Free Ebooks - YESTERDAYS WITH AUTHORS

YESTERDAYS WITH AUTHORS

By

JAMES T. FIELDS.

"Was it not yesterday we spoke together?"--SHAKESPEARE

Seventeenth Edition

BOSTON:
HOUGHTON, OSGOOD AND COMPANY
The Riverside Press, Cambridge

1879

* * * * *

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1871,
BY JAMES T. FIELDS,
in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington

University Press: Welch, Bigelow, & Co., Cambridge.

* * * * *
INSCRIBED

TO MY FELLOW-MEMBERS OF

THE SATURDAY CLUB.

* * * * *

Preface to the ebook Edition, produced by Keren Vergon and David Cortesi.

James Fields (1817-1881) at age 14 became a clerk in a bookstore in
Boston, and in a few years became a partner in the bookselling firm of
Ticknor, Reed and Fields.

Fields's firm became the publisher for most of the great American
writers of the Nineteenth Century. In this book, Fields tells how he
persuaded a jobless, despondent Nathaniel Hawthorne to let him print
"The Scarlet Letter."

Fields made frequent visits to England to land the American publishing
rights to the works of important British writers, including the great
superstar of the time, Charles Dickens. Dickens accepted Fields as a
personal friend, entertained him at his retreat, Gad's Hill, and wrote
him many amusing notes that are included here. Fields also socialized
with the cream of London literary society, and the book includes his
personal anecdotes of meeting Wordsworth, Thackeray, and others. He
formed a friendship with Mary Russell Mitford (a successful dramatist
and novelist of the day; two of her works are available in Project
Gutenberg editions) and she wrote him long, gossipy letters, reproduced
here.

The firm of Ticknor and Fields, after many mergers and acquisitions,
continues to exist today as Houghton Mifflin Books. The firm's original
store, the Old Corner Bookstore, still exists as a bookstore at the
corner of School and Washington streets in Boston.

* * * * *

CONTENTS.

I. INTRODUCTORY

II. THACKERAY

III. HAWTHORNE

IV. DICKENS

V. WORDSWORTH

VI. MISS MITFORD

VII. "BARRY CORNWALL" AND SOME OF HIS FRIENDS

INTRODUCTORY.

* * * * *

"_Some there are,
By their good works exalted, lofty minds
And meditative, authors of delight
And happiness, which to the end of time
Will live, and spread, and kindle_."
WORDSWORTH.

I. INTRODUCTORY.

Surrounded by the portraits of those I have long counted my friends, I
like to chat with the people about me concerning these pictures, my
companions on the wall, and the men and women they represent. These are
my assembled guests, who dropped in years ago and stayed with me,
without the form of invitation or demand on my time or thought. They are
my eloquent silent partners for life, and I trust they will dwell here
as long as I do. Some of them I have known intimately; several of them
lived in other times; but they are all my friends and associates in a
certain sense.

To converse with them and of them--

"When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past"--

is one of the delights of existence, and I am never tired of answering
questions about them, or gossiping of my own free will as to their
every-day life and manners.

If I were to call the little collection in this diminutive house a
_Gallery of Pictures_, in the usual sense of that title, many would
smile and remind me of what Foote said with his characteristic sharpness
of David Garrick, when he joined his brother Peter in the wine trade:
"Davy lived with three quarts of vinegar in the cellar, calling himself
a wine merchant."

My friends have often heard me in my "garrulous old age" discourse of
things past and gone, and know what they bring down on their heads when
they request me "to run over," as they call it, the faces looking out
upon us from these plain unvarnished frames.

Let us begin, then, with the little man of Twickenham, for that is his
portrait which hangs over the front fireplace. An original portrait of
Alexander Pope I certainly never expected to possess, and I must relate
how I came by it. Only a year ago I was strolling in my vagabond way up
and down the London streets, and dropped in to see an old
picture-shop,--kept by a man so thoroughly instructed in his calling
that it is always a pleasure to talk with him and examine his collection
of valuables, albeit his treasures are of such preciousness as to make
the humble purse of a commoner seem to shrink into a still smaller
compass from sheer inability to respond when prices are named. At No. 6
Pall Mall one is apt to find Mr. Graves "clipp'd round about" by
first-rate canvas. When I dropped in upon him that summer morning he had
just returned from the sale of the Marquis of Hastings's effects. The
Marquis, it will be remembered, went wrong, and his debts swallowed up
everything. It was a wretched stormy day when the pictures were sold,
and Mr. Graves secured, at very moderate prices, five original
portraits. All the paintings had suffered more or less decay, and some
of them, with their frames, had fallen to the floor. One of the best
preserved pictures inherited by the late Marquis was a portrait of Pope,
painted from life by Richardson for the Earl of Burlington, and even
that had been allowed to drop out of its oaken frame. Horace Walpole
says, Jonathan Richardson was undoubtedly one of the best painters of a
head that had appeared in England. He was pupil of the celebrated Riley,
the master of Hudson, of whom Sir Joshua took lessons in his art, and it
was Richardson's "Treatise on Painting" which inflamed the mind of
young Reynolds, and stimulated his ambition to become a great painter.
Pope seems to have had a real affection for Richardson, and probably sat
to him for this picture some time during the year 1732. In Pope's
correspondence there is a letter addressed to the painter making an
engagement with him for a several days' sitting, and it is quite
probable that the portrait before us was finished at that time. One can
imagine the painter and the poet chatting together day after day, in
presence of that canvas. During the same year Pope's mother died, at the
great age of ninety-three; and on the evening of June 10th, while she
lay dead in the house, Pope sent off the following heart-touching letter
from Twickenham to his friend the painter:--

"As you know you and I mutually desire to see one another, I hoped
that this day our wishes would have met, and brought you hither. And
this for the very reason which possibly might hinder your coming,
that my poor mother is dead. I thank God, her death was as easy as
her life was innocent; and as it cost her not a groan, or even a
sigh, there is yet upon her countenance such an expression of
tranquillity, nay, almost of pleasure, that it is even amiable to
behold it. It would afford the finest image of a saint expired that
ever painting drew; and it would be the greatest obligation which
even that obliging art could ever bestow on a friend, if you could
come and sketch it for me. I am sure, if there be no very prevalent
obstacle, you will leave any common business to do this; and I hope
to see you this evening, as late as you will, or to-morrow morning
as early, before this winter flower is faded. I will defer her
interment till to-morrow night. I know you love me, or I could not
have written this; I could not (at this time) have written at all.
Adieu! May you die as happily!"

Several eminent artists of that day painted the likeness of Pope, and
among them Sir Godfrey Kneller and Jervas, but I like the expression of
this one by Richardson best of all. The mouth, it will be observed, is
very sensitive and the eyes almost painfully so. It is told of the poet,
that when he was a boy "there was great sweetness in his look," and
that his face was plump and pretty, and that he had a very fresh
complexion. Continual study ruined his constitution and changed his
form, it is said. Richardson has skilfully kept out of sight the poor
little decrepit figure, and gives us only the beautiful head of a man of
genius. I scarcely know a face on canvas that expresses the poetical
sense in a higher degree than this one. The likeness must be perfect,
and I can imagine the delight of the Rev. Joseph Spence hobbling into
his presence on the 4th of September, 1735, after "a ragged boy of an
ostler came in with a little scrap of paper not half an inch broad,
which contained the following words: 'Mr. Pope would be very glad to see
Mr. Spence at the Cross Inn just now.'"

English literature is full of eulogistic mention of Pope. Thackeray is
one of the last great authors who has spoken golden words about the
poet. "Let us always take into account," he says, "that constant
tenderness and fidelity of affection which pervaded and sanctified his
life."

What pluck and dauntless courage possessed the "gallant little cripple"
of Twickenham! When all the dunces of England were aiming their
poisonous barbs at him, he said, "I had rather die at once, than live in
fear of those rascals." A vast deal that has been written about him is
untrue. No author has been more elaborately slandered on principle, or
more studiously abused through envy. Smarting dullards went about for
years, with an ever-ready microscope, hunting for flaws in his character
that might be injuriously exposed; but to-day his defamers are in bad
repute. Excellence in a fellow-mortal is to many men worse than death;
and great suffering fell upon a host of mediocre writers when Pope
uplifted his sceptre and sat supreme above them all.

Pope's latest champion is John Ruskin. Open his Lectures on Art,
recently delivered before the University of Oxford, and read passage
number seventy. Let us read it together, as we sit here in the presence
of the sensitive poet.

"I want you to think over the relation of expression to character in
two great masters of the absolute art of language, Virgil and Pope.
You are perhaps surprised at the last named; and indeed you have in
English much higher grasp and melody of language from more
passionate minds, but you have nothing else, in its range, so
perfect. I name, therefore, these two men, because they are the two
most accomplished _artists_, merely as such, whom I know, in
literature; and because I think you will be afterwards interested in
investigating how the infinite grace in the words of the one, the
severity in those of the other, and the precision in those of both,
arise wholly out of the moral elements of their minds,--out of the
deep tenderness in Virgil which enabled him to write the stories of
Nisus and Lausus, and the serene and just benevolence which placed
Pope, in his theology, two centuries in advance of his time, and
enabled him to sum the law of noble life in two lines which, so far
as I know, are the most complete, the most concise, and the most
lofty expression of moral temper existing in English words:--

'Never elated, while one man's oppressed;
Never dejected, while another's blessed.'

I wish you also to remember these lines of Pope, and to make
yourselves entirely masters of his system of ethics; because,
putting Shakespeare aside as rather the world's than ours, I hold
Pope to be the most perfect representative we have, since Chaucer,
of the true English mind; and I think the Dunciad is the most
absolutely chiselled and monumental work 'exacted' in our country.
You will find, as you study Pope, that he has expressed for you, in
the strictest language and within the briefest limits, every law of
art, of criticism, of economy, of policy, and, finally, of a
benevolence, humble, rational, and resigned, contented with its
allotted share of life, and trusting the problem of its salvation to
Him in whose hands lies that of the universe."

Glance up at the tender eyes of the poet, who seems to have been eagerly
listening while we have been reading Ruskin's beautiful tribute. As he
is so intent upon us, let me gratify still further the honest pride of
"the little nightingale," as they used to call him when he was a child,
and read to you from the "Causeries du Lundi" what that wise French
critic, Sainte-Beuve, has written of his favorite English poet:--

"The natural history of Pope is very simple: delicate persons, it
has been said, are unhappy, and he was doubly delicate, delicate of
mind, delicate and infirm of body; he was doubly irritable. But what
grace, what taste, what swiftness to feel, what justness and
perfection in expressing his feeling!... His first masters were
insignificant; he educated himself: at twelve years old he learned
Latin and Greek together, and almost without a master; at fifteen he
resolved to go to London, in order to learn French and Italian
there, by reading the authors. His family, retired from trade, and
Catholic, lived at this time upon an estate in the forest of
Windsor. This desire of his was considered as an odd caprice, for
his health from that time hardly permitted him to move about. He
persisted, and accomplished his project; he learned nearly
everything thus by himself, making his own choice among authors,
getting the grammar quite alone, and his pleasure was to translate
into verse the finest passages he met with among the Latin and Greek
poets. When he was about sixteen years old, he said, his taste was
formed as much as it was later.... If such a thing as literary
temperament exist, it never discovered itself in a manner more
clearly defined and more decided than with Pope. Men ordinarily
become classic by means of the fact and discipline of education; he
was so by vocation, so to speak, and by a natural originality. At
the same time with the poets, he read the best among the critics,
and prepared himself to speak after them.

* * * * *

"Pope had the characteristic sign of literary natures, the faithful
worship of genius.... He said one day to a friend: 'I have always
been particularly struck with this passage of Homer where he
represents to us Priam transported with grief for the loss of
Hector, on the point of breaking out into reproaches and invectives
against the servants who surrounded him and against his sons. It
would be impossible for me to read this passage without weeping over
the disasters of the unfortunate old king.' And then he took the
book, and tried to read aloud the passage, 'Go, wretches, curse of
my life,' but he was interrupted by tears.

