Chapter IV: Dickens (2)

My Dear Felton: If I thought it in the nature of things that you and
I could ever agree on paper, touching a certain Chuzzlewitian
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 which 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.

Now don't you in your own heart and soul quarrel with me for this
long silence? Not half so much as I quarrel with myself, I know; but
if you could read half the letters I write to you in imagination,
you would swear by me for the best of correspondents. The truth is,
that when I have done my morning's work, down goes my pen, and from
that minute I feel it a positive impossibility 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
pathetic friendships, but can't for the soul of me uncork myself.
The post-office is my rock ahead. My average number of letters that
_must_ 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 perusal
of the bodily thirteenth, than you could tell from my hat what was
going on in my head, or could read my heart on the surface of my
flannel waistcoat.

This is a little fishing-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 perpetually wink after dark, as if they were
carrying on intrigues with the servants. Also there is a big
lighthouse called the North Foreland on a hill behind the 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 fortifications, which the sea throws down again at high
water. Old gentlemen and ancient ladies flirt after their own manner
in two reading-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, who
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 be seen
in another bay-window on the ground-floor, eating a strong lunch;
after that, walking a dozen miles or so, or lying on his back in the
sand reading a book. Nobody bothers him unless they know he is
disposed to be talked to; and I am told he is very comfortable
indeed. He's as brown as a berry, and they _do_ say is a small
fortune to the innkeeper who sells beer 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 wine-glasses.

I never shall have been so near you since we parted aboard the
George Washington as next Tuesday. Forster, Maclise, and I, and
perhaps Stanfield, are then going aboard the Cunard steamer at
Liverpool, to bid Macready good by, and bring his wife away. It will
be a very hard parting. You will see and know him of course. We gave
him a splendid dinner last Saturday at Richmond, whereat I presided
with my accustomed grace. He is one of the noblest fellows in the
world, and I would give a great deal that you and I should sit
beside each other to see him play Virginius, Lear, or Werner, which
I take to be, 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'll 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 care, he will
leave his mark on more enduring things than palace walls.

And so L---- is married. I remember _her_ well, and could draw her
portrait, in words, to the life. A very beautiful and gentle
creature, and a proper love for a poet. My cordial remembrances and
congratulations. Do they live in the house where we breakfasted?....

I very often dream I am in America again; but, strange to say, I
never dream of you. I am always endeavoring to get home in disguise,
and have a dreary sense of the distance. _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 existence? _I_ never dreamed of any of my own
characters, and I 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 head a night or two ago. I dreamed that somebody 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!" I said. "Yes, to be sure. Very true. But what
did he die of?" The gentleman burst into a flood 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 was so affected as at
his having fallen a victim to this complaint. It carried a
conviction to my mind that he never could have recovered. I knew
that it was the most interesting 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 way. O heaven! such green woods
as I was rambling among down in Yorkshire, when I was getting that
done last July! For days and weeks we never saw the sky but through
green boughs; and all day long I 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 indeed),
who are the jolliest 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 concatenation
accordingly." Just the place for you, Felton! We performed some
madnesses there in the way of forfeits, picnics, 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 I
walked into my little workroom after breakfast, and was looking out
of window at the snow in the garden,--not seeing it particularly
well in consequence of some staggering suggestions of last night,
whereby I was beset,--the postman came to the door with a knock, for
which I denounced him from my heart. Seeing 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, I 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 Boston, you will
find that Captain Hewett, of the Britannia steamship (my ship), has
a small parcel for Professor Felton of Cambridge; and in that parcel
you will find a Christmas Carol in prose; being a short story of
Christmas by Charles Dickens. Over which Christmas Carol Charles
Dickens wept and laughed and wept again, and excited himself in a
most extraordinary manner in the composition; and thinking whereof
he walked about the black streets of London, fifteen 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 the greatest success, as I am
told, that this ruffian and rascal has ever achieved.

Forster is out again; and if he don't go in again, after the manner
in which we have been keeping Christmas, he must be very strong
indeed. Such dinings, such dancings, such conjurings, such
blindman's-buffings, such theatre-goings, such kissings-out of old
years and kissings-in of new ones, never took place in these parts
before. To keep the Chuzzlewit 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 was done I broke out like a
madman. And if you could have seen me at a children's party at
Macready's the other night, going down a country dance with Mrs.
M., you would have thought I was a country gentleman of independent
property, residing on a tiptop farm, with the wind blowing straight
in my face every day....

