causing pieces of money to fly, and burning pocket-
 
 CHARLES DICKENS. 31 
 
 Jiandkercliiefs without Imrting 'em, and practising in my 
 own room, witliout anybody to admire, you would never 
 forget it as long as you live. In those tricks which require 
 a confederate, I am assisted (l)y reason of his imperturbable 
 good-humor) by Stanfield, who always does his part exactly 
 the wrong way, to the unspeakable delight of all beholders. 
 "We come out on a small scale, to-night, at Forster's, where 
 we see the old year out and the new one in. Particulars of 
 shall be forwarded in my next. 
 
 I have quite made up my mind that F really believes 
 
 he does know you personally, and lias all his life. He talks 
 to me about you with such gravity that I am afraid to grin, 
 and feel it necessary to look quite serious. Sometimes he 
 ti'Us me tluiigs about you, does n't ask me, you know, so 
 that I am occasionally perplexed beyond all telling, and 
 begin to think it was he, and not I, who went to America. 
 It 's the queerest thing in the world. 
 
 The book I was to have given Longfellow for you is not 
 worth sending by itself, being only a Barnaliy. IJut I 
 will look up some manuscript for you (I think I have that 
 of the American Notes complete), and will try to make the 
 parcel better worth its long conveyance. With regard to 
 Maclise's pictures, you certainly are quite right in your im- 
 pression of them ; but he is "such a discursive devil" (as 
 he says about himself) and flies off at such odd tangents, 
 that I feel it difficult to convey to you any general notion 
 of his purpose. I will try to do so when I write again. I 
 
 want very much to know about and that charming 
 
 girl Give me full particulars. Will you remember 
 
 me cordially to Sumner, and say I thank him for his wel- 
 come letter? The like to Ilillard, with many regards to 
 himself and his wife, with whom I had one night a little 
 conversation which I shall not readily forget. The like to 
 Washington AUston, and all friends who care for me and 
 have outlived my book. .... Always, my dear Felton, 
 With true regard and alfection, yours, 
 
 Ch.vrlks Dickens.
 
 O'Z IN AXD OUT OF DOORS WITH 
 
 Plere is a letter that seems to me something tre- 
 mendous in its fun and pathos : — 
 
 1 Devonshire Terrace, York Gate,- Regent's Park, 
 London, 2d March, 18i3. 
 
 My dear Felton : I don't know -where to begin, but 
 plunge headlong with a terril)le splash into this letter, on 
 the cliance of turning up somewhere. 
 
 Hurrah ! L'p like a cork again, with the " Korth Ameri- 
 can Review " in my liand. Like you, my dear , and I 
 
 can say no more in praise of it, though I go on to the end of 
 the sheet. You cannot think how much notice it has at- 
 tracted here. Brougham called the other day, with the 
 uumljcr (thinking 1 migiit not have seen it), and I being 
 out at the time, he left a note, speaking of it, and of the 
 writer, in terms that warmed my heart. Lord Ashburtou 
 (one of wliose people wrote a notice in the *' Edinburgh," 
 which they have since publicly contradicted) also wrote to 
 me about it in just the same strain. And many others have 
 done the hke. 
 
 I am in great health and spirits and powdering away at 
 Chuzzlewit, with all manner of facetiousness rising up be- 
 fore me as I go on. As to news, I have really none, sav- 
 ing that (who never took any exercise in his lifei has 
 
 been laid up with rheumatism for weeks past, but is now, I 
 hope, getting better. My little captain, as 1 call him, — he 
 who took me out, I mean, and with whom I had that ad- 
 venture of the cork soles,- — has been in London too, and 
 seeing all the lions under my escort. Good heavens! I 
 wish you could have seen certain other mahogany-faced men 
 (also captains) who used to call here for lum in the morn- 
 ing, and bear him off to docks and rivers and all sorts of 
 queer places, whence he always returned late at night, with 
 ruin-and-water tear-drops in his eyes, and a complication of 
 punchy smells in his mouth ! He was better than a comedy 
 to us, having marvellous ways of tying his pocket-handker-
 
 CHARLES DICKENS. 33 
 
 chief round his neck at dinner-time in a kind of jolly em- 
 l)arrassnient, and then forgetting -".vhat he had done with it ; 
 also of singing songs to wrong tunes, and calling land ob- 
 jects by sea names, and never knowing what o'clock it was, 
 but taking midnight for seven in the evening ; Avith many 
 other sailor oddities, all full of honesty, manliness, and good 
 temper. We took him to Drury Lane Tlieatre to see Much 
 Ado About Nothing. But 1 never could lind out what he 
 meant Ijy turning round, after he had Avatchcd the first two 
 scenes with great attention, and inquiring " whether it was 
 a Polish piece." .... 
 
 On the -ith of April I am going to preside at a public din- 
 ner for the l)enetit of the printers ; and if you were a guest 
 at that table, would n't I smite you on the slioulder, harder 
 than ever I rapped tlie well-beloved back of Washington 
 Irving at the City Hotel in New York ! 
 
 You were asking me — I love to say asking, as if we could 
 talk together — about Maclise. He is such a discursive fel- 
 low, and so eccentric in his might, that on a mental review 
 of his pictures I can liardly tell you of them as leading to 
 any one strong purpose. But the annual Exhibition of the 
 Royal Academy comes off in May, and tlien I will endeavor 
 to give you some notion of him. He is a tremendous crea- 
 ture, and might do anything. But, like all tremendous 
 creatures, he takes his own way, and flies off at unexpected 
 breaches in the conventional wall. 
 
 You know H 's Book, I daresay. Ah ! I saw a scene 
 
 of mingled comicality and seriousness at his funeral some 
 weeks ago, which has choked me at dinner-time ever since. 
 
 C and I went as mourners ; and as he li\ed, poor 
 
 fellow, five miles out of town, I drove C doM'n. It 
 
 Avas such a day as I hope, for the credit of nature, is seldom 
 seen in any parts hut tliese, — muddy, foggy, wet, dark, 
 cold, and unutterably wretched in every possible respect. 
 
 Now, C has enormous whiskers, wliich straggle all 
 
 down his throat in such weather, and stick out in front of 
 hmi, like a partially unravelled bird's-ncst; so that he
 
 34 IX AXD OUT OF DOORS -^VITH 
 
 looks queer enough at the hest, but -when he is Tery •wet, 
 and in a state between jollity ' he is always very jolly -with 
 me I and the deepest gravity going to a funeral, you know), 
 it is utterly impossible to resist him ; especially as he makes 
 the strangest remarks the mind of man can conceive, with- 
 out any intention of being funny, but rather meaning to be 
 philosophical. I really cried with an irresistible sense of 
 his comicality all the way ; but when he was dressed out in 
 a black cloak and a very long black hat-band by an under- 
 taker I who, as he whispered me with tears in his eyes — for 
 
 he had known H many years — was " a character, and 
 
 he would like to sketch him "t, I thought I should have 
 been obliged to go away. However, we went into a little 
 parlor where the funeral party was, and God knows it was 
 miserable enough, for the widow and children were crying 
 bitterly in one corner, and the other mourners — mere people 
 of ceremony, who cared no more for the dead man than the 
 hearse did — were talking quite coolly and carelessly together 
 in another ; and the contrast was as painful and distressing' 
 as anything I ever saw. There was an independent clergy- 
 man present, with his bands on and a Bible under his 
 
 arm, who, as soon as we were seated, addressed thus, 
 
 in a loud, emphatic voice : " Mr. C , have you seen a 
 
 paragraph respecting our departed friend, which has gone 
 the round of the morning papers ? " " Yes, sir," says 
 
 C , ■' I have," looking very hard at me the while, for he 
 
 had told me with some pride coming down that it was his 
 composition. " Oh ! " said the clergy-man. " Then you will 
 
 agree with me, Mr. C , that it is not only an insult to 
 
 me, who am the servant of the Almighty, but an insrdt to 
 the Almighty, whose servant I am." " How is that, sir r " 
 
 said C . " It is stated, Mr. C , in that paragraph," 
 
 says the minister, " that when Mr. H failed in business 
 
 as a bookseller, he was persuaded by me to try the pulpit, 
 which is false, incorrect, unchristian, in a manner blasphe- 
 mous, and in all respects contemptible. Let us pray." "With 
 which, my dear Fclton, and in the same breath, I give you
 
 CHARLES DICKENS. 35 
 
 my word, lie knelt down, as we all did, and began a very 
 miserable jumble of an extemporary prayer. 1 was really 
 
 penetrated with sorrow for the family, but when C 
 
 (upon his knees, and sobbing; for the loss of an old friend) 
 whispered me, " that if that was n't a clergyman, and it 
 was n't a funeral, he 'd haw punched his head," I felt as if 
 
 nothing but convulsions could possil)ly relieve me 
 
 FaithfuUv alwavs, mv dear Felton, 
 
 C. D. 
 
 "Was there ever such a genial, jovial creature as 
 this master of humor ! When we read his friendly 
 ei)istle5, Ave cannot help wishing he had written let- 
 ters only, as when we read his novels we grudge the 
 time he employed on anything else. 
 
 Beoadstaies, Kent, 1st September, 1843. 
 
 My dear Feltox : If I thought it in the nature of things 
 that you and I could ever agree on paper, touching a cer- 
 tain Chuzzlewitiau question whereupon F tells me you 
 
 have remarks to make, I should immediately walk into the 
 same, tooth and nail. But as I don't, I won't. Contenting 
 myself with this prediction, that one of these years and 
 days, you will write or say to me, "My dear Dickens, you 
 were right, though rough, and did a world of good, though 
 you got most thoroughly hated for it." To which I shall 
 reply, " My dear Felton, I looked a long way off and not 
 immediately under my nose.". ... At wliioh sentiment 
 you will laugh, and I shall laugh ; and then for I foresee 
 this -will all happen in my land) we shall call for another 
 pot of porter and two or three dozen of oysters. 
 
 >ow don't you in your own heart and soul quan-el with 
 me for this long silence ? Not half so much as I quan-el 
 with myself, I know ; but if you could read half the letters 
 I write to you in imagination, you would swear by me for
 
 36 IN AND OUT OF DOORS WITH 
 
 the best of correspondents. The truth is, that when I have 
 done my morning's Avork, down goes my pen, and from tliat 
 minute I feel it a positi^-e impossibihty to take it up again, 
 until imaginary butchers and bakers wave me to my desk. 
 I walk about brimful of letters, facetious descriptions, 
 touching morsels, and ])athctic friendships, but can't for tlie 
 soul of me uncork myself. Tlie post-office is my rock 
 ahead. My average number of letters that nuist be written 
 every day is, at the least, a dozen. And you could no more 
 know what I was writing to you spiritually, from the pe- 
 rusal of the bodily thirteenth, llinn you could tell from my 
 hat what was going on in my head, or could read my lieart 
 on the surface of my flannel waistcoat. 
 
 This is a little tishing-place ; intensely quiet ; built on a 
 cliff whereon — in the centre of a tiny semicircular bay ^ 
 our house stands; the sea rolling and dashing under the 
 windows. Seven miles out are the Goodwin Sands, (you 've 
 heard of the Goodwin Sands?) whence floating lights per- 
 petually wink after dark, as if they were carrying on in- 
 trigues with the servants. Also tliere is a big lighthouse 
 called the North Foreland on a hill behind tlie village, a 
 severe parsonic light, which reproves the young and giddy 
 floaters, and stares grimly out upon the sea. Under the 
 cliff" are rare good sands, where all the children assemble 
 every morning and throw up impossible fortiticntions, which 
 the sea throws down again at high water. Old gentlemen 
 and ancient ladies flirt after their own manner in two read- 
 ing-rooms and on a great many scattered seats in the open 
 air. Other old gentlemen look all day through telescopes 
 and never see anything. In a bay-window in a one pair 
 sits from nine o'clock to one a gentleman with rather long 
 hair and no neckcloth, avIio writes and grins as if he thought 
 he were very funny indeed. His name is Boz. At one he 
 disappears, and presently emerges from a bathing-machine, 
 and may be seen — a kind of salmon-colored porpoise — 
 splashing about in the ocean. After that he may l)e seen in 
 another bay-window on the ground-floor, eating a strong
 
 CHAHLES DICKENS. 37 
 
 lunrli ; after that, walldno: a dozen miles or so, or lyinj on 
 }iis hack in the sand reading a hook. Nohody hothers him 
 unless they know he is disposed to he talked to; and I am 
 told lie is very comfortahle indeed. He 's as ])rown as a 
 herry, and they do say is a small fortune to the innkeeper 
 who sells heer and cold punch. But this is mere rumor. 
 Sometimes he goes up to London (eighty miles, or so, away), 
 and then I 'm told there is a sound in Lincoln Inn Fields at 
 night, as of men laughing, together with a clinking of knives 
 and forks and wineglasses. 
 
 I never simll have l)een so near you since we parted 
 ahoard the George Washington as ne.\t Tuesday. Torster, 
 Maclise, and I, and perhaps Stanfield, are then going alioard 
 the Cunard steamer at Liverpool, to hid Macready good hy, 
 and hring his wife away. It will he a very hard parting. 
 You will see and know him of course. We gave him a 
 sjilendid dinner last Saturday at Richmond, whereat I pre- 
 sided with my accustomed grace. He is one of the nohlest 
 fellows in the world, and I would give a great deal that 
 you and I should sit heside each other to see him play 
 Virginius, Lear, or Werner, which I take to he, every way, 
 the greatest piece of exquisite perfection that his lofty 
 art is capable of attaining. His Macbeth, especially the 
 last act, is a tremendous reality ; but so indeed is almost 
 everything he does. You recollect, perhaps, that he was 
 the guardian of our children while we were away. I love 
 him dearly 
 
 You asked me, long ago, about Maclise. He is such a 
 wayward fellow in his subjects, that it would be next to 
 impossible to write such an article as you were thinking of 
 about him. I wish you could form an idea of his genius. 
 One of these days a book will come out, " Moore's Irish 
 Melodies," entirely illustrated by him, on every page. When 
 it comes, I '11 send it to you. You will have some notion of 
 him then. He is in great favor with the queen, and paints 
 secret pictures for her to put upon her husband's table on 
 the morning of his birthday, and the like. But if he has a
 
 38 m AND OUT OF DOORS WITH 
 
 care, he will leave his mark on more enduring things than 
 palac-e walls. 
 
 And so L is married. I remember her well, and 
 
 could draw her portrait, in words, to the life. A very beau- 
 tiful and gentle creature, and a proper love for a poet. My 
 cordial remembrances and congratulations. Do they live 
 in the house where we breakfasted ? . . . . 
 
 1 very often dream I am in America again ; but, strange 
 to say, 1 never dream of you. I am always endeavoring to 
 get home in disguise, and have a dreary sense of the dis- 
 tance. Apropos of dreams, is it not a strange thing if writers 
 of fiction never dream of their own creations ; recollecting, 
 I suppose, even in their dreams, that they have no real ex- 
 istence? / never dreamed of any of my own characters, 
 and 1 feel it so impossible that I would wager Scott never 
 did of his, real as they are. I had a good piece of absurdity 
 in my liead a night or two ago. I dreamed tliat somel)ody 
 was dead. I don't know who, but it 's not to the purpose. 
 It was a private gentleman, and a particular friend; and I 
 was greatly overcome when the news was broken to me 
 (very delicately) by a gentleman in a cocked hat, top boots, and 
 a sheet. Nothing else. " Good God ! " I said, " is he dead ? " 
 " He is as dead, sir," rejoined the gentleman, " as a door-nail. 
 But we must all die, Mr. Dickens ; sooner or later, my dear 
 sir." "Ah!"Isaid. " Yes, to be sure. Very true. Butwliat 
 did he die of? " The gentleman burst into a ficod of tears, 
 and said, in a voice broken by emotion, " He christened his 
 youngest child, sir, with a toasting-fork." I never in my life 
 Avas so affected as at his having fallen a victim to this com- 
 plaint. It carried a conviction to my mind that he never 
 could have recovered. I knew that it was the most inter- 
 esting and fatal malady in the world; and I wrung the 
 gentleman's hand in a convulsion of respectful admiration, 
 for I felt that this explanation did equal honor to his head 
 and heart! 
 
 What do you think of Mrs. Gamp? And how do you like 
 the undertaker ? I have a fancy that they are in your
 
 CHAHLES DICKENS. 39 
 
 way. hearen ! such green woods as I was rambling 
 among down iu Yorkshire, when 1 was getting that done 
 last July ! Tor cli>ys and weeks we never saw the sky tjut 
 through green boughs ; and all day long 1 cantered over 
 such soft moss and turf, that the horse's feet scarcely made 
 a sound upon it. We have some friends in that part of the 
 country (close to Castle Howard, where Lord Morpeth's 
 father dwells in state, in his park iadeedj, who are the 
 joUiest of the jolly, keeping a big old country house, with 
 an ale cellar something larger than a reasonable church, 
 and everything like Goldsmith's bear dances, " in a concat- 
 enation accordingly." Just tlie place for you, Felton ! We 
 performed some luadnesses there in the way of forfeits, pic- 
 nics, rustic games, inspections of ancient monasteries at 
 midnight, when the moon was shining, that would have 
 gone to your heart, and, as Mr. Weller says, " come out on 
 the other side." .... 
 
 Write soon, my dear Felton; and if I write to you less 
 often than I would, believe that my affectionate heart is 
 with you always. Loves and regards to all friends, from 
 yours ever and ever, 
 
 Charles Dickens. 
 
 These letters grow better and better as we get on. 
 Ah me ! and to think we shall have no more from, 
 that delightful pen ! 
 
 Devonshire Terrace, London, January 2, 1844. 
 My very dear Felton : You are a prophet, and had 
 best retire from business straightway. Yesterday morning, 
 New Year's day, when 1 walked into my little workroom 
 after breakfast, and was looking out of window at the 
 snow in the garden, — not seeing it particularly well iu 
 consequence of some staggering suggestions of last night, 
 wlierel)y 1 was beset, — the postman came to the door with 
 a knock, for which I denounced him from my heart. Seeing
 
 40 IN AND OUT OF DOORS WITH 
 
 your hand upon the cover of a letter which he brought, I 
 immediately blessed him, presented him with a glass of 
 whiskey, inquired after his family (they are all well), and 
 opened the despatch with a moist and oystery twinkle in my 
 eye. And on the very day from which the new year dates, 
 1 read your New Year congratulations as punctually as if 
 you lived in the next house. Why don't you? 
 
 Now, if instantly on the receipt of this you will send a 
 free and independent citizen down to the Cunard wharf at 
 Eoston, you will find that Captain Hewett, of the Britannia 
 steamship (my sliip), lias a small parcel for Professor Felton 
 of Cambridge ; and in that parcel you will find a Ciiristmas 
 Carol in prose ; being a short story of Christmas by Charles 
 Dickens. Over which Ciiristmas Carol Charles Dickens 
 wept and laughed and Avcpt again, and e.xcited himself in a 
 most extraordinary manner in the composition ; and think- 
 ing wliereof he walked about the black streets of London, 
 lifteen and twenty miles, many a night when all the sober 
 
 folks had gone to bed Its success is most prodigious. 
 
 And by every post all manner of strangers write all manner 
 of letters to him about their homes and hearths, and how 
 this same Carol is read aloud there, and kept on a little shelf 
 by itself. Indeed, it is tlie greatest success, as I am told, 
 that this rufhan and rascal has e^ er achieved. 
 
 Forster is out again ; and if he don't go in again, after tlie 
 manner in which we have been keeping Christmas, he must 
 he very strong indeed. Such dinings, such dancings, such 
 conjurings, such l)lmdnian's-buflings, such theatre-goings, 
 such kissings-out of old years and kissings-in of new ones, 
 never took place in these parts before. To keep tlie Chuzzle- 
 wit going, and do this little book, the Carol, in the odd times 
 between two parts of it, was, as you may suppose, pretty 
 tight work. But when it Avas done I broke out like a mad- 
 man. And if you could have seen me at a children's party 
 at Macready's the other niglit, going down a country dance 
 with Mrs. M., you would have thouglit I was a country 
 gentleman of independent property, residing on a tiptop
 
 CHARLES DICKENS. 41 
 
 farm, with tlie wind Ijlowing straight in my face every 
 day 
 
 Your friend, Mr. P , dined with ns one day (I don't 
 
 know whether 1 told you this before), and pleased us very 
 
 nuuii. Mr. C has dined here once, and spent an 
 
 evening here. I have not seen liini lately, though he has 
 
 called twice or thrice ; for K being unwell and I busy, 
 
 we liave not been \isible at our accustomed seasons. 
 
 I wonder whetlier H has fallen in your way. Poor 
 
 n ! He was a good fellow, and has the most grate- 
 ful heart I ever met with. Our journeyings seem to be a 
 dream now. Talking of dreams, strange thoughts of Italy 
 and France, and maybe Germany, are springing up within 
 me as tlie Chuzzlcjwit clears off. It 's a secret I have hardly 
 breathed to any one, but I "think" of leaving England for 
 a year, next midsummer, bag and baggage, little ones and 
 all, — then conung out with such a story, Felton, all at once, 
 no ])arts, sledge-hammer blow. 
 
 I send you a ilanchester paper, as you desire. The report 
 is not exactly done, but very well done, notwithstanding. 
 It was a very splendid sight, I assure you, and an awful- 
 looking audience. I am going to preside at a similar meet- 
 ing at Liverpool on the i26tli of next month, and on my way 
 home I may be obliged to preside at anotlier at Birmingham. 
 I will send you papers, if the reports be at all like the real 
 thing. 
 
 1 wrote to Prescott ahont his hook, with which I was 
 perfectly charmed. I think his descriptions masterly, liis 
 style brilliant, his purpose manly and gallant always. The 
 introductory account of Axtec civilization impressed me 
 exactly as it impressed you. I'roni beginning to end, the 
 whole history is enchanting and full of genius. I only 
 wonder that, having sucli an opportunity of illustrating the 
 doctrine of visible judgments, he never remarks, when 
 Cortes and liis men tumble the idols down the temple steps 
 and- call upon the people to take notice that their gods are 
 powerless to help tliemselves, that possibly if some intelli-
 
 42 IN AND OUT OF DOORS WITH 
 
 gent native liail tumbled clown the image of the Virgia or 
 ])atron saint after tlieni nothing very remarkable might 
 have ensued in consequence. 
 
 Of course you like Macready. Your name 's Felton. I 
 ■wish you could see him play Lear. It is stupendously ter- 
 rii)le. But I suppose he would be slow to act it with the 
 Boston company. 
 
 Hearty rememlirances to Sumner, Longfellow, Prescott, 
 and all whom you know I love to rememl)er. Countless 
 happy years to you and yours, my dear Felton, and some 
 instalment of them, however slight, in England, in the lov- 
 ing company of 
 
 The Prosceibed One. 
 0, breathe not his name. 
 
 Here is a portfolio of Dickens's letters, written 
 to me from time to time during the past ten years. 
 As long ago as the spring of 1858 I began to press 
 him very hard to come to America and give us a 
 course of readings from his works. At that time 
 I had never heard him read in public, but the fame 
 of his wonderful performances rendered me eager to 
 have my own country share in the enjoyment of 
 them. Being in London in the summer of 1859, 
 and dining with him one day in his town resi- 
 dence, Tavistock House, Tavistock Square, we had 
 much talk in a corner of his library about coming 
 to America. I thought him over-sensitive with 
 regard to his reception here, and I tried to remove 
 any obstructions that might exist in his mind at 
 that time against a second visit across the Atlantic.
 
 CHARLES DICKENS. 43 
 
 I followed up our conversation with a note setting 
 forth the certainty of his success among his Trans- 
 atlantic friends, and urging him to decide on a 
 visit during the year. He replied to me, dating 
 from " Gad's Hill Place, Higham by Rochester, 
 Kent." 
 
 " I write to you from my little Kentish country house, on 
 the very spot -where Falstaff ran away. 
 
 " 1 cannot tell you how very much obliged to you I feel 
 for your kind suggestion, and for the perfectly frank and 
 unaffected manner in which it is conveyed to me. 
 
 " It touciies, I will admit to you frankly, a chord that has 
 several times sounded in my breast, since I began my read- 
 ings. I should very much like to read in America. But 
 the idea is a mere dream as yet. Several strong reasons 
 A\ould make the journey difficult to me, and — even were 
 they overcome — I would never make it, unless I had great 
 general reason to believe that the American people really 
 wanted to hear me. 
 
 " Through the whole of this autumn I shall be reading in 
 various parts of England, Ireland, and Scotland. I mention 
 this, in reference to the closing paragraph of your esteemed 
 favor. 
 
 " Allow me once again to thank you most heartily, and to 
 remain, 
 
 "Gratefully and faithfully yours, 
 
 " Charles Dickens." 
 
 Early in the month of July, 1859, I spent a day 
 with him in his beautifid country retreat in Kent. 
 He drove me about the leafy lanes in his basket 
 wagon, pointing out the lovely spots belonging to 
 his friends, and ending with a visit to the ruius of
 
 44 IN AND OUT OF DOORS WITH 
 
 Rocliester Castle. Wc climbed up the time-worn 
 "vvalls and leaned out of tlie ivied windows, looking; 
 into, the various apartments below. I remember 
 how vividly he reproduced a probable scene in the 
 great old banqueting-room, and bow graphically he 
 imagined the life of ennui and every-day tedious- 
 ness that Avent on in those lazy old times. I recall 
 his fancy picture of the dogs stretched out before 
 the fire, sleeping and snoring with their masters. 
 That day he seemed to revel in the past, and I 
 stood by, listening almost with awe to his impres- 
 sive voice, as he spoke out whole chapters of a ro- 
 mance destined never to be written. On our way 
 back to Gad's Hill Place, he stopped in the road, I 
 remember, to have a crack with a gentleman who 
 he told me was a son of Sydney Smith. The only 
 other guest at his table that day was Wilkie Collins ; 
 and after dinner we three went out and lay down on 
 the grass, while Dickens showed off a i-aven that 
 was hopping about, and told anecdotes of the bird 
 and of his many predecessors, "We also talked 
 about his visiting America, I putting as many 
 spokes as possible into that favorite wheel of mine. 
 A day or two after I returned to London I received 
 this note from him : — 
 
 " . . . . Only to say that I heartily enjoyed our day, and 
 shall long remember it. Also, that I have been perpetually 
 
 repeating the experience (of a more tremendous sort 
 
 in the way of ghastly comicality, expei'ience there is none) 
 ou the grass, on my back. Also, that I have not forgotten
 
 CHARLES DICKEXS. 45 
 
 Cobhett. Also, tliat 1 shall trouble you at greater length 
 Mhen the mysterious oracle, of New York, pronounces. 
 
 " Wilkie Collins begs me to report that he declines pale 
 horse, and all otliKr horse exercise — and all exercise, except 
 eating, drinking, smoking, and sleeping — in tlie dog days. 
 
 " AVith united kind regards, believe me always cordially 
 yours, 
 
 " Charles Dickens." 
 
 An accent had come out from New York with 
 ofFcrs to indu'je him to arrange for a speedy visit to 
 Ameriea, and Dickens was then waiting to see the 
 man who had heen annomiced as on his way to him. 
 He was evidently givini; the subject serious con- 
 sideration, for on the 20th of July he sends mc this 
 note : — - 
 
 " As I ha^■e not yet heard from Mr. of New York, 
 
 1 begin to think it likely (or, rather, I begin to think it 
 more likely than I thought it before) that he has not backers 
 good and sutlicicnt. and that his 'mission ' will go off. It 
 is possible that I may hear from him before the montli is 
 out, and I shall not make any reading arrangements until 
 it has come to a close; but I do not regard it as being very 
 
 probable that the said will appear satisfactorily, either 
 
 in tin; flesh or the spirit. 
 
 " \ow, considering that it would be August before I 
 could move in the matter, that it would be indispensably 
 necessary to choose some business connection and ha^e 
 some business arranjem.ents made in America, and that I 
 am incfined to think it would not l)e easy to originate 
 and complete all the necessary preparations for begin- 
 ning in October, I want your kind advice on the following 
 
 '• 1. Suppose I postponed the idea for a vear. 
 
 " ;i. Suppose I postponed it until after Christmas.
 
 46 IN AND OUT OF DOORS WITH 
 
 " 3. Suppose I sent some trusty person out to America 
 now, to negotiate with some sound, responsible, trust- 
 worthy man of business in New York, accustomed to pub- 
 lic undertakings of sucli a nature ; my negotiator being 
 fully empowered to conclude any arrangements with lum 
 that might appear, on consultation, best. 
 
 " Have you any idea of any such person to whom you 
 could recommend me? Or of any such agent here? I 
 only want to see my way distinctly, and to have it prepared 
 before me, out in the States. Now, I will make no apology 
 for troubling you, because I thoroughly rely on your interest 
 and kindness. 
 
 " I am at Gad's Hill, e.vcept on Tuesdays and the greater 
 part of Wednesdays. 
 
 " With kind regards, very faithfully yours, 
 
 "Cii.^Ki.Ks Dickens." 
 
 Various notes passed between us after this, dur- 
 ing my stay in London in 1859. On the 6th of 
 August he writes : — 
 
 " I have considered the subject in every way, and have 
 consulted with the few friends to whom I ever refer my 
 doubts, and whose judgment is in the main e.xcellent. I 
 have (this is between ourselves) come to the conclusion 
 that I will not go now. 
 