* * * * *

"No example could prove to us better than his to what degree the
faculty of tender, sensitive criticism is an active faculty. We
neither feel nor perceive in this way when there is nothing to give
in return. This taste, this sensibility, so swift and alert, justly
supposes imagination behind it. It is said that Shelley, the first
time he heard the poem of 'Christabel' recited, at a certain
magnificent and terrible passage, took fright and suddenly fainted.
The whole poem of 'Alastor' was to be foreseen in that fainting.
Pope, not less sensitive in his way, could not read through that
passage of the Iliad without bursting into tears. To be a critic to
that degree, is to be a poet."

Thanks, eloquent and judicious scholar, so lately gone from the world of
letters! A love of what is best in art was the habit of Sainte-Beuve's
life, and so he too will be remembered as one who has kept the best
company in literature,--a man who cheerfully did homage to genius,
wherever and whenever it might be found.

I intend to leave as a legacy to a dear friend of mine an old faded
book, which I hope he will always prize as it deserves. It is a
well-worn, well-read volume, of no value whatever as an _edition_,--but
_it belonged to Abraham Lincoln_. It is his copy of "The Poetical Works
of Alexander Pope, Esq., to which is prefixed the life of the author by
Dr. Johnson." It bears the imprint on the title-page of J.J. Woodward,
Philadelphia, and was published in 1839. Our President wrote his own
name in it, and chronicles the fact that it was presented to him "by his
friend N.W. Edwards." In January, 1861, Mr. Lincoln gave the book to a
very dear friend of his, who honored me with it in January, 1867, as a
New-Year's present. As long as I live it will remain among my books,
specially treasured as having been owned and read by one of the noblest
and most sorely tried of men, a hero comparable with any of
Plutarch's,--

"The kindly-earnest, brave, foreseeing man,
Sagacious, patient, dreading praise, not blame,
New birth of our new soil, the first American."

THACKERAY

* * * * *

_What Emerson has said in his fine subtle way of Shakespeare may well be
applied to the author of "Vanity Fair."

"One can discern in his ample pictures what forms and humanities pleased
him; his delight in troops of friends, in large hospitality, in cheerful
giving._

* * * * *

_"He read the hearts of men and women, their probity, and their second
thought, and wiles; the wiles of innocence, and the transitions by which
virtues and vices slide into their contraries."_

II. THACKERAY.

Dear old Thackeray!--as everybody who knew him intimately calls him, now
he is gone. That is his face, looking out upon us, next to Pope's. What
a contrast in bodily appearance those two English men of genius present!
Thackeray's great burly figure, broad-chested, and ample as the day,
seems to overshadow and quite blot out of existence the author of "The
Essay on Man." But what friends they would have been had they lived as
contemporaries under Queen Anne or Queen Victoria! One can imagine the
author of "Pendennis" gently lifting poor little Alexander out of his
"chariot" into the club, and revelling in talk with him all night long.
Pope's high-bred and gentlemanly manner, combined with his extraordinary
sensibility and dread of ridicule, would have modified Thackeray's usual
gigantic fun and sometimes boisterous sarcasm into a rich and strange
adaptability to his little guest. We can imagine them talking together
now, with even a nobler wisdom and ampler charity than were ever
vouchsafed to them when they were busy amid the turmoils of their
crowded literary lives.

As a reader and lover of all that Thackeray has written and published,
as well as a personal friend, I will relate briefly something of his
literary habits as I can recall them. It is now nearly twenty years
since I first saw him and came to know him familiarly in London. I was
very much in earnest to have him come to America, and read his series
of lectures on "The English Humorists of the Eighteenth Century," and
when I talked the matter over with some of his friends at the little
Garrick Club, they all said he could never be induced to leave London
long enough for such an expedition. Next morning, after this talk at the
Garrick, the elderly damsel of all work announced to me, as I was taking
breakfast at my lodgings, that Mr. _Sackville_ had called to see me, and
was then waiting below. Very soon I heard a heavy tread on the stairs,
and then entered a tall, white-haired stranger, who held out his hand,
bowed profoundly, and with a most comical expression announced himself
as Mr. Sackville. Recognizing at once the face from published portraits,
I knew that my visitor was none other than Thackeray himself, who,
having heard the servant give the wrong name, determined to assume it on
this occasion. For years afterwards, when he would drop in unexpectedly,
both at home and abroad, he delighted to call himself Mr. Sackville,
until a certain Milesian waiter at the Tremont House addressed him as
Mr. Thack_uary_, when he adopted that name in preference to the other.

Questions are frequently asked as to the habits of thought and
composition of authors one has happened to know, as if an author's
friends were commonly invited to observe the growth of works he was by
and by to launch from the press. It is not customary for the doors of
the writer's work-shop to be thrown open, and for this reason it is all
the more interesting to notice, when it is possible, how an essay, a
history, a novel, or a poem is conceived, grows up, and is corrected for
publication. One would like very much to be informed how Shakespeare put
together the scenes of Hamlet or Macbeth, whether the subtile thought
accumulated easily on the page before him, or whether he struggled for
it with anxiety and distrust. We know that Milton troubled himself about
little matters of punctuation, and obliged the printer to take special
note of his requirements, scolding him roundly when he neglected his
instructions. We also know that Melanchthon was in his library hard at
work by two or three o'clock in the morning both in summer and winter,
and that Sir William Jones began his studies with the dawn.

The most popular female writer of America, whose great novel struck a
chord of universal sympathy throughout the civilized world, has habits
of composition peculiarly her own, and unlike those belonging to any
author of whom we have record. She _croons_, so to speak, over her
writings, and it makes very little difference to her whether there is a
crowd of people about her or whether she is alone during the composition
of her books. "Uncle Tom's Cabin" was wholly prepared for the press in a
little wooden house in Maine, from week to week, while the story was
coming out in a Washington newspaper. Most of it was written by the
evening lamp, on a pine table, about which the children of the family
were gathered together conning their various lessons for the next day.
Amid the busy hum of earnest voices, constantly asking questions of the
mother, intent on her world-renowned task, Mrs. Stowe wove together
those thrilling chapters which were destined to find readers in so many
languages throughout the globe. No work of similar importance, so far as
we know, was ever written amid so much that seemed hostile to literary
composition.

I had the opportunity, both in England and America, of observing the
literary habits of Thackeray, and it always seemed to me that he did his
work with comparative ease, but was somewhat influenced by a custom of
procrastination. Nearly all his stories were written in monthly
instalments for magazines, with the press at his heels. He told me that
when he began a novel he rarely knew how many people were to figure in
it, and, to use his own words, he was always very shaky about their
moral conduct. He said that sometimes, especially if he had been dining
late and did not feel in remarkably good-humor next morning, he was
inclined to make his characters villanously wicked; but if he rose
serene with an unclouded brain, there was no end to the lovely actions
he was willing to make his men and women perform. When he had written a
passage that pleased him very much he could not resist clapping on his
hat and rushing forth to find an acquaintance to whom he might instantly
read his successful composition. Gilbert Wakefield, universally
acknowledged to have been the best Greek scholar of his time, said he
would have turned out a much better one, if he had begun earlier to
study that language; but unfortunately he did not begin till he was
fifteen years of age. Thackeray, in quoting to me this saying of
Wakefield, remarked: "My English would have been very much better if I
had read Fielding before I was ten." This observation was a valuable
hint, on the part of Thackeray, as to whom he considered his master in
art.

James Hannay paid Thackeray a beautiful compliment when he said: "If he
had had his choice he would rather have been famous as an artist than as
a writer; but it was destined that he should paint in colors which will
never crack and never need restoration." Thackeray's characters are,
indeed, not so much _inventions_ as _existences_, and we know them as we
know our best friends or our most intimate enemies.

When I was asked, the other day, which of his books I like best, I gave
the old answer to a similar question. "_The last one I read_." If I
could possess only _one_ of his works, I think I should choose "Henry
Esmond." To my thinking, it is a marvel in literature, and I have read
it oftener than any of the other works. Perhaps the reason of my
partiality lies somewhat in this little incident. One day, in the snowy
winter of 1852, I met Thackeray sturdily ploughing his way down Beacon
Street with a copy of "Henry Esmond" (the English edition, then just
issued) under his arm. Seeing me some way off, he held aloft the volumes
and began to shout in great glee. When I came up to him he cried out,
"Here is the _very_ best I can do, and I am carrying it to Prescott as a
reward of merit for having given me my first dinner in America. I stand
by this book, and am willing to leave it, when I go, as my card."

As he wrote from month to month, and liked to put off the inevitable
chapters till the last moment, he was often in great tribulation. I
happened to be one of a large company whom he had invited to a
six-o'clock dinner at Greenwich one summer afternoon, several years ago.
We were all to go down from London, assemble in a particular room at the
hotel, where he was to meet us at six o'clock, _sharp_. Accordingly we
took steamer and gathered ourselves together in the reception-room at
the appointed time. When the clock struck six, our host had not
fulfilled his part of the contract. His burly figure was yet wanting
among the company assembled. As the guests were nearly all strangers to
each other, and as there was no one present to introduce us, a profound
silence fell upon the room, and we anxiously looked out of the windows,
hoping every moment that Thackeray would arrive. This untoward state of
things went on for one hour, still no Thackeray and no dinner. English
reticence would not allow any remark as to the absence of our host.
Everybody felt serious and a gloom fell upon the assembled party. Still
no Thackeray. The landlord, the butler, and the waiters rushed in and
out the room, shrieking for the master of the feast, who as yet had not
arrived. It was confidentially whispered by a fat gentleman, with a
hungry look, that the dinner was utterly spoiled twenty minutes ago,
when we heard a merry shout in the entry and Thackeray bounced into the
room. He had not changed his morning dress, and ink was still visible
upon his fingers. Clapping his hands and pirouetting briskly on one leg,
he cried out, "Thank Heaven, the last sheet of The Virginians has just
gone to the printer." He made no apology for his late appearance,
introduced nobody, shook hands heartily with everybody, and begged us
all to be seated as quickly as possible. His exquisite delight at
completing his book swept away every other feeling, and we all shared
his pleasure, albeit the dinner was overdone throughout.

The most finished and elegant of all _lecturers_, Thackeray often made a
very poor appearance when he attempted to deliver a set speech to a
public assembly. He frequently broke down after the first two or three
sentences. He prepared what he intended to say with great exactness, and
his favorite delusion was that he was about to astonish everybody with a
remarkable effort. It never disturbed him that he commonly made a woful
failure when he attempted speech-making, but he sat down with such cool
serenity if he found that he could not recall what he wished to say,
that his audience could not help joining in and smiling with him when he
came to a stand-still. Once he asked me to travel with him from London
to Manchester to hear a great speech he was going to make at the
founding of the Free Library Institution in that city. All the way down
he was discoursing of certain effects he intended to produce on the
Manchester dons by his eloquent appeals to their pockets. This passage
was to have great influence with the rich merchants, this one with the
clergy, and so on. He said that although Dickens and Bulwer and Sir
James Stephen, all eloquent speakers, were to precede him, he intended
to beat each of them on this special occasion. He insisted that I
should be seated directly in front of him, so that I should have the
full force of his magic eloquence. The occasion was a most brilliant
one; tickets had been in demand at unheard-of prices several weeks
before the day appointed; the great hall, then opened for the first time
to the public, was filled by an audience such as is seldom convened,
even in England. The three speeches which came before Thackeray was
called upon were admirably suited to the occasion, and most eloquently
spoken. Sir John Potter, who presided, then rose, and after some
complimentary allusions to the author of "Vanity Fair," introduced him
to the crowd, who welcomed him with ringing plaudits. As he rose, he
gave me a half-wink from under his spectacles, as if to say: "Now for
it; the others have done very well, but I will show 'em a grace beyond
the reach of their art." He began in a clear and charming manner, and
was absolutely perfect for three minutes. In the middle of a most
earnest and elaborate sentence he suddenly stopped, gave a look of comic
despair at the ceiling, crammed both hands into his trousers' pockets,
and deliberately sat down. Everybody seemed to understand that it was
one of Thackeray's unfinished speeches and there were no signs of
surprise or discontent among his audience. He continued to sit on the
platform in a perfectly composed manner; and when the meeting was over
he said to me, without a sign of discomfiture, "My boy, you have my
profoundest sympathy; this day you have accidentally missed hearing one
of the finest speeches ever composed for delivery by a great British
orator." And I never heard him mention the subject again.