Your friend, Mr. P----, dined with us one day (I don't know whether
I told you this before), and pleased us very much. Mr. C---- has
dined here once, and spent an evening here. I have not seen him
lately, though he has called twice or thrice; for K----being unwell
and I busy, we have not been visible at our accustomed seasons. I
wonder whether H---- has fallen in your way. Poor H----! He was a
good fellow, and has the most grateful 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 the Chuzzlewit 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 coming
out with _such_ a story, Felton, all at once, no parts,
sledge-hammer blow.

I send you a Manchester 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 meeting at Liverpool on the 26th of
next month, and on my way home I may be obliged to preside at
another at Birmingham. I will send you papers, if the reports be at
all like the real thing.

I wrote to Prescott about his book, with which I was perfectly
charmed. I think his descriptions masterly, his style brilliant, his
purpose manly and gallant always. The introductory account of Aztec
civilization impressed me exactly as it impressed you. From
beginning to end, the whole history is enchanting and full of
genius. I only wonder that, having such an opportunity of
illustrating the doctrine of visible judgments, he never remarks,
when Cortes and his men tumble the idols down the temple steps and
call upon the people to take notice that their gods are powerless to
help themselves, that possibly if some intelligent native had
tumbled down the image of the Virgin or patron saint after them
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 terrible. But I suppose he
would be slow to act it with the Boston company.

Hearty remembrances to Sumner, Longfellow, Prescott, and all whom
you know I love to remember. Countless happy years to you and
yours, my dear Felton, and some instalment of them, however slight,
in England, in the loving company of

THE PROSCRIBED ONE.

O, 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 residence, 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. I followed up our conversation with a note setting forth the certainty of his success among his Transatlantic 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.

"I 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 touches, I will admit to you frankly, a chord that has several
times sounded in my breast, since I began my readings. I should very
much like to read in America. But the idea is a mere dream as yet.
Several strong reasons would 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 beautiful 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 ruins of Rochester Castle. We climbed up the time-worn walls and leaned out of the ivied windows, looking into the various apartments below. I remember how vividly he reproduced a probable scene in the great old banqueting-room, and how graphically he imagined the life of _ennui_ and every-day tediousness that went 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 impressive voice, as he spoke out whole chapters of a romance 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 raven 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, experience there is none) on the grass, on my back.
Also, that I have not forgotten Cobbett. Also, that I shall trouble
you at greater length when the mysterious oracle, of New York,
pronounces.

"Wilkie Collins begs me to report that he declines pale horse, and
all other horse exercise--and all exercise, except eating, drinking,
smoking, and sleeping--in the dog days.

"With united kind regards, believe me always cordially yours,

"CHARLES DICKENS."

An agent had come out from New York with offers to induce him to arrange for a speedy visit to America, and Dickens was then waiting to see the man who had been announced as on his way to him. He was evidently giving the subject serious consideration, for on the 20th of July he sends me this note:--

"As I have not yet heard from Mr. ---- of New York, I 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 sufficient, and
that his 'mission' will go off. It is possible that I may hear from
him before the month 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 the flesh or the spirit.

"Now, 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 have some business arrangements made in
America, and that I am inclined to think it would not be easy to
originate and complete all the necessary preparations for beginning
in October, I want your kind advice on the following points:--

"1. Suppose I postponed the idea for a year.

"2. Suppose I postponed it until after Christmas.

"3. Suppose I sent some trusty person out to America _now_, to
negotiate with some sound, responsible, trustworthy man of business
in New York, accustomed to public undertakings of such a nature; my
negotiator being fully empowered to conclude any arrangements with
him 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, except on Tuesdays and the greater part of
Wednesdays.

"With kind regards, very faithfully yours,

"CHARLES DICKENS."

Various notes passed between us after this, during 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 excellent. 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 presence in America
will then be a great encouragement and assistance 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 locked-up house; and we will then,
reversing Macbeth, 'proceed further in this business.' ...

"Believe me always (and here I forever renounce 'Mr.,' as having
anything whatever to do with our communication, and as being a mere
preposterous interloper),

"Faithfully yours,

"CHARLES DICKENS."