 " A year hence I may revive the matter, and your pres- 
 ence in America will then be a great encouragement and as- 
 sistance to me. I shall see you (at least I count upon doing 
 so) at my house in town before you turn your face towards 
 the lock-up house ; and we will then, re\ersing ^I^cl)etli, 
 ' proceed further in this business.' .... 
 
 " Believe me always (and here I forever renounce ' Mr.,' 
 as ha\ ing anything whatever to do with our communication, 
 and as being a mere preposterous interloper), 
 " Faithfully yours, 
 
 " Charles Dickens."
 
 CHARLES DICKENS. 47 
 
 When I arrived in Rome, early in 1860, one of 
 the first letters I received from London was from 
 him. The project of coming to America was con- 
 stantly before him, and he wrote to me that he 
 shonld have a great deal to say when I came back 
 to England in the spring ; but the plan fell through, 
 and he gave up all hope of crossing the water 
 again. However, I did not let the matter rest ; 
 and when I returned home I did not cease, year 
 after year, to keep the subject open in my commu- 
 nications with him. He kept a watchful eye on 
 what was going forward iu America, both in liter- 
 ature and politics. During the war, of course, 
 both of us gave up our correspondence about the 
 readings. He was actively engaged all over Great 
 Britain in giving his marvellous entertainments, 
 and there certainly was no occasion for his travel- 
 ling elsewhere. In October, 1862, I sent him the 
 proof-sheets of an article, that was soon to appear 
 in the Atlantic Monthly, on " Blind Tom," and on 
 receipt of it he sent me a letter, from which this is 
 an extract : — 
 
 " I Lave read tliat affecting paper you have liad the kind- 
 ness to send me, with strong interest and emotion. You 
 may readily suppose tliat I have been most glad and ready 
 to avail myself of your permission to print it. 1 have placed 
 it in our Number made up to-day, -which will be published 
 on the 18th of this month, — well before you, — as you 
 desire. 
 
 " Think of reading iu America ? Lord bless you, I think
 
 48 IN AND OUT OF DOOllS WITH 
 
 of reading in tlie deepest depth of the lowest crater in the 
 Moon, on my way there ! 
 
 " Tliere is no snn-pictiire of my Falstaff House as yet ; 
 hut it shall he done, and you shall lia\ e it. It has been 
 much improved internally since you saw it 
 
 "1 expect Macready at Gad's Hill on Saturday. You 
 know that his second wife (an cvcellent one) presented liim 
 lately with a little l)oy ? I was staying with him for a day 
 or two last winter, and, seizing an umbrella wiien he had the 
 audacity to tcil nie he was growing old, made at him wiih 
 Macduff's defiance. Upon whicii he fell into the old tierce 
 guard, with the desperation of thirty years ago. 
 
 " Kind remembrances to all friends who kindly remem- 
 ber me. 
 
 " Ever heartily yours, 
 
 "Charles Dickens." 
 
 Every time I had occasion to write to liiin after 
 the war, I stirred up the subject of the readings. 
 On the 2d of May, 18G6, he says : — 
 
 " Your letter is an excessively diflicult one to answer, be- 
 cause I really do not know that any sum of money that could 
 be laid down would induce me to cross the Atlantic to read. 
 Nor do I tiiink it likely that any one on your side of the 
 great water can be prepared to understand the state of tlie 
 case. For example, I am now just finishing a series of 
 thirty readings. The crowds attending them have been so 
 astounding, and the relish for them has so far outgone all 
 previous experience, that if I were to set myself the task, 
 ' I will make such or such a sum of money by devoting my- 
 self to readings for a certain time,' I should have to go no 
 further than Bond Street or Regent Street, to have it se- 
 cured to me in a day. Therefore, if a specific offer, and a 
 very large one indeed, were made to me from America, I 
 should naturally ask myself, ' Why go through this wear 
 and tear, merely to pluck fruit that grows on every bough
 
 CHARLES DICKENS. 49 
 
 at home ? ' It is a delightful seitsation to move a new 
 people ; but I have hut to go to Paris, and 1 lind the hriglit- 
 est jieople in the world quite ready for me. I say thus 
 much in a sort of desperate endeavor to explain myself to 
 you. 1 can put no jjrice upon fifty readings in America, he- 
 cause I do not know that any possible price could pay me 
 for them. And I really cannot say to any one disposed to- 
 wards the enterprise, ' Tempt me,' because I have too 
 strong a misgiving that he cannot in the nature of things 
 do it. 
 
 " This is the plain truth. If any distinct proposal be 
 submitted to me, I will give it a distinct answer. But the 
 chances are a round thousand to one that the answer will be 
 no, and therefore I feel bound to make the declaration be- 
 forehand. 
 
 " . . . . This place has been greatly improved since you 
 were here, and we should be heartily glad if you and she 
 could see it. 
 
 " Faithfully yours ever, 
 
 "CnAKLEs Dickens." 
 
 On the 16tli of October he writes : — 
 
 " Although I perpetually see in the papers that I am 
 coming out with a new serial, 1 assure you I know no more of 
 it at ])resent. 1 am not writing (except for Christmas num- 
 ber of 'AH the Year Round'), and am going to begin, in the 
 middle of January, a series of forty-two readings. Those 
 will probably occupy me until Easter. Early in the sum- 
 mer 1 hope to get to work upon a story that I have in my 
 mind. But in what form it will appear I do not yet know, 
 hecause when the time comes I shall have to take many cir- 
 cumstances into consideration 
 
 " A faint outline of a castle in the air always dimly hovers 
 between me and Rochester, in the great hall of which I see 
 myself reading to American audiences. But my domestic 
 surroundings must change before the castle takes tangible
 
 50 IN AND OUT OF DOORS WITH 
 
 form. And perhaps /may cliange first, and establisli a castle 
 in the other workl. So no more at ])resent. 
 
 " Believe me ever faithfully yours, 
 
 " Chakles Dickeivs." 
 
 In June, 1867, things begin to look more pioni- 
 ising, and I find in one of his letters, dated the 3d 
 of that month, some good news, as follows : — 
 
 "I cannot receive your pleasantest of notes, without 
 assuring you of the interest and gratification tliat / feel 
 on )>ii/ side in our alliance. And now I am going to add 
 a piece of intelligence that I hope may not l)e disagree- 
 able. 
 
 " I am trying hard so to free myself, as to he able to come 
 over to read this next winter ! Whether 1 may succeed 
 in this endeavor or no 1 cannot yet say, but I am trying 
 HARD. So in the mean time don't contradict the rnmor. In 
 the course of a few mails I hope to be al)le to give you 
 positive and definite information on the subject. 
 
 " My daughter (whom I shall not bring if I come) will 
 answer for herself by and by. Understand that I am really 
 endeavoring tooth and nail to make my way personally to 
 the American public, and that no light obstacles will turn 
 me aside, now that my hand is in. 
 
 " My dear Fields, faithfully yours always, 
 
 " Chakles Dickens." 
 
 This was followed up by another letter, dated the 
 13th, in which he says : — 
 
 " I have this morning resolved to send out to Boston, in 
 the first week in August, Mr. Dolby, the secretary and 
 manager of my readings. lie is profoundly versed in the 
 business of those delightful intellectual feasts (!), and Avill 
 come straight to Ticknor and Fields, and will liold solemn
 
 CHARLES DICKENS. 51 
 
 rouncil with tlieni, and will then go to New York, Phila- 
 delphia, Hartford, Washington, etc., etc., and see the rooms 
 for himself, and make his estimates. He will then telegraph 
 to me : ' I see my way to such and such results. Shall I go 
 on ? ' If I reply, ' Yes,' I shall stand committed to begin 
 reading in America with the montli of December. If I 
 reply, ' No,' it will be because I do not clearly see tlie game 
 to be worth so large a candle. In either case he will come 
 back to me. 
 
 " He is the brother of Madame Sainton Dolby, the cele- 
 brated singer. I have absolute trust in him and a great 
 regard for him. He goes with me e\erywhere when 1 read, 
 and manages for me to perfection. 
 
 "We mean to keep all this strictly secret, as I beg 
 of you to do, until I tinally decide for or against. I am be- 
 leaguered by every kind of speculator in such things on 
 your side of the water; and it is very likely tliat they 
 would take tlie rooms over our heads, — to cliarge me heavily 
 for tliem, — or would set on foot unheard-of devices for buy- 
 ing up the tickets, etc., etc., if the probabilities oozed out. 
 This is exactly how the case stands now, and I confide it to 
 you within a couple of hours after liaving so far resolved. 
 Dolby quite understands that he is to confide in you, sim- 
 ilarly, without a particle of reserve. 
 
 " Ever faithfully yours, 
 
 " Charles Dickens." 
 
 On tlie 12tli of July he says : — 
 
 " Our letters will be crossing one another rarely ! I have 
 received your cordial answer to my first notion of coming 
 out; but there has not yet been time for me to hear 
 
 again 
 
 " With kindest regard to ' both your houses,' public and 
 private, 
 
 " Ever faithfully yours, 
 
 " Charles Dickens."
 
 0-Z IN AND OUT OF DOORS AVITH 
 
 He had engaged to write for " Our Young Folks " 
 " A Holiday Romance," and the following note, 
 dated the 25th of July, refers to the story : — 
 
 " Your note of the 12th is like a cordial of the best sort. 
 I have taken it accordingly. 
 
 " Doll)y sails in the Java on Saturday, the 3d of next 
 month, and will come direct to you. You will find him a 
 frank and capital fellow. He is perfectly acquainted with 
 his l)usiness and with his chief, and may be trusted witliout 
 a grain of reserve. 
 
 " I hope the Americans will see the joke of ' Holiday Ro- 
 mance.' The writing seems to me so like children's, that 
 dull folks (on ain/ side of /nii/ water) might perhaps rate it 
 accordingly ! I should like to be l)eside you when you read 
 it, and particularly when you read the Pirate's story. It 
 made me laugh to tliat extent that my people here thought I 
 was out of my wits, until I gave it to them to read, when 
 they did likewise. 
 
 " Ever cordially yours, 
 
 "Charlks Dickens." 
 
 On the 3d of Septemher he hreal<s out in this 
 wise, Dolhy having arrived ont and made all ar- 
 rangements for the readings : — 
 
 " Your cheering letter of tlie 21st of August arrived here 
 this morning. A thousand thanks for it. I begin to think 
 (nautically) that 1 ' head west'ard.' You shall hear from 
 me fully and finally as soon as Dolby shall liave reported 
 personally. 
 
 " The other day I received a letter from Air. of New 
 
 York (who came over in the winning yacht, and described 
 the voyage in the Times), saying he would much like to see 
 me. I made an ai)pointment in London, and observed that 
 •when he did see me lie was obviously astonished. While I
 
 CHARLES DICKENS. 53 
 
 was sensible tliat tlie magnificence of my appearance wonld 
 fully account for his being overcome, I nevertheless angled 
 for the cause of his surprise. He then told me that there 
 was a paragraph going round the papers, to the effect that I 
 was 'in a critical state of health.' I asked him if he was 
 sure it was n't 'cricketing' state of health. To which he 
 replied, Quite. I then asked him down here to dinner, and 
 he was again staggered by Jinding me in sporting training ; 
 also much amused. 
 
 " Yesterday's and to-day's post bring me this unaccount- 
 able paragraph from hosts of uneasy friends, with tlie enor- 
 mous and wonderful addition that ' eminent surgeons ' are 
 sending me to America for ' cessation from literary labor ' ! ! ! 
 So I have written a quiet line to the Times, certifying to my 
 own state of liealth, and have also l)pgged Dixon to do the 
 like in the Athennnun. I mention the matter to you, in 
 order that you may contradict, from me, if the nonsense 
 should reach America unaccompanied by the truth. But I 
 suppose that tlie New York Herald will probably liave got 
 the latter from Mr. aforesaid 
 
 " Charles Reade and Wilkie Collins are here ; and the joke 
 of the time is to feel my pulse when I appear at table, and 
 also to inveigle innocent messengers to come over to the 
 summer-house, where I write (the place is quite changed 
 since you were here, and a tunnel under the high-road con- 
 nects this shrubbery with the front garden), to ask, with 
 their compliments, how I find myself how. 
 
 " If I come to America this next November, even you can 
 hardly imagine with what interest I shall try Coppertield on 
 an American audience, or, if they give me their heart, how 
 freely and fully I shall give them mine. We will ask Dolby 
 then whetht;r he ever heard it before. 
 
 " I cannot thank you enough for your invaluable help to 
 Dolby. He writes that at every turn and moment the sense 
 and knowledge and tact of Mr. Osgood are inestimable to him. 
 "Ever, my dear Fields, faithfully yours, 
 
 "ChARLKS DlCKEXS."
 
 54< IN AND OUT OF DOORS WITH 
 
 Hei-e is a little note dated tlie 3d of October : — 
 
 " I cannot tell you how much I thank you for your kind 
 little letter, which is like a pleasant voice coming across the 
 Atlantic, with that domestic welcome in it which has no 
 substitute on earth. If you knew how strongly I am inclined 
 to allow myself the pleasure of staying at your house, you 
 . would look upon me as a kind of ancient llonian (which, I 
 trust in Heaven, I am not) for having the courage to say no. 
 But if I gave myself that gratification in the beginning, 
 I could scarcely hope to get on in the hard ' reading ' life, 
 without offending some kindly disposed and hospitable 
 American friend afterwards ; whereas if I ol)serve my Eng- 
 lish principle on such occasions, of having no abiding-place 
 hut an hotel, and stick to it from the first, I may perhaps 
 count on l)eing consistently uncomfortable. 
 
 "The nigiitly exertion necessitates meals at odd hours, 
 silence and rest at impossiI)le times of the day, a general 
 Spartan behavior so utterly inconsistent with my nature, 
 that if you were to give me a happy inch, I should take an 
 ell, and frightfully disappoint you in i)ul)lic. I don't want 
 to do that, if I can help it, and so I will be good in spite of 
 myself. 
 
 " Ever your affectionate friend, 
 
 " Chaklks Dickens." 
 
 A ridicnloiis pavajrraph in the papers following 
 close on the public announcement that Dickens 
 was coming; to America in November, drew from 
 him this letter to me, dated also early in Octo- 
 ber : — 
 
 " I hope the telegraph clerks did not mutilate out of recog- 
 nition or reasonable guess the words I added to ])olby's last 
 telegram to Boston. 'Tribune London correspondent totally 
 false.' Not only is there not a word of truth in the pre- 
 tended conversation, but it is so absurdly unlike me that I
 
 CHARLES DICKENS. bo 
 
 cannot suppose it to be even invented by any one who ever 
 lieard nie exchange a word witli mortal creature. For 
 twenty years 1 am perfectly certain that 1 have never made 
 any other allusion to the republication of my books in 
 America than the good-humored remark, ' tliat if there had 
 been international copyright between England and the 
 States, I should have i)een a man of very large fortune, 
 instead of a man of moderate savings, always supporting a 
 very expensive public position.' Nor have I ever been such 
 a fool as to charge the absence of international copyright 
 upon individuals. Nor have I ever been so ungenerous as 
 to disguise or suppress the fact that 1 liavc received liand- 
 some sums for advance sheets. When I was in the States, 
 I said what 1 had to say on the question, and there an end. 
 I am absolutely certain that I have never since expressed 
 myself, even with soreness, on tiie sultject. Reverting to 
 tiie preposterous fabrication of the London correspondent, 
 the statement tluit 1 ever talked al)out ' these fellows ' who 
 republished my l)ooks, or pretended to know (wiiat I don't 
 know at this instant) who made how murii out of them, or 
 ever talked of their sending me 'conscience money,' is as 
 grossly and completely false as the statement that I ever 
 said anything to the effect that I could not be expected to 
 liave an interest in the American people. And nothing can 
 by any possibility be falser than that. Again and again in 
 tliese pages (All the Year Round) I liave expressed my inter- 
 est in them. You will see it in the ' Child's History of 
 England.' You will see it in the last Preface to 'American 
 Notes.' Every American who lias ever spoken with me in 
 London, Paris, or where not, knows whether I have frankly 
 said, ' You could have no better introduction to me than 
 your country.' And for years and years when I have been 
 asked aluuit reading in America, my invariable reply has 
 been, ' I have so many friends there, and constantly receive 
 so many earnest letters from personally unknown readers 
 there, that, but for domestic reasons, I would go to- 
 morrow.' I think I must, in the coulidential intercourse
 
 56 IX AND OUT OF DOORS WITH 
 
 between you and mo, linvc written you to tliis effect more 
 than once. 
 
 " Tlie statement of the London correspondent from begin- 
 ning to end is false. It is false in the letter and false in the 
 spirit. He may liavc been niisinformed, and the statement 
 may not have originated with him. With whomsoever it 
 originated, it never originated with me, and consequently is 
 false. More than enough al)out it. 
 
 " As I hope to see you so soon, my dear Fields, and as I 
 am busily at work on tlie Christmas numi)er, 1 will not make 
 this a longer letter than I can help. 1 thank you most 
 heartily for your ))njlTered hospitality, and need not tell you 
 that if I went t(i any triend's house iu .Viueriea, I would go 
 to yours. But the readings arc very hard work, and 1 thiuk 
 I cannot do better than observe the rule on that side of the 
 Atlantic which I observe on this, — of never, under sucli 
 cireumstanres, going to a friend's house, but always staying 
 at a hotel. I am able to ol)serve it here, by being C(msistent 
 and never breaking it. If I aiu equally consistent there, I 
 can (1 liopc) offend no one. 
 
 " Dolby sends liis love to you and all his friends (as I do), 
 and is girding up his loins \ igorously. 
 
 " Ever, my dear Fields, heartily and affectionately yours, 
 " Ch.vrles Dickens." 
 
 Before sailiuir in Novcinbrr lie sent off this note 
 to mc from the olTice of All the Year Round : — 
 
 " I received your more than acceptable letter yesterday 
 morning, and consequently am able to send you this line of 
 acknowledgment by the next mail. Please God we will 
 liave that walk among tlie autumn lea\cs, before the read- 
 ings set in. 
 
 " You may have heard from Dolby that a gorgeous rejjast 
 is to be given to me to-morrow, and that it is expected to 
 be a notable demonstration. I shall try, in what I say, to 
 state my American case exactly. I have a strong hope and
 
 CHARLES DICKENS. 57 
 
 belief that within the ronipass of a ediiple of miimfes or so 
 I ean imt it, with iicrf'ect trutlifiilness, in the li^lit that my 
 American friends wonUl he Itest ph-ased to see me jdaee it in. 
 Eitlier so, or my instinct is at lanlt. 
 
 " My dau^liters and their aunt unite with me in kindest 
 hnes. As 1 write, a shrill jiroldnjratinn of the messa^re 
 comes in from the next room, 'Tell them to take care of 
 you-ii-u ! * 
 
 "Tell Ix)n^fellow, with my love, that 1 am rharjred liy 
 Forster (who has heen very ill of dilfnsed gout and hron- 
 ehitis) with a copy of his Sir John Kliot. 
 
 " I will liriii^ you out the early pr(i«)f of the Christmas 
 numl)er. We pul)lish it here or\ the 1:2th of Weeemher. I 
 am planning; it i No Thorou|;hfarei out into a play for Wilkio 
 Collins to manipulate after I sail, and liave arranjred for 
 I'echter to j^o to the Adelphi Theatre ami play a Swiss in 
 it. It will lie Itrou'.'lit out the day after Christmas day. 
 
 " Here, at Hoston Wharf, and everywhere else, 
 " Yours heartily and atVectionatelv, 
 
 ■"CD." 
 
 On a. blustering cvciiinjr in Xovcnibcr, 1807, 
 Dickons arrivi-il in Boston Harbor, on his .second 
 visit to Anjeriea. A few of his friemls, under the 
 guidance of the Collector of the port, steamed 
 down in the eustoni-house boat to welcome him. 
 It was piteh dark belbre we sighted the Cuba and 
 ran alongside. The great steamer stopped for a 
 few minutes to take ns on board, and Dieken.s's 
 cheery voice greeted inc before I had time to dis- 
 tinguish him on the deck of the vessel. The news 
 of the excitement the sale of the tickets to his 
 readings had occasioned had been carried to him 
 by the pilot, twenty miles out. He was in capital
 
 58 IN AND OUT OF DOORS "WITH 
 
 spirits over the cbeerful account that all was going 
 on so well, and I thought he never looked in better 
 health. The voyage had been a good one, and the 
 ten days' rest on shipboard had strengthened him 
 amazingly he said. As we were told that a crowd 
 had assembled in East Boston, we took him in our 
 little tug and landed him safely at Long "Wharf in 
 Boston, where carriages were in waiting. Rooms 
 had been taken for him at the Parker House, and in 
 half an hour after he had reached the hotel he was 
 sitting down to dinner with half a dozen friends, 
 quite prepared, he said, to give the first reading in 
 America that very night, if desirable. Assurances 
 that the kindest feelings towards him existed every- 
 where put him in great spirits, and he seemed 
 happy to be among us. On Sunday he visited the 
 School Ship and said a few words of encouragement 
 and counsel to the boys. He began his long walks 
 at once, and girded himself up for the hard winter's 
 work before him. Steadily refusing all invitations 
 to go out during the weeks he was reading, he only 
 Avent into one other house besides the Parker, habit- 
 ually, during his stay in Boston. Every one who 
 was present remembers the delighted crowds that 
 assembled nightly in the Tremont Temple, and no 
 one who heard Dickens, during that eventful month 
 of December, will forget the sensation produced by 
 the great author, actor, and reader. Hazlitt says 
 of Kean's Othello, " The tone of voice in which he
 
 CHARLES DICKENS. 5'J 
 
 delivered the beautiful apostroplie ' Then, 0, fare- 
 well,' struck on the heart like the swelling notes 
 of some divine musie, like the sound of years of 
 departed happiness." There were thrills of pathos 
 in Dickens's readings (of David Copperlield, for 
 instance) which Keaa himself never surpassed in 
 dramatic effect. 
 
 lie went from Boston to New York, carrying 
 with him a severe catarrh contracted in our climate. 
 In reality, much of the time during his reading in 
 Boston he was ([uite ill from the effects of the dis- 
 ease, but he fought courageously against its effects, 
 and always came up, on the night of the reading, 
 all right. Several times I feared he would be 
 obliged to postpone the readings, and I am sure 
 almost any one else woulcj have felt compelled to do 
 so ; but he declared no man had a ri-jht to break 
 an engagement with the public, if he were able 
 to be out of bed. Ilis spirit was wonderful, and, 
 although he lost all appetite and could partake of 
 very little food, he was always cheerful and ready 
 for his work when the evening came round. Every 
 morning his table was covered with invitations to 
 dinners and all sorts of entertainments, but he said, 
 " I came for hard work, and I must try to fulfil the 
 expectations of the American public." He did 
 accept a dinner which was tendered to him by 
 some of his literacy friends in Boston ; but the day 
 before it was to come off he was so ill he felt
 
 60 IN AND OUT OF DOORS WITH 
 
 obliged to ask that the banquet might be given up. 
 The strain upon his strength and nerves Avas very 
 great during all the months he remained in the 
 country, and only a man of iron will could have 
 accomplished all he did. And here let me say, that 
 although he was accustomed to talk and write a 
 great deal about eating and drinking, I have rarely 
 seen a man eat and drink less. He liked to dilate 
 in imagination over the brewing of a bowl of punch, 
 but I alv.ays noticed that Avhcn the punch was 
 ready, he drank less of it than any one who might 
 be present. It was the sentiment of the thing and 
 not the thing itself that engaged his attention. 
 He liked to have a little supper every night after a 
 reading, and have three or four friends round the 
 table Avith him, but he only pecked at the viands 
 as a bird might do, and I scarcely saw him eat a 
 hearty meal during his whole stay in the country. 
 Both at Parker's Hotel in Boston, and at the West- 
 minster in NcAv York, everything was arranged by 
 the proprietors for his comfort and happiness, and 
 tempting dishes to pique his invalid appetite Avere 
 sent up at difFcrent hours of the day, with the hope 
 that he might be induced to try uuAvonted things 
 and get up again the habit of eating more ; but 
 the iulluenza, that seized him Avith such masterful 
 poAver, held the strong man duv.u till he left the 
 coiuitiy. 
 
 One of the first letters I had from him, after he
 
 ClIAULES DICKENS. Gl 
 
 Iiiiil begun his reading tour, Avas dated from the 
 Westminster Hotel in New York, ou tlie 15th of 
 January, 1808. 
 
 My dear Fields : On coming hack from Pliiladelpliia 
 just now (tliree o'clock) I was ■welcomed by your cordial 
 letter. It was a deliglitful welcome and did me a world of 
 good. 
 
 The cold remains just as it was (heastly'i, and where it 
 was (in my licadi. We have left off referring to the hateful 
 subject, except in emphatic sniffs on my part, convulsive 
 wheezes, and resounding sneezes. 
 
 The Philadelphia audience ready and bright. I think 
 tliey understood the Carol better than Copperfield, hut they 
 were bright and responsive as to bolh. They also highly 
 appreciated your friend Mr. Jack Hopkins. A Tuost excel- 
 lent hotel there, and everything satisfactory. While on the 
 subJL'ct of satisfaction, I know you will be pleased to hear 
 that a long run is confidently expected for the No Thorough- 
 fare drama. Although the i)iece is well cast and well played, 
 my letters tell me that Fechter is so remarkaltly fine as to 
 ])lay doMu the whole company. The Times, in its account 
 of it, said that "Mr. Fechter" (in tlie Swiss mountain 
 scene, and in the Swiss Hotel) " was practically alone upon 
 the stage." It is splendidly got up, and the Mountain Pass 
 (I planned it with the scene-painter) was loudly cheered by 
 the whole house. Of course I knew that Fechter would 
 tear himself to pieces rather than fall short, but I was not 
 prepared for his contriving to get the pity and sympathy 
 of the audience out of his passionate love for Mai'guerite. 
 
 My dear fellow, you cannot miss me more than I miss 
 you and yours. And Hea\ en knows how gladly I would 
 substitute Boston for Chicago, Detroit, and Co. ! But the 
 tour is fast shaping itself out into its last details, and we 
 must remember that there is a clear fortnight in Boston, 
 not counting the four Farewells. I look forward to that 
 fortnight as a radiant landing-place in the series
 
 62 IN AND OUT OF DOORS WITH 
 
 Rash youth ! No presumptuous liand shouhl try to make 
 tlie punch, except in the presence of the hoary sajie wlio 
 pens these lines. With hhii on the spot to perceive and 
 avert impending failure, M'ith timely words of wisdom to 
 arrest the erring liand and curh the straying judgment, and, 
 with such gentle expressions of encouragement as liis stern 
 cxpetience may justify, to cheer tlie aspirant with faint 
 hopes of future excellence, — with these conditions ob- 
 served, the daring mind may scale the heights of sugar and 
 contemplate the depths of lemon. Otherwise not. 
 
 Dolby is at Washington, and will return in the niglit. 
 is on guard. He made a most brilliant appearance be- 
 fore the Philadelpliia public, and looked hard at them. The 
 mastery of liis eye diverted their attention from liis boots : 
 charming in themselves, hut (unfortunately) two left ones. 
 
 I send my hearty and enduring love. Your kindness to 
 the Britisli Wanderer is deeply inscribed in his heart. 
 
 When I think of L -'s story about Dr. Webster, I feel 
 
 like the lady in Nickleby who " has had a sensation of al- 
 ternate cold and biling water running down her hack ever 
 since." 
 
 Ever, my dear Fields, your affectionate friend, 
 
 C. D. 
 
 His birtlitlay, 7tli of Febi'uary, was spent in 
 "Washington, and on the 9th of the month he sent 
 this little note from Baltimore : — 
 
 Baltimoke, Sundaj^ February 9th, 1868. 
 
 My dear Fields : I thank you heartily for your pleasant 
 note (I can scarcely tell you how pleasant it Avas to receive 
 the same) and for the beautiful flowers that you sent me on 
 my hirthday. For which — and much more — my loving 
 thanks to botli. 
 
 In consequence of the Wasliington papers having referred 
 to the august 7th of this mouth, my room was on that day
 
 CHARLES DICKENS. G3 
 
 a blooming garden. Nor M-ere flowers alone represented 
 there. Tlie silversmitli, the goldsmith, the landscape- 
 painter, all sent in their contributions. After the reading 
 was done at night, the wiiole audience rose ; and it was 
 spontaneous, hearty, and affecting. 
 
 I was very much surprised by the President's face and 
 manner. It is, in its way, one of the most remarkable 
 faces I have ever seen. Not imaginative, but very power- 
 ful in its firmness (or perhaps ol)stiuacy), strength of will, 
 and steadiness of purpose. There is a reticence in it too, 
 curiously at variance with that first unfortunate speech of 
 his. A man not to be turned or trifled with. A man (I 
 should ^ay) who must be killed to be got out of the way. 
 His manners, perfectly composed. We looked at one anotlier 
 pretty hard. There was an air of chronic anxiety upon him. 
 But not a crease or a ruffle in his dress, and liis papers were 
 as composed as himself. (Mr. Thornton was going in to de- 
 liver his credentials, immediately afterwards.) 
 
 This day fortnight will find me, please God, in my " na- 
 tive Boston." I wish I were there to-day. 
 
 Ever, my dear Fields, your affectionate friend, 
 
 Ch.^rlks Dickkxs, 
 Chairman Missionary Societi/. 
 