Thackeray rarely took any exercise, thus living in striking contrast to
the other celebrated novelist of our time, who was remarkable for the
number of hours he daily spent in the open air. It seems to be almost
certain now, from concurrent testimony, gathered from physicians and
those who knew him best in England, that Thackeray's premature death was
hastened by an utter disregard of the natural laws. His vigorous frame
gave ample promise of longevity, but he drew too largely on his brain
and not enough on his legs. _High_ living and high _thinking_, he used
to say, was the correct reading of the proverb.

He was a man of the tenderest feelings, very apt to be cajoled into
doing what the world calls foolish things, and constantly performing
feats of unwisdom, which performances he was immoderately laughing at
all the while in his books. No man has impaled snobbery with such a
stinging rapier, but he always accused himself of being a snob, past all
cure. This I make no doubt was one of his exaggerations, but there was a
grain of truth in the remark, which so sharp an observer as himself
could not fail to notice, even though the victim was so near home.

Thackeray announced to me by letter in the early autumn of 1852 that he
had determined to visit America, and would sail for Boston by the Canada
on the 30th of October. All the necessary arrangements for his lecturing
tour had been made without troubling him with any of the details. He
arrived on a frosty November evening, and went directly to the Tremont
House, where rooms had been engaged for him. I remember his delight in
getting off the sea, and the enthusiasm with which he hailed the
announcement that dinner would be ready shortly. A few friends were
ready to sit down with him, and he seemed greatly to enjoy the novelty
of an American repast. In London he had been very curious in his
inquiries about American oysters, as marvellous stories, which
he did not believe, had been told him of their great size. We
apologized--although we had taken care that the largest specimens to be
procured should startle his unwonted vision when he came to the
table--for what we called the extreme _smallness_ of the oysters,
promising that we would do better next time. Six bloated Falstaffian
bivalves lay before him in their shells. I noticed that he gazed at them
anxiously with fork upraised; then he whispered to me, with a look of
anguish, "How shall I do it?" I described to him the simple process by
which the free-born citizens of America were accustomed to accomplish
such a task. He seemed satisfied that the thing was feasible, selected
the smallest one in the half-dozen (rejecting a large one, "because," he
said, "it resembled the High Priest's servant's ear that Peter cut off")
and then bowed his head as if he were saying grace. All eyes were upon
him to watch the effect of a new sensation in the person of a great
British author. Opening his mouth very wide, he struggled for a moment,
and then all was over. I shall never forget the comic look of despair he
cast upon the other five over-occupied shells. I broke the perfect
stillness by asking him how he felt. "Profoundly grateful," he gasped,
"and as if I had swallowed a little baby." It was many years ago since
we gathered about him on that occasion, but, if my memory serves me, we
had what might be called _a pleasant evening_. Indeed, I remember much
hilarity, and sounds as of men laughing and singing far into midnight. I
could not deny, if called upon to testify in court, that we had a _good
time_ on that frosty November evening.

We had many happy days and nights together both in England and America,
but I remember none happier than that evening we passed with him when
the Punch people came to dine at his own table with the silver statuette
of Mr. Punch in full dress looking down upon the hospitable board from
the head of the table. This silver figure always stood in a conspicuous
place when Tom Taylor, Mark Lemon, Shirley Brooks, and the rest of his
jolly companions and life-long cronies were gathered together. If I were
to say here that there were any dull moments on _that_ occasion, I
should not expect to be strictly believed.

Thackeray's playfulness was a marked peculiarity; a great deal of the
time he seemed like a school-boy, just released from his task. In the
midst of the most serious topic under discussion he was fond of asking
permission to sing a comic song, or he would beg to be allowed to
enliven the occasion by the instant introduction of a brief
double-shuffle. Barry Cornwall told me that when he and Charles Lamb
were once making up a dinner-party together, Charles asked him not to
invite a certain lugubrious friend of theirs. "Because," said Lamb, "he
would cast a damper even over a funeral." I have often contrasted the
habitual qualities of that gloomy friend of theirs with the astounding
spirits of both Thackeray and Dickens. They always seemed to me to be
standing in the sunshine, and to be constantly warning other people out
of cloudland. During Thackeray's first visit to America his jollity knew
no bounds, and it became necessary often to repress him when he was
walking in the street. I well remember his uproarious shouting and
dancing when he was told that the tickets to his first course of
readings were all sold, and when we rode together from his hotel to the
lecture-hall he insisted on thrusting both his long legs out of the
carriage window, in deference, as he said, to his magnanimous
ticket-holders. An instance of his procrastination occurred the evening
of his first public appearance in America. His lecture was advertised to
take place at half past seven, and when he was informed of the hour, he
said he would try and be ready at eight o'clock, but thought it very
doubtful. Horrified at this assertion, I tried to impress upon him the
importance of punctuality on this, the night of his first bow to an
American audience. At a quarter past seven I called for him, and found
him not only unshaved and undressed for the evening, but rapturously
absorbed in making a pen-and-ink drawing to illustrate a passage in
Goethe's Sorrows of Werther, for a lady, which illustration,--a charming
one, by the way, for he was greatly skilled in drawing,--he vowed he
would finish before he would budge an inch in the direction of the (I
omit the adjective) Melodeon. A comical incident occurred just as he was
about leaving the hall, after his first lecture in Boston. A shabby,
ungainly looking man stepped briskly up to him in the anteroom, seized
his hand and announced himself as "proprietor of the Mammoth Rat," and
proposed to exchange season tickets. Thackeray, with the utmost gravity,
exchanged cards and promised to call on the wonderful quadruped next
day.

Thackeray's motto was 'Avoid performing to-day, if possible, what can be
postponed till to-morrow.' Although he received large sums for his
writings, he managed without much difficulty to keep his expenditures
fully abreast, and often in advance of, his receipts. His pecuniary
object in visiting America the second time was to lay up, as he said, a
"pot of money" for his two daughters, and he left the country with more
than half his lecture engagements unfulfilled. He was to have visited
various cities in the Middle and Western States; but he took up a
newspaper one night, in his hotel in New York, before retiring, saw a
steamer advertised to sail the next morning for England, was seized with
a sudden fit of homesickness, rang the bell for his servant, who packed
up his luggage that night, and the next day he sailed. The first
intimation I had of his departure was a card which he sent by the pilot
of the steamer, with these words upon it: "Good by, Fields; good by,
Mrs. Fields; God bless everybody, says W.M.T." Of course he did not
avail himself of the opportunity afforded him for receiving a very large
sum in America, and he afterwards told me in London, that if Mr. Astor
had offered him half his fortune if he would allow that particular
steamer to sail without him, he should have declined the
well-intentioned but impossible favor, and gone on board.

No man has left behind him a tenderer regard for his genius and foibles
among his friends than Thackeray. He had a natural love of good which
nothing could wholly blur or destroy. He was a most generous critic of
the writings of his contemporaries, and no one has printed or spoken
warmer praise of Dickens, in one sense his great rival, than he.

Thackeray was not a voluminous correspondent, but what exquisite letters
he has left in the hands of many of his friends! "Should any letters
arrive," he says in a little missive from Philadelphia, "addressed to
the care of J.T.F. for the ridiculous author of this, that, and the
other, F. is requested to send them to Mercantile Library, Baltimore. My
ghostly enemy will be delighted (or will gnash his teeth with rage) to
hear that the lectures in the capital of Pa. have been very well
attended. No less than 750 people paid at the door on Friday night, and
though last night there was a storm of snow so furious that no
reasonable mortal could face it, 500 (at least) amiable maniacs were in
the lecture-room, and wept over the fate of the last king of these
colonies."

Almost every day, while he was lecturing in America, he would send off
little notes exquisitely written in point of penmanship, and sometimes
embellished with characteristic pen-drawings. Having attended an
extemporaneous supper festival at "Porter's," he was never tired of
"going again." Here is a scrap of paper holding these few words,
written in 1852.

"Nine o'clock, P.M. Tremont.

"Arrangements have just been concluded for a meeting _somewhere_
to-night, which we much desire you should attend. Are you equal to
two nights running of good time?"

Then follows a pen portrait of a friend of his with a cloven foot and a
devil's tail just visible under his cloak Sometimes, to puzzle his
correspondent, he would write in so small a hand that the note could not
be read without the aid of a magnifying-glass. Calligraphy was to him
one of the fine arts, and he once told Dr. John Brown of Edinburgh, that
if all trades failed, he would earn sixpences by writing the Lord's
Prayer and the Creed (not the Athanasian) in the size of that coin. He
greatly delighted in rhyming and lisping notes and billets. Here is one
of them, dated from Baltimore without signature:--

"Dear F----th! The thanguinary fateth (I don't know what their anger
meanth) brought me your letter of the eighth, yethterday, only the
fifteenth! What blunder cauthed by chill delay (thee Doctor
Johnthon'th noble verthe) Thuth kept my longing thoul away, from all
that motht I love on earth? Thankth for the happy contenth!--thothe
Dithpatched to J.G.K. and Thonth, and that thmall letter you
inclothe from Parith, from my dearetht oneth! I pray each month may
tho increathe my thmall account with J.G. King, that all the thipth
which croth the theath, good tidingth of my girlth may bring!--that
every blething fortune yieldth, I altho pray, may come to path on
Mithter and Mrth. J.T. F----th, and all good friendth in Bothton,
Math.!"

While he was staying at the Clarendon Hotel, in New York, every
morning's mail brought a few lines, sometimes only one line, sometimes
only two words, from him, reporting progress. One day he tells me:
"Immense hawdience last night." Another day he says: "Our shares look
very much up this morning." On the 29th of November, 1852, he writes:
"I find I have a much bigger voice than I knew of, and am not afraid of
anybody." At another time he writes: "I make no doubt you have seen that
admirable paper, the New York Herald, and are aware of the excellent
reception my lectures are having in this city. It was a lucky Friday
when first I set foot in this country. I have nearly saved the fifty
dollars you lent me in Boston." In a letter from Savannah, dated the
19th of March, 1853, in answer to one I had written to him, telling him
that a charming epistle, which accompanied the gift of a silver mug he
had sent to me some time before, had been stolen from me, he says:--

"My dear fellow, I remember I asked you in that letter to accept a
silver mug in token of our pleasant days together, and to drink a
health sometimes in it to a sincere friend.... Smith and Elder write
me word they have sent by a Cunard to Boston a packet of paper,
stamped etc. in London. I want it to be taken from the Custom-House,
dooties paid etc., and dispatched to Miss ----, New York. Hold your
tongue, and don't laugh, you rogue. Why shouldn't she have her
paper, and I my pleasure, without your wicked, wicked sneers and
imperence? I'm only a cipher in the young lady's estimation, and why
shouldn't I sigh for her if I like. I hope I shall see you all at
Boston before very long. I always consider Boston as my native
place, you know."

I wish I could recall half the incidents connected with the dear, dear
old Thackeray days, when I saw him so constantly and enjoyed him so
hugely; but, alas! many of them are gone, with much more that is lovely
and would have been of _good report_, could they be now
remembered;--they are dead as--(Holmes always puts your simile quite
right for you),--

"Dead as the bulrushes round little Moses,
On the old banks of the Nile."