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 constantly before him, and he wrote to me that he should 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 communications with him. He kept a watchful eye on what was going forward in America, both in literature 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 travelling 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 have read that affecting paper you have had the kindness to send
me, with strong interest and emotion. You may readily suppose that I
have been most glad and ready to avail myself of your permission to
print it. I 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 in America? Lord bless you, I think of reading in
the deepest depth of the lowest crater in the Moon, on my way there!

"There is no sun-picture of my Falstaff House as yet; but it shall
be done, and you shall have it. It has been much improved internally
since you saw it....

"I expect Macready at Gad's Hill on Saturday. You know that his
second wife (an excellent one) presented him lately with a little
boy? I was staying with him for a day or two last winter, and,
seizing an umbrella when he had the audacity to tell me he was
growing old, made at him with Macduff's defiance. Upon which he fell
into the old fierce guard, with the desperation of thirty years ago.

"Kind remembrances to all friends who kindly remember me.

"Ever heartily yours,

"CHARLES DICKENS."

Every time I had occasion to write to him after the war, I stirred up the subject of the readings. On the 2d of May, 1866, he says:--

"Your letter is an excessively difficult one to answer, because 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 think it
likely that any one on your side of the great water can be prepared
to understand the state of the 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 myself to readings
for a certain time,' I should have to go no further than Bond
Street or Regent Street, to have it secured 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 at home?' It is a delightful sensation to move a new
people; but I have but to go to Paris, and I find the brightest
people in the world quite ready for me. I say thus much in a sort of
desperate endeavor to explain myself to you. I can put no price upon
fifty readings in America, because I do not know that any possible
price could pay me for them. And I really cannot say to any one
disposed towards 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 beforehand.

"....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,

"CHARLES DICKENS."

On the 16th of October he writes:--

"Although I perpetually see in the papers that I am coming out with
a new serial, I assure you I know no more of it at present. I am
_not_ writing (except for Christmas number of 'All 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 summer I 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,
because when the time comes I shall have to take many circumstances
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 form. And perhaps _I_ may change first,
and establish a castle in the other world. So no more at present.

"Believe me ever faithfully yours,

"CHARLES DICKENS."

In June, 1867, things begin to look more promising, 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 that _I_ feel on _my_ side in our
alliance. And now I am going to add a piece of intelligence that I
hope may not be disagreeable.

"I am trying hard so to free myself, as to be able to come over to
read this next winter! Whether I may succeed in this endeavor or no
I cannot yet say, but I am trying HARD. So in the mean time don't
contradict the rumor. In the course of a few mails I hope to be able
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,

"CHARLES 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.
He is profoundly versed in the business of those delightful
intellectual feasts (!), and will come straight to Ticknor and
Fields, and will hold solemn council with them, and will then go to
New York, Philadelphia, 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 month of December. If I reply, 'No,' it will be
because I do not clearly see the 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 celebrated singer. I
have absolute trust in him and a great regard for him. He goes with
me everywhere when I read, and manages for me to perfection.

"We mean to keep all this STRICTLY SECRET, as I beg of you to do,
until I finally decide for or against. I am beleaguered by every
kind of speculator in such things on your side of the water; and it
is very likely that they would take the rooms over our heads,--to
charge me heavily for them,--or would set on foot unheard-of
devices for buying 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 having so far resolved. Dolby
quite understands that _he_ is to confide in you, similarly, without
a particle of reserve.

"Ever faithfully yours,

"CHARLES DICKENS."

On the 12th 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."

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.

"Dolby 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 business and with his chief, and
may be trusted without a grain of reserve.

"I hope the Americans will see the joke of 'Holiday Romance.' The
writing seems to me so like children's, that dull folks (on _any_
side of _any_ water) might perhaps rate it accordingly! I should
like to be beside you when you read it, and particularly when you
read the Pirate's story. It made me laugh to that 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,

"CHARLES DICKENS."

On the 3d of September he breaks out in this wise, Dolby having arrived out and made all arrangements for the readings:--

"Your cheering letter of the 21st of August arrived here this
morning. A thousand thanks for it. I begin to think (nautically)
that I 'head west'ard.' You shall hear from me fully and finally as
soon as Dolby shall have reported personally.