 "When he retitrned to Boston in the latter part of 
 the month, after his fatiguing campaign in New 
 York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, he 
 seemed far from well, and one afternoon sent round 
 from the Parker House to me this little note, ex- 
 plaining why he could not go out on our accustomed 
 walk : — 
 
 " I have been terrifying Dolby out of his wits, by setting 
 in for a paroxysm of sneezing, and it would l)e madness in 
 me, with such a cold, and on such a night, and with to- 
 morrow's reading before me, to go out, 1 need not add that
 
 61 IN AND OUT OF DOOES WITH 
 
 I sliall be lieaitily "lad to see you if you liave time. Many 
 thanks for tlie Life and Letters of Wilder Dwi-^lit. I sliall 
 'save up' that book, to read on the passage liome. After 
 turning over the leaves, I liave shut it up and put it away ; 
 for I aai a great reader at sea, and wish to reserve tlie 
 interest that 1 find awaiting nie in the jjcrsonal following 
 of the sad war. Good God, wiieu one stands among the 
 hearths that war has l)rokcu, wiiat an awful consideration 
 it is that such a tremendous evil must he sometimes ! 
 " E\ er affectionately yours, 
 
 "Charles Dickkxs." 
 
 I will dispose here of the question often asked 
 me by correspondents, and lately renewed in many 
 epistles, " Was Charles Dickens a believer in our 
 Saviour s life and teachings ? " Persons address- 
 ing to me such inquiries must be profoundly igno- 
 rant of the works of the great author, whom they 
 endeavor by implication to place among the " Un- 
 believers." If anywhere, out of the Bible, God's 
 goodness and mercy are solemnly commended to 
 the world's attention, it is in the pages of Dickens. 
 I had supposed that these written words of his, 
 which have been so extensively coj)ied both in 
 Europe and America, from his last vvill aiid testa- 
 ment, dated the 12th of May, 1869, would forever 
 remain an emphatic testimony to his Christian 
 faith : — 
 
 " I commit my soul to the mercy of God, tlirough our 
 Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and I exhort my dear chil-
 
 CHARLES DICKENS. 65 
 
 dren luiraljly to try to guide themselves by tlie teachings of 
 the New Testameut. " 
 
 I wish it were in my power to brinp; to the 
 knowledge of all who doubt the Christian character 
 of Charles Dickens certain other memorable words 
 of his, written years ago, with reference to Christ- 
 mas. They are not as familiar as many beautiful 
 things from the same pen on the same subject, for 
 the paper which enshrines them has not as yet been 
 collected among his authorized works. Listen to 
 these loving words in which the Christian writer 
 has embodied the life of his Saviour : — 
 
 " Hark ! the Waits are playing, and tliey break my cliild- 
 ish sleep! AVhat images do I associate with the Christmas 
 music as I see them set fortli on the Christmas tree '^ 
 Known before all others, keeping far apart from all the 
 otiiers, tliey gather round my little bed. An angel, speak- 
 ing to a group of shepiierds in a field ; some travellers, 
 witli eyes uplifted, following a star; a baby in a manger; a 
 child in a spacious temple, talking with grave men ; a solemn 
 figure with a mild and beautiful face, raising a dead girl by 
 the hand; again, near a city gate, calling back the son of a 
 widow, on his bier, to life; a crowd of people looking 
 through the opened roof of a chamber where he sits, and 
 letting down a sick person on a bed, with ropes ; the same 
 in a tem])est, walking on the water to a ship ; again, on a 
 sea-shore, teaching a great multitude ; again, with a child 
 upon his knee, and other children round; again, restoring 
 sigiit to the blind, speech to the dumb, hearing to the deaf, 
 health to the sick, strength to the lame, knowledge to the 
 ignorant ; again, dying upon a cross, watched by armed 
 soldiers, a thick darkness coming on, the earth beginning to 
 shake, and only one voice heard, — ' Forgive them, for they 
 know not what they do ! ' "
 
 6Q IN AND OUT OF DOORS WITH 
 
 The writer of these pages begs lo say here, most 
 respectfully and emphatically, that he will not feel 
 himself bound, in future, to reply to any inquiries, 
 from however well-meaning correspondents, as to 
 whether Charles Dickens was an " Unbeliever," or 
 a " Unitarian," or an " Episcopalian," or whether 
 " he ever went to church in his life," or " used im- 
 proper language," or " drank enough to hurt him." 
 He was human, very human, but he was no scolFer 
 or doubter. His religion was of the heart, and his 
 fjuth beyond questioning. He taught the world, 
 said Dean Stanley over his new-made grave in 
 Westminster Abbey, great lessons of " the eternal 
 value of generosity, of purity, of kindness, and of 
 unselfishness," and by his fruits he shall be known 
 of all men. 
 
 Let me commend to the attention of my numer- 
 ous nameless correspondents, who have attempted 
 to soil the moral character of Dickens, the follow- 
 ing little incident, related to me by himself, during 
 a summer-evening walk among the Kentish mead- 
 ows, a few months before he died. I will try to 
 tell the story, if possible, as simply and naturally as 
 he told it to me. 
 
 " I chanced to be travelling some years ago," he 
 said, " in a railroad carriage between Liverpool and 
 London. Beside myself there were two ladies and 
 a gentleman occupying the carriage. "NVe happened 
 to be all strangers to each other, but I noticed at
 
 CHARLES DICKENS. 67 
 
 once that a clei-gyman was of tlie party. I was 
 o;-cupied with a ponderous article in the 'Times,' 
 when the sound of my own name drew my attention 
 to the fact that a conversation was goinj? forward 
 among the three other persons in the carriage with 
 reference to myself and my books. One of the 
 ladies was perusing ' Bleak House,' then lately 
 published, and the clergyman had commenced a con- 
 versation with the ladies by asking what book they 
 were reading. On being told the author's name 
 and the title of the book, he expressed himself 
 greatly grieved that any lady in England should be 
 willing to take up the writings of so vile a character 
 as Charles Dickens. Both the ladies showed great 
 surprise at the low estimate the clergyman put upon 
 au author whom they had been accustomed to read, 
 to say the least, with a certain degree of pleasure. 
 They were evidently much shocked at what the man 
 said of the immoral tendency of these books, which 
 they seemed never before to have suspected ; but 
 when he attacked the author's private character, 
 and told monstrous stories of his immoralities in 
 every direction, the volume was shut up and con- 
 signed to the dark pockets of a travelling-bag. I 
 listened in wonder and astonishment, behind my 
 newspaper, to stories of myself, which if they had 
 been true would have consigned any man to a pris- 
 on for life. After my fictitious biographer had 
 occupied himself for nearly an hour with the elo-
 
 68 IN AND OUT OF DOORS WITH 
 
 quent recital of my delinquencies and crimes, I very 
 quietly joined in the conversation. Of course I 
 began by modestly doubting some statements which 
 I had just heard, touching the autlior of ' Bleak 
 House,' and other unimportant works of a similar 
 character. The man stared at me, and evidently 
 considered my appearance on the conversational 
 stage an intrnsion and an impertinence. ' You 
 seem to speak,' I said, ' from personal knowledge 
 of Mr. Dickens. Are you acquainted with him?' 
 He rather evaded the question, but, following him 
 uj) closely, I compelled him to say that he had been 
 talking, not from his own knowledge of the author 
 in question ; but he said he knew for a certainty 
 that every statement he had made was a true one. 
 I then became more earnest in my inquiries for 
 proofs, which he arrogantly declined giving. The 
 ladies sat by in silence, listening intently to what 
 was going forward. An author they had been ac- 
 customed to read for amusement had been traduced 
 for the first time in their hearing, and they were 
 waiting to learn what I had to say in refutation of 
 the clergyman's charges. I was taking up his vile 
 stories, one by one, and stamping them as false in 
 every particular, when the man grew furious, and 
 asked me if I knew Dickens personally. I replied, 
 ' Perfectly well ; no man knows him better than I 
 do ; and all your stories about him from beginning 
 to end, to these ladies, are unmitigated lies.' The
 
 CHARLES DICKENS. 69 
 
 man became livid with ratro, ami asked for my card. 
 * You shall have it,' I said, and, coolly taking out 
 one, I presented it to him without bowintr. "We 
 were just then neariner the station in London, so 
 that I was spared a longer interview with my 
 ^y«////*«/ companion ; but, if I were to live a hun- 
 dred years, I should not forget the abject condition 
 into which the narrator of my crimes was instantly 
 plunged. His face turned white as his ci-avat, and 
 his lips refused to utter words. He seemed like 
 a wilted vegetable, and as if his legs belonged to 
 somebody else. The ladies became aware of the 
 situation at once, and, bidding them ' good day,' 
 I stepped smilingly out of the carriage. Before I 
 could get away from the station the man had mus- 
 tered up strength sufHcient to follow me, and his 
 apologies were so nauseous and craven, that I 
 pitied him from my soul. I left him with this 
 caution, ' Before you make charges against the 
 character of any man again, about whom you 
 know nothing, and of whose works you are utterly 
 ignorant, study to be a seeker after Truth, and 
 avoid Lying as you would eternal perdition.' " 
 
 I never ceased to wonder at Dickens's indomi- 
 table cheerfulness, even when he was suffering from 
 ill health, and could not sleep more than two or 
 three hours out of the twenty-four. He made it a 
 point never to inflict on another what he might be 
 painfully enduring himself, and I have seen him.
 
 70 IN AND OUT OF DOORS WITH 
 
 with what must have been a great cfl'ort, arrange a 
 nieriy meeting for some friends, when I knew that 
 almost any one else under similar circumstances 
 would have sought relief in bed. 
 
 One evening at a little dinner given by himself 
 to half a dozen friends in Boston, he came out very 
 strong. His influenza lifted a little, as he said after- 
 wards, and he took advantage of the lull. Only his 
 own pen could possibly give an idea of that hilari- 
 ous night, and I will merely attempt a brief refer- 
 ence to it. As soon as we were seated at the table, 
 I read in his lustrous eve, and heard in his jovial 
 voice, that all solemn forms were to be dispensed 
 with on that occasion, and that mcn-imcnt might 
 be confidently expected. To the end of the feast 
 there was no let up to his magnificent cheerfulness 
 and humor. J B , ex-minister plenipo- 
 tentiary as he was, went in for nonsense, and he, I 
 am sure, will not soon forget how undignified we all 
 were, and what screams of laughter went tip from 
 his own uncontrollable throat. Among other tom- 
 fooleries, we had an imitation of scenes at an Eng- 
 lish hustings, Dickens bringing on his candidate 
 
 (his friend D ), and I opposing him with mine 
 
 (the ex-minister). Of course there was nothing 
 spoken in the speeches worth remembering, but it 
 was Dickens's manner that carried off the whole 
 
 thing. D necessarily now wears his hair so 
 
 widely parted in the middle that only two little capil-
 
 CHARLES DICKENS. 71 
 
 lary scraps arc left, just over his cars, to show what 
 kind of thatf'b once covered his jolly craniiitn. 
 Dickens pretended that his candidate was superior 
 to the other, bemuse he had no hair ; and that 
 mine, being profusely supplied with that commodity 
 was in consequence disqualified in a marked detrree 
 for an election. His speech, for volubility and non- 
 sense, was nearly fatal to us all. ^Ve roared and 
 writhed in ajronies of laughter, and the candidates 
 themselves were literally ehokiujf and cryinj; with 
 the humor of the thinj;. But the fun culminated 
 when I tried to get a hearing in behalf of my man, 
 and Dickens drowned all my attempts to be heard 
 with imitative jeers of a boisterous election mob. 
 He seemed to have as many voices that night as the 
 human throat is capable of, and the repeated inter- 
 rupting shouts, among othei-s, of a pretended husky 
 old man bawling out at intervals, " Three cheers 
 for the bald 'nn ! " " Down vith the hairy aristoc- 
 racy ! " "Up vith the little shiny chap on top ! " 
 and other similar outbursts, I can never forget. 
 At last, in sheer exhaustion, we all gave in, and 
 agreed to break up and thus save our lives, if it 
 were not already too late to make the attempt. 
 
 The extent and variety of Dickens's tones were 
 wonderful. Once he described to me in an inimi- 
 table way a scene he witnessed many years ago at a 
 London theatre, and I am certain no professional 
 ventriloquist could have reproduced it better. I
 
 IZ IN AND OUT OV DOORS WITH 
 
 could never persuade him to repeal the description 
 in presence of others ; but he did it for me several 
 times during our walks into the country, where he 
 was, of course, unobscned. His recital of the in- 
 cident was irresistibly droll, and no words of mine 
 can give the situation even, as he gave it. He said 
 he was once sitting in the pit of a London theatre, 
 when two men came in and took places directly in 
 front of him. Both were evidently strangers from 
 the country, and not very familiar with the stage. 
 One of them was stone deaf, and rdicd entirely upon 
 bis friend to keep him informed of the dialogue and 
 story of the play as it went on, by having bawled 
 into his car, word for word, as near as possible 
 what the actors and actresses were saying. The 
 man who could hear became intensely interested in 
 the play, and kept close watch of the stage. The 
 deaf man also shared in the progressive action of 
 the drama, and rated his friend soundly, in a loud 
 voice, if a stitch in the story of the play were inad- 
 vertently dropped. Dickens gave the two voices of 
 these two spectatoi-s with his best comic and dra- 
 matic power. Notwithstanding the roars of the 
 audience, for the scene in the pit grew immensely 
 funny to them as it went on, the deaf man and his 
 friend were too much interested in the main busi- 
 ness of the evening to observe that they were 
 noticed. One bawled louder, and the other, with 
 his elevated ear-trumpet, listened more intently
 
 CUARLKS DICKEXS. 73 
 
 than ever. At length tlio srciiv ciilininated in a 
 most unexpected manner. " Now," screamed the 
 hearing man to the deaf one, " they are going to 
 elope ! " " Jf'/io is going to dope ? " asked the 
 deaf man, in a loud, vehement tone. " Why, tliem 
 two, the young man in the red coat and the girl in 
 a white gown, that 's a talking together now, and 
 just going off the stage ! " " Well, then, you juust 
 have missed telling me something they 've said 
 before," roared the other in an enraged and sten- 
 torian voice ; " for there was nothing in their con- 
 duct all the evening, as you have been representing 
 it to me, that would warrant them in such a pro- 
 ceeding!" At which the audience could not bear 
 it any longer, and ■miciiiih.I tin ir .l.li'jht till the 
 curtain fell. 
 
 Dickens was always planning something to inter- 
 est and amuse his friends, and when in America he 
 taught us several games arranged by himself, which 
 we played again and again, he taking part as our 
 instructor. While he was travelling from point to 
 point, he was cogitating fresh charades to be acted 
 when we should again meet. It was at Baltimore 
 that he first conceived the idea of a widkiug-match, 
 which should take jjlace on his return to Buston, 
 and he drew up a set of humorous " articles," 
 which he sent to me with this injunction, " Keep 
 thi'ui in a place of profound safety, for attested e.ve-
 
 7i IX AND OUT OF DOOIIS WITH 
 
 cution, until my arrival in liDston." He went into 
 this matter of the walkintr-match with ns nuuh 
 earnest direetness ns if he were planning a new 
 novel. The articles, as prepared by himself, arc 
 thus drawn up : — 
 
 " Articles of njjrprmcnt entered into at Bftltimofc, in the 
 United States of America, this third day of Fel»niary in tlic 
 year of our Lord one thousand eijiht hundred and sixty- 
 eight, between , Miitish sul)ject, aims tlie Man of 
 
 Ross, and , American citizen, alias the Boston 
 
 Bantam. 
 
 " Whereas, some Buunrc having arisen between the above 
 men iu reference to feats of pechstrianism and ngility, they 
 liave agreed to settle tiieir differences and jmnc who is 
 the l)etter man, l)y means of a walking-match for two hats 
 a side and the glory of their respective countries; and 
 whereas they agree that tlie said match slinll come off, 
 whatsoever the wcntlitr, on llie Mill I>nm Road outside 
 Boston, on Saturday, the ;2Ulh day of this pnscnl month ; 
 and whereas they agree that tlie personal attendants on 
 themselves during the whole walk, and also the umpires 
 and starters and declarers of victory in tlie match shall be 
 of Boston, known in sporting circh-s as Massa- 
 chusetts Jemmy, and Charles Dickens of Falstaff's Gad's 
 Hill, whose surprising performances (without the least varia- 
 tion) on that truly national instrument, the American ca- 
 tarrh, have wen for liim the well-merited title of the Gad's 
 Hill Gasper: — 
 
 " 1. The men are to be started, on the day appointed, by 
 Massachusetts Jemmy and The Gasper. 
 
 " 2. Jemmy and The Gasper are, on some previous day, to 
 walk out at the rate of not less than four miles an hour by 
 The Gasper's watch, for one hour and a half At the expira- 
 tion of that one hour and a half they are to carefully note 
 the place at which they halt. On the match's coming off
 
 CHARLES DICKEXS. / O 
 
 they are to station themselves in the middle of the road, at 
 that precise point, aiul the men (keeping clear of tlieiu and 
 of each othiTi nre to turn rniind tliein, ri^ht shoulder in- 
 ward, and wnik liack to the startinjr-ixiint. The man de- 
 clared by th-ni to pass the startinjc-point first is to he tlic 
 victor and the winner of the match. 
 
 " 3. No jostling or fouling allowed. 
 
 "4. All cautions or onlers issued to the men by the um- 
 pires, starters, and declarers of victory to be considered final 
 and admitting of no appeal. 
 
 " A sporting narrative of the match to be written by The 
 Gasper within one week after its coming off, and the same 
 to be duly printed lat the ex[)ense of the sulwcribers to these 
 articles) on a broadside. The said i>niad9ide to be framed 
 and glazed, and one copy of the same to l>e carefully pre- 
 %cr\tul by each of the 8ubscril)ers to these articles 
 
 " 6. Tlie men to show on the crrntn* of tlie day of walk- 
 ing at six o'clock precisely, at the Parker House, Hosttm, 
 when and where a dinner will be given them by The {jas|)er. 
 The Gasper to oenijty the chair, faced by Mas.sachuM'tts 
 Jemmy. The latter promptly and formally to invite, as 
 soon as may be after the date of these presents, the follow- 
 ing guests to honor the said dinner with their presence; 
 that is to say 'here follow the names of a few of his friends, 
 whom he wished to be iiu ited\ 
 
 " Now, lastly. In token of their accepting the tnists and 
 offices by these articles conferred upon them, these articles 
 are solemnly and formally signed l>y Massachusetts Jemmy 
 and by the Gad's Hill Gasper, as well as by the men them- 
 selves. 
 
 " Signed by the Man of Ross, otherwise 
 
 " Signed by the Boston Bantam, otherwise . 
 
 "Signed by Massachusetts Jemmy, otherwise 
 
 " Signed by the Gad's Hill Gasper, otherwise Charles 
 Dickens. 
 " Witness to the signatures, ."
 
 76 IN AND OUT OF DOORS WITH 
 
 AVhcn he returned to Boston from Baltimore, he 
 proposed that I should accompany him over the 
 walking-ground " at the rate of not less than four 
 miles an hour, for one hour and a half." I shall not 
 soon forget the tremendous pace at which he trav- 
 elled that day. I have seen a great many walkers, 
 but never one with whom I found it such hard work 
 to keep up. Of course his object was to stretch 
 out the space as far as possible for our friends to 
 travel on the appointed day. ^Vith watch in hand, 
 Dickens strode on over the jNIill Dam toward New- 
 ton Centre. "When we reached Ihe turning-point, 
 and had established the extreme limit, we both felt 
 that we had given the men who were to walk in 
 the match excellent good measure. All along the 
 road people had stared at us, wondering, I suppose, 
 why two men on such .a blustering day should be 
 pegging away in the middle of the road as if life 
 depended on the speed they were getting over the 
 ground. We had walked together many a mile 
 before this, but never at such a rate as on this day. 
 I had never seen his full power tested before, and I 
 could not but feel great admiration for his walking 
 pluck. We were both greatly heated, and, seeing a 
 little shop by the roadside, we w^ent in for refresh- 
 ments. A few sickly looking oranges were all we 
 could obtain to quench our thirst, and we seized 
 those and sat down on the shop door-steps, tired 
 and panting. After a few minutes' rest we started
 
 CHARLES DICKENS. 77 
 
 again and walked back to town. Thirteen miles' 
 stretch on a brisk winter day did neither of us any 
 liarm, and Dickens was in great spirits over the 
 match that was so soon to come ofT. ^Ve agreed to 
 walk over the ground again on the appointed day, 
 keeping company with our respective men. Here 
 is the account that Uickens himself drew up, of 
 t-iat day's achievement, for the broadside. 
 
 "THE SPORTING NARR.YTIVE. 
 "Tmk Mkn. 
 " Tlie Boston Bantam (aUas Brijrht Clianticleer) is a young 
 bird, thou<:li too old to he cauj^lit with cliaff. He conies of a 
 thoroun;h j;anie breed, and lias a dear though modest crow. 
 He pulls down the scale at ten stone and a half and add a 
 pound or two. His previous performances in the pedestrian 
 line have not been numerous. He once achieved a neat little 
 match against time in two left boots at I'hiladelphia; but 
 this must be considered as a pedestrian eccentricity, and 
 cannot be accepted by the riirid chronicler as hi<rh art. 
 The okl mower with the scythe and hoiir-frlass has not 
 yet laid his mauley heavily on the Bantam's frontispiece, 
 but he has had a n;rip at the Bantam's top feathers, and in 
 plucking out a handful was very near niakin<; him like the 
 great Napoleon Bonaparte Cwith the exception of tlie vict- 
 ualling department), when the ancient one found himself too 
 much occupied to carry out the idea, and gave it up The 
 Man of Ross {(dias o\(l .\Iick Pope, alias Allourpraiseswhy- 
 shouldlords, etc.) is a thought and a half too fleshy, and, if 
 lie accidentally sat down upon his baby, would do it to the 
 tune of fourteen stone. This popular codger is of the rubi- 
 cund and jovial sort, and has long been known as a pis- 
 catorial pedestrian on the banks of tlie Wye. But Izaak 
 Walton had n't pace, — look at his book and you '11 find it
 
 78 IN AND OUT OF DOOUS WITH 
 
 slow, — and wlien tliat article comes in question, the fish- 
 in<,'-rod may prove to some of liis disciples a rod in pickle, 
 llowbeit, tlie Man of Ross is a lively ambler, and has a smart 
 stride of his own. 
 
 " The Training. 
 " If vifTorous attention to diet could have brought both 
 men up to the post in tiptop feather, their condition would 
 have left nothing to be desired. But both might have had 
 more daily practice in the poetry of motion. Their breath- 
 ings were confined to an occasional Baltimore burst under 
 the guidance of The Gasper, and to an amicable toddle be- 
 tween themselves at Washington. 
 
 " TlIK COIRSK. 
 
 "Six miles and a half, good measure, from the first tree 
 on the Mill Dam lload, lies the little village (with no re- 
 freshments in it but tivc oranges and a bottle of blacking) 
 of Newton Centre. Here Massachusetts Jemmy and The 
 Gasper had established the turning-point. The road com- 
 prehended every variety of inconvenience to test the mettle 
 of the men, and nearly the whole of it was covered with 
 snow. 
 
 "The Start 
 
 was eflFected beautifully. The men taking their stand in ex- 
 act line at the starting-post, the first tree aforesaid, received 
 from The Gasper the waniing, " Are you ready ? " and then 
 the signal, " One, two, three. Go ! " They got away ex- 
 actly together, and at a spinning speed, waited on by Mas- 
 sachusetts Jemmy and The Gasper. 
 
 "The Race. 
 " In the teeth of an intensely cold and bitter wind, l)efore 
 which the snow flew fast and furious across the road from 
 right to left, the Bantam slightly led. But the Man re- 
 sponded to the challenge, and soon breasted him. For the
 
 CHARLES DICKENS. 79 
 
 first tliree miles each led by a yard or so alternately ; but 
 the walking was very even. On lour niiks being called by 
 The Gasper the men were side liy side ; and tlu-n ensued 
 one of the best periods of the race, the same splitting pace 
 being held by both through a heavy snow-wreath and up a 
 dragging hill. At this point it was anybotly's game, a dol- 
 lar on Ilossius and two half-dollars on the member of the 
 feathery tribe. When live nules were called, the men were 
 still shoulder to shoulder. At alwut si.x miles The Gasper 
 put on a tremendous spirt to leave the men behind and eg- 
 talilish himself at the turning-point at the entrance of the 
 village. He afterwards declared that he received a mental 
 knock-downtr on taking his station and facing aliout, to lind 
 Hrigbt (_b:inticleer close in ui><>n him, and Kossius steaming 
 up like a locomotive. The Uantam rounded tirst; lUtssiua 
 rounded wide ; and from that moment the Bantam steadily 
 shot ahead. Thougli both were breathed at the tow n, the 
 IJnntam quickly got bis liellows into oliedient condition, and 
 bb'w away like an orderly blacksmith in full work. The 
 forcing-puuips of R<jssius likewise proved themselves tough 
 and true, and warranted lirst-rate, i)Ut he fell off in pace; 
 wliereas the liantam pegged away with bis little drum- 
 sticks, as if he saw his wives and a peck of barley waiting 
 for him at the family perch. Continually gaining u|K>n him 
 of lloss. Chanticleer gradually drew ahead within a very 
 few yards of half a mile, finally doing the whole distance in 
 two hours and forty-eight minutes. Ross had ceased to 
 compete three miles short of the winning-post, but bravely 
 walked it out and came in seven minutes later. 
 
 " Rkmarks. 
 
 "The dirticultics under which this plucky match was 
 walked can only be appreciated by those who were on the 
 ground. To the excessive rigor of the icy blast and the 
 depth and state of the snow must be added the constant 
 scattering of the latter into the air and into the eyes of 
 the men, while heads of hair, beards, eyelashes, and eve-
 
 80 IN AND OUT OF DOORS WITH 
 
 brows were frozen into icicles. To breatlie at all, in such 
 a rarefied and disturbed atmosphere, was not easy ; but to 
 breathe up to the required mark was genuine, slogging, 
 ding-dong, hard labor. That both competitors were game 
 to the backbone, doing what they did under such conditions, 
 was evident to all ; but to his gameness the courageous 
 Bantam added unexpected endurance and (like the sailor's 
 watch that did three hours to the cathedral clock's one) un- 
 expected powers of going when wound up. The knowing 
 eye could not fail to detect considerable disparity between 
 the lads ; Chanticleer being, as Mrs. Cratchit said of Tiny 
 Tim, " very light to carry," and Rossius promising fair to 
 attain the rotundity of the Anonymous Cove in the Epi- 
 gram : — 
 
 ' And when lie walks the streets the paviors cry, 
 " God bless you, sir ! " — and lay their rammers by.' " 
 
 The dinner at the Parker House, after the fa- 
 tigues of the day, was a brilliant success. The 
 Great International Walking-Match was over ; 
 America had won, and England was nowhere. 
 The victor and the vanquished were the heroes of 
 the occasion, for both had shown great powers of 
 endurance and done their work in capital time. 
 We had no set speeches at the table, for we had 
 voted eloquence a bore before we sat down. David 
 Copperfield, Hyperion, Hosea Biglow, the Auto- 
 crat, and the Bad Boy were present, and there was 
 no need of set speeches. The ladies present, being 
 all daughters of America, smiled upon the champion, 
 and we had a great, good time. The banquet pro- 
 vided by Dickens was profusely decorated with 
 tlowers, arranged by himself. The master of the
 
 CHARLES DICKENS. 81 
 
 feast was in his best mood, albeit his country had 
 lost ; and we all declared, when we bade him good 
 night, that none of us had ever enjoyed a festival 
 more. 
 
 Soon after this Dickens started on his reading 
 travels again, and I received from him frequent let- 
 ters from various parts of the country. On the 
 8th of March, 1868, he writes from a "Western 
 
 city : — 
 
 Sunday, 8tli March, 1868. 
 
 My dear Fields : We came liere yesterday most com- 
 fortably in a " drawmg-rooni car," of which (Rule Britan- 
 nia !) we bought exclusive possession. is rather a 
 
 depressing feather in the eagle's wing, when considered on 
 a Sunday and in a thaw. Its hotel is likewise a dreary in- 
 stitution. But 1 have an impression that we must be iu the 
 wrong one, and buoy myself up with a devout belief in the 
 other, over the way. The awakening to consciousness this 
 morning on a lop-sided bedstead facing nowhere, in a room 
 holding nothing but sour dust, was more terrible than the 
 being afraid to go to bed last night. To keep ourselves up 
 we played whist (double dummy) until neither of us could 
 bear to speak to the other any more. We had previously 
 supped on a tough old nightmare named buffalo. 
 
 What do you think of a " Fowl de poulet " ? or a " Paettie 
 de Shay"? or " Celary " ? or "Murange with cream"? 
 Because all these delicacies are in the printed bill of fare ! 
 If Mrs. Fields would like the recipe, how to make a " Paet- 
 tie de Shay," telegraph instantly, and the recipe sliall be 
 purchased. We asked the Irish waiter what this disli was, 
 and he said it was " the Frinch name the steward giv' to 
 oyster pattie." It is usually washed down, I believe, with 
 " Movseaux," or "Table Madeira," or "Abasinthe," or
 
 S'Z IX AND OUT OF DOORS WITH 
 
 "Curraco," all of whicli drinks are on the -wine list. I 
 
 mean to drink my love to after dinner in Movseaux. 
 
 Your ruggeder nature sliall be pledged in Abasinthe. 
 Ever affectiouately, 
 
 Charles Dickens. 
 
 On the 19th of March he writes from Albany : — ■ 
 
 Albany, 19th March, 18GS. 
 