But while I sit here quietly, and have no fear of any bad,
unsympathizing listeners who might, if some other subject were up,
frown upon my levity, let me walk through the dusky chambers of my
memory and report what I find there, just as the records turn up,
without regard to method.

I once made a pilgrimage with Thackeray (at my request, of course, the
visits were planned) to the various houses where his books had been
written; and I remember when we came to Young Street, Kensington, he
said, with mock gravity, "Down on your knees, you rogue, for here
'Vanity Fair' was penned! And I will go down with you, for I have a high
opinion of that little production myself." He was always perfectly
honest in his expressions about his own writings, and it was delightful
to hear him praise them when he could depend on his listeners. A friend
congratulated him once on that touch in "Vanity Fair" in which Becky
"_admires_" her husband when he is giving Steyne the punishment which
ruins _her_ for life. "Well," he said, "when I wrote the sentence, I
slapped my fist on the table and said, _'That_ is a touch of genius!'"

He told me he was nearly forty years old before he was recognized in
literature as belonging to a class of writers at all above the ordinary
magazinists of his day. "I turned off far better things then than I do
now," said he, "and I wanted money sadly, (my parents were rich but
respectable, and I had spent my guineas in my youth,) but how little I
got for my work! It makes me laugh," he continued, "at what The Times
pays me now, when I think of the old days, and how much better I wrote
for them then, and got a shilling where I now get ten."

One day he wanted a little service done for a friend, and I remember his
very quizzical expression, as he said, "Please say the favor asked will
greatly oblige a man of the name of Thackeray, whose only recommendation
is, that he has seen Napoleon and Goethe, and is the owner of Schiller's
sword."

I think he told me he and Tennyson were at one time intimate; but I
distinctly remember a description he gave me of having heard the poet,
when a young man, storming about in the first rapture of composing his
poem of "Ulysses." One line of it Tennyson greatly revelled in,--

"And see the great Achilles, whom we knew."

"He went through the streets," said Thackeray, "screaming about his
great Achilles, whom we knew," as if we had all made the acquaintance of
that gentleman, and were very proud of it.

One of the most comical and interesting occasions I remember, in
connection with Thackeray, was going with him to a grand concert given
fifteen or twenty years ago by Madame Sontag. We sat near an entrance
door in the hall, and every one who came in, male and female, Thackeray
pretended to know, and gave each one a name and brief chronicle, as the
presence flitted by. It was in Boston, and as he had been in town only a
day or two, and knew only half a dozen people in it, the biographies
were most amusing. As I happened to know several people who passed, it
was droll enough to hear this great master of character give them their
dues. Mr. Choate moved along in his regal, affluent manner. The large
style of the man, so magnificent and yet so modest, at once arrested
Thackeray's attention, and he forbore to place him in his extemporaneous
catalogue. I remember a pallid, sharp-faced girl fluttering past, and
how Thackeray exulted in the history of this "frail little bit of
porcelain," as he called her. There was something in her manner that
made him hate her, and he insisted she had murdered somebody on her way
to the hall. Altogether this marvellous prelude to the concert made a
deep impression on Thackeray's one listener, into whose ear he whispered
his fatal insinuations. There is one man still living and moving about
the streets I walk in occasionally, whom I never encounter without
almost a shudder, remembering as I do the unerring shaft which Thackeray
sent that night into the unknown man's character.

One day, many years ago, I saw him chaffing on the sidewalk in London,
in front of the Athenaeum Club, with a monstrous-sized, "copiously
ebriose" cabman, and I judged from the driver's ludicrously careful way
of landing the coin deep down in his breeches-pocket, that Thackeray had
given him a very unusual fare. "Who is your fat friend?" I asked,
crossing over to shake hands with him. "O, that indomitable youth is an
old crony of mine," he replied; and then, quoting Falstaff, "a goodly,
portly man, i' faith, and a corpulent, of a cheerful look, a pleasing
eye, and a most noble _carriage_." It was the _manner_ of saying this,
then, and there in the London street, the cabman moving slowly off on
his sorry vehicle, with one eye (an eye dewy with gin and water, and a
tear of gratitude, perhaps) on Thackeray, and the great man himself so
jovial and so full of kindness!

It was a treat to hear him, as I once did, discourse of Shakespeare's
probable life in Stratford among his neighbors. He painted, as he alone
could paint, the great poet sauntering about the lanes without the
slightest show of greatness, having a crack with the farmers, and in
very earnest talk about the crops. "I don't believe," said Thackeray,
"that these village cronies of his ever looked upon him as the mighty
poet,

'Sailing with supreme dominion
Through the azure deep of air,'

but simply as a wholesome, good-natured citizen, with whom it was always
pleasant to have a chat. I can see him now," continued Thackeray,
"leaning over a cottage gate, and tasting good Master Such-a-one's
home-brewed, and inquiring with a real interest after the mistress and
her children." Long before he put it into his lecture, I heard him say
in words to the same effect: "I should like to have been Shakespeare's
shoe-black, just to have lived in his house, just to have worshipped
him, to have run on his errands, and seen that sweet, serene face." To
have heard Thackeray depict, in his own charming manner, and at
considerable length, the imaginary walks and talks of Shakespeare, when
he would return to his home from occasional visits to London, pouring
into the ready ears of his unsophisticated friends and neighbors the
gossip from town which he thought would be likely to interest them, is
something to remember all one's days.

The enormous circulation achieved by the Cornhill Magazine, when it was
first started with Thackeray for its editor in chief, is a matter of
literary history. The announcement by his publishers that a sale of a
hundred and ten thousand of the first number had been reached made the
editor half delirious with joy, and he ran away to Paris to be rid of
the excitement for a few days. I met him by appointment at his hotel in
the Rue de la Paix, and found him wild with exultation and full of
enthusiasm for excellent George Smith, his publisher. "London," he
exclaimed, "is not big enough to contain me now, and I am obliged to add
Paris to my residence! Great heavens," said he, throwing up his long
arms, "where will this tremendous circulation stop! Who knows but that I
shall have to add Vienna and Rome to my whereabouts? If the worst comes
to the worst, New York, also, may fall into my clutches, and only the
Rocky Mountains may be able to stop my progress!" Those days in Paris
with him were simply tremendous. We dined at all possible and impossible
places together. We walked round and round the glittering court of the
Palais Royal, gazing in at the windows of the jewellers' shops, and all
my efforts were necessary to restrain him from rushing in and ordering a
pocketful of diamonds and "other trifles," as he called them; "for,"
said he, "how can I spend the princely income which Smith allows me for
editing the Cornhill, unless I begin instantly somewhere?" If he saw a
group of three or four persons talking together in an excited way, after
the manner of that then riant Parisian people, he would whisper to me
with immense gesticulation: "There, there, you see the news has reached
Paris, and perhaps the number has gone up since my last accounts from
London." His spirits during those few days were colossal, and he told me
that he found it impossible to sleep, "for counting up his subscribers."

I happened to know personally (and let me modestly add, with some degree
of sympathy) what he suffered editorially, when he had the charge and
responsibility of a magazine. With first-class contributors he got on
very well, he said, but the extortioners and revilers bothered the very
life out of him. He gave me some amusing accounts of his
misunderstandings with the "fair" (as he loved to call them), some of
whom followed him up so closely with their poetical compositions, that
his house (he was then living in Onslow Square) was never free of
interruption. "The darlings demanded," said he, "that I should re-write,
if I could not understand their ---- nonsense and put their halting
lines into proper form." "I was so appalled," said he, "when they set
upon me with their 'ipics and their ipecacs,' that you might have
knocked me down with a feather, sir. It was insupportable, and I fled
away into France." As he went on, waxing drolly furious at the
recollection of various editorial scenes, I could not help remembering
Mr. Yellowplush's recommendation, thus characteristically expressed:
"Take my advice, honrabble sir,--listen to a humble footmin: it's
genrally best in poatry to understand puffickly what you mean yourself,
and to igspress your meaning clearly afterwoods,--in the simpler words
the better, p'r'aps."

He took very great delight in his young daughter's first contributions
to the Cornhill, and I shall always remember how he made me get into a
cab, one day in London, that I might hear, as we rode along, the joyful
news he had to impart, that he had just been reading his daughter's
first paper, which was entitled "Little Scholars." "When I read it,"
said he, "I blubbered like a child, it is so good, so simple, and so
honest; and my little girl wrote it, every word of it."

During his second visit to Boston I was asked to invite him to attend an
evening meeting of a scientific club, which was to be held at the house
of a distinguished member. I was very reluctant to ask him to be
present, for I knew he could be easily bored, and I was fearful that a
prosy essay or geological speech might ensue, and I knew he would be
exasperated with me, even although I were the _innocent_ cause of his
affliction. My worst fears were realized. We had hardly got seated,
before a dull, bilious-looking old gentleman rose, and applied his auger
with such pertinacity that we were all bored nearly to distraction. I
dared not look at Thackeray, but I felt that his eye was upon me. My
distress may be imagined, when he got up quite deliberately from the
prominent place where a chair had been set for him, and made his exit
very noiselessly into a small anteroom leading into the larger room, and
in which no one was sitting. The small apartment was dimly lighted, but
he knew that I knew _he_ was there. Then commenced a series of
pantomimic feats impossible to describe adequately. He threw an
imaginary person (myself, of course) upon the floor, and proceeded to
stab him several times with a paper-folder, which he caught up for the
purpose. After disposing of his victim in this way, he was not
satisfied, for the dull lecture still went on in the other room, and he
fired an imaginary revolver several times at an imaginary head. Still,
the droning speaker proceeded with his frozen subject (it was something
about the Arctic regions, if I remember rightly), and now began the
greatest pantomimic scene of all, namely, murder by poison, after the
manner in which the player king is disposed of in Hamlet. Thackeray had
found a small vial on the mantel-shelf, and out of that he proceeded to
pour the imaginary "juice of cursed hebenon" into the imaginary porches
of somebody's ears. The whole thing was inimitably done, and I hoped
nobody saw it but myself; but years afterwards, a ponderous, fat-witted
young man put the question squarely to me: "What _was_ the matter with
Mr. Thackeray, that night the club met at Mr ----'s house?"

Overhearing me say one morning something about the vast attractions of
London to a greenhorn like myself, he broke in with, "Yes, but you have
not seen the grandest one yet! Go with me to-day to St. Paul's and hear
the charity children sing." So we went, and I saw the "head cynic of
literature," the "hater of humanity," as a critical dunce in the Times
once called him, hiding his bowed face, wet with tears, while his whole
frame shook with emotion, as the children of poverty rose to pour out
their anthems of praise. Afterwards he wrote in one of his books this
passage, which seems to me perfect in its feeling and tone:--

"And yet there is one day in the year when I think St. Paul's
presents the noblest sight in the whole world; when five thousand
charity children, with cheeks like nosegays, and sweet, fresh
voices, sing the hymn which makes every heart thrill with praise and
happiness. I have seen a hundred grand sights in the
world,--coronations, Parisian splendors, Crystal Palace openings,
Pope's chapels with their processions of long-tailed cardinals and
quavering choirs of fat soprani,--but think in all Christendom there
is no such sight as Charity Children's day. _Non Anglei, sed
angeli_. As one looks at that beautiful multitude of innocents; as
the first note strikes; indeed one may almost fancy that cherubs are
singing."