"The other day I received a letter from Mr. ---- 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 appointment
in London, and observed that when he _did_ see me he was obviously
astonished. While I was sensible that the magnificence of my
appearance would 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 wasn't 'cricketing' state of health? To which he replied,
Quite. I then asked him down here to dinner, and he was again
staggered by finding me in sporting training; also much amused.

"Yesterday's and to-day's post bring me this unaccountable paragraph
from hosts of uneasy friends, with the enormous 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 health, and have also
begged Dixon to do the like in the Athenaeum. 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
the New York Herald will probably have 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 connects this shrubbery with the front garden), to
ask, with their compliments, how I find myself _now_.

"If I come to America this next November, even you can hardly
imagine with what interest I shall try Copperfield 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 whether 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,

"CHARLES DICKENS."

Here is a little note dated the 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
Roman (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 observe my English principle on such
occasions, of having no abiding-place but an hotel, and stick to it
from the first, I may perhaps count on being consistently
uncomfortable.

"The nightly exertion necessitates meals at odd hours, silence and
rest at impossible 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
public. 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,

"CHARLES DICKENS."

A ridiculous paragraph 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 October:--

"I hope the telegraph clerks did not mutilate out of recognition or
reasonable guess the words I added to Dolby's last telegram to
Boston. 'Tribune London correspondent totally false.' Not only is
there not a word of truth in the pretended conversation, but it is
so absurdly unlike me that I cannot suppose it to be even invented
by any one who ever heard me exchange a word with mortal creature.
For twenty years I am perfectly certain that I have never made any
other allusion to the republication of my books in America than the
good-humored remark, 'that if there had been international copyright
between England and the States, I should have been 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 I have received handsome sums for advance
sheets. When I was in the States, I said what I 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 the subject.
Reverting to the preposterous fabrication of the London
correspondent, the statement that I ever talked about 'these
fellows' who republished my books, or pretended to know (what I
don't know at this instant) who made how much 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 have an interest in the
American people. And nothing can by any possibility be falser than
that. Again and again in these pages (All the Year Round) I have
expressed my interest 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 has 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 about 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 confidential intercourse between
you and me, have written you to this effect more than once.

"The statement of the London correspondent from beginning to end is
false. It is false in the letter and false in the spirit. He may
have been misinformed, 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 about it.

"As I hope to see you so soon, my dear Fields, and as I am busily at
work on the Christmas number, I will not make this a longer letter
than I can help. I thank you most heartily for your proffered
hospitality, and need not tell you that if I went to any friend's
house in America, I would go to yours. But the readings are very
hard work, and I think I cannot do better than observe the rule on
that side of the Atlantic which I observe on this,--of never, under
such circumstances, going to a friend's house, but always staying at
a hotel. I am able to observe it here, by being consistent and never
breaking it. If I am equally consistent there, I can (I hope) offend
no one.

"Dolby sends his love to you and all his friends (as I do), and is
girding up his loins vigorously.

"Ever, my dear Fields, heartily and affectionately yours,

"CHARLES DICKENS."

Before sailing in November he sent off this note to me from the office 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 have that walk among the autumn leaves, before the readings set in.

"You may have heard from Dolby that a gorgeous repast 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 belief that within the compass of a couple of minutes or so I can put it, with perfect truthfulness, in the light that my American friends would be best pleased to see me place it in. Either so, or my instinct is at fault.

"My daughters and their aunt unite with me in kindest loves. As I write, a shrill prolongation of the message comes in from the next room, 'Tell them to take care of you-u-u!'

"Tell Longfellow, with my love, that I am charged by Forster (who has been very ill of diffused gout and bronchitis) with a copy of his Sir John Eliot.

"I will bring you out the early proof of the Christmas number. We publish it here on the 12th of December. I am planning it (No Thoroughfare) out into a play for Wilkie Collins to manipulate after I sail, and have arranged for Fechter to go to the Adelphi Theatre and play a Swiss in it. It will be brought out the day after Christmas day.

"Here, at Boston Wharf, and everywhere else,

"Yours heartily and affectionately,

"C.D."