 My dear : I should have ans^vered your kind and 
 
 welcome note before now, but that v,e have been in diffi- 
 culties. After creeping through water for miles upon miles, 
 our train gave it up as a Ijad job between Rochester and 
 this place, and stranded us, early on Tuesday afternoon, at 
 Utica. There we remained all night, and at six o'clock 
 yesterday morning were ordered up to get ready for starting 
 again. Then we were countermanded. Then we were 
 once more told to get ready. Then we were told to stay 
 where we were. At last we got off at eight o'clock, and after 
 paddling through the flood until half past three, got landed 
 here, — to the great relief of our minds as well as bodies, 
 for the tickets were all sold out for last night. We had all 
 sorts of adventures by the way, among which two of the 
 most notable were ; — 
 
 1. Picking up two trains out of the water, in which the 
 passengers had been composedly sitting all night, until re- 
 lief should arrive. 
 
 2. Unpacking and releasing into the open country a great 
 train of cattle and sheep that had been in the water 1 don't 
 know how long, and that had begun in their imprisonment 
 to eat each other. I never could have realized the strong 
 and dismal expressions of wliich the faces of sheep are 
 capable, had I not seen the haggard countenances of this 
 unfortunate flock as they were tumbled out of their dens 
 and picked themselves up and made off, leaping wildly 
 (many with broken legs) over a great mound of thawing 
 snow, and over the worried body of a deceased companion.
 
 CHAIILES DICKENS. 83 
 
 Their misery was so very luiiuan that I was sorry to recog- 
 nise several intimate acquaintances conducting themselves 
 in this forlornly gymnastic manner. 
 
 As there is no question that our frientlsliip began in some 
 previous state of existence many years ago, I am now going 
 to make bold to mention a discovery we have made concern- 
 ing Springfield. We find that by remaining tliere ne.xt 
 Saturday and Sunday, instead of coming on to Boston, we 
 shall save several hours' travel, and much wear and tear 
 of our baggage and camp-followers. Ticknor reports the 
 Springfield hotel excellent. Now will you and Fields come 
 and pass Sunday with us there? It will be delightful, if 
 you can. If you cannot, will you defer our Boston dinner 
 until the following Sunday ? Send me a hopeful word to 
 S])ringfield (Massasoit House) in reply, please. 
 
 Lowell's delightful note enclosed with thanks. Do make a 
 trial for Springfield. We saw Professor White at Syracuse, 
 and went out fi)r a ride with him. Queer quarters at Utica, 
 and nothing particular to cat ; but the people so very anxious 
 to please, that it was l)etter than the best cuisine. I made 
 a jug of punch (in the bedroom pitcher), and we drank our 
 love to you and Fields. Doll)y hnd more than his share, 
 under pretence of devoted enthusiasm. 
 
 Ever affectionately yours, 
 
 Charles Dickens. 
 
 His readings everywhere were crowned with en- 
 thusiastic success, and if his strength had been 
 equal to his will, he could have stayed in America 
 another year, and occupied every night of it with 
 his wonderful impersonations. I regretted ex- 
 tremely that he felt obliged to give up visiting the 
 West. Invitations which greatly pleased him came 
 day after day from the principal cities and towns, 
 but his friends soon discovered that his health
 
 84 IN AND OUT OF DOORS WITH 
 
 would not allow liim to extend his travels beyond 
 Washington. 
 
 He sailed for home on the 19th of April, 1868, 
 and we shook hands with him on the deck of the 
 Russia as the good ship turned her prow toward 
 England. He was in great spirits at the thought 
 of so soon again seeing Gad's Hill, and the pros- 
 pect of a vest after all his toilsome days and nights 
 in America. While at sea he wrote the following 
 letter to me : — 
 
 Aboard the RrssiA, bound foe Liverpool, 
 Sunday, 26tli April, 1868. 
 
 My dear Fields : In order that you may have the earli- 
 est nitelligence of me, I begin this note to-day in my small 
 cabin, purposing (if it should prove practicable) to post it 
 at Qiieenstown for the return steamer. 
 
 We are already past the Banks of Newfoundland, although 
 our course was seventy miles to the south, with the view of 
 avoiding ice seen by Judkins in the Scotia on his passage out 
 to New York. The Russia is a magnificent ship, and has 
 dashed along bravely. AVe had made more than thirteen 
 hundred and odd miles at noon to-day. The Avind, after 
 being a little capricious, rather threatens at the present 
 time to turn against us, but our nm is already eighty miles 
 ahead of the Russia's last run in this direction, — a very 
 
 fast one To all whom it may concern, report the 
 
 Russia in the highest terms. She rolls more easily than the 
 other Cunard Screws, is kept in perfect order, and is most 
 carefully looked after in all departments. We have had 
 nothing approacliing to heavy weather ; still, one can speak 
 to the trim of the ship. Her captain, a gentleman ; bright, 
 polite, good-natured, and vigilant 
 
 As to me, I am greatly better, I hope. 1 have got on my
 
 CHARLES DICKENS. 85 
 
 riglit boot to-day for the first time ; the " true American " 
 seems to he turning; faithless at last ; and 1 made a Gad's 
 Hill breakfast this morning, as a further advance on having 
 otherwise eaten and drunk all day ever since Wednesday. 
 
 You will see Anthony Trollope, I dare say. What was 
 my amazement to see him with these eyes come aboard in 
 the mail tender just before we started ! He had come out 
 in the Scotia just in time to dasli off again in said tender to 
 shake hands with me, knowing me to be aboard here. It 
 was most heartily done. He is on a special mission of con- 
 vention with the United States post-oftice. 
 
 We have been picturing your movements, and have duly 
 checked off your journey home, and have talked about you 
 continually. But' I have thought aliout you both, even 
 much, much more. You will never know how I love you 
 both; or what you have been to me in America, and will 
 always be to me everywliere ; or how fervently I thank you. 
 
 All the working of the ship seems to be done on my fore- 
 head. It is scrubbed and holystoned (my head — not the 
 deck) at three every morning. It is scraped and swabbed 
 all day. Eight pairs of heavy boots are now clattering on 
 it, getting the ship under sail again. Legions of ropes'- 
 ends are flopped upon it as I write, and I must leave off 
 with Dolbv's love, 
 
 Thursday, 30th. 
 
 Soon after I left off as above we had a gale of wind, 
 which blew all night. For a few hours on the evening 
 side of midnight there was no getting from this cabin of 
 mine to the saloon, or vice versa, so heavily did the sea 
 break over the decks. The ship, however, made nothing of 
 it, and we were all right again by Monday afternoon. Ex- 
 cept for a few hours yesterday (when we had a very light 
 head wind), the weather has been constantly favorable, and 
 we are now bowling away at a great rate, with a fresh 
 breeze filling all our sails. We expect to be at Queenstown 
 between midnight and three in the morning. 
 
 I hope, my dear Fields, you may find this legible, but 1
 
 86 IN AND OUT OF DOORS WITH 
 
 rather doubt it ; for there is motion enough on the ship to 
 render writing to a hmdsman, however accustomed to pen 
 and ink, rather a difficult achievement. Besides which, I 
 slide away gracefully from the paper, whenever I want to 
 be particularly expressive 
 
 , sitting opposite to me at breakfast, always has the 
 
 following items : A large dish of porridge, into which he 
 casts slices of butter and a quantity of sugar. Two cups 
 of tea. A steak. Irish stew. Chutnee, and marmalade. 
 Another deputation of two has solicited a reading to-night. 
 Illustrious novelist has unconditionally and absolutely de- 
 clined. 
 
 Moi-e love, and more to that, from your ever affectionate 
 friend, 
 
 C. D. 
 
 His first letter from home gave us all great 
 pleasm-e, for it announced his complete recovery 
 from the severe influenza that had fastened itself 
 upon him so many months before. Among his 
 earliest notes I find these paragraphs : — 
 
 "I have found it so extremely difficult to write about 
 America (though never so briefly) without appearing to 
 blow trumpets on the one hand, or to be inconsistent with 
 my avowed determination not to write about it on the other, 
 that I have taken the simple course enclosed. The number 
 will be published on the 6th of June. It appears to me to 
 be the most modest and manly course, and to derive some 
 graceful significance from its title 
 
 " Thank my dear for me for her delightful letter re- 
 ceived on the IGth. I will write to her very soon, and tell 
 lier about the dogs. I would write by this post, but that 
 Wills's absence (in Sussex, and getting no better there as 
 yet) so overwhelms me with business that I can scarcely 
 get through it. 
 
 " Miss me ? Ah, my dear fellow, but how do I miss you !
 
 CHAllLES DICKENS. 87 
 
 We talk about you botli at Gad's Hill every day of our li\ es. 
 And I never see the place looking very pretty indeed, or 
 hear the birds sing all day long and the nightingales all 
 night, -w-itiiout restlessly wishing that you were botli there. 
 " With best love, and truest and most enduring regard, 
 ever, my dear Fields, 
 
 " Your most affectionate, 
 
 "C. D." 
 
 " .... I liopc you will receive by Saturday's Cunard a 
 case containing : 
 
 "1. A trifling supply of the pen-knibs that suited your 
 hand. 
 
 " 2. A do. of unfailing medicine for cockroaches. 
 
 "3. Mrs. Gamp, for . 
 
 " The case is addressed to you at Bleecker Street, New 
 York. If it should be delayed for the knil)s (or nibs) prom- 
 ised to-morrow, and should be too late for the Cunard 
 packet, it will in that case come by the next following lu- 
 man steamer. 
 
 " Everything here looks lovely, and I find it (you will be 
 surprised to hear) really a pretty place ! I have seen No 
 Thoroughfare twice. Excellent things in it ; but it drags, 
 to my thinking. It is, however, a great success in the 
 country, and is now getting up with great force in Paris. 
 Fecliter is ill, and was ordered oflF to Brighton yesterday. 
 Wills is ill too, and banished into Sussex for perfect rest. 
 Otherwise, thank God, 1 find everything well and thriving. 
 
 Y'ou and my dear Mrs. F are constantly in my mind. 
 
 Procter greatly better " 
 
 On the 25th of May he sent off the following 
 from Gad's Hill : — 
 
 My deak : As you ask me about the dogs, I begin 
 
 with them. When I came down first, I came to Gravesend, 
 five miles off. The two Newfoundland dogs coming to meet 
 me, with the usual carriage and the usual driver, and be- 
 holding me coming in mv usual dress out at the usual door,
 
 88 IN AND OUT OF DOORS WITH 
 
 it struck me that their recollection of my liaving been ab- 
 sent for any unusual time was at once cancelled. They be- 
 haved (they are both young dogs) exactly in their usual 
 manner ; coming beliind tlie basket pliaeton as we trotted 
 along, and lifting their lieads to have their ears pulled, — a 
 special attention which they receive from no one else. But 
 when I drove into the stable-yard, Linda (the St. Bernard) 
 was greatly e.vcited; weeping profusely, and throwing her- 
 self on her back that she might caress my foot with her 
 
 great fore-paws. M 's little dog too, Mrs. Bouncer, 
 
 barked in the greatest agitation on being called down and 
 
 asked my M , " Who is this ? " and tore round and 
 
 round me, like the dog in the Faust outlines. You must 
 know that all the farmers turned out on the road in tlieir 
 market-chaises to say, " Welcome home, sir ! " that all the 
 liouses along the road were dressed with flags ; and that 
 our servants, to cut out the rest, had dressed this house so 
 
 tiiat every brick of it was hidden. They liad asked M 's 
 
 permission to " ring the alarm-bell (!) when master drove 
 up " ; but M , liaving some slight idea that that compli- 
 ment might awaken master's sense of the ludicrous, bad 
 recommended bell abstinence. But on Sunday, the village 
 choir (which includes the bell-ringers) made amends. After 
 some unusually brief pious reflection in the crowns of their 
 liats at the end of the sermon, the ringers bolted out and 
 rang like mad until I got home. (There had been a con- 
 spiracy among the villagers to take the horse out, if I had 
 
 come to our own station, and draw me here. M and 
 
 G had got wind of it and warned me.) 
 
 Divers birds sing here all day, and the nightingales all 
 night. The place is lovely, and in perfect order. I lia\e 
 put fi\e 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 
 com, and the sail-dotted river. My room is up among the 
 branches of the trees ; and the birds and the butterflies fly 
 in and out, and the green branches shoot in, at the open
 
 CHAllLES DICKENS. 89 
 
 windows, and the ligjhts and sliadows 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. 
 
 Dolby (who sends a world of messages) found his wife 
 much better than he expected, and the children (wonderful 
 to relate !) perfect. The little girl winds up her prayers 
 every night with a special commendation to Heaven of me 
 and the pony, — as if I must mount him to get there! I 
 dine with Dolby (I was going to write "him," but found it 
 would look as if I were going to dine with the pony) at 
 Greenwich this very day, and if your ears do not burn from 
 six to nine this evening, then the Atlantic is a non-con- 
 ductor. We are already settling — think of tliis ! ^ — the 
 details of my farewell course of readings. I am brown 
 beyond relief, and cause the greatest disappointment in all 
 quarters by looking so well. It is really wonderful what 
 those tine days at sea did for me ! My doctor was quite 
 broken down in spirits when he saw me, for the first time 
 since my return, last Saturday. " Good Lord ! " he said, 
 recoiling, " seven years younger ! " 
 
 It is time I should explain the otherwise inexplicable en- 
 closure. Will you tell Fields, with my lo\e, (I suppose he 
 has n't used all the pens yet V) that I think there is in Tre- 
 mont Street a set of my books, sent out by Chapman, not 
 arrived when I departed. Such set of the immortal works 
 of our illustrious, etc., is designed for the gentleman to 
 whom the enclosure is addressed. If T., F., & Co. will 
 kindly forward the set (carriage paid) with the enclosure to 
 
 's address, I will invoke new l)lessings on their heads, 
 
 and will get Dolby's little daughter to mention them 
 nightly. 
 
 "No Thoroughfare" is very shortly coming out in Paris, 
 where it is now in active rehearsal. It is still playing here, 
 l)ut without Fechter, who has ijeen very ill. The doctor's 
 dismissal of him to Paris, however, and his getting l)etter 
 there, enables him to get up the play there. lie and Wilkie
 
 90 IN AND OUT OF DOORS WITH 
 
 missed so many pieces of stage effect lierc, tliat, unless 1 am 
 quite satisfied with his report, I shall go over and try my 
 stage-managerial hand at the Vaudeville Theatre. I par- 
 ticularly want the drugging and attempted robbing in the 
 bedroom scene at the Swiss inn to be done to the sound of 
 a waterfall rising and falling with the wind. Althougli in 
 the very opening of that scene they speak of the waterfall 
 and listen to it, nobody thought of its mysterious music. 
 I could make it, with a good stage carpenter, in an hour. Is 
 it not a curious thing that they want to make me a gov- 
 ernor of the Foundling Hospital, because, since the Christ- 
 mas number, they have had such an amazing access of visit- 
 ors and money ? 
 
 My dear love to Fields once again. Same to you and him 
 
 from M and G . I cannot tell you l)oth how I miss 
 
 you, or how overjoyed I should be to see you liere. 
 
 Ever, my dear , your most affectionate friend, 
 
 C. D. 
 
 Excellent accounts of his health and spirits con- 
 tinued to come from Gad's Hill, and his letters 
 were full of plans for the future. On the 7th of 
 July he writes from Gad's Hill as usual : — 
 
 Gad's Hill Place, Tuesday, 7th July, 1868. 
 
 My DEAR Fields-. I have delayed writing to you (and 
 , to whom my love) until I should have seen Longfel- 
 low. When he was in London the first time he came and 
 went without reporting himself, and left me in a state of 
 unspeakable discomfiture. Indeed, I should not have believed 
 in his having been here at all, if Mrs. Procter had not told 
 me of his calling to see Procter. However, on his return 
 lie wrote to me from the Langliam Hotel, and I went up to 
 town to see him, and to make an appointment for his com- 
 ing here. He, the girls, and came down last Saturday 
 
 night, and stayed until Monday forenoon. I showed them 
 all the neighboring country that could be shown in so short
 
 CHARLES DICKENS. 91 
 
 a time, and they finished off with a tour of inspection of tlie 
 kitchens, pantry, wine-cellar, pickles, sauces, servants' sit- 
 ting-room, general houseliold stores, and even the Cellar 
 Book, of this illustrious establishment. Forster and Kent 
 (the latter wrote certain verses to Longfellow, which have 
 
 been published in the " Times," and Miiich I sent to D ) 
 
 came down for a day, and 1 hope we all had a really " good 
 time." I turned out a couple of postilions in the old red 
 jacket of the old red royal Dover road, for our ride ; and it 
 was like a holiday ride in England fifty years ago. Of 
 course we went to look at the old houses in Rochester, and 
 the old cathedral, and the old castle, and the house for tlie 
 six poor travellers who, "not Ijeing rogues or proctors, shall 
 have lodging, entertainment, and four pence each." 
 
 Kothing can surpass the respect paid to Longfellow here, 
 from tlie Queen downward. He is everywhere received and 
 courted, and finds i.as I told him he would, wiien we talked 
 of it in Bostonj the workingmen at least as well acquainted 
 ■with his books as the classes socially above them 
 
 Last Thursday I attended, as sponsor, the christening of 
 DoHty's son and heir, — a most jolly baby, mIio held on 
 tight by the rector's left whisker while the service was per- 
 formed. What time, too, his little sister, connecting me 
 with the pony, trotted up and down the centre aisle, noisily 
 driving herself as that celebrated animal, so that it went 
 very hard with the sponsorial dignity. 
 
 is not yet recovered from that concussion of the 
 
 brain, and I have all his work to do. This may account for 
 my not being able to devise a Christmas number, but I 
 seem to have left my invention in America. In case you 
 should find it, please send it over. I am going up to town 
 to-day to dine with Longfellow. And now, my dear Fields, 
 you know all about me and mine. 
 
 You are enjoying your holiday? and are still thinking 
 sometimes of our Boston days, as I do? and are maturing 
 schemes for coming here next summer? A satisfactory 
 reply to the last question is particulaily entreated.
 
 9'Z IN AND OUT OF DOORS WITH 
 
 I am delighted to find you botli so well pleased with the 
 Blind Book scheme. I said nothing of it to you when we 
 ■were together, though I had made up my mind, because I 
 ■wanted to come upon you with that little burst from a dis- 
 tance. It seemed something like meeting again when I 
 remitted the money and thought of your talking of it. 
 
 The dryness of the weather is amazing. All the ponds 
 and surface wells about here are waterless, and the poor 
 people suffer gi-eatly. The people of this village have only 
 one spring to resort to, and it is a couple of miles from 
 many cottages. I do not let the great dogs swim in the 
 canal, because the people have to drink of it. But when 
 they get into the Medway, it is hard to get them out again. 
 The other day Bumble (the son, Newfoundland dog) got into 
 difficulties among some floating timber, and became friglit- 
 ened. Don (the father) was standing by me, shaking off the 
 wet and looking on carelessly, when all of a sudden lie per- 
 ceived something amiss, and went in AVith a bound and 
 brought Bumble out by the ear. The scientific way in 
 which he towed him along Avas charming. 
 Ever your loving 
 CD. 
 
 During the summer of 1868 constant messages 
 and letters came from Dickens across the seas, con- 
 taining pleasant references to his visit in America, 
 and giving charming accounts of his Avay of life at 
 home. Here is a letter announcing the fact that 
 he had decided to close forever his appearance in 
 the reading-desk : — 
 
 Liverpool, Friday, October 30, 1868. 
 
 My dear : I ought to have written to you long ago. 
 
 But I have begun my one hundred and third FarcM^ell Read- 
 ings, and have been so busy and so fatigued that my hands 
 have been quite full. Here arc Dolby and I again leading the
 
 CHARLES DICKENS. 93 
 
 kiud of life that you know so well. We stop next week (ex- 
 cept in London) for the month of November, on account of 
 the elections, and then go on again, with a short holiday at 
 Christmas. We have been doing wonders, and the crowds 
 that pour in upon us in London are beyond all precedent or 
 means of providing for. I have serious thoughts of doing 
 the murder from Oliver Twist ; but it is so horrible, that I 
 am going to try it on a dozen people in my London hall one 
 night next month, privately, and see what effect it makes. 
 
 My reason for abandoning the Christmas number was, 
 that I became weary of having my own writing swamped 
 by that of other people. This reminds me of the Ghost 
 story. I don't think so well of it, my dear Fields, as you 
 do. It seems to me to be too obviously founded on Bill 
 Jones (in Monk Lewis's Tales of Terror\ and there is also a 
 remembrance in it of another Sea-Ghost story entitled, I 
 think, " Stand from Under," and written by I don't know 
 whom. Stand from vnder is tlie cry from aloft when any- 
 thing is going to be sent down on deck, and the ghost is 
 aloft on a yard 
 
 You know all about public affairs, Irish diurches, and 
 party squabbles. A vast amount of electioneering is going 
 on about here; but it has not hurt us; though Gladstone 
 has been making speeches, north, east, south, and west of us. 
 
 I hear that C is on his way here in the Russia. Gad's 
 
 Hill must be thrown open 
 
 Your most affectionate 
 
 Charles Dickens. 
 
 We had often talked together of the addition to 
 his repertoire of some scenes from " Oliver Twist," 
 and the following letter explains itself : — 
 
 Glasgow, Wednesday, December 16, 1868. 
 
 My deah : .... And first, as you are curious 
 
 about the Oliver murder, I will tell you about that trial of 
 the same at which you ovtjht to have assisted. There were
 
 94 IN AND OUT OF DOORS WITH 
 
 about a luintlred people present in all. I liave changed my 
 stage. Besides lliat back screen wliich you know so well, 
 there are two large screens of the same color, set off, one 
 on either side, like the " wings " at a theatre. And besides 
 those again, we have a quantity of curtains of the same 
 color, with which to close in any width of room from wall 
 to wall. Consequently, the figure is now completely iso- 
 lated, and the slightest action becomes much more impor- 
 tant. This was used for the first time on the occasion. But 
 behind the stage — the orchestra being very large and built 
 for the accommodation of a numerous chorus — there was 
 ready, on the level of the platform, a very long tal)le, beau- 
 tifully lighted, with a large staff of men ready to open oys- 
 ters and set champagne corks flying. Directly I had done, 
 the screens being whisked off by my people, there was dis- 
 closed one of the prettiest banquets you can imagine ; and 
 when all the people came up, and the gay dresses of the 
 ladies were lighted by those ])owerful lights of mine, the 
 scene was exquisitely pretty ; the hall l)eing newly deco- 
 rated, and very elegantly ; and tlie wliole looking like a 
 great bed of flowers and diamonds. 
 
 Now, you must know that all tliis company Avere, before 
 the wine went round, unmistakably pale, and had horror- 
 stricken faces. Ne.vt morning, Harness (Fields knows — 
 Rev. William — did an edition of Sliakesi)eare — old friend 
 of tlie Kembles and Mrs. Siddons), writing to me about it, 
 and saying it was "a most amazing and terrific thing," 
 added, " but I am bound to tell you that I liad an almost 
 irresistible impulse upon me to scream, and that, if any one 
 had cried out, I am certain I should have followed." He 
 had no idea that on the night P , the great ladies' doc- 
 tor, had taken me aside and said, " My dear Dickens, you 
 may rely upon it that if only one woman cries out Avhen you 
 murder the girl, there will be a contagion of hysteria all 
 over this place." It is impossible to soften it without spoil- 
 ing it, and you may suppose that I am rather an.vious to 
 discover hoM' it goes on the 5th of Januarv ! ! ! We are
 
 CHARLES DICKENS. 95 
 
 afraid to announce it elsewhere, without knowing, except 
 that I have thought it pretty safe to put it up once in Dub- 
 lin. I asked Mrs. K , the famous actress, who was at 
 
 tlie experiment; "What do you say? Do it, or not?" 
 " Why, of course, do it," she replied. " Having got at such 
 an effect as that, it must be done. But," rolling her large 
 black eyes very slowly, and speaking very distinctly, " the 
 public have been looking out for a sensation these last fifty 
 years or so, and by Heaven they have got it!" With 
 ■which words, and a long breath and a long stare, she be- 
 came speechless. Again, 30U may suppose that I am a 
 little anxious! I had previously tried it, merely sitting 
 over the fire in a cliair, upon two ladies separately, one of 
 
 M-honi was G . They had both said, " 0, good gracious ! 
 
 if you are going to do that, it ought to he seen ; but it 's 
 awful." So once again you may suppose I am a little anx- 
 ious ! . . . . 
 
 JVot a day passes but Dolby and I talk about you both, 
 and recall wliere we were at the corresponding time of last^ 
 year. My old likening of Boston to Edinburgh has been 
 constantly revived within these last ten days. There is 
 a certain remarkable similarity of tone between the two 
 places. The audiences are curiously alike, except that the 
 Edinburgh audience has a quicker sense of humor and is a 
 little more genial. No disparagement to Boston in this, be- 
 cause I consider an Edinburgh audience perfect. 
 
 I trust, my dear Eugenius, that you have recognized 
 yourself in a certain Uncommercial, and also some small 
 reference to a name rather dear to you ? As an instance of 
 how strangely something comic springs up in the midst of 
 the direst misery, look to a succeeding Uncommercial, called 
 " A Small Star in tlie East," published to-day, by the by. I 
 have described, tv'ith exactness, the poor places into which 
 I went, and how the people behaved, and what they said. 
 I was wretched, looking on ; and yet the boiler-maker and 
 the poor man with the legs filled me with a sense of drollery 
 not to be kept down by any pressure.
 
 96 IN AND OUT OF DOORS WITH 
 
 Tlie atmospliere of this place, compounded of mists from 
 the highlands and smoke from the town factories, is crush- 
 ing my eyebrows as I write, and it rains as it never does 
 rain anywhere else, and always does rain liere. It is a 
 dreadful place, though much improved and possessing a deal 
 of public spirit. Improvement is beginning to knock the 
 old town of Edinburgh about, here and there; but the 
 Canongate and the most picturesque of the horril)le courts 
 and wynds are not to be easily spoiled, or made fit for the 
 poor wretches who people them to live in. Edinburgh is so 
 changed as to its notabilities, that I had the only three men 
 left of the Wilson and Jeffrey time to dine with me there, 
 last Saturday. 
 
 I read here to-night and to-morrow, go back to Edinburgh 
 on Friday morning, read there on Saturday morning, and 
 start southward by the mail that same night. After the 
 great experiment of the 5th, — that is to say, on the morn- 
 ing of the 6th, — we are off to Belfast and Dublin. On every 
 alternate Tuesday I am due in London, from wheresoever I 
 may be, to read at St. James's Hall. 
 
 I think you will find " Fatal Zero " (by Percy Fitzgerald) 
 a very curious analysis of a mind, as the story advances. A 
 new beginner in A. Y. R. (Hon. Mrs. Clifford, Kinglake's 
 sister), who wrote a story in the series just finished, called 
 "The Abbot's Pool," has just sent me another story. I 
 have a strong impression that, with care, she will step into 
 
 Mrs. Gaskell's vacant place. W is no better, and I 
 
 have work enough even in that direction. 
 
 God bless the woman with the black mittens, for making 
 me laugh so this morning! I take her to be a kind of pu)j- 
 lic-spirited Mrs. Sparsit, and as such take her to my bosom. 
 God bless you both, my dear friends, in this Christmas and 
 New Year time, and in all times, seasons, and places, and 
 send you to Gad's Hill with the next flowers ! 
 Ever your most affectionate 
 
 CD.
 
 CHAllLES DICKENS. 97 
 
 All who witnessed the reading of Dickens in the 
 "Oliver Twist" murder scene unite in testifying to 
 the wonderful etfect he produced in it. Old the- 
 atrical habitues have told me that, since the days of 
 Edmund Kean and Cooper, no mimetic representa- 
 tion had been superior to it. I became so much 
 interested in all I heard about it, that I resolved 
 early in the year 1869 to step across the water (it 
 is only a stride of three thousand miles) and see 
 it done. The following is Dickens's reply to my 
 announcement of the intended voyage -. — ■ 
 
 A. Y. R. Office, London, 
 
 Monday, February 15, 1869. 
 
 My deae Fields: Hurrah, liurrali, hurrah! It is a 
 remarkable instance of magnetic sympathy that before I 
 received your joyfully welcomed announcement of your 
 proba!)le visit to England, I was waiting for the enclosed 
 card to be printed, that I might send you a clear statement 
 of my Readings. I felt almost convinced that you would 
 arrive before the Farewells were over. What do you say to 
 that ? 
 
 The final course of Four Readings in a week, mentioned 
 in the enclosed card, is arranged to come off, on 
 
 Monday, June 7th ; 
 
 Tuesday, June 8th; 
 
 Thursday, June lOth; and 
 
 Friday, June 11th : last night of all. 
 
 We hoped to have finished in May, but cannot clear the 
 country off in sufficient time. I shall probably be about the 
 Lancashire towns in that month. There are to be three 
 morning murders in London not j'ct announced, but they 
 will be e.xtra the London nights 1 send you, and will in no 
 wise interfere with them. We are doing most amazingly.
 
 98 IN AND OUT OF DOORS WITH 
 
 In the country tlie people usually collapse with the murder, 
 and don't fully revive in time for the final piece; in London, 
 where they are much quicker, they are equal to both. It 
 is very hard work ; but I have never for a moment lost 
 voice or been unwell ; except that my foot occasionally gi\ es 
 nie a twinge. We shall have in London on the 2d of March, 
 for tlie second murder night, probably the greatest assem- 
 blage of notabilities of all sorts ever packed together. 
 
