Chapter IV: Dickens (6)

Throughout his life Dickens was continually receiving tributes from those he had benefited, either by his books or by his friendship. There is an odd and very pretty story (vouched for here as true) connected with the influence he so widely exerted. In the winter of 1869, soon after he came up to London to reside for a few months, he received a letter from a man telling him that he had begun life in the most humble way possible, and that he considered he owed his subsequent great success and such education as he had given himself entirely to the encouragement and cheering influence he had derived from Dickens's books, of which he had been a constant reader from his childhood. He had been made a partner in his master's business, and when the head of the house died, the other day, it was found he had left the whole of his large property to this man. As soon as he came into possession of this fortune, his mind turned to Dickens, whom he looked upon as his benefactor and teacher, and his first desire was to tender him some testimonial of gratitude and veneration. He then begged Dickens to accept a large sum of money. Dickens declined to receive the money, but his unknown friend sent him instead two silver table ornaments of great intrinsic value bearing this inscription: "To Charles Dickens, from one who has been cheered and stimulated by his writings, and held the author amongst his first Remembrances when he became prosperous." One of these silver ornaments was supported by three figures, representing three seasons. In the original design there were, of course, four, but the donor was so averse to associating the idea of Winter 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 pleasant to him.

His friendly notes were exquisitely turned, and are among his most charming compositions. They abound in felicities only like himself. In 1860 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 London), and convey you over some favorite ground of mine. I used to go up the street of Tombs, past the tomb of Cecilia Metella, away out upon the wild campagna, and by the old Appian Road (easily tracked out among the ruins and primroses), to Albano. There, at a very dirty inn, I used to have a very dirty lunch, generally with the family's dirty linen lying in a corner, and inveigle some very dirty Vetturino in sheep-skin to take me back to Rome."

In a little note in answer to one I had written consulting him about the purchase of some old furniture in London he wrote: "There is a chair (without a bottom) at a shop near the office, 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 wedges and cut another leg off, The proprietor asks £20, but says he admires literature and would take £18. He is of republican principles and I think would take £17 19_s_. 6_d_. from a cousin; shall I secure this prize? It is very ugly and wormy, and it is related, but without proof, that on one occasion Washington declined to sit down in it."

Here are the last two missives I ever received from his dear, kind hand:--

5 Hyde Park Place, London, W., Friday, January 14, 1870.

My Dear Fields: We live here (opposite the Marble Arch) in a
charming house until the 1st of June, and then 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 the greatest brilliancy.

I should be quite ashamed of not having written to you and my dear
Mrs. Fields before now, if I didn't know that you will both
understand how occupied I am, and how naturally, 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 cheerfulness.

You saw the announcement of the death of poor dear Harness. The
circumstances are curious. He wrote to his old friend the Dean of
Battle saying he would come to visit him on that day (the day of his
death). The Dean wrote back: "Come next day, instead, as we are
obliged to go out to dinner, 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, upon another level passage;
one, upon a flight of stone steps. He opened the wrong door, fell
down the steps, injured himself very severely, and died in a few
hours.

You will know--_I_ don't--what Fechter's success is in America at
the time of this present writing. In his farewell 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 stirrup cup at Gad's Hill. Forster (who has been ill with
his bronchitis again) thinks No. 2 of the new book (Edwin Drood) a
clincher,--I mean that word (as his own expression) for _Clincher_.
There is a curious interest steadily working up to No. 5, which
requires a great deal of art and self-denial. I think also, apart
from character and picturesqueness, that the young people are placed
in a very novel situation. So I hope--at Nos. 5 and 6 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 entered him at the
Temple just now; and if he don't get a fellowship at Trinity Hall
when his time comes, I shall be disappointed, if in the present
disappointed state of existence.

I hope you may have met with the little touch of Radicalism I gave
them 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
misrepresented.

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 monthly part of
the new book. At the very earnest representations of Millais (and
after having seen a great number of his drawings) I am going to
engage with a new man; retaining, of course, C.C.'s cover aforesaid.
K---- has made some more capital portraits, and is always improving.

My dear Mrs. Fields, if "He" (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.