On a blustering evening in November, 1867, Dickens arrived in Boston Harbor, on his second visit to America. A few of his friends, under the guidance of the Collector of the port, steamed down in the custom-house boat to welcome him. It was pitch dark before we sighted the Cuba and ran alongside. The great steamer stopped for a few minutes to take us on board, and Dickens's cheery voice greeted me before I had time to distinguish him on the deck of the vessel. The news of the excitement the sale of the tickets to his readings had occasioned had been earned to him by the pilot, twenty miles out. He was in capital spirits over the cheerful 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 everywhere 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 went into one other house besides the Parker, habitually, 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 delivered the beautiful apostrophe 'Then, O, farewell,' struck on the heart like the swelling notes of some divine music, like the sound of years of departed happiness." There were thrills of pathos in Dickens's readings (of David Copperfield, for instance) which Kean himself never surpassed in dramatic effect.

He 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 quite ill from the effects of the disease, 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 would have felt compelled to do so; but he declared no man had a right to break an engagement with the public, if he were able to be out of bed. His 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 literary friends in Boston; but the day before it was to come off he was so ill he felt obliged to ask that the banquet might be given up. The strain upon his strength and nerves was 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 always noticed that when 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 with 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 Westminster in New York, everything was arranged by the proprietors for his comfort and happiness, and tempting dishes to pique his invalid appetite were sent up at different hours of the day, with the hope that he might be induced to try unwonted things and get up again the habit of eating more; but the influenza, that seized him with such masterful powder, held the strong man down till he left the country.

One of the first letters I had from him, after he had begun his reading tour, was dated from the Westminster Hotel in New York, on the 15th of January, 1868.

My Dear Fields: On coming back from Philadelphia just now (three
o'clock) I was welcomed by your cordial letter. It was a delightful
welcome and did me a world of good.

The cold remains just as it was (beastly), and where it was (in my
head). 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 they understood
the Carol better than Copperfield, but they were bright and
responsive as to both.--They also highly appreciated your friend Mr.
Jack Hopkins. A most excellent hotel there, and everything
satisfactory. While on the subject of satisfaction, I know you will
be pleased to hear that a long run is confidently expected for the
No Thoroughfare drama. Although the piece is well cast and well
played, my letters tell me that Fechter is so remarkably fine as to
play down the whole company. The Times, in its account of it, said
that "Mr. Fechter" (in the 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 Marguerite.

My dear fellow, you cannot miss me more than I miss you and yours.
And Heaven 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....

Rash youth! No presumptuous hand should try to make the punch,
except in the presence of the hoary sage who pens these lines. With
_him_ on the spot to perceive and avert impending failure, with
timely words of wisdom to arrest the erring hand and curb the
straying judgment, and, with such gentle expressions of
encouragement as his stern experience may justify, to cheer the
aspirant with faint hopes of future excellence,--with these
conditions observed, 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 night. ---- is on
guard. He made a most brilliant appearance before the Philadelphia
public, and looked hard at them. The mastery of his eye diverted
their attention from his boots: charming in themselves, but
(unfortunately) two left ones.

I send my hearty and enduring love. Your kindness to the British
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 alternate cold and
biling water running down her back ever since."

Ever, my dear Fields, your affectionate friend,

C.D.

His birthday, 7th of February, was spent in Washington, and on the 9th of the month he sent this little note from Baltimore:--

Baltimore, Sunday, February 9, 1868.

My Dear Fields: I thank you heartily for your pleasant note (I can
scarcely tell you _how_ pleasant it was to receive the same) and for
the beautiful flowers that you sent me on my birthday. For
which--and much more--my loving thanks to both.

In consequence of the Washington papers having referred to the
august 7th of this month, my room was on that day a blooming garden.
Nor were flowers alone represented there. The silversmith, the
goldsmith, the landscape-painter, all sent in their contributions.
After the reading was done at night, the whole 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 powerful in its firmness (or perhaps
obstinacy), 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 say) who must be killed to be got out of the way. His
manners, perfectly composed. We looked at one another pretty hard.
There was an air of chronic anxiety upon him. But not a crease or a
ruffle in his dress, and his papers were as composed as himself.
(Mr. Thornton was going in to deliver his credentials, immediately
afterwards.)

This day fortnight will find me, please God, in my "native Boston."
I wish I were there to-day.

Ever, my dear Fields, your affectionate friend,

CHARLES DICKENS, _Chairman Missionary Society._

When he returned 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, explaining why he could not go out on our accustomed walk.