I parted with Thackeray for the last time in the street, at midnight, in
London, a few months before his death. The Cornhill Magazine, under his
editorship, having proved a very great success, grand dinners were given
every month in honor of the new venture. We had been sitting late at one
of these festivals, and, as it was getting toward morning, I thought it
wise, as far as I was concerned, to be moving homeward before the sun
rose. Seeing my intention to withdraw, he insisted on driving me in his
brougham to my lodgings. When we reached the outside door of our host,
Thackeray's servant, seeing a stranger with his master, touched his hat
and asked where he should drive us. It was then between one and two
o'clock,--time certainly for all decent diners out to be at rest.
Thackeray put on one of his most quizzical expressions, and said to
John, in answer to his question, "I think we will make a morning call on
the Lord Bishop of London." John knew his master's quips and cranks too
well to suppose he was in earnest, so I gave him my address, and we went
on. When we reached my lodgings the clocks were striking two, and the
early morning air was raw and piercing. Opposing all my entreaties for
leave-taking in the carriage, he insisted upon getting out on the
sidewalk and escorting me up to my door, saying, with a mock heroic
protest to the heavens above us, "That it would be shameful for a
full-blooded Britisher to leave an unprotected Yankee friend exposed to
ruffians, who prowl about the streets with an eye to plunder." Then
giving me a gigantic embrace, he sang a verse of which he knew me to be
very fond; and so vanished out of my sight the great-hearted author of
"Pendennis" and "Vanity Fair." But I think of him still as moving, in
his own stately way, up and down the crowded thoroughfares of London,
dropping in at the Garrick, or sitting at the window of the Athenaeum
Club, and watching the stupendous tide of life that is ever moving past
in that wonderful city.

Thackeray was a _master_ in every sense, having as it were, in himself,
a double quantity of being. Robust humor and lofty sentiment alternated
so strangely in him, that sometimes he seemed like the natural son of
Rabelais, and at others he rose up a very twin brother of the Stratford
Seer. There was nothing in him amorphous and unconsidered. Whatever he
chose to do was always perfectly done. There was a genuine Thackeray
flavor in everything he was willing to say or to write. He detected with
unfailing skill the good or the vile wherever it existed. He had an
unerring eye, a firm understanding, and abounding truth. "Two of his
great master powers," said the chairman at a dinner given to him many
years ago in Edinburgh, "are _satire_ and _sympathy_." George Brimley
remarked, "That he could not have painted Vanity Fair as he has, unless
Eden had been shining in his inner eye." He had, indeed, an awful
insight, with a world of solemn tenderness and simplicity, in his
composition. Those who heard the same voice that withered the memory of
King George the Fourth repeat "The spacious firmament on high" have a
recollection not easily to be blotted from the mind, and I have a kind
of pity for all who were born so recently as not to have heard and
understood Thackeray's Lectures. But they can read him, and I beg of
them to try and appreciate the tenderer phase of his genius, as well as
the sarcastic one. He teaches many lessons to young men, and here is one
of them, which I quote _memoriter_ from "Barry Lyndon": "Do you not, as
a boy, remember waking of bright summer mornings and finding your mother
looking over you? had not the gaze of her tender eyes stolen into your
senses long before you woke, and cast over your slumbering spirit a
sweet spell of peace, and love, and fresh-springing joy?" My dear
friend, John Brown, of Edinburgh (whom may God long preserve to both
countries where he is so loved and honored), chronicles this touching
incident. "We cannot resist here recalling one Sunday evening in
December, when Thackeray was walking with two friends along the Dean
Road, to the west of Edinburgh,--one of the noblest outlets to any city.
It was a lovely evening; such a sunset as one never forgets; a rich dark
bar of cloud hovered over the sun, going down behind the Highland hills,
lying bathed in amethystine bloom; between this cloud and the hills
there was a narrow slip of the pure ether, of a tender cowslip color,
lucid, and as if it were the very body of heaven in its clearness; every
object standing out as if etched upon the sky. The northwest end of
Corstorphine Hill, with its trees and rocks, lay in the heart of this
pure radiance; and there a wooden crane, used in the granary below, was
so placed as to assume the figure of a cross; there it was,
unmistakable, lifted up against the crystalline sky. All three gazed at
it silently. As they gazed, Thackeray gave utterance in a tremulous,
gentle, and rapid voice to what all were feeling, in the word,
'CALVARY!' The friends walked on in silence, and then turned to other
things. All that evening he was very gentle and serious, speaking, as he
seldom did, of divine things,--of death, of sin, of eternity, of
salvation, expressing his simple faith in God and in his Saviour."

Thackeray was found dead in his bed on Christmas morning, and he
probably died without pain. His mother and his daughters were sleeping
under the same roof when he passed away alone. Dickens told me that,
looking on him as he lay in his coffin, he wondered that the figure he
had known in life as one of such noble presence could seem so shrunken
and wasted; but there had been years of sorrow, years of labor, years of
pain, in that now exhausted life. It was his happiest Christmas morning
when he heard the Voice calling him homeward to unbroken rest.

HAWTHORNE.

* * * * *

_A hundred years ago Henry Vaughan seems almost to have anticipated
Hawthorne's appearance when he wrote that beautiful line,_

"_Feed on the vocal silence of his eye_."

III. HAWTHORNE.

I am sitting to-day opposite the likeness of the rarest genius America
has given to literature,--a man who lately sojourned in this busy world
of ours, but during many years of his life

"Wandered lonely as a cloud,"--

a man who had, so to speak, a physical affinity with solitude. The
writings of this author have never soiled the public mind with one
unlovely image. His men and women have a magic of their own, and we
shall wait a long time before another arises among us to take his place.
Indeed, it seems probable no one will ever walk precisely the same round
of fiction which he traversed with so free and firm a step.

The portrait I am looking at was made by Rowse (an exquisite drawing),
and is a very truthful representation of the head of Nathaniel
Hawthorne. He was several times painted and photographed, but it was
impossible for art to give the light and beauty of his wonderful eyes. I
remember to have heard, in the literary circles of Great Britain, that,
since Burns, no author had appeared there with a finer face than
Hawthorne's. Old Mrs. Basil Montagu told me, many years ago, that she
sat next to Burns at dinner, when he appeared in society in the first
flush of his fame, after the Edinburgh edition of his poems had been
published. She said, among other things, that, although the company
consisted of some of the best bred men of England, Burns seemed to her
the most perfect gentleman among them. She noticed, particularly, his
genuine grace and deferential manner toward women, and I was interested
to hear Mrs. Montagu's brilliant daughter, when speaking of Hawthorne's
advent in English society, describe him in almost the same terms as I
had heard her mother, years before, describe the Scottish poet. I
happened to be in London with Hawthorne during his consular residence in
England, and was always greatly delighted at the rustle of admiration
his personal appearance excited when he entered a room. His bearing was
modestly grand, and his voice touched the ear like a melody.

Here is a golden curl which adorned the head of Nathaniel Hawthorne when
he lay a little child in his cradle. It was given to me many years ago
by one near and dear to him. I have two other similar "blossoms," which
I keep pressed in the same book of remembrance. One is from the head of
John Keats, and was given to me by Charles Cowden Clarke, and the other
graced the head of Mary Mitford, and was sent to me after her death by
her friendly physician, who watched over her last hours. Leigh Hunt says
with a fine poetic emphasis,

"There seems a love in hair, though it be dead.
It is the gentlest, yet the strongest thread
Of our frail plant,--a blossom from the tree
Surviving the proud trunk;--as though it said,
Patience and Gentleness is Power. In me
Behold affectionate eternity."

There is a charming old lady, now living two doors from me, who dwelt in
Salem when Hawthorne was born, and, being his mother's neighbor at that
time (Mrs. Hawthorne then lived in Union Street), there came a message
to her intimating that the baby could be seen by calling. So my friend
tells me she went in, and saw the little winking thing in its mother's
arms. She is very clear as to the beauty of the infant, even when only a
week old, and remembers that "he was a pleasant child, quite handsome,
with golden curls." She also tells me that Hawthorne's mother was a
beautiful woman, with remarkable eyes, full of sensibility and
expression, and that she was a person of singular purity of mind.
Hawthorne's father, whom my friend knew well, she describes as a
warm-hearted and kindly man, very fond of children. He was somewhat
inclined to melancholy, and of a reticent disposition. He was a great
reader, employing all his leisure time at sea over books.

Hawthorne's father died when Nathaniel was four years old, and from that
time his uncle Robert Manning took charge of his education, sending him
to the best schools and afterwards to college. When the lad was about
nine years old, while playing bat and ball at school, he lamed his foot
so badly that he used two crutches for more than a year. His foot ceased
to grow like the other, and the doctors of the town were called in to
examine the little lame boy. He was not perfectly restored till he was
twelve years old. His kind-hearted schoolmaster, Joseph Worcester, the
author of the Dictionary, came every day to the house to hear the boy's
lessons, so that he did not fall behind in his studies. [There is a
tradition in the Manning family that Mr. Worcester was very much
interested in Maria Manning (a sister of Mrs. Hawthorne), who died in
1814, and that this was one reason of his attention to Nathaniel.] The
boy used to lie flat upon the carpet, and read and study the long days
through. Some time after he had recovered from this lameness he had an
illness causing him to lose the use of his limbs, and he was obliged to
seek again the aid of his old crutches, which were then pieced out at
the ends to make them longer. While a little child, and as soon almost
as he began to read, the authors he most delighted in were Shakespeare,
Milton, Pope, and Thomson. The "Castle of Indolence" was an especial
favorite with him during boyhood. The first book he bought with his own
money was a copy of Spenser's "Faery Queen."

One who watched him during his childhood tells me, that "when he was six
years old his favorite book was Bunyan's 'Pilgrim's Progress': and that
whenever he went to visit his Grandmother Hawthorne, he used to take the
old family copy to a large chair in a corner of the room near a window,
and read it by the hour, without once speaking. No one ever thought of
asking how much of it he understood. I think it one of the happiest
circumstances of his training, that nothing was ever explained to him,
and that there was no professedly intellectual person in the family to
usurp the place of Providence and supplement its shortcomings, in order
to make him what he was never intended to be. His mind developed itself;
intentional cultivation might have spoiled it.... He used to invent long
stories, wild and fanciful, and tell where he was going when he grew up,
and of the wonderful adventures he was to meet with, always ending with,
'And I'm never coming back again,' in quite a solemn tone, that enjoined
upon us the advice to value him the more while he stayed with us."

When he could scarcely speak plain, it is recalled by members of the
family that the little fellow would go about the house, repeating with
vehement emphasis and gestures certain stagy lines from Shakespeare's
Richard III., which he had overheard from older persons about him. One
line, in particular, made a great impression upon him, and he would
start up on the most unexpected occasions and fire off in his loudest
tone,

"Stand back, my Lord, and let the coffin pass."

On the 21st of August, 1820, No. 1 of "The Spectator, edited by N.
Hathorne," neatly written in printed letters by the editor's own hand,
appeared. A prospectus was issued the week before, setting forth that
the paper would be published on Wednesdays, "price 12 cents per annum,
payment to be made at the end of the year." Among the advertisements is
the following:--

"Nathaniel Hathorne proposes to publish by subscription a NEW
EDITION of the MISERIES OF AUTHORS, to which will be added a SEQUEL,
containing FACTS and REMARKS drawn from his own experience."

Six numbers only were published. The following subjects were discussed
by young "Hathorne" in the Spectator,--"On Solitude," "The End of the
Year," "On Industry," "On Benevolence," "On Autumn," "On Wealth," "On
Hope," "On Courage." The poetry on the last page of each number was
evidently written by the editor, except in one instance, when an Address
to the Sun is signed by one of his sisters. In one of the numbers he
apologizes that no deaths of any importance have taken place in the
town. Under the head of Births, he gives the following news, "The lady
of Dr. Winthrop Brown, a son and heir. Mrs. Hathorne's cat, seven
kittens. We hear that both of the above ladies are in a state of
convalescence." One of the literary advertisements reads:--

"Blank Books made and for sale by N. Hathorne."