 D continues steady in his allegiance to the Stars and 
 
 Stripes, sends his kindest regard, and is immensely excited 
 by the prospect of seeing you. Gad's Hill is all ablaze on 
 the subject. We are having such wonderfully warm weather 
 that I fear we shall have a backward spring there. You '11 
 excuse east-winds, won't you, if they shake the flowers 
 roughly when you first set foot on the lawn ? 1 have only 
 seen it once since Christmas, and that was from last Satur- 
 day to Monday, when I went there for my birthday, and . 
 
 liad the Forsters and Wilkie to keep it. I had had 's 
 
 letter four days before, and drank to you both most heartily 
 and lovingly. 
 
 I was with M a week or two ago. He is quite sur- 
 prisingly infirm and aged. Could not possibly get on with- 
 out his second wife to take care of him, which she does to 
 perfection. I went to Cheltenham expressly to do the mur- 
 der for him, and we put him in the front row, where he sat 
 grimly staring at me. After it was over, he thus delivered 
 himself, on my laughing it off and giving him some wine : 
 "No, Dickens — er — er — I will not," with sudden em- 
 phasis, — "er — have it — er — put aside. In my — er — 
 best times — er — you remember them, my dear boy — er 
 — gone, gone! — no," — with great empliasis again, — "it 
 comes to this — er — two Macbeths ! " with extraordinary 
 energy. After which he stood (with his glass in his hand 
 and his old square jaw of its old fierce form) looking de- 
 fiantly at Dolby as if Dolby had contradicted him ; and 
 then trailed off into a weak pale likeness of liimself as if 
 his whole appearance had been some clever optical illusion.
 
 CHARLES DICKENS. 99 
 
 I am a^vay to Scotland on Wednesday next, the 17th, to 
 finish there. Ireland is already disposed of, and Manches- 
 ter and Liverpool will follow within six weeks. " Like 
 lights in a theatre, they are l)eing snuffed out fast," as 
 Carlyle says of the guillotined in his Revolution. I sup- 
 pose I shall he glad when they are all snuffed out. Any- 
 Low, I think so now. 
 
 The N s have a very pretty house at Kensington. He 
 
 has quite recovered, and is positively getting fat. I dined 
 with them last Friday at F 's, having (marvellous to re- 
 late !) a spare day in London. The warm weather has greatly 
 
 spared Y 's bronchitis ; hut I fear that he is quite unable 
 
 to bear cold, or even changes of tempei-ature, and that he 
 will suffer exceedingly if east-winds obtain. One would 
 say they must at last, for it has been blowing a tempest 
 from the south and southwest for weeks and weeks. 
 
 The safe arrival of my boy's ship in Australia has been 
 telegraphed home, but I have not yet heard from him. His 
 post will be due a week or so hence in London. My next 
 boy is doing very well, I hope, at Trinity Hall, Cambridge. 
 Of my seafaring boy's luck in getting a death-vacancy of 
 First Lieutenant, aboard a new ship-of-war on the South 
 American Station, I heard from a friend, a captain in the 
 Kavy, when 1 was at Bath the other day ; though we have 
 not yet heard it from liimself. Bath (setting aside remem- 
 brances of Roderick Random and Humphrey Clinker) 
 looked, I fancied, just as if a cemetery-full of old people 
 had somehow made a successful rise against death, carried 
 the place by assault, and built a city with their gravestones ; 
 in which they were trying to look alive, but with very indif- 
 ferent success. 
 
 C is no better, and no worse. M and G 
 
 send all manner of loves, and have already represented to 
 me that the red-jacketed post-boys must be turned out for 
 a summer expedition to Canterbury, and that there must be 
 lunclies among the cornfields, walks in Cobham Park, and a 
 thousand other expeditions. Pray give our pretty M to
 
 100 IN AND OUT OF DOORS WITH 
 
 imderstaud tliat a great deal will be exjjccted of her, and 
 tluit she will have to look her very best, to look as 1 have 
 drawn her. If your Irish people turn up at Gad's at the 
 same time, as tliey probably will, they shall be entertained 
 in the yard, with muzzled dogs. I foresee that they will 
 come over, haymaking and hopping, and will recognize tlieir 
 beautiful vagabonds at a glance. 
 
 I wish Reverdy Johnson would dine in private and hold 
 
 his tongue. He overdoes tlie thing. C is trying to get 
 
 the Pope to subscribe, and to run over to take the chair at his 
 next dinner, on which occasion Victor Emmanuel is to pro- 
 pose C 's health, and may all differences among friends 
 
 be referred to him. With much love always, and in high 
 rapture at the thought of seeing you both here. 
 Ever your most affectionate 
 
 CD. 
 
 A few weeks later, wliile on his reading tour, he 
 sent off the following : — 
 
 Adelphi Hotel, Ltveepgol, Friday, April 9, 1869. 
 
 My dear Fields : The faithful Russia will bring this 
 out to you, as a sort of warrant to take you into loving cus- 
 tody and bring you back on her return trip. 
 
 I have been "reading" here all this week, and finish 
 here for good to-night. To-morrow the Mayor, Corpora- 
 tion, and citixens give me a farewell dinner in St. George's 
 Hall. Six hundred and fifty are to dine, and a mighty show 
 
 of beauty is to be mustered besides. N had a great 
 
 desire to see the sight, and so I suggested him as a friend 
 to be invited. He is over at Manchester now on a visit, and 
 will come here at midday to-morrow, and go back to Lon- 
 don with us on Sunday afternoon. On Tuesday I read in 
 London, and on Wednesday start off again. To-night is 
 No. 68 out of one hundred. I am very tired of it, but I 
 could have no such good fillip as you among the audience, 
 and that will carry me on gayly to the end. So please to
 
 CHARLES DICKENS. 101 
 
 look sharp in the matter of landing!; on tlie bosom of the 
 used-up, worn-out, and rotten old Parient. 
 
 I rather think that when the ICth of Jnne shall have 
 shaken off these shackles, there v^ill he borage on the lawn 
 at Gad's. Your heart's desire in that matter, and in the 
 minor particulars of Cobhani Park, Rochester Castle, and 
 Canterbury shall be fullilled, please God! The red jackets 
 shall turn ont again upon the turnpike road, and picnics 
 among the cherry-orchards and hop-gardens shall be lieard 
 of in Kent. Then, too, sliall the Uncommercial resuscitate 
 (being at present nightly murdered by Mr. W. Sikes) and 
 uplift his voice again. 
 
 The chief officer of the Russia (a capital fellow) was at 
 the Reading last night, and Doll)y specially charged him 
 with the care of you and yours. \Ye shall l)e on the borders 
 of "Wales, and proi)ably about Hereford, when you arrive. 
 Dolby has insane projects of getting over here to meet you ; 
 so amiably hopeful and obviously impracticable, that 1 en- 
 courage liini to the utmost. The regular little captain of the 
 Russia, Cook, is just now clinnged into the Cuba, whence 
 arise disputes of seniority, etc. I wish he had been with 
 you, for I liked liim very much when I was his passenger. 
 I like to think of your being in in;/ sliip ! 
 
 and have been taking it by turns to be "on the 
 
 point of death," and liave been complimenting one another 
 greatly on the fineness of the point attained. My people 
 got a very good impression of , and thought her a sin- 
 cere and earnest little woman. 
 
 The Russia hauls out into the stream to-day, and I fear 
 her people may be too luisy to come to us to-night. But if 
 any of them do, they shall have the warmest of welcomes 
 for your sake. (By the by, a very good party of seamen 
 from the Queen's sliip Donegal, lying in the Mersey, have 
 been told off to decorate St. George's Hall with the ship's 
 bunting. They were all hanging on aloft upside down, 
 holding to the gigantically high roof by nothing, this morn- 
 ing, in the most wonderfullv cheerful manner.)
 
 102 IN AND OUT OF DOORS WITH 
 
 My son Cliarley has come for the dinner, and Chai)pell 
 (my Proprietor, as — is n't it "Wemmick? — says) is com- 
 ing to-day, and Lord Dufferin (Mrs. Norton's nephew) is 
 to come and make the speech. I don't envy the feelings 
 of my noble friend wlicn he sees the hall. Seriously, it is 
 less adapted to speaking than Westminster Abbey, and is 
 as large 
 
 I hope you will see Pechter in a really clever piece by 
 Wilkie. Also you will see the Academy E.xhibition, whicli 
 will be a very good one; and also we will, please God, see 
 e\erything and more, and everything else after that. I 
 begin to doul)t and fear on the subject of your having a 
 horror of me after seeing the murder. I don't think a liand 
 moved while I was doing it last night, or an eye looked 
 away. And there was a ti.xed expression of horror of uie, 
 all over the theatre, which could not have been surpassed if 
 1 liad been going to be lianged to that red velvet table. It 
 is quite a ncAV sensation to be execrated with tliat unanim- 
 ity ; and I hope it will remain so ! 
 
 [Is it lawful — would that woman in the black gaiters, 
 green veil, and spectacles, hold it so — to send my love to 
 the pretty M ?] 
 
 Pack up, my dear Fields, and be quick. 
 
 Ever vour most affectionate 
 
 C. D. 
 
 It will be remembei-ed tliat Dickens broke down 
 entirely during the month of April, being com- 
 pletely worn out with hard work in the Readings. 
 He described to me with graphic earnestness, when 
 we met in May, all the incidents connected with 
 the final crisis, and I shall never forget how he imi- 
 tated himself during that last Reading, when he 
 nearly fell before the audience. It was a terrible 
 blow to his constitution, and only a man of the
 
 CHARLES DICKENS. 103 
 
 greatest strength and will could have survived it. 
 When we arrived in Queenstown, this note was sent 
 on board our steamer. 
 
 Loving welcome to Englaud. Hurrah ! 
 
 Office of All the Year Round, 
 Wednesday, May 5, 1869. 
 
 My dear : I fear you will have been uneasy about 
 
 me, and will have heard distorted accounts of the stoppage 
 of my Readings. It is a measure of precaution and not of 
 cure. I was too tired and too jarred by the railway fast 
 express, travelling night and day. No half-measure could 
 be taken ; and rest being medically considered essential, we 
 stopped. I became, thank God, myself again, almost as 
 soon as 1 could rest ! 1 am good for all country pleasures 
 with you, and am lookmg forward to Gad's, Rochester 
 Castle, Cobham Park, red jackets, and Canterbury. When 
 you come to London we shall probably be staying at our 
 hotel. You will learn, here, where to find us. I yearn to 
 be with you both again ! 
 
 Love to M . 
 
 Ever your affectionate 
 
 CD. 
 
 I hope thiswillbe put into your hands on board, in 
 Queenstown Harbor. 
 
 We met in London a few days after this, and I 
 found him in capital spirits, with such a protracted 
 list of things we were to do together, that, had I 
 followed out the prescribed programme, it would 
 have taken many more months of absence from 
 home than I had proposed to myself. We began 
 our long rambles among the thoroughfares that had 
 uudergone important changes since I was last in
 
 104 IX AND OUT OF DOORS WITH 
 
 London, taking in the noble Tlianics embankments, 
 which I had never seen, and the improvements in 
 the city markets. Dickens had moved up to Lon- 
 don for the purpose of showing us about, and had 
 taken rooms only a few streets off from our hotel. 
 Here are two specimens of the welcome little notes 
 which I constantly found on my breakfast-table : — 
 
 Office of All the Year Roind, London, 
 Wednesday, May 19, 1869. 
 
 My dkak Fields : Suppose we give the weather a longer 
 chance, and say Monday instead of Friday. I think we 
 must be safer with tliat precaution. If Monday will suit 
 you, I propose that we meet here that day, — your ladies 
 and you and I, — and cast ourselves on the stony-hearted 
 streets. If it be bright for St. Paul's, good; if not, we can 
 take some other lion that roars in dull weatlier. We will 
 dine here at six, and meet here at lialf past two. So if you 
 should want to go elsewhere after dinner, it can be done, 
 notwithstanding. Let mc know in a line what you say. 
 
 the delight of a cold bath this morning, after those 
 lodging-houses ! And a mild snifHer of punch, on getting 
 into the hotel last night, I found what my friend Mr. Wegg 
 calls, " Mellering, sir, very mellering." 
 
 With kindest regards, ever affectionately, 
 
 Charles Dickens. 
 
 Office of All the Year Round, London, 
 Tuesday, May 25, 1869. 
 My dear Fields : First, you leave Charing Cross Station, 
 by North Kent railway, on Wednesday, June 2d, at 2.10 for 
 Higham Station, the next station beyond Gravesend. Now, 
 bring your lofty mind back to the previous Saturday, next 
 Saturday. There is only one way of combining Windsor and 
 Riclmiond. That way will leave us but two hours and a
 
 CHARLES DICKENS. 105 
 
 lialf at Windsor. Tliis would not be long cnougli to enaWe 
 113 to see the inside of the castle, but vould admit of our 
 seeing the outside, the Long Walk, etc. 1 will assume that 
 such a survey will suflice. That taken for granted, meet me 
 at AVaterloo Terminus (Loo]) Line for Windsor) at IU.35, on 
 Saturday morning. 
 
 The rendezvous for Monday evening will be here at half 
 ■past eight. As 1 don't know Mr. Lytinge's number in 
 Guildford Street, will you kindly undertake to let him know 
 that we are going out with the great Detective? And will 
 you also give him tlie time and place for Gad's? 
 
 I shall be liere on Friday for a few hours ; meantime at 
 Gad's aforesaid. 
 
 With love to the ladies, ever faithfully, 
 
 C. D. 
 
 During iny stay in England in that summer of 
 1869, I made many excursions witli Dickens both 
 around the city and into the coujitry. Among the 
 most memorable of these London rambles was a 
 visit to the General Post-Office, by arrangement 
 Avith the authorities there, a stroll among the cheap 
 theatres and lodging-houses for the poor, a visit to 
 Furnival's Inn and the very room in it where " Pick- 
 wick " was written, and a walk through the thieves' 
 quarter. Two of these expeditions were made on 
 two consecutive nights, under the protection of 
 police detailed for the service. On one of these 
 iiighls we also visited the lock-up houses, w-ateh- 
 housLS, and opium-eating establishments. It was 
 ill one of the horrid opium-dens that he gathered 
 the incidents which he has related in the opening 
 pages of " Edwin Drood." In a miserable court we
 
 106 IX AND OUT OF DOORS WITH 
 
 found the hasrgard old woman blowing at a kind of 
 pipe made of an old penny ink-bottle. The iden- 
 tical words which Dickens puts into the mouth of 
 this wretched creature in " Edwin Drood " we 
 heard her croon as we leaned over the tattered bed 
 on which she was lying. There was something 
 hideous in the way this woman kept repeating, 
 " Ye '11 pay up according, deary, won't ye ? " and 
 the Chinamen and Lascars made never-to-be-for- 
 gotten pictures in the scene. I watched Dickens 
 intfcnily as he went among these outcasts of Lon- 
 don, and saw with what deep sympathy he en- 
 countered the sad and suffering in their horrid 
 abodes. At the door of one of the penny lodging- 
 houses (it was growing toward morning, and the 
 raw air almost cut one to the bone), I saw him 
 snatch a little child out of its poor drunken mother's 
 arms, and bear it in, tilthy as it was, that it might 
 be warmed and cared for. I noticed that when- 
 ever he entered one of these wretched rooms he had 
 a word of cheer for its inmates, and that when he 
 left the apartment he always had a pleasant " Good 
 night" or " God bless you " to bestow upon them. 
 I do not think his person was ever recognized in 
 any of these haunts, except in one instance. As 
 we entered a low room in the worst alley we had 
 yet visited, in which were huddled together some 
 foi'ty or fifty half-starved-looking wretches, I noticed 
 a man among the crowd whispering to another and
 
 CHARLES DICKENS. 107 
 
 pointing out Dickens. Both men regarded him 
 with marked interest all the time he remained in 
 the room, and tried to get as near him, without ob- 
 servation, as possible. As he turned to go out, one 
 of these men pressed forward and said, " Good night, 
 sir," with much feeling, in reply to Dickens's part- 
 ing word. 
 
 Among other j)laces, we went, a little past mid- 
 night, into one of tbe Casual Wards, which were so 
 graphically desr-ribed, some years ago, in an English 
 magazine, by a gentleman who, as a pretended tramp, 
 went in on a reporting expedition. We walked 
 through an avenue of poor tired sleeping forms, all 
 lying flat on the floor, and not one of them raised a 
 head to look at us as we moved thoughtfully up the 
 aisle of sorrowful humanity. I think we counted 
 sixty or seventy prostrate beings, who had come in 
 for a night's shelter, and had lain down worn out 
 with fatigue and hunger. There was one pale 
 young face to which I whispered Dickens's atten- 
 tion, and he stood over it with a look of sympathiz- 
 ing interest not to be easily forgotten. There was 
 much ghastly comicality mingled with the horror 
 in several of the places we visited on those two 
 nights. We Avere standing in a room half filled 
 with people of both sexes, whom the police accom- 
 panying us knew to be thieves. Many of these 
 nbindoned persons had served out their terms in 
 j .il or prison, and would probably be again sentenced
 
 lOS IX AND OUT OF DOORS WITH 
 
 midcr the low. They wore all sik'iit and sullen ns 
 we entered the room, niitil an old woman spoke up 
 with a strong, beery voice : " Good eveninir, gentle- 
 men. ^Ve are all wery poor, but strictly honest." 
 At which cheerful apocryphal statement, all the 
 inmates of the room burst into boisterous laugh- 
 ter, and began pelting the imaginative female with 
 epithets uncomplimentary and unsavory. Dickens's 
 quick eye never for a moment ceased to study all 
 these scenes of vice and gloom, and he told me 
 afterwards that, bad as the whole thing was, it had 
 improved infinitely since he first began to study 
 character in those regions of crime and woe. 
 
 Between eleven and twelve o'clock on one of the 
 evenings I have mentioned we were taken by Dick- 
 ens's favorite Detective "VV into a sort of lock- 
 up house, where persons are brought from the 
 streets who have been engaged in brawls, or de- 
 tected in the act of thieving, or who have, in short, 
 committed any offence against the laws. Here they 
 are examined for commitment by a sort of pre- 
 siding officer, who sits all night for that purpose. 
 We looked into some of the cells, and found them 
 nearly filled with wretched-looking objects who had 
 been brought in that night. To this establishment 
 are also brought lost children w-ho are picked up 
 in the streets by the police, — children who have 
 wandered away from their homes, and are not old 
 enough to tell the magistrate where thev live. It
 
 CHARLES DICKENS. 109 
 
 wns well on toward iiiorniiig, and we were sitting 
 in conversation with one of the otficers, when the 
 ponderous door opened and one of these small 
 wanderers wa^ bronght in. She was the queerest 
 little figure I ever beheld, and she walked in, hold- 
 ing the police officer by the hand as solemnly and 
 quietly as if she were attending her own obsequies. 
 She was between four and five years old, and had on 
 what was evidently her mother's bonnet, — an enor- 
 mous production, resembling a sort of coal-scuttle, 
 manufactured after the fashion of ten or fifteen 
 years ago. The child had, no doubt, caught up 
 this wonderful head-gear in the absence of her par- 
 ent, and had gone forth in quest of adventure. The 
 officer reported that he had discovered her in the 
 middle of the street, moving pouderiugly along, 
 without any regard to the horses and vehicles all 
 about her. "When asked where she lived, she men- 
 tioned a street which only existed in her own im- 
 agination, and she knew only her Christian name. 
 "When she was interrogated by the proper author- 
 ities, without the slightest apparent discomposm-e 
 she replied in a steady voice, as she thought proper, 
 to their questions. The magistrate inadvertently 
 repeated a question as to the number of her broth- 
 ers and sisters, and the child snapped out, " I told 
 ye wunst ; can't ye hear ? " "When asked if she 
 would like anything, she gayly answered, " Candy, 
 c.ike and canc/i/.'' A messenger was sent out to
 
 1 1 () IX AND OUT OF DOORS WITH 
 
 procure these commodities, wliich she instantly 
 seized on their arrival and hegan to devour. She 
 showed no signs of fear, until one of the officers 
 untied the huge bonnet and took it off, when she 
 tearfully insisted upon being put into it again. I 
 was gi'catly impressed by the ingenious ctForts of 
 the excellent men in the room to learn from the 
 child where she lived, and who her parents were. 
 Dickens sat looking at the little figure with pro- 
 found interest, and soon came forward and asked 
 permission to speak with the child. Of course his 
 rc(juest was granted, and I don't know when I 
 have enjoyed a conversation more. She made some 
 very smart answers, which convulsed us all with 
 laughter as we stood looking on ; and the creator 
 of " little Nell " and " Paul Dombey " gave her 
 up in despair. He was so much interested in the 
 little vagrant, that he sent a messenger next morn- 
 ing to learn if the rightful owner of the bonnet had 
 been found. Report came back, on a duly printed 
 form, setting forth that the anxious father and 
 mother had applied for the child at three o'clock in 
 the morning, and had borne her aw^ay in triumph 
 to her home. 
 
 It was a warm summer afternoon towards the 
 close of the day, when Dickens went with us to 
 visit the London Post-Office. He said : " I know 
 nothing which could give a stranger a better idea
 
 CHARLES DICKEXS. Ill 
 
 of the size of London than that irieat institution. 
 The hurry and rush of letters ! njen up to their 
 chin in letters ! nothing; but letters everywhere ! 
 the air full of letters ! — suddenly the clock strikes ; 
 not a person is to be seen, nor a letter : only one 
 man with a lantern peering about and putting one 
 drop-letter into a box." For two hours we w^ent 
 fiom room to room, with him as our guide, up 
 stairs and down stairs, observing the myriad clerks 
 at their various avocations, with letters for the 
 North Pole, for the South Pole, for Egypt and 
 Alaska, Darien and the next street. 
 
 The " Blind Man," as he was called, appeared 
 to afford Dickens as much amusement as if he saw 
 his work then for the first time ; but this was one 
 of the qualities of his genius ; there was inex- 
 haustibility and freshness in everything to which 
 he turned his attention. The ingenuity and loving 
 care shown by the " Blind Man " in deciphering or 
 guessing at the apparently inexplicable addresses on 
 Ltters and parcels excited his admiration. " What a 
 lesson to all of us," he could not help saying, " to 
 be careful in preparing our letters for the mail ! " 
 His own were always directed with such exquisite 
 care, however, that had he been brother to the 
 " Blind Man," and considered it his special Avork in 
 life to teach others how to save that officer trouble, 
 he could hardly have done better. 
 
 Leaving the hurry and bustle of the Post-Office
 
 112 IN AND OUT or DOOrxS WITH 
 
 behind us, we strolled out into the streets of Lon- 
 don. ]t was past eight o'clock, but the beauty of 
 the soft June sunset was only then overspreading 
 the misty heavens. Every sound of traffic had 
 died out of those turbulent thoroughfares ; now and 
 then a belated figure would hurry past us and dis- 
 appear, or perhaps in turning the corner would 
 linger to " take a good look " at Charles Dickens. 
 But even these stragglers soon dispersed, leaving us 
 alone in the light of day and the sweet living air 
 to heighten the sensation of a dream. "We came 
 through AVhite Friars to the Temple, and thence 
 into the Temple Garden, where our very voices 
 echoed. Dickens pointed up to Talfourd's room, 
 and recalled with tenderness the merry hours they 
 had passed together in the old place. Of course 
 we hunted out Goldsmith's abode, and Dr. John- 
 son's, saw the site of the Earl of Essex's palace, 
 and the steps by which he was wont to descend to 
 the river, now so far removed. But most interest- 
 ing of all to us there was " Pip's " room, to which 
 Dickens led us, and the staircase where the convict 
 stumbled up in the dark, and the chimney nearest 
 the river where, although less exposed than in 
 " Pip's " days, we could well understand how " the 
 wind shook the house that night like discharges of 
 cannon, or breakings of a sea." We looked in at 
 the dark old staircase, so dark on that night when 
 " the lamps were blown out, and the lamps on the
 
 CHARLES DICKENS. 11:3 
 
 bridges and the shore were shuddering," and then 
 went on to take a peep, half shuddering ourselves, 
 at the narrow street where " Pip " by and by 
 found a lodging for the convict. Nothing dark 
 could long survive in our minds on that June night, 
 when the whole scene was so like the airy work of 
 imagination. Past the Temple, past the garden to 
 the river, mistily fair, with a few boats moving 
 upon its surface, the convict's story was forgotten, 
 and we only knew this was Dickens's home, where 
 he had lived and written, lying in the calm light of 
 its fairest mood. 
 
 Dickens had timed our visit to his country house 
 in Kent, and arranged that we should appear at 
 Gad's Hill with the nightingales. Arriving at the 
 Higham station on a bright June day in 1869, we 
 found his stout little pony ready to take us up the 
 hill ; and before we had proceeded far on the road, 
 the master himself came out to welcome us on the 
 way. He looked brown and hearty, and told us he 
 had passed a breezy morning writing in the chtdet. 
 We had parted from him only a few days before in 
 London, but I thought the country air had already 
 begun to exert its strengthening influence, — a pro- 
 cess he said which commonly set in the moment he 
 reached his garden gate. 
 
 It was ten vears since I had seen Gad's Hill
 
 ] 14 IX AND OUT OF DOORS WITH 
 
 Place, and I observed at once what extensive im- 
 provements had been made durini; that period. 
 Dickens had increased his estate by adding quite a 
 large tract of land on the opposite side of the road, 
 and a beautiful meadow at the back of the house. 
 lie had connected the front lawn, by a passageway 
 running under the road, with beautifully wooded 
 grounds, on which was erected the Swiss chalet, a 
 present from Fechter. The old housCj too, had 
 been greatly improved, and there was an air of 
 assured comfort and case about the charming estab- 
 lishment. No one could surpass Dickens as a host ; 
 and as there were certain household rules (houis for 
 meals, recreation, etc.), he at once announced them, 
 so that visitors never lost any time " wondering " 
 when this or that was to happen. 
 
 Lunch ovei', we were taken round to see the dogs, 
 and Dickens gave us a rapid biographical account of 
 each as we made acquaintance with the whole col- 
 ony. One old fellow, who had grown superannuated 
 and nearly blind, raised himself up and laid his 
 great black head against Dickens's breast as if he 
 loved him. All wTre spoken to with pleasant words 
 of greeting, and the whole troop seemed w ild with 
 joy over the master's visit. "Linda" put up her 
 shaggy paw to be shaken at parting; and as we left 
 the dog-houses, our host told us some amusing 
 anecdotes of his favorite friends. 
 
 Dickens's admiration of Hogarth was unbounded.
 
 CHARLES DICKENS. 115 
 
 Mild he h;ul hung the staircase leading up from the 
 hall of his house with fine old impressions of the 
 great master's best works. Observing our imme- 
 diate interest in these pictures, he seemed greatly 
 pleased, and proceeded at once to point out in his 
 graphic way what had struck his own fancy most 
 in Hogarth's genius. He had made a study of the 
 painter's ihouyht as displayed in these works, and 
 his talk about the artist was delightful. He used 
 to say he never came down the stairs without paus- 
 ing with new wonder over the fertility of the mind 
 that had conceived and the hand that had executed 
 these powerful pictures of human life ; and I can- 
 not forget with what fervid energy and feeling he 
 repeated one day, as we were standing together on 
 the stairs in front of the Hogarth pictures. Dr. 
 Johnson's epitaph on the painter : — 
 
 " Tlie hand of him here torpid lies, 
 
 That drew tlie essential form of grace; 
 Here closed in death the attentive eyes 
 That saw the manners in the face." 
 
 Every day we had out-of-door games, such as 
 "Bowls," "Aunt Sally," and the like, Dickens 
 leading off with great spirit and fun. Billiards 
 came after dinner, and during the evening we had 
 charades and dancing. There was no end to the 
 new divertisements our kind host was in the habit 
 of proposing, so that constant cheerfulness reigned 
 at Gad's Hill. He went into his work-room, as he
 
 11 G IN Ax\D OUT OF DOORS WITH 
 
 called it, soon after breakfast, and wrote till twelve 
 o'clock ; then he came out, ready for a long walk. 
 The country about Gad's Hill is admirably adapted 
 for pedestrian exercise, and we went forth every 
 day, vain or shine, for a stretcher. Twelve, fifteen, 
 even twenty miles were not too much for Dickens, 
 and many a long tramp Ave have had over the hop- 
 country together. Chatham, Rochester, Cobham 
 Park, Maidstone, — anywhere, out under the open 
 sky and into the free air ! Then Dickens was at 
 his best, and talked. Swinging his blackthorn 
 stick, his lithe figure sprang forward over the 
 ground, and it took a practised pair of legs to 
 keep alongside of his voice. In these expeditions 
 I heard from his own lips delightful reminiscences 
 of his early days in the region Ave were then trav- 
 ersing, and charming narratiA'es of incidents con- 
 nected AAnth the Avriting of his books. 
 