5 Hyde Park Place, London, W., Monday, April 18, 1870.

My dear Fields: I have been hard at work all day until post time,
and have only leisure to acknowledge the receipt, the day before
yesterday, of your note containing such good news of Fechter; and to
assure you of my undiminished regard and affection.

We have been doing wonders with No. 1 of Edwin Drood. _It has very,
very far outstripped every one of its predecessors._

Ever your affectionate friend,

Charles Dickens

Bright colors were a constant delight to him; and the gay hues of flowers were those most welcome to his eye. When the rhododendrons were in bloom in Cobham Park, the seat of his friend and neighbor, Lord Darnley, he always counted on taking his guests there to enjoy the magnificent show. He delighted to turn out for the delectation of his Transatlantic cousins a couple of postilions in the old red jackets of the old red royal Dover road, making the ride as much as possible like a holiday drive in England fifty years ago.

When in the mood for humorous characterization, Dickens's hilarity was most amazing. To hear him tell a ghost story with a very florid imitation 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 menagerie-cage, or the clown in a pantomime when he flops and folds himself up like a jack-knife, or to join with him in some mirthful game of his own composing, was to become acquainted with one of the most delightful and original companions in the world.

On one occasion, during a walk with me, he chose to run into the wildest of vagaries about _conversation_. The ludicrous vein he indulged in during that two hours' stretch can never be forgotten. Among other things, he said he had often thought how restricted one's conversation must become when one was visiting a man who was to be hanged in half an hour. He went on in a most surprising manner to imagine all sorts of difficulties in the way of becoming interesting to the poor fellow. "Suppose," said he, "it should be a rainy morning while you are making the call, you could not possibly indulge in the remark, 'We shall have fine weather to-morrow, sir,' for what would that be to him? For my part, I think," said he, "I should confine my observations to the days of Julius Caesar or King Alfred."

At another time when speaking of what was constantly said about him in certain newspapers, he observed: "I notice that about once in every seven years I become the victim of a paragraph disease. It breaks out in England, travels to India by the overland route, gets to America per Cunard line, strikes the base of the Rocky Mountains, and, rebounding back to Europe, mostly perishes on the steppes of Russia from inanition and extreme cold." When 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 strengthening mirth. It was his mission to make people happy. Words of good cheer 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 intimately 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 trustful 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 irresistible 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 by-ways of London, or through the pleasant Kentish 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 merrier man,
Within the limit of becoming mirth,
I never spent an hour's talk withal:
His eye begets occasion for his wit;
For every object that the one doth catch
The other turns to a mirth-moving jest,
Which his fair tongue, conceit's expositor,
Delivers in such apt and gracious words
That aged ears play truant at his tales,
And younger hearings are quite ravished;
So sweet and voluble is his discourse."

Twenty years ago Daniel Webster said that Dickens had already done more to ameliorate the condition of the English poor than all the statesmen Great Britain had sent into Parliament. During the unceasing demands upon his time and thought, he found opportunities of visiting personally those haunts of suffering in London which needed the keen eye and sympathetic heart to bring them before the public for relief. Whoever has accompanied him, as I have, on his midnight walks into the cheap lodging-houses provided for London's lowest poor, cannot have failed to learn lessons never to be forgotten. Newgate and Smithfield were lifted out of their abominations by his eloquent pen, and many a hospital is to-day all the better charity for having been visited and watched by Charles Dickens. To use his own words, through his whole life he did what he could "to lighten the lot of those rejected ones whom the world has too long forgotten and too often misused."

These inadequate, and, of necessity, hastily written, records must stand for what they are worth as personal recollections of the great author who has made so many millions happy by his inestimable genius and sympathy. His life will no doubt be written out in full by some competent hand in England; but however numerous the volumes of his biography, the half can hardly be told of the good deeds he has accomplished for his fellow-men.

And who could ever tell, if those volumes were written, of the subtle qualities of insight and sympathy which rendered him capable of friendship above most men,--which enabled him to reinstate its ideal, and made his presence a perpetual joy, and separation from him an ineffaceable sorrow?

WORDSWORTH.

_"His mind is, as it were, coeval with the primary forms of things; his imagination holds immediately from nature, and 'owes no allegiance' but 'to the elements.' ....He sees all things in himself."_--Hazlitt.