While Hawthorne was yet a little fellow the family moved to Raymond in
the State of Maine; here his out-of-door life did him great service, for
he grew tall and strong, and became a good shot and an excellent
fisherman. Here also his imagination was first stimulated, the wild
scenery and the primitive manners of the people contributing greatly to
awaken his thought. At seventeen he entered Bowdoin College, and after
his graduation returned again to live in Salem. During his youth he had
an impression that he would die before the age of twenty-five; but the
Mannings, his ever-watchful and kind relations, did everything possible
for the care of his health, and he was tided safely over the period when
he was most delicate. Professor Packard told me that when Hawthorne was
a student at Bowdoin in his freshman year, his Latin compositions showed
such facility that they attracted the special attention of those who
examined them. The Professor also remembers that Hawthorne's English
compositions elicited from Professor Newman (author of the work on
Rhetoric) high commendations.

When a youth Hawthorne made a journey into New Hampshire with his uncle,
Samuel Manning. They travelled in a two-wheeled chaise, and met with
many adventures which the young man chronicled in his home letters, Some
of the touches in these epistles were very characteristic and amusing,
and showed in those early years his quick observation and descriptive
power. The travellers "put up" at Farmington, in order to rest over
Sunday. Hawthorne writes to a member of the family in Salem: "As we were
wearied with rapid travelling, we found it impossible to attend divine
service, which was, of course, very grievous to us both. In the evening,
however, I went to a Bible class, with a very polite and agreeable
gentleman, whom I afterwards discovered to be a strolling tailor, of
very questionable habits."

When the travellers arrived in the Shaker village of Canterbury,
Hawthorne at once made the acquaintance of the Community there, and the
account which he sent home was to the effect that the brothers and
sisters led a good and comfortable life, and he wrote: "If it were not
for the ridiculous ceremonies, a man might do a worse thing than to join
them." Indeed, he spoke to them about becoming a member of the Society,
and was evidently much impressed with the thrift and peace of the
establishment.

This visit in early life to the Shakers is interesting as suggesting to
Hawthorne his beautiful story of "The Canterbury Pilgrims," which is in
his volume of "The Snow-Image, and other Twice-Told Tales."

A lady of my acquaintance (the identical "Little Annie" of the "Ramble"
in "Twice-Told Tales") recalls the young man "when he returned home
after his collegiate studies." "He was even then," she says, "a most
noticeable person, never going into society, and deeply engaged in
reading everything he could lay his hands on. It was said in those days
that he had read every book in the Athenaeum Library in Salem." This
lady remembers that when she was a child, and before Hawthorne had
printed any of his stories, she used to sit on his knee and lean her
head on his shoulder, while by the hour he would fascinate her with
delightful legends, much more wonderful and beautiful than any she has
ever read since in printed books.

The traits of the Hawthorne character were stern probity and
truthfulness. Hawthorne's mother had many characteristics in common with
her distinguished son, she also being a reserved and thoughtful person.
Those who knew the family describe the son's affection for her as of the
deepest and tenderest nature, and they remember that when she died his
grief was almost insupportable. The anguish he suffered from her loss is
distinctly recalled by many persons still living, who visited the family
at that time in Salem.

I first saw Hawthorne when he was about thirty-five years old. He had
then published a collection of his sketches, the now famous "Twice-Told
Tales." Longfellow, ever alert for what is excellent, and eager to do a
brother author opportune and substantial service, at once came before
the public with a generous estimate of the work in the North American
Review; but the choice little volume, the most promising addition to
American literature that had appeared for many years, made little
impression on the public mind. Discerning readers, however, recognized
the supreme beauty in this new writer, and they never afterwards lost
sight of him.

In 1828 Hawthorne published a short anonymous romance called Fanshawe. I
once asked him about this disowned publication, and he spoke of it with
great disgust, and afterwards he thus referred to the subject in a
letter written to me in 1851: "You make an inquiry about some supposed
former publication of mine. I cannot be sworn to make correct answers as
to all the literary or other follies of my nonage; and I earnestly
recommend you not to brush away the dust that may have gathered over
them. Whatever might do me credit you may be pretty sure I should be
ready enough to bring forward. Anything else it is our mutual interest
to conceal; and so far from assisting your researches in that direction,
I especially enjoin it on you, my dear friend, not to read any
unacknowledged page that you may suppose to be mine."

When Mr. George Bancroft, then Collector of the Port of Boston,
appointed Hawthorne weigher and gauger in the custom-house, he did a
wise thing, for no public officer ever performed his disagreeable duties
better than our romancer. Here is a tattered little official document
signed by Hawthorne when he was watching over the interests of the
country: it certifies his attendance at the unlading of a brig, then
lying at Long Wharf in Boston. I keep this precious relic side by side
with one of a similar custom-house character, signed _Robert Burns_.

I came to know Hawthorne very intimately after the Whigs displaced the
Democratic romancer from office. In my ardent desire to have him
retained in the public service, his salary at that time being his sole
dependence,--not foreseeing that his withdrawal from that sort of
employment would be the best thing for American letters that could
possibly happen,--I called, in his behalf, on several influential
politicians of the day, and well remember the rebuffs I received in my
enthusiasm for the author of the "Twice-Told Tales." One pompous little
gentleman in authority, after hearing my appeal, quite astounded me by
his ignorance of the claims of a literary man on his country. "Yes,
yes," he sarcastically croaked down his public turtle-fed throat, "I see
through it all, I see through it; this Hawthorne is one of them 'ere
visionists, and we don't want no such a man as him round." So the
"visionist" was not allowed to remain in office, and the country was
better served by him in another way. In the winter of 1849, after he had
been ejected from the custom-house, I went down to Salem to see him and
inquire after his health, for we heard he had been suffering from
illness. He was then living in a modest wooden house in Mall Street, if
I remember rightly the location. I found him alone in a chamber over the
sitting-room of the dwelling; and as the day was cold, he was hovering
near a stove. We fell into talk about his future prospects, and he was,
as I feared I should find him, in a very desponding mood. "Now," said I,
"is the time for you to publish, for I know during these years in Salem
you must have got something ready for the press." "Nonsense," said he;
"what heart had I to write anything, when my publishers (M. and Company)
have been so many years trying to sell a small edition of the
'Twice-Told Tales'?" I still pressed upon him the good chances he would
have now with something new. "Who would risk publishing a book for _me_,
the most unpopular writer in America?" "I would," said I, "and would
start with an edition of two thousand copies of anything you write."
"What madness!" he exclaimed; "your friendship for me gets the better of
your judgment. No, no," he continued; "I have no money to indemnify a
publisher's losses on my account." I looked at my watch and found that
the train would soon be starting for Boston, and I knew there was not
much time to lose in trying to discover what had been his literary work
during these last few years in Salem. I remember that I pressed him to
reveal to me what he had been writing. He shook his head and gave me to
understand he had produced nothing. At that moment I caught sight of a
bureau or set of drawers near where we were sitting; and immediately it
occurred to me that hidden away somewhere in that article of furniture
was a story or stories by the author of the "Twice-Told Tales," and I
became so positive of it that I charged him vehemently with the fact. He
seemed surprised, I thought, but shook his head again; and I rose to
take my leave, begging him not to come into the cold entry, saying I
would come back and see him again in a few days. I was hurrying down the
stairs when he called after me from the chamber, asking me to stop a
moment. Then quickly stepping into the entry with a roll of manuscript
in his hands, he said: "How in Heaven's name did you know this thing was
there? As you have found me out, take what I have written, and tell me,
after you get home and have time to read it, if it is good for anything.
It is either very good or very bad,--I don't know which." On my way up
to Boston I read the germ of "The Scarlet Letter"; before I slept that
night I wrote him a note all aglow with admiration of the marvellous
story he had put into my hands, and told him that I would come again to
Salem the next day and arrange for its publication. I went on in such an
amazing state of excitement when we met again in the little house, that
he would not believe I was really in earnest. He seemed to think I was
beside myself, and laughed sadly at my enthusiasm. However, we soon
arranged for his appearance again before the public with a book.

This quarto volume before me contains numerous letters, written by him
from 1850 down to the month of his death. The first one refers to "The
Scarlet Letter," and is dated in January, 1850. At my suggestion he had
altered the plan of that story. It was his intention to make "The
Scarlet Letter" one of several short stories, all to be included in one
volume, and to be called

OLD-TIME LEGENDS:
Together With Sketches,
EXPERIMENTAL AND IDEAL.

His first design was to make "The Scarlet Letter" occupy about two
hundred pages in his new book; but I persuaded him, after reading the
first chapters of the story, to elaborate it, and publish it as a
separate work. After it was settled that "The Scarlet Letter" should be
enlarged and printed by itself in a volume he wrote to me:--

"I am truly glad that you like the Introduction, for I was rather
afraid that it might appear absurd and impertinent to be talking
about myself, when nobody, that I know of, has requested any
information on that subject.

"As regards the size of the book, I have been thinking a good deal
about it. Considered merely as a matter of taste and beauty, the
form of publication which you recommend seems to me much preferable
to that of the 'Mosses.'

"In the present case, however, I have some doubts of the expediency,
because, if the book is made up entirely of 'The Scarlet Letter,' it
will be too sombre. I found it impossible to relieve the shadows of
the story with so much light as I would gladly have thrown in.
Keeping so close to its point as the tale does, and no otherwise
than by turning different sides of the same to the reader's eye, it
will weary very many people and disgust some. Is it safe, then, to
stake the fate of the book entirely on this one chance? A hunter
loads his gun with a bullet and several buckshot; and, following his
sagacious example, it was my purpose to conjoin the one long story
with half a dozen shorter ones, so that, failing to kill the public
outright with my biggest and heaviest lump of lead, I might have
other chances with the smaller bits, individually and in the
aggregate. However, I am willing to leave these considerations to
your judgment, and should not be sorry to have you decide for the
separate publication.

"In this latter event it appears to me that the only proper title
for the book would be 'The Scarlet Letter,' for 'The Custom-House'
is merely introductory,--an entrance-hall to the magnificent edifice
which I throw open to my guests. It would be funny if, seeing the
further passages so dark and dismal, they should all choose to stop
there! If 'The Scarlet Letter' is to be the title, would it not be
well to print it on the title-page in red ink? I am not quite sure
about the good taste of so doing, but it would certainly be piquant
and appropriate, and, I think, attractive to the great gull whom we
are endeavoring to circumvent."

One beautiful summer day, twenty years ago, I found Hawthorne in his
little red cottage at Lenox, surrounded by his happy young family. He
had the look, as somebody said, of a banished lord, and his grand figure
among the hills of Berkshire seemed finer than ever. His boy and girl
were swinging on the gate as we drove up to his door, and with their
sunny curls formed an attractive feature in the landscape. As the
afternoon was cool and delightful, we proposed a drive over to
Pittsfield to see Holmes, who was then living on his ancestral farm.
Hawthorne was in a cheerful condition, and seemed to enjoy the beauty of
the day to the utmost. Next morning we were all invited by Mr. Dudley
Field, then living at Stockbridge, to ascend Monument Mountain. Holmes,
Hawthorne, Duyckinck, Herman Melville, Headley, Sedgwick, Matthews, and
several ladies, were of the party. We scrambled to the top with great
spirit, and when we arrived, Melville, I remember, bestrode a peaked
rock, which ran out like a bowsprit, and pulled and hauled imaginary
ropes for our delectation. Then we all assembled in a shady spot, and
one of the party read to us Bryant's beautiful poem commemorating
Monument Mountain. Then we lunched among the rocks, and somebody
proposed Bryant's health, and "long life to the dear old poet." This was
the most popular toast of the day, and it took, I remember, a
considerable quantity of Heidsieck to do it justice. In the afternoon,
pioneered by Headley, we made our way, with merry shouts and laughter,
through the Ice-Glen. Hawthorne was among the most enterprising of the
merry-makers; and being in the dark much of the time, he ventured to
call out lustily and pretend that certain destruction was inevitable to
all of us. After this extemporaneous jollity, we dined together at Mr.
Dudley Field's in Stockbridge, and Hawthorne rayed out in a sparkling
and unwonted manner. I remember the conversation at table chiefly ran on
the physical differences between the present American and English men,
Hawthorne stoutly taking part in favor of the American. This 5th of
August was a happy day throughout, and I never saw Hawthorne in better
spirits.