 Dickens's association Avith Gad's Hill, the city 
 of Rochester, the road to Canterbury, and the old 
 cathedral town itself, dates back to his earliest 
 years. In "David Copperfield," the most autobio- 
 graphic of all his books, we find him, a little boy, 
 (so small, that the landlady is called to peer over 
 the counter and catch a glimpse of the tiny lad 
 who possesses such "a spirit,") trudging over the 
 old Kent Road to Dover. " I see myself," he 
 writes, " as evening closes in, coming over the 
 bridsre at Rochester, footsore and tired, and eating
 
 CHARLES DICKENS. 117 
 
 bread that I had bought for supper. One or two 
 little houses, with the notice, ' Lodgings for Travel- 
 lers,' hanging out, had tempted me ; but I was 
 afraid of spending the few pence I had, and was 
 even more afraid of the vicious looks of the tramp- 
 ers I had met or overtaken. I sought no shelter, 
 therefore, but the sky ; and toiling into Chatham, 
 — -which in that night's aspect is a mere dream of 
 chalk, and drawbridges, and mastless ships in a 
 muddy river, roofed like Noah's arks, — crept, at 
 last, upon a sort of grass-grown battery ovei'hang- 
 ing a lane, where a sentry Avas Avalking to and fro. 
 Here I lay down near a cannon ; and, happy in the 
 society of the sentry's footsteps, though he knew 
 no more of my being above him than the boys at 
 Salem House had known of my lying by the wall, 
 slept soundly until morning." Thus early he 
 noticed "the trampers " which infest the old 
 Dover Road, and obsei-ved them in their num- 
 berless gypsy -like variety; thus early he looked 
 lovingly on Gad's Hill Place, and wished it might 
 bs his own, if he ever grew up to be a man. His 
 earliest memories were filled with pictures of the 
 endless hop-grounds and orchards, and the little 
 child "thought it all extremely beautiful!" 
 
 Through the long years of his short life he was 
 always consistent in his love for Kent and the old 
 sun-onndings. When the after days came and 
 while travelling abroad, how vividly the childish
 
 118 IN AND OUT OF DOORS WITH 
 
 love returned ! As he passed rapidly over the road 
 on his way to France he once wrote : " ^lidway 
 between Gravesend and Rochester the widening 
 river was bearing the ships, white-sailed or black- 
 smoked, out to sea, when I noticed by the wayside 
 a very queei* small boy. 
 
 " ' Halloa ! ' said I to the very queer small boy, 
 ' where do you live ? ' 
 
 " ' At Chatham,' says he. 
 
 " ' What do you do there ? ' said I. 
 
 " ' I go to school,' says he. 
 
 " I took him up in a moment, and we went en. 
 Presently the very queer small boy says, ' This is 
 Gad's Hill we are coming to, where Falstaff went 
 out to rob those travellers, and ran away.' 
 
 "'You know something about Falstafl", eh?' 
 said I. 
 
 " ' All about him,' said the very queer small boy. 
 ' I am old (I am nine) and I read all sorts of books. 
 But do let \is stop at the top of the hill, and look 
 at the house there, if you please ! ' 
 
 " 'You admire that house,' said I. 
 
 " ' Bless you, sir,' said the very queer small boy, 
 ' when I was not more than half as old as nine, it 
 used to be a treat for me to be brought to look at 
 it. And now I am nine, I come by myself to look 
 at it. And ever since I can recollect, my father, 
 seeing me so fond of it, has often said to me, " If 
 you were to be very persevering and were to work
 
 CHARLES DICKENS. Ill) 
 
 hard, you might some day come to live in it." 
 Though that 's impossible ! ' said the veiy queer 
 small boy, drawing a low breath, and now staring 
 at the house out of window with all his might. 
 I was rather annoyed to be told this by the very 
 queer small boy ; for that house happens to be mif 
 house, and I have reason to believe that what he 
 snid was true." 
 
 ^Vhat stay-at-home is there who docs not know 
 the Bull Inn at Rochester, from which Mr. Tup- 
 man aud Mr. Jingle attended the ball, Mr. Jingle 
 wearing Mr. Winkle's coat? or who has not seen 
 in fancy the " gypsy -ti-amp," the ".show-tramp." 
 the "cheap jack," the "tramp-children," and the 
 " Irish hoppers " all i)assing over " the Kentish 
 Ro-.id, bordered " in their favorite resting-place 
 " on either side by a wood, and having on one 
 hand, between the road-dust and the trees, a skiit- 
 ing patch of grass? "Wild-flowers grow in abun- 
 dance on this spot, and it lies high and airy, with 
 the distant river stealing steadily away to the ocean, 
 like a man's life." 
 
 Sitting in the beautiful chalet during his later 
 years and watching this same river stetding away 
 like his own life, he never could find a harsh word 
 for the tramps, aud many aud many a one has gone 
 over the road rejoicing because of some kindness 
 received from his hands. Every precaution was 
 taken to protect a house exposed as his was to these
 
 l-Z-Z IN AND OUT OF DOOIIS WITH 
 
 iiig with a kindly shake of the hand all round, 
 started to walk through Cobham woods on his way 
 towards London. Then on his lonely road, "the 
 mists began to rise in the most beautiful manner 
 and the sun to shine ; and as I went on," he writes, 
 " through the bracing air, seeing the hoar-frost 
 sparkle everywhere, I felt as if all nature shared in 
 the joy of the great Birthday. Going through the 
 woods, the softness of my tread upon the mossy 
 ground and among the brown leaves enhanced the 
 Christmas sacrcdness by whit-h I felt surrounded. 
 As the whitened stems environed me, I thought 
 how the Founder of the time had never raised his 
 benignant hand, save to bless and heal, except in 
 the case of one unconscious tree." 
 
 Now we found ourselves on the same ground, 
 surrounded by the full beauty of the summer-time. 
 The hand of Art conspiring with Nature had 
 planted rhododendrons, as if iu their native soil 
 beneath the forest trees. They were in one uni- 
 versal flame of blossoms, as far as the eye could 
 
 see. Lord and Lady D , the kindest and most 
 
 hospitable of neighbors, were absent ; there was not 
 a living figure beside ourselves to break the soli- 
 tude, and we wandered on and on with the wild 
 birds for companions as in our native wildernesses. 
 By and by we came near Cobham Hall, with its 
 fine lawns and far-sweeping landscape, and work- 
 men and gardeners and a general air of summer
 
 CHARLES DICKENS. 123 
 
 luxury. But to-day we were to c:o past the hall 
 and luiifh on a green slope under the trees, (was it 
 just the spot where ^Ir. Pickwick tried the cold 
 punch and found it satisfactory ? I never liked to 
 ask !) and after making the old woods ring with 
 the clatter and clink of our noontide meal, mingled 
 with floods of laughter, were to come to the village, 
 and to the very inn from which the disconsolate 
 Mr. Tupman wrote to Mr. Pickwick, after his ad- 
 venture with Miss Wardle. There is the old sign, 
 and here we are at the Leather Bottle, Cohham, 
 Kent. " There 's no doubt whatever about that." 
 Dickens's modesty would not allow him to go in, 
 so we made the most of an outside study of the 
 quaint old place as we strolled by ; also of the cot- 
 tages whose inmates were evid^-ntly no strangers to 
 our party, but were cared for by them as English 
 cottagers are so often looked after by the kindly 
 ladies in their neighborhood. And there was the 
 old churchyard, " whc're the dead had been quietly 
 buried 'in the sure and certain hope ' Avhich Christ- 
 mas-time inspired." There too were the children, 
 whom, seeing at thjir play, he could not but be lov- 
 ing, remembering who had loved them ! One party 
 of urchins swinging on a gate reminded us vividly 
 of Collins, the painter. Here was his composition 
 to the life. Every lover of rural scenery must re- 
 <all the little fellow on the top of a five-barred gate 
 in the picture Collins painted, known widely by the
 
 \:l:l IN AM) Ol T OV DOOUS WITH 
 
 iiit: witli a kiiully .shake of tin- hand nil round, 
 started to walk throuiih C'ohliain wckhIs on his way 
 towards London. Then on his lonely road, "the 
 mists hctrnn to rise in the most henutifnl manner 
 and the snn to shine ; and as I went on," he writes, 
 " throuiih the braeinir air, setini: the hoar-lVf>st 
 sparkle everywhere, I felt as if nil nature .shared in 
 the joy of the ifreat IJirthday. Goini; thron-rh the 
 w<)od>, the softness of H>y tread nj>on the njo^sy 
 ground and nn)ou;; the brown lea\eH enhaneed the 
 Christmas saereduess by whieh I fell .surrounded. 
 As the whiteneil stems envii-oned me, I thouiiht 
 how the Founder of the time had never raised his 
 benignant hand, save to bless and heal, exeept in 
 the case of one uneonseious tree." 
 
 Now we found ourselves on the .same pround, 
 surrounded by the full beauty of the sutnmer-time. 
 The hand of Art conspiring with Nature had 
 planted rhododendrons, as if in their native soil 
 beneath the forest trees. They were in one uni- 
 versal flame of blossoms, as far as the eye could 
 
 see. Lord and Lady 1) , the kindest and most 
 
 hospitable of neighboi-s, were absent ; there was not 
 a living figure beside ourselves to break the soli- 
 tude, and we wandered on and on with the wild 
 birds for companions as in our native wildernesses. 
 By and by we came near Cobham llall, with its 
 fine lawns and far-sweeping landseai)e, and work- 
 men and gardeners and a genenU air of summer
 
 CHARLES DICKENS. 123 
 
 liixniy. But to-day wc were to eto past th? hall 
 and luiirh on a green slope under the trees, (was it 
 just the spot where Mr. Pickwick tried the eold 
 punch and found it satisfactory ? I never liked to 
 ask 1 1 and after makinj; the old woods rins with 
 till- clatter and clink of our noontide meal, niiiiirled 
 with floods of lanu'liter, were to come to the.village, 
 .iiid to the very inn from which the disconsolate 
 Mr. Tupman wrote to Mr. Pickwick, after his ad- 
 venture with Miss Wardlc. There is the old sign, 
 and here we are at the Leather Bottle, Cohham, 
 Kent. " There 's no douht whatever about that." 
 Dickens's modesty would not allow him to go in, 
 so we made the most of an outside study of the 
 quaint old place as we strolled by ; also of the cot- 
 tages whose inmates were evid.-ntly no strangers to 
 our party, but were cared for by them as English 
 cottagers are so often looked after by the kindly 
 ladies in their neighborhood. And there was the 
 old churchyard, " w here the dead had been quietly 
 buried ' in the sure and certain hope ' which Christ- 
 mas-time inspired." There too were the children, 
 whom, seeing at thiir jday, he could not but be lov- 
 ing, remembering who had loved them ! One party 
 of urchins sw inging on a gate reminded us vividly 
 of Collins, the painter. Here was his composition 
 to the life. Every lover of rural scenery must re- 
 call the little fellow on the top of a live-barred gate 
 in the picture Collins painted, known widely by the
 
 \Z\ IX AND OUT OF DOOUS A\ ITU 
 
 tiiif <ii<jriuvinir made of it at tin- time. And there 
 too were the blossomiii'j irardeiis. whith now shone 
 in their new garments ot" nsnrreetion. The still- 
 ness of midsummer noon errpt over evepkthini; n% 
 we linirered in the sun and shadow of the old vil- 
 lage. Slowly eirelini; the liall, we eame upon an 
 avenue of lime-trees leadini; up to a stately door- 
 way in the distan«"e. The path was overirrown, 
 birds and squirrels were hopping uneoneernedly 
 over the ground, and the gates and chains were 
 rusty with disuse. " This avenue, " said Diekcns, 
 as wc leaned ujmiu the wall and looked into its cool 
 shadows, " is never crossed exeejit to bear the dead 
 body of the lord of the hall to its last resting-place ; 
 a remnant (»f superstition, and one which Lord and 
 
 Lady I) would be u'lad to do away with, but 
 
 the villagers would never hear of such a thing, and 
 would consider it certain dt-ath to any person who 
 should iro or come through this entrance. It would 
 be a highly unpopular nujvement for the present oc- 
 cupants to attempt to uproot this absurd idea, and 
 they have given up all thoughts of it for the time." 
 It was on a subsequent visit to Cobham village 
 that we explored the " College," an old foundation 
 of the reign of Edward III. for the aged poor of 
 both sexes. Each occupant of the various small 
 apartments was sitting at his or her door, which 
 opened on a grassy enclosure with arches like an 
 abandoned cloister of some old cathedral. Such a
 
 CIIAULKS DRKENS. 125 
 
 inotlty society, brought togfthcr under such iin- 
 utitunil circumstances, would of course interest 
 Dickens. He seemed to take a profound pleasure- 
 in wandering about the place, which was evidently 
 fillid with the associations of former visits in his 
 own mind. He was usually possessed by a child- 
 like eagerness to go to any spot which he had made 
 up his mind it was b?st to visit, and quick to conic 
 away, but he lingered long about this leafy old 
 haunt on that Sunday afternoon. 
 
 Of Cobham Hall itself nnich might be written 
 without conveying an adequate idea of its peculiar 
 interest to this generation. The terraces, and 
 1 iwns, and cedar-trees, and deer park, the names of 
 Edward III. and Klizabeth, the famous old Cob- 
 hams and their long line of distinirnished descend- 
 ants, their invaluable pictures and historic chapel, 
 have all been the common property of the past and 
 of the present. Hut the air of conjfort and hospi- 
 tality diffused about the ])lace by the present ownere 
 belongs exclusively to our time, and a little Swiss 
 chalet removed from Gad's Hill, standing not far 
 from the great house, will always connect the name 
 of Charles Dickens w ith the place he loved so well. 
 The chalet has been transfcrnd thither as a tribute 
 from the Dickens family to the kindness of their 
 fiiends and fornier neighbors. ^Ve could not fail, 
 during our visit, to think of the connection his 
 name would always have with Cubhani Hall, though
 
 1~() IN' AM) OIT OF DOOIfS WIl H 
 
 In- was thru still by our side, ami the little chrilct 
 yi't rcniainctl einbM\v<Tr(l in its own jirerii tiT(s, 
 overlook iiii; the sail-ilotttil Mttlway as it flowed to- 
 wards the Thames. 
 
 The old eity of Roehester, to which we have al- 
 rea<ly referred as hnuf: particularly well known to 
 'nil Mr. IMckwiek's admirers, is within walkins; dis- 
 tance from Gad's Hill I'Jaee, and was the ohjec t of 
 daily visits fn)in its oeeupants. The aneietit ens- 
 tie, one of the best ruins in Rntflnnd, as Diekens 
 loved to say, beennse less has been done to it, rises 
 with rniri^ed walls preeipitously from the river. It 
 is wholly unrestoifd ; just enonirh earc has been 
 bestowed to jjrevent its utter destruction, but other- 
 wise it stands as it has stood and eruml)led from 
 year to year. We c|iml)ed painfully up to the 
 hiirhest stcej) of its loftiest tower, and looked down 
 on the wonderful scene spread out in the jrloiy of a 
 summer sunset. Helow, a clear trickling; stream 
 (lowed and tinkled as it has done since the rojie 
 was lirst lowered in the year 800 to brim; the 
 bucket up over the worn stones which still remain 
 to attest the fact. How happy Dickens was in the 
 beauty of that scene ! AVhat dulitrht he took in 
 rebuildini; the old ])lace. with every leirend of which 
 he proved himself familiar, and repeopliu'r it out of 
 the storehouse of his fancy. '" Here was the ki'tch- 
 en. and there the diuin;j:-hall I How frightfully 
 d;irk ihcy must have beeu in those davs, with such
 
 CHARI,K.S DICKKXS. 127 
 
 sniail slits for windows, and tlie fireplaces without 
 rbimneys ! There were the jjalleries ; this is one of 
 the four towers ; the others, you will understand, 
 corresponded with this ; and now, if you 're not 
 dizzy, wc will come out on the battlements for the 
 view ! " Up we went, of course, followiufj our 
 cliccry leader until wc stood amoii}; the topmost 
 wall-llowers, which were wavin*; yellow and sweet 
 iu the sunset air. P^ast and west, north and south, 
 our eyes traversed the beautiful g;irden land of 
 Kent, the land beloved of poets throu<;h the centu- 
 ries. Below lay the city of Rochester on one hand, 
 and in the hi.'art of it an old inn where a carrier 
 was even then jrettiu}? out, or putting; in, horsi-s 
 and wa<;on for the niirht. .\ procession, with ban- 
 ners and music, was moviui; slowly by the tavern, 
 and the quaint costumes in which the men were 
 dressed su-r'^ested days lonjr past, when far other 
 scenes were point; forward in this locality. It was 
 almost like a papcant marching out of antiquity for 
 our delectation. Oiu* master of ceremonies revelled 
 that day in rei)copliii<; the qtuer old streets down 
 into which we were looking from our charming ele- 
 vation. His delightful fancy seemed es[)ecially alert 
 on that occasion, and we lived over asaiii with him 
 many a chapter in the history of Rochester, full of 
 interest to those of us who had come from a land 
 where ail is new and comparatively barren of ro- 
 mance.
 
 128 IX AND OUT or DOORS WITH 
 
 Below, on the other side, was the river Medway, 
 from whose depths the castle once rose steeply. 
 Now the debris and perhaps also a slight swerving 
 of the river from its old course have* left a rough 
 margin, over which it would not be difficult to 
 make an ascent, llochester Bridge, too, is here, 
 and the " windy hills " in the distance ; and again, 
 on the other hand, Chatham, and beyond, the 
 Thames, with the sunset tingeing the many-colored 
 sails. We were not easily persuaded to descend 
 from our picturesque vantage-ground ; but the mas- 
 ter's hand led us gently on from point to point, un- 
 til we found ourselves, before we were aware, on the 
 grassy slope outside the castle wall. Besides, there 
 was the cathedral to be visited, and the tomb of 
 Richard "Watts, " with the effigy of worthy Master 
 Richard starting out of it like a ship's figure-head." 
 
 After seeing the cathedral, we went along the 
 silent High Street, past queer Elizabethan houses 
 with endless gables and fences and lattice-windows, 
 until we came to Watts's Charity, the house of en- 
 tertainment for six poor travellers. The establish- 
 ment is so familiar to all lovers of Dickens through 
 his description of it in the article entitled " Seven 
 Poor Travellers " among his " Uncommercial " 
 papers, that little is left to be said on that subject ; 
 except perhaps that no autobiographic sketch ever 
 gave a more faithful picture, a closer portrait, than 
 is there conveved.
 
 CHARLES DICKENS. 129 
 
 Dicketis's faiu'V for Rochester, and his Duniber- 
 less associations with it, have left traces of that 
 city in almost everything^ he wrote. From the 
 time when Mr. Siiodirrass first discovered the castle 
 ruin from K(K'hester Bridire, to the last chapter of 
 Kdwin Drood, we observe hints of the city's qiiaiiit- 
 niss or silence ; the nnending pavements, which go 
 on and on till the wisest head would be puzzled to 
 know where Rochester ends and where Chatham 
 begins ; the dis|)osition of Father Time to have his 
 own unimpeded way therein, and of the gray cathe- 
 dral towers which loom up in the background of 
 many a sketch and tale. Rochester, too, is on the 
 way to Canterbury, Dickens's best loved cathedral, 
 the home of Agnes ^Vickfield, the sunny spot in the 
 life and memory of David Copperllcld. David was 
 particularly small, as we are told, when he first saw 
 Canterbury, but he was already familiar with Rod- 
 erick Random, Peregrine Pickle, Humphrey Clinker, 
 Tom Jones, The Vicar of ^Vakelicld, Don Quixote, 
 Gil Bias, and Robinson Crusoe, who came out, as 
 he says, a glorious host, to keep him company. 
 Naturally, the calm old place, the green nooks, the 
 beauty of the cathedral, possessed a better chance 
 with him than with many others, and surely no one 
 could have loved them more. In the later years of 
 his life the crowning-point of the summer holidays 
 was " a pilgrimage to Canterbuiy." 
 
 The sun shone merrily through the day when he
 
 130 IN AND OUT OF DOORS WITH 
 
 chose to carry us thither. Early in the morning 
 the whole house was astir ; large hampers were 
 packed, ladies and gentlemen were clad in gay mid- 
 summer attire, and, soon after breakfast, huge car- 
 riages with four horses, and postilions with red 
 coats and top-boots, after the fashion of the olden 
 time, were drawn up before the door. Presently 
 we were moving lightly over the road, the hop-vines 
 dancing on the poles on either side, the orchards 
 looking invitingly cool, the oast-houses fanning 
 with their wide arms, the river glowing from time 
 to time through the landscape. We made such a 
 clatter passing through Rochester, that all the main 
 street turned out to see the carriages, and, being 
 obliged to stop the horses a moment, a shopkeeper, 
 desirous of discovering Dickens among the party, 
 hit upon the wrong man, and confused an humble 
 individual among the company by calling a crowd, 
 pointing him out as Dickens, and making him the 
 mark of eager eyes. This incident seemed very 
 odd to us in a place he knew so well. On we 
 clattered, leaving the echoing street behind us, on 
 and on for many a mile, until noon, when, finding 
 a green wood and clear stream by the roadside, we 
 encamped under the shadow of the trees in a retired 
 spot for lunch. Again we went on, through quaint 
 towns and lonely roads, until we came to Canter- 
 bury, in the yellow afternoon. The bells for service 
 were ringing as we drove under the stone archway
 
 CHARLES DICKENS. 131 
 
 into the soundless streets. The whole town seemed 
 to be enjoying a simnltaneous nap, from which it 
 was aroused by our horses' hoofs. Out the people 
 ran, at this signal, into the highway, and we were 
 glad to descend at some distance from the centre of 
 tlie city, thus leaving the excitement behind us. 
 AYe had been exposed to the hot rays of the sun all 
 day, and the change into the shadow of the cathe- 
 dral was refreshing. Service was going forward as 
 we entered ; we sat down, therefore, and joined our 
 voices with those of the choristers. Dickens, with 
 tireless observation, noted how sleepy and inane 
 were the faces of many of the singers, to whom this 
 beautiful service was but a sickening monotony of 
 repetition. The words, too, were gabbled over in a 
 manner anything but impressive. He was such a 
 downright enemy to form, as substituted for re- 
 ligion, that any dash of untruth or unreality was 
 abhorrent to him. AYhen the last sounds died away 
 in the cathedral we came out agaiu into the cloisters, 
 and sauntered about until the shadows fell over the 
 beautiful enclosure. "We were hospitably entreated, 
 and listened to many an historical tale of tomb and 
 stone and grassy nook ; but under all we were listen- 
 ing to the heart of our companion, who had so often 
 wandered thither in his solitude, and was now re- 
 icading the stories these urns had prepared for him. 
 During one of his winter visits, he says (ia 
 " Coppertiekl ") : —
 
 132 IN AND OUT OF DOORS WITH 
 
 " Coming into Canterbury, I loitered through 
 tlie old streets with a sober pleasure that calmed 
 my spirits and eased my heart. There were the old 
 signs, the old names over the shops, the old people 
 serving in them. It appeared so long since I had 
 been a school -boy there, that I wondered the place 
 ■was so little changed, until I reflected how little 
 I was changed myself. Strange to say, that quiet 
 influence which was inseparable in my mind from 
 Agnes seemed to pervade even the city where she 
 dwelt. The venerable cathedral towers, and the old 
 jackdaws and rooks, whose airy voices made them 
 more retired than perfect silence would have done ; 
 the battered gateways, once stuck full with statues, 
 long thrown down and crumbled away, like the 
 reverential pilgrims who had gazed upon them ; the 
 still nooks, where the ivied growth of centuries 
 crept over gabled ends and ruined walls ; the ancient 
 houses ; the pastoral landscape of field, orchard, and 
 garden; — everywhere, in everything, I felt the 
 same serene air, the same calm, thoughtful, soften- 
 ing spirit." 
 
 Walking away and leaving Canterbury behind us 
 forever, we came again into the voiceless streets, 
 past a "very old house bulging out over the road, 
 .... quite spotless in its cleanliness, the old- 
 fashioned brass knocker on the low, arched door 
 ornamented with carved garlands of fruit and 
 flowers, twinkling like a star," the very house.
 
 CHARLES DICKENS. 133 
 
 perhaps, " willi angles and corners and carvings 
 and mouldings," where David Copperfield was sent 
 to school. "\Vc were turned off with a laughing 
 reply, when we ventured to accuse this particular 
 house of heing thti one, and were told there were 
 several that " would do " ; which was quite true, 
 for nothing could he more quaint, more satisfactory 
 to all, from the lovers of Chaucer to the lovers of 
 Dickons, than this same city of Canlerhury. The 
 sun had set as we rattled noisily out of the ancient 
 place that afternoon, and along the high road, which 
 was quite novel in its evening aspect. There was 
 no lingering now ; on and on we went, the postil- 
 ions flying up and down on the backs of their huge 
 horses, their red coats glancing in the occasional 
 gleams of wayside lamps, tire-flies making the or- 
 chard shine, the sunset lighting up vast clouds that 
 lay across the western sky, and the whole scene 
 llUed with evening stillness. AVhen we stopped to 
 change horses, the quiet was almost oppressive. 
 Soon after nine we espied the welcome lantern of 
 Gad's Hill Place and the open gates. And so 
 ended Dickens's last pilgrimage to Canterbury. 
 
 There was another interesting spot near Gad's 
 Hill which was one of Dickens's haunts, and this 
 was the " Druid-stone," as it is called, at Maid- 
 stone. This is within walking distance of his 
 house, along the breezy hillside road, which wc re-
 
 l."51 IN AND orr or dooijs with 
 
 mciiilu'r hlo-soiny niul \va\ y in the siinunrr season, 
 with open spares in thr lu-dirrs whrn* our inny \noV 
 ovrr wiilr hilly sloprs, nnd nt tiinrs roinc upon 
 strnnirc ruts down into thr rhalk which prnadcs 
 this distrirt. \\r turnrd into n laur from the dusty 
 road, and, following our hadrr ovrr n harrrd initr, 
 rainr into wiih- nr.issy tirhls full of suniinrr's hlooni 
 nnd ulory. A short walk farthrr brought us to the 
 Druid-stonr, which Dirkrns thought to be, from 
 the fitness of its [Misition, simply n vnntaee-cround 
 cbosru by prirsts, — whether Druid or Christinn of 
 course it would be impossible to sny, — fmm whirh 
 to address a multitude. The roek sened ns a kind 
 of backi;round and s(>undin.(;-lM)ard, while the beau- 
 tiful slopinir of thr swanl upward from the speaker 
 made it an exrellent jM>sition for out-of-door dis- 
 courses. On this day it was only a bl<M)ming soli- 
 tude, where the birds had done all the talkinp. until 
 wc arrived. It was a fine afternoon haunt, and one 
 worthy of a visit, apart from the associations which 
 make the place dear. 
 
 One of the weirdest neighborhoods to Gad's Hill, 
 and one of those most closely assoriated w ith Dick- 
 ens, is the villajre of Coolinc. A cloudy day proved 
 well enouirh for Cooling ; indeed, was undoubtedly 
 chosen by the adroit master of hospitalities as being 
 a fitting sky to show the dark landscape of " Great 
 Expectations." The pony-rarriatre went thither to 
 accompany the walking party and carry the baskets ;
 
 CIIAULKS DICKKNS. I'A') 
 
 thf wholf w.iy, as wc rrnieiiibcr, leading on amoiii: 
 narrow lanes, where heavy earriairrs were seldom 
 seen. We are told in the novel, " On cver>' rail 
 and eate, wet lay claniiny, and the mareh mist was 
 so thick that the w«>odin linger on the post dire't- 
 iiig people to our village — u direetion which th«y 
 never ai-cepted, for they never came there — was 
 invisible to me until I was close under it." The 
 lanes certainly wore that aspect of never being nc- 
 eepted as a way of travel ; but this was a delightliil 
 lecommendation to our walk, for summer kept her 
 own way there, and grass and wild-flowers were 
 abundant. It was already noon, and low clouds 
 and mists were lying about the earth and sky as we 
 approached a forlorn little village on the edge of thv^ 
 uide marshes described in the opening of the novel, 
 rhis was Cooling, and passing by the few cottages, 
 the decayed rectory, and stnigsrling l)uildings, we 
 came at length to the churchyard. It took but a 
 short time to make us feel at home there, with th* 
 mai^hes on one hand, the low wall over which Pip 
 >aw the convict climb before he dared to nm away ; 
 " the tive little stone lozenges, each about a foot 
 
 and a half long sacred to the memory of 
 
 live little brothers, .... to which I have bein 
 indebted for a belief that they all had been born on 
 their backs, with their hands in their trousers -pock- 
 ets, and had never taken them out in this state of 
 existence"; — all these points, combined with the
 
 1")(> I\ AND OLT OF DOOKS WITH 
 
 grncral drrarinrss of the land-^rapr, the far-stretch- 
 iiij? niai^hrs, and the distant wa-linc, soon rcvraled 
 to us that this was Pip's country, and wc miifht 
 ujonicntly expect to sec the convict's head, or to 
 hear the clank of hi** chain, over that low wall. 
 