Often and often I have seen him sitting in the chair I am now occupying
by the window, looking out into the twilight. He liked to watch the
vessels dropping down the stream, and nothing pleased him more than to
go on board a newly arrived bark from Down East, as she was just moored
at the wharf. One night we made the acquaintance of a cabin-boy on board
a brig, whom we found off duty and reading a large subscription volume,
which proved, on inquiry, to be a Commentary on the Bible. When
Hawthorne questioned him why he was reading, then and there, that
particular book, he replied with a knowing wink at both of us, "There's
consider'ble her'sy in our place, and I'm a studying up for 'em." He
liked on Sunday to mouse about among the books, and there are few
volumes in this room that he has not handled or read. He knew he could
have unmolested habitation here, whenever he chose to come, and he was
never allowed to be annoyed by intrusion of any kind. He always slept in
the same room,--the one looking on the water; and many a night I have
heard his solemn footsteps over my head, long after the rest of the
house had gone to sleep. Like many other nervous men of genius, he was a
light sleeper, and he liked to be up and about early; but it was only
for a ramble among the books again. One summer morning I found him as
early as four o'clock reading a favorite poem, on Solitude, a piece he
very much admired. That morning I shall not soon forget, for he was in
the vein for autobiographical talk, and he gave me a most interesting
account of his father, the sea-captain, who died of the yellow-fever in
Surinam in 1808, and of his beautiful mother, who dwelt a secluded
mourner ever after the death of her husband. Then he told stories of his
college life, and of his one sole intimate, Franklin Pierce, whom he
loved devotedly his life long.

In the early period of our acquaintance he much affected the old Boston
Exchange Coffee-House in Devonshire Street, and once I remember to have
found him shut up there before a blazing coal-fire, in the "tumultuous
privacy" of a great snow-storm, reading with apparent interest an
obsolete copy of the "Old Farmer's Almanac," which he had picked up
about the house. He also delighted in the Old Province House, at that
time an inn, kept by one Thomas Waite, whom he has immortalized. After
he was chosen a member of the Saturday Club he came frequently to dinner
with Felton, Longfellow, Holmes, and the rest of his friends, who
assembled once a month to dine together. At the table, on these
occasions, he was rather reticent than conversational, but when he
chose to talk it was observed that the best things said that day came
from him.

As I turn over his letters, the old days, delightful to recall, come
back again with added interest.

"I sha'n't have the new story," he says in one of them, dated from
Lenox on the 1st of October, 1850, "ready by November, for I am
never good for anything in the literary way till after the first
autumnal frost, which has somewhat such an effect on my imagination
that it does on the foliage here about me,--multiplying and
brightening its hues; though they are likely to be sober and shabby
enough after all.

"I am beginning to puzzle myself about a title for the book. The
scene of it is in one of those old projecting-stoned houses,
familiar to my eye in Salem; and the story, horrible to say, is a
little less than two hundred years long; though all but thirty or
forty pages of it refer to the present time. I think of such titles
as 'The House of the Seven Gables,' there being that number of
gable-ends to the old shanty; or 'The Seven-Gabled House'; or simply
'The Seven Gables.' Tell me how these strike you. It appears to me
that the latter is rather the best, and has the great advantage that
it would puzzle the Devil to tell what it means."

A month afterwards he writes further with regard to "The House of the
Seven Gables," concerning the title to which he was still in a
quandary:--

"'The Old Pyncheon House: A Romance'; 'The Old Pyncheon Family; or
the House of the Seven Gables: A Romance';--choose between them. I
have rather a distaste to a double title? otherwise, I think I
should prefer the second. Is it any matter under which title it is
announced? If a better should occur hereafter, we can substitute. Of
these two, on the whole, I judge the first to be the better.

"I write diligently, but not so rapidly as I had hoped. I find the
book requires more care and thought than 'The Scarlet Letter'; also
I have to wait oftener for a mood. 'The Scarlet Letter' being all in
one tone, I had only to get my pitch, and could then go on
interminably. Many passages of this book ought to be finished with
the minuteness of a Dutch picture, in order to give them their
proper effect. Sometimes, when tired of it, it strikes me that the
whole is an absurdity, from beginning to end; but the fact is, in
writing a romance, a man is always, or always ought to be, careering
on the utmost verge of a precipitous absurdity, and the skill lies
in coming as close as possible, without actually tumbling over. My
prevailing idea is, that the book ought to succeed better than 'The
Scarlet Letter,' though I have no idea that it will."

On the 9th of December he was still at work on the new romance, and
writes:--

"My desire and prayer is to get through with the business in hand. I
have been in a Slough of Despond for some days past, having written
so fiercely that I came to a stand-still. There are points where a
writer gets bewildered and cannot form any judgment of what he has
done, or tell what to do next. In these cases it is best to keep
quiet."

On the 12th of January, 1851, he is still busy over his new book, and
writes: "My 'House of the Seven Gables' is, so to speak, finished; only
I am hammering away a little on the roof, and doing up a few odd jobs,
that were left incomplete." At the end of the month the manuscript of
his second great romance was put into the hands of the expressman at
Lenox, by Hawthorne himself, to be delivered to me. On the 27th he
writes:--

"If you do not soon receive it, you may conclude that it has
miscarried; in which case, I shall not consent to the universe
existing a moment longer. I have no copy of it, except the wildest
scribble of a first draught, so that it could never be restored.

"It has met with extraordinary success from that portion of the
public to whose judgment it has been submitted, viz. from my wife. I
likewise prefer it to 'The Scarlet Letter'; but an author's opinion
of his book just after completing it is worth little or nothing, he
being then in the hot or cold fit of a fever, and certain to rate it
too high or too low.

"It has undoubtedly one disadvantage in being brought so close to
the present time; whereby its romantic improbabilities become more
glaring.

"I deem it indispensable that the proof-sheets should be sent me for
correction. It will cause some delay, no doubt, but probably not
much more than if I lived in Salem. At all events, I don't see how
it can be helped. My autography is sometimes villanously blind; and
it is odd enough that whenever the printers do mistake a word, it is
just the very jewel of a word, worth all the rest of the
dictionary."

I well remember with what anxiety I awaited the arrival of the
expressman with the precious parcel, and with what keen delight I read
every word of the new story before I slept. Here is the original
manuscript, just as it came that day, twenty years ago, fresh from the
author's hand. The printers carefully preserved it for me; and Hawthorne
once made a formal presentation of it, with great mock solemnity, in
this very room where I am now sitting.

After the book came out he wrote:--

"I have by no means an inconvenient multitude of friends; but if
they ever do appear a little too numerous, it is when I am making a
list of those to whom presentation copies are to be sent. Please
send one to General Pierce, Horatio Bridge, R.W. Emerson, W.E.
Channing, Longfellow, Hillard, Sumner, Holmes, Lowell, and Thompson
the artist. You will yourself give one to Whipple, whereby I shall
make a saving. I presume you won't put the portrait into the book.
It appears to me an improper accompaniment to a new work.
Nevertheless, if it be ready, I should be glad to have each of these
presentation copies accompanied by a copy of the engraving put
loosely between the leaves. Good by. I must now trudge two miles to
the village, through rain and mud knee-deep, after that accursed
proof-sheet. The book reads very well in proofs, but I don't believe
it will take like the former one. The preliminary chapter was what
gave 'The Scarlet Letter' its vogue."

The engraving he refers to in this letter was made from a portrait by
Mr. C.G. Thompson, and at that time, 1851, was an admirable likeness. On
the 6th of March he writes:--

"The package, with my five heads, arrived yesterday afternoon, and
we are truly obliged to you for putting so many at our disposal.
They are admirably done. The children recognized their venerable
sire with great delight. My wife complains somewhat of a want of
cheerfulness in the face; and, to say the truth, it does appear to
be with a bedevilled melancholy; but it will do all the better for
the author of 'The Scarlet Letter.' In the expression there is a
singular resemblance (which I do not remember in Thompson's picture)
to a miniature of my father."

His letters to me, during the summer of 1851, were frequent and
sometimes quite long. "The House of the Seven Gables" was warmly
welcomed, both at home and abroad. On the 23d of May he writes:--

"Whipple's notices have done more than pleased me, for they have
helped me to see my book. Much of the censure I recognize as just; I
wish I could feel the praise to be so fully deserved. Being better
(which I insist it is) than 'The Scarlet Letter,' I have never
expected it to be so popular (this steel pen makes me write
awfully). ---- ---- Esq., of Boston, has written to me, complaining
that I have made his grandfather infamous! It seems there was
actually a Pyncheon (or Pynchon, as he spells it) family resident in
Salem, and that their representative, at the period of the
Revolution, was a certain Judge Pynchon, a Tory and a refugee. This
was Mr. ----'s grandfather, and (at least, so he dutifully describes
him) the most exemplary old gentleman in the world. There are
several touches in my account of the Pyncheons which, he says, make
it probable that I had this actual family in my eye, and he
considers himself infinitely wronged and aggrieved, and thinks it
monstrous that the 'virtuous dead' cannot be suffered to rest
quietly in their graves. He further complains that I speak
disrespectfully of the ----'s in Grandfather's Chair. He writes more
in sorrow than in anger, though there is quite enough of the latter
quality to give piquancy to his epistle. The joke of the matter is,
that I never heard of his grandfather, nor knew that any Pyncheons
had ever lived in Salem, but took the name because it suited the
tone of my book, and was as much my property, for fictitious
purposes, as that of Smith. I have pacified him by a very polite and
gentlemanly letter, and if ever you publish any more of the Seven
Gables, I should like to write a brief preface, expressive of my
anguish for this unintentional wrong, and making the best reparation
possible else these wretched old Pyncheons will have no peace in the
other world, nor in this. Furthermore, there is a Rev. Mr. ----,
resident within four miles of me, and a cousin of Mr. ----, who
states that he likewise is highly indignant. Who would have dreamed
of claimants starting up for such an inheritance as the House of the
Seven Gables!

"I mean, to write, within six weeks or two months next ensuing, a
book of stories made up of classical myths. The subjects are: The
Story of Midas, with his Golden Touch, Pandora's Box, The Adventure
of Hercules in quest of the Golden Apples, Bellerophon and the
Chimera, Baucis and Philemon, Perseus and Medusa; these, I think,
will be enough to make up a volume. As a framework, I shall have a
young college student telling these stories to his cousins and
brothers and sisters, during his vacations, sometimes at the
fireside, sometimes in the woods and dells. Unless I greatly
mistake, these old fictions will work up admirably for the purpose;
and I shall aim at substituting a tone in some degree Gothic or
romantic, or any such tone as may best please myself, instead of the
classic coldness, which is as repellant as the touch of marble.

"I give you these hints of my plan, because you will perhaps think
it advisable to employ Billings to prepare some illustrations. There
is a good scope in the above subjects for fanciful designs.
Bellerophon and the Chimera, for instance: the Chimera a fantastic
monster with three heads, and Bellerophon fighting him, mounted on
Pegasus; Pandora opening the box; Hercules talking with Atlas, an
enormous giant who holds the sky on his shoulders, or sailing across
the sea in an immense bowl; Perseus transforming a king and all his
subjects to stone, by exhibiting the Gorgon's head. No particular
accuracy in costume need be aimed at. My stories will bear out the
artist in any liberties he may be inclined to take. Billings would
do these things well enough, though his characteristics are grace
and delicacy rather than wildness of fancy. The book, if it comes
out of my mind as I see it now, ought to have pretty wide success
amongst young people; and, of course, I shall purge out all the old
heathen wickedness, and put in a moral wherever practicable. For a
title how would this do: 'A Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys'; or,
'The Wonder-Book of Old Stories'? I prefer the former. Or 'Myths
Modernized for my Children'; that won't do.