 We were in the churchyard now. having left the 
 pony within cye->hot, and taken the ba.sket.H alon^ 
 with us, and were .standiuf; on one of those very 
 lozenges, sonu'what grasji-jfrown by this time, and 
 deciphering the inscriptions. On lipt«K' we could 
 get a wide view of the marsh, with the wind sweep- 
 ing in a l(»uely limitless way through the tall 
 grasses. Presently hearing Dickens's cheery call, 
 we turned to sc>' what he wos doing. lie had 
 chosen a gootl flat gnivi*!»tone in one corner (the cor- 
 ner farthest from the marsh and Pip's litlJc broth- 
 ers and the exiM'ctcd convict), had spread a wide 
 napkin thereupon after the fashion of a domestic 
 dinner-tabU'. and was rapidly transferring the c<»u- 
 tents of the hampers to that point. The horrible 
 whimsicality of trying to eat and make merry under 
 these deplorable circumstances, the tragic-comic 
 character of the scene, appeared to take him by 
 surprise. lie at once threw himself into it i;w he 
 says in " ('oppcdield " he was wont to do with 
 anything to which he had laid his hand) with fan- 
 tastic eagerness. Having spread the table after the 
 most approved style, he suddenly di.sappcared be- 
 hiiul the wall fi)r a momeiil, transfonncil liimMll" bv
 
 ( IIAKLES DICKENS. 1*37 
 
 the aid of a towel and napkin into a first-class head- 
 waiter, reappeared, laid a row of plates along the 
 top of the wall, as at a bar-room or eating-house, 
 again retreated to the other side with some provis- 
 ions, and, making the gentlemen of the party stand 
 up to the wall, went through the whole play with 
 most entire gnwity. NVhen we had wdund up with 
 a go«jd laugh, and were ng:iin seated together on the 
 grass around the table, wc espied two wiTtehed 
 fi'.'ures, not the conviets this time, although we 
 might have easily persuaded ourselves s«», but only 
 tnimps g;izing at us over the wall from the mar>h 
 side as they approuehed, and finally sitting down 
 just outside the ehurehyard gate. Thiy looked 
 wri'tehedly hungry and misenible, and l)iekens said 
 at onee, starting up, *' Come, let us offer them a 
 glass of wine and something giKul for luneh." He 
 was about to cnrrj- them himself, when what he 
 considered a happy th«>ught seemed to strike him. 
 " you shall earry it to them," he cried, turning to 
 one of the ladies ; " it will be less like a charity 
 and more like a kindness if one of you should 
 speak to the poor souls I " This was so much in 
 character for him, who stopped always to ehmjse 
 the most delicate way of doing a kind deed, that 
 the memory of this little incident remains, while 
 much, alas I of his wit and wi>dom have vanished 
 beyond the jxiwer of irproduciug. ^Ve feasted on 
 the satisfaction the tnun[)s took in their lunch,
 
 13S IN AND OUT OF DOORS WITH 
 
 loiii; nftrr otir ow n was coiKlmletl ; nml, sroinfj 
 thfiii wtll off on tlu'ir rond aicnin. took up mir own 
 way to (lads Hill I'lacr. How romlortahle it 
 looked on our return , how brautifully the after- 
 noon u'iranis of sunsliinr shoiir upon the holly-trcr* 
 by till' porrh ; how we tunu-d away from thr door 
 nnd went into tlio |tliiyL'rounil, wht'r« wc Iniwlrd on 
 the prt'on turf, until thr tall niaitl in lur spotless 
 cap was seen bringing the fivo-o'elork ten thither- 
 ward . how the dews nnd the setting «.un warne«l 
 Jis at last we nin»t prejiarc for dinner; nnd how 
 Dickens played longer nnd harder than nny one of 
 the eonipany, scorning the idea of going in to ten 
 at thnt hour, nnd benting his ball instead, quite the 
 youngest of the company up to the last moment ! 
 — all this returns with vivid distinctness ns I write 
 these inndequnte words. 
 
 Many days and weeks passed over after those June 
 dnys were ended before we were to sec Dickens 
 again. Our meeting then was nt the stntion in 
 London, on our way to (Jad's Hill once more. He 
 was always early nt a railway stntion, he said, if only 
 to save himself the unnecessary and w.Tstcful excite- 
 ment hurry connnonly produces , nnd so he came 
 to meet us with n cheery manner, ns if care were 
 shut up in some desk or closet he had left behind, 
 and he were ready to make the day a gay one, 
 whatever the sun might say to it. A small roll of 
 manuscript in his hand led him soon to confess that
 
 CHARLES DICKENS. I-V.> 
 
 a now story was already bccrun , but this connnmii- 
 cation was made in the utmost pouiideufc, as if to 
 arcount for any otherwise unrxplaiuable absences, 
 physically or mentally, from our society, which 
 mi'.'ht occur. Hut there were no jraps duriiijf that 
 autumn afleruoou of return to (iad's Hill. lie 
 told us how summer had broui^ht him no vacation 
 this year, and only two days of recreation. One 
 of those, he said, was spent with his family at 
 " Rosherville Oardens," *' the place." iw a huec nd- 
 vertisemeut informed us, " to siR'ud a happy day." 
 His curiosity with regard to all entertainments for 
 the people, he said to u<i, carried him thither, 
 and he seemed to have been amused and rewarded 
 by his visit. The previous Sunday had found him 
 in London; he was anxious to reach Gad's Hill 
 before the afternoon, but in order to accomplish 
 this he must walk nine miles to a way station, 
 which he did. C'omiuc to the little village, he in- 
 quired where the station wa.s. ami, being shown in 
 the wron'^ diiTction. walked calmly down a narrow 
 road which did not lead there at all. "()n I 
 went," he said, " in the fwrfect sunshine, over yel- 
 low leaves, without even a wandcrintj breeze to 
 break the silence, when suddenly I came upon 
 three or four anticiuc womlen houses standing under 
 trees on the borders of a lovely stream, and, a little 
 farther, upon an ancient doorway to a praml hall, 
 perhaps the home of some bishop of the oldju
 
 1 III IN AM) orr OF i)(K)us WITH 
 
 time. Tin* road ramr to nn riul thrrt-. nml I was 
 obliirrd to n'trniT my strp* . hut nnytliiiit; morr 
 cntinly pi-arcful nml beautiful in it» n-iinrt on that 
 autumnal clay than this ntrcat, forjrottrn by the 
 world, I almost never saw." lie was eaper, too. 
 lo desrribe for our entertainment one of the yearly 
 crieket-mntrhes amoni; the villagcni at Gad's Hill 
 which had just rome off. Some of the toaAts at 
 the supper afterward were as old a* the time of 
 Queen Anne. For instanre. — 
 
 " More pi^«. 
 Krwcr panons " 
 
 deliveretl with nil M-riousness ; a Inter one wa*. 
 " May the wall* of old Kngland never be covered 
 with French p«>lish ! " 
 
 Onee more we recall a momintr at CJad's Hill, a 
 soft white hnzr over e\erythinjr, and the yellow sun 
 burnini? throujrh. The birds were sinfjinp, and 
 beauty and calm penadid the whole scene. Wc 
 strayed through CObham Park and saw the lovely 
 vistas throuirh the autumnal ha/e ; once more wc 
 reclinrd in the cool chilet in the aftenioon, and 
 watcht'd the vessels ttoinii and comintr upon the 
 ever-movins; river. Suddenly all has vanished ; and 
 now, neither spring nor autuinn, nor llowers nor 
 birds, nor dawn nor sunset, nor the cver-movinc; 
 river, can be the same to any of us aeain. We 
 have all drifted down upon the river of Time,
 
 ( IIAULES DICKENS. 11 1 
 
 nnd one has already sailed out into the illimitable 
 of-enn. 
 
 On a pha<iant Sunday morninc in OctobT, \^Ci9, 
 as I sat looking nut on thr iM^nutiful landscape frtmi 
 my rhanibcr window at (lad's Hill, a sonant tapfn-d 
 at my door and eave me a summons from Dirkent. 
 written in his drollest manmr on a sheet of pafMr, 
 hiddini; me di>eend into his study on business of 
 _reat importance. That day I hi>ard from the 
 author's lips the tirst ehapten of " Fldwin Drood," 
 the comluding lines of which initiul pages were 
 then srarrely dry from the pt-n. Th«- sior\' is un- 
 liniAbed, and he who n-ad that autumn moniing 
 with !»ueh viinir of voice and dramatic power is in 
 his grave. This private n^adint; took place in the 
 little room where the great novili^t for many years 
 had been accustomed to write, and in the hoiwe 
 when* on a pleasant evenintj in the following Junr 
 he died. The s|K)t is one of the lovelie«t in Kent, 
 and must always hr rememln-red as the last n-«»id< n** 
 of Charles Dickens. He us«-d to derlare his (inn 
 belief that Shakispcan* was s|H'cially fond of Kent, 
 and that the poet chose (Jad s Hill and Kochi-ster 
 for the scenery of his plays from intimate |KTs<jnal 
 knowledire of their localities. He said he had no 
 nuinner of doubt but that one of Shakespeare's 
 haunts was the old inn at Rochester, and that this 
 coDvictiou came foreibly upon him one night as be
 
 112 IN AM) Ol T OF lH)OKS WITH 
 
 wa> walkiiii: thai way, and distxjvt'nd CharliVs 
 Warn ovrr the rliiinncy just as Shakrsprarr has 
 described it, in words put into the mouth of the 
 rairitr in Kinij lltury IV. Thcrr is no prrtticr 
 plarc than (latls Hill in all Euirhind for thr ca Hirst 
 and latr-st rtow<rs, and DitkrnH chose it, whi-n ho 
 had arrivt'd at thr fulntss of his fame and pro>perity, 
 as the houio in which he most wished to 8|)cnd the 
 remainder of ]m days. ^^hen a boy, he would 
 often pass thc> house with his father and frequently 
 said to him, " If ever I have a dwelling of my 
 own, (lad's Hill I'laee '\» the hoiuse I mc*au to buy." 
 hi that biauliful retreat he had for many year* 
 I). •en ac-customid to wejc-omc his friends, and find 
 r« laxation from the rrowdcd life of I^indon. On 
 the lawn playini; at bowls, in the Swiss summer- 
 house rhanningly shaded by ^reen leaves, he alway» 
 seemed the best part of summer, beautiful as the 
 season is in the dvli^htful n>:ion where he lived. 
 
 There he eould be n«ost tliorouirhly enjoyed, for 
 he never seemed so rheerfully at houu* anywhere 
 else. At his own table. surn)undcd by his family, 
 and a fc-w quests, old aecjuaintaiu'es from town, — 
 amontc them sometimes Forster, Cariyle, Headc, 
 Collins, Layard, Madise, Stone, Maeready, Tal- 
 fourd, — he was always the ehoieest and liveliest 
 eoinpanion. He was not what is called in society 
 a p^ofe^srd talker, but he was somethirjg far better 
 and rarer.
 
 ( MAKI.KS DICKENS. 1 l") 
 
 In his own iiiiiiiitsible iiiatiiu'r he wouKl fri-- 
 (pu'iitly rehitc to mv, if j)romj)ti-iI, stories of his 
 voiilhfiil tl:i_vs, when he was toilini; on the I/ondon 
 Mornini? Chroiiicle, passing; sleepless hours ns a 
 rr|M>rter on the road in a |»ost. chaise, driving day 
 Mill night from point to point to take down the 
 ->|K'rches of Shiel or O'Connrll. lie liked to de- 
 •^ribe the po'.t-bnys, who were arcustonied to hurry 
 him over the road that he mi;;ht reach London in 
 iulvance of his rival reportirs, while, by the aid of a 
 I intern, he was writintr out for the press, as he (lew 
 over the irround, the words he had taken down in 
 short-hand. Those were his days of severe train- 
 iijir, when in rain and sleet and cold he dashed 
 alons;, scarcely able to ke<p the blindini; mu 1 out 
 (if his tired eyes ; and he imputed much of his 
 ability for steady hard work to his practice as a 
 rf|)orter, kept at his trrindini; business, and deter- 
 njined if possible to earn seven guineas a week. A 
 large sheet was started at this [Mrriod of his life, 
 in which all the imjortnnt speeches of Parliament 
 wi-rc to be reported v-rhatim for future rt^fen-nre. 
 Dickens w:is engaged on this gigantic journal. Mr. 
 SlanUy (afterwards Lord Derby* had s|»oken at 
 -Treat length on the condition of Ireland. It was 
 a long and elcMjuent speech, occupying many hours 
 ill the deliver)*. Eight reimrters were sent in to do 
 the work. Each one was required to rejKjrt three 
 ([uarters of an hour, then to retire, write out his
 
 Ill IN AM) OIT or DOORS WITH 
 
 jM)rti()n, aiul to hv suocccdctl by the next. Youn^ 
 Dirkrns wan d tailid to had off with thr first part. 
 It aUo fill to hi-s lot, »hin tho tiinr raim* ruuud, to 
 rcjMirt the (Mosiiii: poiiions of the siiet'ch. On 
 Saturday tho whoh* was jri\en to thr prrss, and 
 Dii-kons ran down to the rountry for n Siin«lny'» 
 rt*st. Sunday inorninp had ncan-i-ly dawned, when 
 his father, who was n n>an of iniinen^e encrjry, 
 made his npiM-aninee in hin »on'» shTpinc-room. 
 Mr. Stanley was so dismal ioiied with what he found 
 in print, exeept the bi-;;innin^ and endini: of hi* 
 sficceh I just what Dukens had reported) that he 
 sent iinnudiately to thi* otlice and obtainid the 
 shifts of those parts of the n'iKirt. II«- then' 
 found the nnnu* of the reporter, whieh, areording 
 to eustoni, wa.s written on the margin. Then he 
 requestid that the youn^ man bearing the name of 
 Diekons should b«- iinnudiatrly sent for. Diekenss 
 father, all airlow with the prosinvt of probable pro- 
 motion in the ofliee, went immediately to hi.s son's 
 stoppins-plare in the eountry and brought him 
 baek to I^ondon. In telling the story, Diekens said : 
 " I renumber pcrfeetly to this day the asjicet of the 
 room I was shown into, and the two persons in it, 
 Mr. Stanley and his father. Both gentlemen were 
 extremely eourteous to me, but I noted their evident 
 surprise at the nppearanee of so young a man. 
 AVhile we spoke together, 1 had taken a scat ex- 
 tend. d to me in the middle of the room. Mr.
 
 CHAULES DICKENS. 1 1.') 
 
 Stanley told me he wished to go over the whole 
 xpeich and have it written out by me, and if I were 
 ready he would bejfin now, Wheix- would I like to 
 sit 'i I told liini I was vciy well where I wns, and 
 we eould bcirin innnediatdy. lie tried to induce 
 inc to sit at a dttik, but at that tinu> in the House 
 of Commons thi-rc wa.s nothing but one's kneeji to 
 write uiMjii, and I had Ibrmt-d the habit of doiiij; my 
 work iu that way. Without further pau-^e he bo^fau 
 and went rapidly on, hour after hour, to the end, 
 <»ften beromiutr ver>' much excited and fnquently 
 brinirin;; down his hand with great violence U[k)u 
 the detk near which he sIcmhI." 
 
 I have before me, as I write, an unpublished auto- 
 graph letter of young Dickenn. which he sent otT to 
 hi^ em|>li»yer in November, 1835, while he was on 
 a reporting expedition for the Morning Chronicle. 
 At that early stage of his career he seeing to ha\e 
 Ir.id that unfailing occurncy uf statement »o marked 
 in after yenn» when he became famous. The letter 
 was given to me several years ago by one of Dick- 
 ens's brother rciwrters. Thus it mus : — 
 
 GeoKcr. AXU Pklica.h. NrwBitv. Sunday Morning 
 Dkai Kr^skr In otnjuuctiun witli The Herald »c Uave 
 arranged fur a Hursc Lxprrsi frum MarilKintuj;li to Londun 
 un Tuesday night, to go the whole dutaacc ai the rale of 
 thirlccu luilo an hour, lor tu guineas half hai» been paid, 
 hut, to insure dcs|Mitch, the reiuauidcr is witlthcld until the 
 boy arrives at the ortice, when he will produce a |>a(K'r with 
 a copy of the agreement on one tide, and an order for three
 
 1 It) IN AND OUT OF DOUliS WITH 
 
 painens («ijrncd by myself; on the otiipr Will you takr rarr 
 llint it is duly honored ? A Boy from Thr Hrrild will he in 
 waiting nt our oftlre for their copy ; and Lyons I»ep8 me to 
 remind you most stronjjly thnt it is an indisp<-nsahlr part of 
 our njfrriMnrnt that hf should not bf detninrd one iustnnt. 
 
 We ^'(J to Bristol today, and if we are equally fortunate 
 in laying; the rhaise-horsiit, I hope the paeket will reach 
 tdwn by »e\en. As all the papers have arranp-d to Icaxe 
 Bristol the moment Russell is duwn, we have detennined on 
 adopting the same plan, — one of us will j.'o to Marlhurough 
 in the chaise with one Herald man, and the other remain at 
 Bristol with the second Herald man to conclude the account 
 for the next day. Tlic Times has ordered a chaise and four 
 the whole distance, so there ise%ery probability of our beat- 
 ing tliem hollow From all we hear, we think the Herald, 
 relying on the packet reaching town earlv, intends publish- 
 injc the rejH)rt in their first Kdition. This \*. however, of 
 course, mere speculation on our parts, as we ha>e no direct 
 means of ascertainini; their intention. 
 
 I think 1 have now given you all needful information. I 
 have only in conclusion to impress ujKjn you the necessity 
 of ha\in§; all the compositors ready, at a \ery early hour, 
 for if Russell be down by half past eight, we hope to have 
 his speech in town at six. 
 
 Believe me (for self and Beard > very truly yours, 
 
 fiiARi.Ks Dickens. 
 
 Nov., 1835. 
 
 Thomas Fr.\sk.r, Ksq, Morniii-^ Chiiuiicle Office. 
 
 No writer ever lived whose method was more ex- 
 ajt, whose industry was more eonstatit, and whose 
 punctuality was more marked, than those of Charles 
 Dickens. Authorship never became a hackneyed 
 pursuit with him, and he once told me that all his 
 life long he never got over the thrill of pleasure and
 
 CHAULES DICKENS. 117 
 
 iiilt-rcst whiih accoinpauitd the fii>t sijiht in tvpL' 
 of aiiythiiip lie had written. After he had sent a 
 manuscript to the printer he was as eajrer to see his 
 wurds set up in the proof-sheet as any yount; ad- 
 venturer into letters possibly eould be. lie never 
 bhirked labor, mental or bodily. He rarely declined, 
 if the object Were a ^ood one, taking the chair at 
 a public meeting, or accept inic a charitable trust. 
 Many widows and orphans of deceased literar} men 
 have for years been benetited by his wise trustee- 
 ship or counsel, and he siH*nt a great [>ortiou of his 
 time personally looking after the pro[)erty of the 
 poor whose inteixsts were under his control. He 
 was, as has be(>n intimated, one of the most in- 
 iliistrious of men, and mar>ellou8 stories are told 
 
 not by himself I of what he has accom|)li!»hed in a 
 ;iiven time in literary and social matters. His 
 studies were all fit)m nature and life, and his habits 
 of obser>ation were untirinir. If he contemplated 
 writing " Hard Times." he arranged with the mas- 
 ter of Astlcy's circus to spend many houre behind 
 the scenes with the riders and amonir the horses ; 
 and if the composition of the " Tale of Two Cities " 
 were occupying his thoughts, he could banish him- 
 self to France for two yeai-s to pi-epare for that 
 great work. Hogarth pencilled on his thumb-nail 
 a strikinir face in a crowd that he wished to pre- 
 serve ; Dickens with his transcendent memory 
 chronicled in his mind whatever of interest met his
 
 1 is IN AM) Ol r OF DOOKS WlilC 
 
 v\v or naihrJ \m lar, any tiiiu- or anywlun*. 
 Speak ills; of inrmon* our tiny, hf said tin* iiuinory 
 of rhililrcn was pnxliiriou!* ; il was a iui»take to 
 fancy rhildirn ever fon:«»t any thine. ^Vh^•n he 
 was (lilintatinit the rhanutcr of Mrs. l*ip»hin. he 
 had in his mind an old hKlu'inir-housf kiiiH-r in an 
 Knplish wattrinii-phuc whoir he was li\injj with 
 his fathiT and niotlu-r when he was bnt two year* 
 old. After the book was written he sent it to his 
 »ister, who wrote baek at onee : *' (Jood heavens! 
 what does this mean ? you have painted our lodjr- 
 inir-honse keeper, and yon wen- but two years old 
 at that time!" Chnrarters and ineidents crowded 
 the ehambers of his brain, all ready for use when 
 occasion reqnind. Nt) subject of human interest 
 was ever indiffen-nt to him. and never a day went 
 by that did not afford him some sujrpestion to be 
 utilized in the futun-. 
 
 II is favorite mode of exercise was wnlking ; and 
 when in Anjerica. scarcely a day passed, no matter 
 what the weather, that he did not accomplish his 
 eijrht or ten miles. It was on these expeditions 
 that he liked to recount to the companion of his 
 rambles stones and incid«'nts of his early life ; and 
 when he was in the mood, his fun and humor knew 
 no bounds. He would then fre(|uently discuss the 
 numerous eharactei-s in his deliirhtfnl books, and 
 would act out, on the road, dramatic situations, 
 where Xickleby or Coppertkld or Swiveller would
 
 (HAin.i:s DICKENS. MO 
 
 plav ili!>ting:ui!>hcd parts. I rt'numbcr he said, on 
 one of these oecmsions, that durini; the (t)m[M)»ition 
 of his first storie« he eould never eutinly disiiniM 
 the eharartri-s alx)Ut whom he ha|>p«-ut'd to be writ- 
 inir , that while the • Old ('uno>ity Shop " was in 
 pifM-es* of «-oniposition Litth- Nell fnllnwid him 
 about everywhere; that while he wa-s wnlini; 
 "(Mixer Twist" Fa>?in the Jew woidd never lei 
 him re«.t, even in his most ntind moment* , that 
 at midnight and in the mornint;. on the ^ea and 
 on the land, Tiny Tim and Little lk»b Cratehit 
 were ever tu^irintf at hi* eoat -sleeve, a* if impatient 
 for him to tret bark to his de«k and eontinue the 
 stor)' of their live*. Htit he said after he had pub- 
 lishtd several books, and saw what M'riouA denmnds 
 his ehameters were a«*eustomed to make for the eon- 
 slant attention of his aln-ady overtaskeil brain, he 
 resolved that the phantom individuals shoiUd no 
 loni;er intrude on his hours of reen'ation and re»t. 
 hut that when he rinsed the dcH»r of his study be 
 uould shut them all in. and only meet them airain 
 when he j-nme bark to nsuuje his task. That fonc 
 of will with whirh he w:us m) pre-eminently en- 
 dowed enabled him to iirnore th(si- manifold exist- 
 enres till he ehose to niiew their ar(|u;iintanee. 
 Me said, also, that when the ehildren of his brain 
 had onee bitn lauuehed, free and elear of him, into 
 the world, thiy would xomctinies turn up in the most 
 luuspecitd manner to look their father in the Cace.
 
 ir>(j IN AND OIT Ol' DOOIiS WITH 
 
 Snmrtiiius hv would pull \n\ ami wlulr wc wcit 
 wnlkini; tov't thir nnil whi^ptr, " Ix-t us nvoitl Mr. 
 l'uiiil)lt'rh«M)k. who is rrossiiif? the stn-it to moot 
 us" ; or. "Mr. Micnwbrr is rominj; ; let iw turn 
 down this nllry to \nt out of his way." He nl- 
 wavs s«'<'iin'd to riijo) the fun «»f his roniir pcopir, 
 and had uncrasiiii; mirth o\rr .Mr. I'i«kwirk'« niis- 
 ndvrntims. In answer one day to n qurstion, 
 pronijitid by psyrholopii-nl ruhf)»ity. if he ever 
 dreanied of any of hi« eharnrtcrs, his reply was, 
 "Never, and I am ronvinrcd that no writer ^jndp- 
 ing from my «>wn experience, whirh cannot be alto- 
 gether simrular, but must be a type of the eiperi- 
 encc of otiien*! haa ever dreamed c»f the creatures of 
 his own imntrination. It wiiuld." he went on to 
 say. " Ik* like a man's dreaminir of nintinj: himself, 
 which is clearly an impossibility. Things exterior 
 to one's self must alwjiys be the basis of dreams." 
 The jrrowinir up of chnmcten* in his mind never 
 lost for him a sense of the mnnellous. " ^^hat an 
 unfath(»mablc mvsterk there is in it all ! " he said 
 one day. Tnkiuir up a wineglass, he continued : 
 " Sup|>o8e I chtMise to call this a character, fancy it 
 a man, endue it with certain qunlities; and soon 
 the fine filmy webs of thought. nlnio-«t impalpable, 
 coming f'mm ever>- direction, we know not whence, 
 spin and weave about it. until it assumes form mid 
 beauty, and becomes instinct with life." 
 
 In society Dickens rarrlv rcferifd to the traits
 
 CHARLES DICKENS. 151 
 
 nnd rbarnrteristira of peopk he had known ; but 
 diiriiic: a long walk in the rountn- he d.liifhted to 
 recall and de<»rribc the peniliaritic*. eccentric and 
 otherwise, of dead and jrcjuc as well as livinjj friendi. 
 Then Sydney Smith and JetTn^y and C'hristopher 
 North and Talfourd and llomi and Uojrer* scfMued 
 to live over a^ain in his vivid rrpnKluctions, made 
 Ro impressive by his manelloits mcmorj and im- 
 agination. As he walked rapidly alomr the n»ad, 
 he apiM'ared to enjoy the keen zest of his companion 
 in the numerous impersonations with which he wa* 
 indukinp him. 
 
 He always had much to say of animals as well a* 
 of men, and there wen* certain doifs and hor>«'« he 
 hid met and known intimately which it was spe- 
 cially interestint; to him to n-mcmber and picture. 
 There was a particular dos; in \Vashinf;ton which 
 he was never tired of delineatinj;. The first nijfht 
 Dickens read in the Capital this dog attracted hi* 
 attention. " He came into the hall by himself, " 
 said he, " pot a f^ood place before the reading \ie- 
 gan, and paid strict attention throiufhout. lie 
 came the second night, and was ignominiou>ly 
 shown out by one of the check-takers. On the 
 third night he appeared again with another dog, 
 which he had evidently promised to pass in free; 
 but you see," continued Dickens, " uikju the im- 
 position being unmasked, the other dog apologized 
 bv a howl and withdrew. His intentions, no doubt.
 
 \'jZ in and OIT OF DOORS WITH 
 
 were of the brst, but lie afterwards rose to explain 
 outsid'', with such inronvciiiont eloquence to the 
 read<r and his audienre, that they were obliged to 
 put him down staii-s." 
 
 lie was such a firm believer in the mental facul- 
 ties of animals, that it would have ^one hard with 
 a companion with whom he was tnlkinp^, if a doubt 
 were thrown, however inadvertently, on the mental 
 intellijKMK-c of any four-footed friend that ehanecd 
 to be at the time the subject of conversation. All 
 animals which he took under his especial patronage 
 seemed to have a marked affection for him. Quite 
 a colony of dogs has always been a feature at (iad's 
 Hill. Writing in 1SG8 to a young pei-son in Bos- 
 ton, who was once the owner of his N» wfonndland 
 dog, Don, Dickens says : " The said dog has grown 
 ver}' big and fat, and is the father of a son exactly 
 like him, who is named Humble. Don and lUimblc 
 and four other very large dogs accompany their 
 master in his count n* walks, and are the terror of 
 all beholders. ^Vhen Bumble was a very small dog 
 indeed (though large enough to know better) he ate 
 up his father's dinner, and jJso the dinners of the 
 four other very large dogs, and inimLdiately fainted 
 away." 
 
 In many walks and talks with Dickens, his con- 
 versation, now, alas ! so imperfectly recalled, fre- 
 quently ran on the habits of birds, the raven, of 
 course, interesting him particularly. He always
 
 CHARLES DICKENS. 1 J.'J 
 
 liked to liavr a nivrn hoppinir al)out his erouiuls, 
 aiul whoever has read the iww Prefnre to *' Haruaby 
 Kudfrc " must renienihcr several of his old friends 
 ill thaV line, lie had quite a fuud of ranary-bird 
 ane«-doies, and the perl ways of birds that pieked 
 up worms for a living atTorded him iufinitc amuse- 
 ment. He would give a eapital imitation of the 
 way a robin-redbreajit eoeks his head on one side 
 j)ri limiiuiry to a dash forward in the direction of a 
 wriirgling victim. There is n small crave at (Jad's 
 Hill to which Dickens would occasionally take a 
 friend, a:i«l it wa.n quite a privilege to -tand with 
 him beside the burial-place of little Dick, the fam- 
 ily's favorite ninary. 
 
 What a treat it was to go with him tu the I>(>n- 
 don Zoological Gardens, a pla«*e he greatly delighted 
 in at ail times I He knew the zoiiltigical addrc»s of 
 every animal, bird, and tish of any distinctiou ; and 
 he could, without the >light(st hesitation, on enter- 
 ing the grounds, pi-ocecd straightway to the celebri- 
 ties of (law or foot or fin. The delight he look 
 ill the hippoi>olamus family was most exhilarating. 
 He entered familiarly into conversation with the 
 liiiu'e, unwieldy creatures, and they seemed to under- 
 stand him. Indeed, he sjioke to all the unphilo- 
 logical inhabitants with a directness and tact which 
 went home to them at once. He chatfcd with the 
 monkeys, coaxed the tigers, and bamlxjozled the 
 snakes, with a dexterity uuapi)roachable. All the
 
 1 .') 1 IN AM) OIT OF DOCKS WITH 
 
 kcpprrs kiirw him, hr was such n loyal visitor, nnd 
 I iiotirrd they mmo np to him in a frirntlly way, 
 with thr frdinjr that tlwy had a sympathrtir listener 
 always in Charles Dickens. 
 
 There were certain hooks of which Dickens liked 
 to talk dnrint; his walks. Amonu: his especial fa- 
 vorites were the writinirs of Cohhctt, DcQnincey, 
 the Lectures on .Monil I'hilosophy by Sydney Smith, 
 nnd Carlyle's Frcn«h Revolution. Of this latter 
 Dicken.s said it was the hook of all others which he 
 rend jierjxtually and of which he never tired, — the 
 book which always appeared more imnirinntive in 
 pmportion to the fresh imapination he hroutrht to 
 it, n lx)ok for inexhnustihlcnes-s to be placed before 
 every other book. ^Vh^•n writine the " Tale «)f 
 Two Cities." he nsked Carlyle if he inicht see one 
 of the works to which he referred in his histoiy ; 
 whereupon Carlyle packed tip ntul sent down to 
 Gnd's Hill nit his reference volumes, nnd Dickens 
 read them faithfully. Hut the more he read the 
 more he was astonished to find how the facts had 
 passed throuch the nicmbic of Cnrlyle's brain and 
 had come out and fitted themselves, each ns a part 
 of one preat whole, makinp a compa«'t result, in- 
 destructible and unrivalled ; and he always found 
 himself turniup away from the books of reference, 
 and re-readinp with increased wonder this marvel- 
 lous ucw prowth. There were certain books par- 
 ticularly hateful to him, and of which he never
 
 CHARLES DICKKSS. I.).) 
 
 spoke exrppt in tprnj<* of most liidirroiLs rnilK'n*. 
 Mr. Bnrlow, in "Saiul.o;(l mid Mpiion," he saiti 
 was the favorite enemy of \u* Ixiyhmid niid his first 
 cxperienec of a bore. lie h:id nn almost snper- 
 natuml hatretl for Harlow, '' bcransf he was so veiy 
 instrurtirf, and always hiiitint; (luiibts with regard 
 to the veracity of ' Siiidbad the Sailor," and had no 
 bidief whatever in 'The \Vond?rfnl I/imp * or 'The 
 Knchanted llorsc.' " Dickens i-nttlin'^ his mental 
 cane over the head of Mr. Barlow was as murh 
 b:-tter than any play as <*an be well imagined. He 
 ploried in many of Hood's |>oems, esjiecially in that 
 b.tinsr Od' to Ka.* Wilson, and he wonld pi-stieulate 
 with a fine fervor thf lines, 
 
 " . . . . the hypoeritrs who o|»r Ilravrn't doar 
 ObsrquKius In (lir tinfiil man of nrim, — 
 Out put tlie wirknl. naked, liarr-lrggnl poor 
 In (Mirish itocks iuslraU of brrefhu." 
 
 One of his favorite books was IVpys's DiaiT, the 
 curions discovery of the key to which, and the odd 
 characteristics of its writer, were a never-failing; 
 source of interest and aninscment to him. The 
 vision of lVj)ys hangini; round the door of the 
 thtatre, hoping for an invitition to iro in. not b ini; 
 able to keep away in spite of a pronnse he had 
 niadvi to himself that he would spend no more 
 money foolishly, dMiphted him. Siwakinp one day 
 of Gray, the author of the Elegy, he aaid : " No 
 poet ever came walking; down to posterity with so
 
 l.')(; IN AM) orr or doors with 
 
 small a, book under his aini." lie prrfrrrrd Smol- 
 lett to Firldinif. puttiiiK " IVir^riue Pirklc " above 
 "Tom Jonrs." Of the \w%{ novrl» by his con- 
 tcmporarit-s hr always sjwki- with wann rommrndn- 
 tion, and " (Jiitlilh (fauiit " hr thought n production 
 of vpr>' hiirh ni rit. He was " hotpitablr to the 
 thonifht " of all writers who were really in came*!, 
 but at the (irst ixhihition of flonnderint; or inex- 
 netness he hej-anie an nnbeliever. IVopIc with dis- 
 located nnder>tandinL'H he hat! no tolerance for. 
 
 He was passionately fond of the theatn*, lovetl 
 the lii;hts and mnsir and tlowrrs. and the happy 
 faces of the audience, he was accustomed to say 
 that his love of the theatre never failed, and, no 
 matter how dull the play, he was always careful 
 while he sat in the Ixix to make no sound which 
 could hurt the feelinirs of the actors, or show any 
 lack of attention. His ^renuiue cnthu-tiasm for 
 Mr. rcchtcr's actinjf was most interestinjf. He 
 loved to describe seeine him tiiNt, tpiite by accident, 
 in Paris, havinir sti-olled into a little theatre there 
 one niirht. " He was makin); love to a woman," 
 Dickens said, " and he so elevated her as well as 
 himself by the sentiment in which he enveloped 
 her, that they trod in a purer ether, and in an- 
 other sphere, quite lifted out of the pirsent. ' IW 
 heavens ! ' I said to myself. ' a man who can do this 
 can do anythinir.' I never saw two people more
 
 CHARLES DICKENS. I.'i7 
 
 pimly ana instantly elevated by the |M»wer of love. 
 The manner, also." he rontinu.^1, " in whi<h he 
 pir«*es the hem of the dn-ns of Lney in the Bride 
 of Ijimmermoor is »omethinjr wonderful. The man 
 hns frenius in him which i» unmistakabUv" 
 
 Life behind the wrne* was alway* a fascinating 
 study to Dicken*. " One of the oddest sights a 
 green-room can pn-nent," he said one day, " it 
 when they arc collet-ting children for a i«intomime. 
 For this purpose the prompter mlU t«)U«-th«r all 
 the women in the ballet, and U'cins pivim; out 
 their names in order, while they preswi about him 
 eairer for the chance of increasing their po«ir pay 
 by the extra pittance their children will receive. 
 * Mr*. Johnson, how many V ' ' Two, sir.' ' What 
 ages ? ' * Seven and ten * ' Mp» li , how many ? ' 
 tind so on, until the ntjuireil number is made up. 
 The people who go upon the stace, however poor 
 th»ir pay or hard their lot, love it too well ever to 
 lulopt another vo<-ation of their free-will. A mother 
 will frequently be in the wardn»be. children in the 
 |t.-mtomime, elder sisters in the balld. etc." 
 
 Dickens's habit-s as a s|)eaker differed fi-om those 
 of most orators. He gave no thought to the com- 
 ]>usition of the speech be was to make till the day 
 before he was to deliver it. No matter whether 
 the effort was to be a long or a short one, he never 
 wrote down a word of what he was going to say;
 
 lj>t IN AM) Ol r (JF DOOliS N\ ITI[ 
 
 but wluii llu- i)io|)tr tiiiit- anivril for him to con- 
 sidiT his suhjcct, he took a walk into the country 
 nntl the thin:; was tloi\e. When he returntd he 
 was all ready for his task. 
 
 lie liked to talk nhont the audiences that came 
 to hear him irad. and he ^avc the palm to his 
 Parisian one, say in;; it was the quickest to eatch 
 his meanintr. Although he said there were many 
 always present in his room in Paris who did not 
 fully understand Enirlish. yet the French eye is so 
 (|uick to detect expression that it never failed in- 
 stantly to understand what he meant hy a look or an 
 act. "Tims, for instance," he said, "when I was 
 impersonatini; Steerforth in ' David Coppertield,' 
 and gave that peculiar irrip of the hand to Emily's 
 lover, the French audience burst into cheers and 
 rounds of applause" lie said with reference to 
 the pre|)ai-ation of his readinjrs. that it was three 
 mi)nth>' hard lal)or to pet up one of his own stories 
 for public recitatit»u, and he thouixht he had greatly 
 improved his presentation of the ''Christmas Carol " 
 while in this country. He considered the storm 
 scene in " David Copperfield " one of the most 
 etTuctive of his readings. The character of Jack 
 Hopkins in " Bob Sawyer's Party " he took great 
 delight in representing, and as Jack was a prime 
 favorite of mine, he brought him forward whenever 
 the occasion prompted. He always spoke of Hop- 
 kins as my particular friend, and he was constantly
 
 CHAULhS DU KKNS. loU 
 
 quoting; him, takiii;j: ou the jH'culiar voice and turn 
 of the head whirh he gave Jack in the public i-ead- 
 ing. 
 
 It gave him a natural pleasure when he heard 
 quotations fi*om his own book* introduced without 
 effort into conversation. He did not always re- 
 member, when his own words were quoted, that he 
 was himself the author of them, and apjicarcd as- 
 tounded at the memory of others in this regard. 
 He said .Mr. Secretary Stanton had a most cxtroor- 
 dinary know|ed'.re of his books, and a power of 
 taking the text up at any [Kjint, which he su|>posed 
 to belong to only one person, and that person not 
 himself. 
 
 It was said of Garrick that he was the cheer - 
 fullest man of his age. This can be as truly said 
 of Charles Dickens. In his presence there was 
 perpetual sunshine, and gloom was banished as hav- 
 ing no sort of relationship with him. No man suf- 
 fered more keenly or sympathized more fully than 
 he did with want and misery ; but his motto was, 
 " Don't stand and erj- ; press forward and help re- 
 move the ditUculty." The speed with which he 
 was accustomed to make the deed follow his yet 
 speedier sympathy was seen pleasantly on the day 
 of his visit to the School-ship in Uoston Harbor. 
 He said, previously to going on board that ship, 
 nothing would tempt him to make a speech, for he 
 shoidd alwavs be obliired to do it on similar occa-
 
 UiU IX AND OUT OF DOORS WITH 
 
 sions, if he broke tliroui:li his rule so early in his 
 reatliii;; tour, liut Jiul^re Uussell had no sooner 
 finished his simple talk, to which the boys listened, 
 as they always do, with eager faces, than Dickens 
 jose as if he could not help it, and with a few 
 words so mairnetizcd thcni that they wore their 
 hearts in their eyes as if they meant to keep the 
 words forever. An enthusiastic critic once said of 
 .Idlin Kuskin, " that he could discover the Ai)oca- 
 l\ pse in a daisy." As noble a discovery may be 
 claimed for Dickens. lie found all the fair humani- 
 ties bloomiuir in the lowliest hovel, lie never put 
 on the j^rood Samaritan : that character was luitive 
 to him. Once while in this country, on a bitter, 
 freezinir afternoon, — niirht comiuir down in a drift- 
 iuia: snow-storm, -- he was returniuf; with me from 
 a long w;dk in the country. The wind and baffling 
 sleet were so furious that the street in which we 
 happened to be lighting our way was quite deserted ; 
 it was almost impossible to see across it, the air was 
 so thick with the temj)est ; all conversation between 
 us had ceased, for it was only possible to breast the 
 storm by devoting our whole energies to keeping on 
 our feet ; wc seemed to be walking in a difierent at- 
 mosphere from any we had ever before encountered. 
 All at once I missed Dickens from my side. What 
 had become of him ? Had he gone down in the 
 drift, utterly exhausted, and was the snow burying 
 him out of sight ? Very soon the sound of his
 
 niAULES DICKENS. \{\[ 
 
 che«TV vuiir was In-ard un the oilier side of the 
 way. With girat ditlieiilty, over the piled-up snow, 
 1 strujfL'led aeross the street, and there founi^ him 
 lit'tinji; i)|), almost by main foree, a blind old man 
 who had irol Ixwildered by the storm, and had fallen 
 down unnotircd, quite unable to pnM-eed. Hirkens, 
 a long distanee away from him, with that lender, 
 sensitive, and penetratini; vision, ever on the alert 
 for sutl'erinu' in any form, had nished at once to the 
 rescue, jompreheuding at a glance the situation of 
 the sightless man. To help him to his feet and aid 
 him homeward in the most natural and simple wny 
 ati'ordcd Dickens such a plca>ure a> only the benev- 
 olent b\ intuition can understand. 
 
 Thi-oughout his life I)icken> was continually re- 
 ceiviug tributes from those he had benefited, either 
 by his books or by his friundshij). There is an odd 
 and verv' pretty storj' (vouched for here as true; 
 connected with the influence he so widely exerted. 
 In the winter of ISGU, »<>ou after he came up to 
 London to reside for a few months, he received a 
 letter from a man telling him that he had b<*gun 
 life in the most humble way possible, and that he 
 considered he owed his subsequent great success 
 and such education as ho had given himself entiirly 
 to the encouraircmcnt and cheering influence he had 
 derived from Dickens's books, of which he had been 
 a constant reader from his childhood. lie had k'en 
 made a partner in his master's ba-iincss, and when
 
 162 IN AM) OIT OF IJOOUS WITH 
 
 Iho head of thr Ik»u«h- dird, the other dn\. it was 
 found he had left thr whole of his large {)n)|>ertT to 
 this mail. A* '»<xui n<» he ennie into po»seA!«ion of 
 this fortune, h\» uiind turned to I)ii-kens, whom he 
 looked upon n* hi-* benefactor and tearher. and his 
 fir^t desire was to tender him s«>me testimonial of 
 gratitude and vrneration. He then begged Diekens 
 to nieept a large sum of money. Diekens declined 
 to receive the money, but his unknown friend sent 
 him instead two silver table ornaments of gnat in- 
 trinsic value bearing thi<» inscription : *' To Charles 
 Dickens, fnim one wh<» has Ut'w cheered ond stimu- 
 lated by his writings, and held the author amongst 
 his tin*t H< nirmbranccs when he became prosper- 
 ous." One of these silver ornaments was sup|K)rted 
 by three ri:;ui*e5. representing three seasons. In the 
 original dc>ign there wen', of course, four, but the 
 douor was so averse to associating the idea of Win- 
 ter in any sense with Dickens that he caused the 
 workman to alter the design and leave only the 
 cheerful seasons. No event in the great author's 
 career was ever more gratifying and plea>ant to him. 
 His friendly notes were exquisitely turned, and 
 are among his most charming compositions. They 
 abound in felicities only like himself. In 18G0 he 
 wrote to me while I was sojourning in Italy : " I 
 should like to have a walk through Rome with you 
 this bright morning (for it really is bright in Lon- 
 don), and convey you over some favorite ground of
 
 CHAULKS DICKERS. 16:5 
 
 mine. I Q5fd to po up the street of Tombs, jMist 
 tho tomb of Cecilia Mrttlla. nway out upon the 
 wild campasna, and by the old Appian Road leajily 
 trarkid out amonj? the ruins and primroses*, to 
 AUkiuo. There, at a verj* dirty inn. I iwrd to have 
 a very dirty lunrh. pcnemlly with thr family's dirty 
 linen lying in a comer, and invciulc some very 
 dirty Vetturino in sheep-skin to take mc back to 
 Home." 
 
 In a little note in answer to one I had written 
 eonsultin? him about the purchase of some old fur- 
 niture in b)ndon he wrote : " There is a chair 
 without a b<*t(t>mi at a shop near the olllce. which 
 I think would suit you. It cannot stand of itself, 
 but will almost seat somebody, if you put it in a 
 corner, and prop one leg up with two wedircs and 
 
 It anoihir Icp off. The proprietor asks £ 20. but 
 - iv* he admires literature and would take k IS. lie 
 is of republican principles and I think would take 
 £17 1*JJ 6''- from a cousin, shall I secun* this 
 prize ? It is very uirly and wonny. and it is related, 
 I>ut without proof, that on one occasion Wa»hinff- 
 
 111 declined to sit down in it." 
 Here are the Inst two missive** I ever received 
 from hi» dear, kind hand : — 
 
 5 Mvnr. Park PL\ct. Loxi>o?«, W . 
 Kndiy. Jsnuanr 14, 1870 
 Mt DKAt Firi.Ds : We lire here lopprnite the M«r»)lc 
 Vrch) in a chsniiins house until the 1st of June, and thcu
 
 164 IN AND OUT OF DOORS WITH 
 
 return to Gad's. The Conservatory is completed, and is a 
 brilliant success ; — but an expensive one ! 
 
 I read this afternoon at three, — a beastly proceeding 
 which I particularly hate, — and again this day week at 
 three. These morning readings particularly disturb me at 
 my book- work ; nevertheless I hope, please God, to lose no 
 way on their account. An evening reading once a week is 
 nothing. By the by, I recommenced last Tuesday evening 
 with tlie greatest brilliancy. 
 
 I should be quite ashamed of not having written to you 
 and my dear Mrs. Fields before now, if I did n't know that 
 you will both understand how occupied I am, and how nat- 
 urally, when I put my papers away for the day, I get up 
 and fly. I have a large room here, with three fine windows, 
 overlooking the Park, — unsurpassable for airiness and cheer- 
 fulness. 
 
 You saw the announcement of the death of poor dear Har- 
 ness. The circumstances are curious. He wrote to his old 
 friend the Dean of Battle saying he would come to visit him 
 on tliat day (the day of his death). The Dean wrote back : 
 " Come next day, instead, as we are obliged to go out to din- 
 ner, and you will be alone." Harness told his sister a little 
 impatiently that he must go on the first-named day, — that 
 he had made up his mind to go, and must. He had been 
 getting himself ready for dinner, and came to a part of the 
 staircase whence two doors opened, — one, iipon another 
 level passage ; one, upon a flight of stone steps. He opened 
 the wrong door, fell down the steps, injured himself veiy 
 severely, and died in a few hours. 
 
 You will know — /don't — what Techter's success is in 
 America at the time of this present writing. In his fare- 
 well performances at the Princess's he acted very finely. I 
 thought the three first acts of his Hamlet very much better 
 than I had ever thought them before, — and I always 
 thought very highly of them. We gave him a foaming stir- 
 rup cup at Gad's Hill. 
 
 Forster (who has been ill Mith his bronchitis again) thinks
 
 CHARLES DICKENS. 165 
 
 No. 2 of the new book (Edwin Drood) a clincher, — 1 mean 
 that word (as his own expression) for Clincher. There is a 
 curious interest steadily working up to No. 5, which re- 
 quires a great deal of art and self-denial. 1 think also, 
 apart from character and picturesquencss, that the young 
 people are placed in a very novel situation. So I hope — at 
 Nos. 5 and C the story will turn upon an interest suspended 
 until the end. 
 
 I can't believe it, and don't, and won't, but they say 
 Harry's twenty-first birthday is next Sunday. I have en- 
 tered him at the Temple just now ; and if he -don't get a 
 fellowship at Trinity Ilall when his time comes, I shall be 
 disappointed, if in the present disappointed state of ex- 
 istence. 
 
 I liope you may have met wnth the little toucli of Radical- 
 ism I gave tliem at Birmingham in the words of Buckle ? 
 With pride I observe that it makes the regular political 
 traders, of all sorts, perfectly mad. Sich was my intentions, 
 as a grateful acknowledgment of having been misrepre- 
 sented. 
 
 I think Mrs. 's prose very admirable, but I don't 
 
 believe it! No, I do not. My conviction is that those 
 Islanders get frightfully bored by the Islands, and wish they 
 had never set eyes upon them ! 
 
 Charley Collins has done a charming cover for the month- 
 ly part of the new book. At the very earnest representa- 
 tions of Millais (and after having seen a great number of 
 his drawings) I am going to engage with a new man ; re- 
 taining, of course, C. C.'s cover aforesaid. K has made 
 
 some more capital portraits, and is always improving. 
 
 My dear Mrs. Fields, if "lie" (made proud by chairs 
 and bloated by pictures) does not give you my dear love, let 
 us conspire against him when you find him out, and exclude 
 him from all future confidences. Until then 
 
 Ever affectionately yours and his, 
 
 C. D.
 
 ir.Ti IN AND on OF DOORS WITH 
 
 6 Ihnr. Park PtAcr. Loxuox, W., 
 Monday, April 18. 1870. 
 Mt dear Fields: I have born hard at work all day 
 until post time, and have only leisure to acknowledge the 
 receipt, the day before yrslerday, of your note eontaining 
 sucii jrootl news of Frclitrr; and to assure you of my un- 
 dtminislicd reganl and affertion. 
 
 We have liccn doing wonders with No. 1 of Edwin Drood 
 // kat tery, very far oMtsl ripped rrrry one of its preJecesiort 
 Kver your aflTcrtionatc friend, 
 
 Charles Dicke.xs. 
 
 Bright rolors wore a constant delight to hitn . 
 and the gay hues of flowers were those most wel- 
 come to his eye. \Vhen the rhododendrons were in 
 bloom in Cobham Park, the seat of his friend and 
 neighbor, I/ord Daniley, he always counted on tak- 
 ing his guests there to enjoy the majniificent show. 
 He dclielitcd to turn out for the delectation of his 
 Ti-ansatlautic cousins a couple of postilions in the 
 old red jackets of the old nd royal Dover road, 
 making the ride as much as possible like a holiday 
 drive in F^uglaiid fifty years ago. 
 
 ^Vhen in the mood for humorous characteriza- 
 tion, Dickens's hilarity was most amazing. To 
 hear him tell a ghost-story with a very florid imita- 
 tion of a very pallid ghost, or hear him sing an old- 
 time stage song, such as he used to enjoy in his 
 youth at a cheap London theatre, to see him imitate 
 a lion in a menagcrie-cagc, or the clown in a panto- 
 mime when he flops and folds himself up like a 
 jack-knife, or to join with him in some mirthful
 
 CHARLtS DICKEXS. 1(17 
 
 gnme of his own ruiii|M>siti^, wn* to become ar- 
 quainttd with one of ihr most ilr|it»htfiil and orijri- 
 nal companions in thr woiUI. 
 
 On one orrasion, duiint: n walk with mr. hr 
 rliMH.' to nin into the wildi-^l of vainirits about dui. 
 V r.utlion. The hidirrons vein he indulsid in dnr- 
 iuj; that two hours' stretch ran never be forgotten 
 Amon? othir things, he said he had often thnuirht 
 how restricted one's conversation mu»t become when 
 one was visiting a man who was to be hanfred in 
 half au hour. lie went on in a nuwt »uq>risin? 
 manntr to imagine all sorts of diflicnltie* in thr 
 way of becoming intcrrsting to the p<xir feUow 
 " Suppose." said he, " it should b? a rainy moniing 
 while you arc making the rail, you could not |k>s. 
 sibly indulge in the remark. ' We shall have line 
 weather to-morrow, sir," for what would that be tn 
 him ? For my part. I think." said he. " I »hoiild 
 ronJlne my obsenations to thr days of Julius di-jiir 
 or King Alfred. " 
 
 At another time when »i)cakinjr of what wau con- 
 stanlly said aUut him in certain newspapers, be 
 observed : " 1 notice that about once in ever)' seven 
 >ears I become the victim of a paragraph disease. 
 It breaks out in England, travels to India by the 
 overland route, gets to Amrica per Cunard line, 
 strikes the base of the Rocky Mountains, and, re- 
 bomidina: back to Europe, mostly perishes on the 
 steppes of Russia from inanition nnd.xticmr p,.l.l •
 
 IGS IN AND OUT OF DOORS WITH 
 
 ^Vhcn he felt he was not under observation, and 
 that tomfoolery would not be frowned upon or 
 gazed at with astonishment, he gave himself up 
 without reserve to healthy amusement and strength- 
 ening mirth. It was his mission to make people 
 happy. "Words of good eheer were native to his 
 lips, and he was always doing what he could to 
 lighten the lot of all who came into his beautiful 
 presence. His talk was simple, natural, and direct, 
 never dropping into circumlocution nor elocution. 
 Now that he is gone, whoever has known him in- 
 timately for any considerable period of time will 
 linger over his tender regard for, and his engaging 
 manner with, children ; his cheery " Good day " 
 to poor people he happened to be passing in the 
 road; his trustfid and earnest " Please God," when 
 he was promising himself any special pleasure, like 
 rejoining an old friend or returning again to scenes 
 he loved. At such times his voice had an irresist- 
 ible pathos in it, and his smile diffused a sensation 
 like music. "When he came into the presence of 
 squalid or degraded persons, such as one sometimes 
 encounters in almshouses or prisons, he had such 
 soothing words to scatter here and there, that those 
 who had been " most hurt by the archers " listened 
 gladly, and loved him without knowing who it was 
 that found it in his heart to speak so kindly to 
 them. 
 
 Oftentimes during long walks in the streets and
 
 CHARLES DICKENS. 1G9 
 
 ln-\v:iy.s of London, or tlironu;h the pleasant Kent- 
 is!i lanes, or among the localities he has rendered 
 forever famous in his books, I have recalled the 
 sweet words in which Shakespeare has embalmed 
 one of the characters in Love's Labor 's Lost : — 
 
 " A mcrriiT man, 
 Witliin the limit of bcromiii? mirth, 
 I nevci- spiMit an liour's talk withni : 
 Tlis eye begets occasion for his wit ; 
 For every olyect that the one doth catch 
 The other turns to a mirth-moving jest, 
 AVIiich Ills fair tongue, c(mceil's expositor. 
 Delivers in such apt and gracious words 
 That aged cars play truant at his tnle>i. 
 And younger liearings are quite ravished; 
 So sweet and voluble is liis discourse.'' 
 
 Twenty years ajro Daniel "Webster said that 
 Dickens had already done more to ameliorate the 
 condition of the En;;lish poor than all the states- 
 men Great Britain had sent into Parliament. Dur- 
 ing the uncensing demands upon his time and 
 thought, he found opportunities of visiting per- 
 sonally tlios;' haunts of sulTering in London which 
 iireded the keen eye and sympathetic heart to bring 
 thein before the public for relief. ^Vhoever has ac- 
 companied him, as 1 have, on his midnight walks 
 into the cheap lodging-houses provided for Lon- 
 don's lowest poor, cannot have failed to learn les- 
 sons never to be forgotten. Newgate and Smithfield 
 wcic lifted out of their abominitions by his elo(|uent
 
 THE VEST-POCKET SERIES. 
 
 • " OicooH'i • Vest-Pocket Sain ' deacrve the hevtiev >ppr«c 
 
 otcnns of fine type and 
 
 to ; 
 
 the ; 
 triiuic 
 
 micro 
 
 •nU 
 
 raiuc. 
 
 - 
 
 o ■..irri 
 
 -.1 Al.r.u. n 
 
 ••\'. 
 
 
 ,),., ..„. 
 
 Of a 
 
 
 
 
 fan 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 ..-,..,. 
 
 " We hare rarely seen anythinj: more exquisite in the shape <rf 
 miniature editions of authors than the " Veai- Pocket Series.'"-— 
 yew York Evening Maii. 
 
 " The mnst attractive of all the ne» books of the 
 LauuztUU Courur- Journal. 
 
 JAMES R. OSGOOD & CO.. 
 
 PUBLISHERS, BOSTOW.
 
 oAiA ojqiKiios i^ixiAvq 'si^ooq lyy^^ }o .\jOAi|op 
 
 fo ooiog •spj«.%\J»>ij'n rfuo( ijil iwqi j.i.\').>>ip 
 'I PIP ot| jivq 'UBUiqKHliuy uv 'jo>[«(u>(ooq 
 
 TIJ t> SnJM UOj^B<l •nil UOI^JOHO.! *»UO>J.>IQ 
 
 ^hiniqx.) uv o|tdiu<*> o; uiUj ixxijoq puw 
 
 l^ uiiq Joj B|Hijo«» *',su.»>^.->m -jiio >{.W« 
 
 luiq {K)uoissiiuuj<x) [Mju 'i^^jtici A'fq4Uoiu 
 iiauo oqi ui .,Tio<5 pu« .Ceqiu<>(j „ sauupqe 
 Mj Ajjoj joj ::uiA*n(| Aq Mwi>i [iidj -jKjg 
 ^.q ui|q <>A«^ oqw (iltii.)LM) jo){v(u>{(Joq « k».*i 
 ^J •if|0>jquii puw Aj.»>ji: 'jood pu« q»ij 'ti^JOS 
 [in JO siov»||a) puq vvq «>|j PJdUMOifooq 
 
 auouiv soiii^u*»A[»« sJtq puw 'sjoujo^KTiJ Mij pu« 
 •iiinstioj^ tfiq '^noqv i^ooq w ut>);ijjki ^^vu «vq ,»j^ 
 \<)J(oa" a} UiMJif mojj ujiu *»Ats>| s» 'A'i-)Oinb 
 • ui^ oq^ qn Ar%\«):s ifuirfu'oqj CT ^i 'oijovqo 
 . lOAeu '1>U!.« «l(»tf^ «»i() 'qi<noq-){c 
 
 ^ '*•**> i ' s.CvMit? oAtjq I atsnui 
 
 T ^uq^ jo jUvnuiuTuIuioooti oqi cyj souni 
 .'• siuouioAoui tijduiis MOj u oq p|noM 
 \jv JO ACM oqi UI pojmUu ot^ p|noM ;i;q^ 
 •o.)urjtro(Idc jjoqj UTrip joq|cj wooroA 
 11 JOj uosoqo 0J1I oqA 'euiojou pu^ ojoq 
 ^I'^oi'^TiIlisip i^nsn eq-j jo oob|(J ui ajOAOj 
 aiioA injijnvoq /|i«opj pu« 'oj^two-j. oqi 
 ;• J^tiAU'CD A'jpMBj oq-) JO oo«|d oi uopjtiS leopi 
 UB sn OAi3 Pino.) uinj oq^ 'Suiood jcj^soq^jo 
 Xjoa.)cjsr:jtJs iC(0],)j,|uioo o^vm •ai«>niu iCtjpu^ 
 oq; puTJ pojsoqori oq^ »u qans 'souoos 
 >A 8 jouifn^^Y JO [cjoAog *sa^ou>j ouoXjoao 
 :ojaq Xjus^ojou X|pjBq oj^ sojioa oqj^ 
 nmoqiq^ira *©|duit?x9 joj ./ut?7»?uj^ ,, cucij 
 
 B nnn nna ir^r^
 
 '^f \,JfJ^