"I need a little change of scene, and meant to have come to Boston
and elsewhere before writing this book; but I cannot leave home at
present."

Throughout the summer Hawthorne was constantly worried by people who
insisted that they, or their families in the present or past
generations, had been deeply wronged in "The House of the Seven Gables."
In a note, received from him on the 5th of June, he says:--

"I have just received a letter from still another claimant of the
Pyncheon estate. I wonder if ever, and how soon, I shall get a just
estimate of how many jackasses there are in this ridiculous world.
My correspondent, by the way, estimates the number of these Pyncheon
jackasses at about twenty; I am doubtless to by remonstrated with by
each individual. After exchanging shots with all of them, I shall
get you to publish the whole correspondence, in a style to match
that of my other works, and I anticipate a great run for the volume.

"P.S. My last correspondent demands that another name be
substituted, instead of that of the family; to which I assent, in
case the publishers can be prevailed on to cancel the stereotype
plates. Of course you will consent! Pray do!"

Praise now poured in upon him from all quarters. Hosts of critics, both
in England and America, gallantly came forward to do him service, and
his fame was assured. On the 15th of July he sends me a jubilant letter
from Lenox, from which I will copy several passages:--

"Mrs. Kemble writes very good accounts from London of the reception
my two romances have met with there. She says they have made a
greater sensation than any book since 'Jane Eyre'; but probably she
is a little or a good deal too emphatic in her representation of the
matter. At any rate, she advises that the sheets of any future book
be sent to Moxon, and such an arrangement made that a copyright may
be secured in England as well as here. Could this be done with the
Wonder-Book? And do you think it would be worth while? I must see
the proof-sheets of this book. It is a cursed bore; for I want to be
done with it from this moment. Can't you arrange it so that two or
three or more sheets may be sent at once, on stated days, and so my
journeys to the village be fewer?

"That review which you sent me is a remarkable production. There is
praise enough to satisfy a greedier author than myself. I set it
aside, as not being able to estimate how far it is deserved. I can
better judge of the censure, much of which is undoubtedly just; and
I shall profit by it if I can. But, after all, there would be no
great use in attempting it. There are weeds enough in my mind, to be
sure, and I might pluck them up by the handful; but in so doing I
should root up the few flowers along with them. It is also to be
considered, that what one man calls weeds another classifies among
the choicest flowers in the garden. But this reviewer is certainly
a man of sense, and sometimes tickles me under the fifth rib. I beg
you to observe, however, that I do not acknowledge his justice in
cutting and slashing among the characters of the two books at the
rate he does; sparing nobody, I think, except Pearl and Phoebe. Yet
I think he is right as to my tendency as respects individual
character.

"I am going to begin to enjoy the summer now, and to read foolish
novels, if I can get any, and smoke cigars, and think of nothing at
all; which is equivalent to thinking of all manner of things."

The composition of the "Tanglewood Tales" gave him pleasant employment,
and all his letters, during the period he was writing them, overflow
with evidences of his felicitous mood. He requests that Billings should
pay especial attention to the drawings, and is anxious that the porch of
Tanglewood should be "well supplied with shrubbery." He seemed greatly
pleased that Mary Russell Mitford had fallen in with his books and had
written to me about them. "Her sketches," he said, "long ago as I read
them, are as sweet in my memory as the scent of new hay." On the 18th of
August he writes:--

"You are going to publish another thousand of the Seven Gables. I
promised those Pyncheons a preface. What if you insert the
following?

"(The author is pained to learn that, in selecting a name for the
fictitious inhabitants of a castle in the air, he has wounded the
feelings of more than one respectable descendant of an old Pyncheon
family. He begs leave to say that he intended no reference to any
individual of the name, now or heretofore extant; and further, that,
at the time of writing his book, he was wholly unaware of the
existence of such a family in New England for two hundred years
back, and that whatever he may have since learned of them is
altogether to their credit.)

"Insert it or not, as you like. I have done with the matter."

I advised him to let the Pyncheons rest as they were, and omit any
addition, either as note or preface, to the romance.

Near the close of 1851 his health seemed unsettled, and he asked me to
look over certain proofs "carefully," for he did not feel well enough
to manage them himself. In one of his notes, written from Lenox at that
time, he says:--

"Please God, I mean to look you in the face towards the end of next
week; at all events, within ten days. I have stayed here too long
and too constantly. To tell you a secret, I am sick to death of
Berkshire, and hate to think of spending another winter here. But I
must. The air and climate do not agree with my health at all; and,
for the first time since I was a boy, I have felt languid and
dispirited during almost my whole residence here. O that Providence
would build me the merest little shanty, and mark me out a rood or
two of garden-ground, near the sea-coast. I thank you for the two
volumes of De Quincey. If it were not for your kindness in supplying
me with books now and then, I should quite forget how to read."

Hawthorne was a hearty devourer of books, and in certain moods of mind
it made very little difference what the volume before him happened to
be. An old play or an old newspaper sometimes gave him wondrous great
content, and he would ponder the sleepy, uninteresting sentences as if
they contained immortal mental aliment. He once told me he found such
delight in old advertisements in the newspapers at the Boston Athenaeum,
that he had passed delicious hours among them. At other times he was
very fastidious, and threw aside book after book until he found the
right one. De Quincey was a special favorite with him, and the Sermons
of Laurence Sterne he once commended to me as the best sermons ever
written. In his library was an early copy of Sir Philip Sidney's
"Arcadia," which had floated down to him from a remote ancestry, and
which he had read so industriously for forty years that it was nearly
worn out of its thick leathern cover. Hearing him say once that the old
English State Trials were enchanting reading, and knowing that he did
not possess a copy of those heavy folios, I picked up a set one day in a
bookshop and sent them to him. He often told me that he spent more
hours over them and got more delectation out of them than tongue could
tell, and he said, if five lives were vouchsafed to him, he could employ
them all in writing stories out of those books. He had sketched, in his
mind, several romances founded on the remarkable trials reported in the
ancient volumes; and one day, I remember, he made my blood tingle by
relating some of the situations he intended, if his life was spared, to
weave into future romances. Sir Walter Scott's novels he continued
almost to worship, and was accustomed to read them aloud in his family.
The novels of G.P.R. James, both the early and the later ones, he
insisted were admirable stories, admirably told, and he had high praise
to bestow on the works of Anthony Trollope. "Have you ever read these
novels?" he wrote to me in a letter from England, some time before
Trollope began to be much known in America. "They precisely suit my
taste; solid and substantial, written on the strength of beef and
through the inspiration of ale, and just as real as if some giant had
hewn a great lump out of the earth and put it under a glass case, with
all its inhabitants going about their daily business and not suspecting
that they were made a show of. And these books are as English as a
beefsteak. Have they ever been tried in America? It needs an English
residence to make them thoroughly comprehensible; but still I should
think that the human nature in them would give them success anywhere."

I have often been asked if all his moods were sombre, and if he was
never jolly sometimes like other people. Indeed he was; and although the
humorous side of Hawthorne was not easily or often discoverable, yet
have I seen him marvellously moved to fun, and no man laughed more
heartily in his way over a good story. Wise and witty H----, in whom
wisdom and wit are so ingrained that age only increases his subtile
spirit, and greatly enhances the power of his cheerful temperament,
always had the talismanic faculty of breaking up that thoughtfully sad
face into mirthful waves; and I remember how Hawthorne writhed with
hilarious delight over Professor L----'s account of a butcher who
remarked that "Idees had got afloat in the public mind with respect to
sassingers." I once told him of a young woman who brought in a
manuscript, and said, as she placed it in my hands, "I don't know what
to do with myself sometimes, I'm so filled with _mammoth thoughts_." A
series of convulsive efforts to suppress explosive laughter followed,
which I remember to this day.

He had an inexhaustible store of amusing anecdotes to relate of people
and things he had observed on the road. One day he described to me, in
his inimitable and quietly ludicrous manner, being _watched_, while on a
visit to a distant city, by a friend who called, and thought he needed a
protector, his health being at that time not so good as usual. "He stuck
by me," said Hawthorne, "as if he were afraid to leave me alone; he
stayed past the dinner hour, and when I began to wonder if he never took
meals himself, he departed and set another man to _watch_ me till he
should return. That man _watched_ me so, in his unwearying kindness,
that when I left the house I forgot half my luggage, and left behind,
among other things, a beautiful pair of slippers. They _watched_ me so,
among them, I swear to you I forgot nearly everything I owned."

* * * * *

Hawthorne is still looking at me in his far-seeing way, as if he were
pondering what was next to be said about him. It would not displease
him, I know, if I were to begin my discursive talk to-day by telling a
little incident connected with a famous American poem.

Hawthorne dined one day with Longfellow, and brought with him a friend
from Salem. After dinner the friend said: "I have been trying to
persuade Hawthorne to write a story, based upon a legend of Acadie, and
still current there; a legend of a girl who, in the dispersion of the
Acadians, was separated from her lover, and passed her life in waiting
and seeking for him, and only found him dying in a hospital, when both
were old." Longfellow wondered that this legend did not strike the fancy
of Hawthorne, and said to him: "If you have really made up your mind not
to use it for a story, will you give it to me for a poem?" To this
Hawthorne assented, and moreover promised not to treat the subject in
prose till Longfellow had seen what he could do with it in verse. And so
we have "Evangeline" in beautiful hexameters, --a poem that will hold
its place in literature while true affection lasts. Hawthorne rejoiced
in this great success of Longfellow, and loved to count up the editions,
both foreign and American, of this now world-renowned poem.

I have lately met an early friend of Hawthorne's, older than himself,
who knew him intimately all his life long, and I have learned some
additional facts about his youthful days. Soon after he left college he
wrote some stories which he called "Seven Tales of my Native Land." The
motto which he chose for the title-page was "We are Seven," from
Wordsworth. My informant read the tales in manuscript, and says some of
them were very striking, particularly one or two Witch Stories. As soon
as the little book was well prepared for the press he deliberately threw
it into the fire, and sat by to see its destruction.

When about fourteen he wrote out for a member of his family a list of
the books he had at that time been reading. The catalogue was a long
one, but my informant remembers that The Waverley Novels, Rousseau's
Works, and The Newgate Calender were among them. Serious remonstrances
were made by the family touching the perusal of this last work, but he
persisted in going through it to the end. He had an objection in his
boyhood to reading much that was called "true and useful." Of history in
general he was not very fond, but he read Froissart with interest, and
Clarendon's History of the Rebellion. He is remembered to have said at
that time "he cared very little for the history of the world before the
fourteenth century." After he left college he read a great deal of
French literature, especially the works of Voltaire and his
contemporaries. He rarely went into the streets during the daytime,
unless there was to be a gathering of the people for some public
purpose, such as a political meeting, a military muster, or a fire. A
great conflagration attracted him in a peculiar manner, and he is
remembered, while a young man in Salem, to have been often seen looking
on, from some dark corner, while the fire was raging. When General
Jackson, of whom he professed himself a partisan, visited Salem in 1833,
he walked out to the boundary of the town to meet him,--not to speak to
him, but only to look at him. When he came home at night he said he
found only a few men and boys collected, not enough people, without the
assistance he rendered, to welcome the General with a good cheer. It is
said that Susan, in the "Village Uncle," one of the "Twice-Told Tales,"
is not altogether a creation of his fancy. Her father was a fisherman
living in Salem, and Hawthorne was constantly telling the members of his
family how charming she was, and he always spoke of her as his
"mermaid." He said she had a great deal of what the French call
_espieglerie_. There was another young beauty, living at that time in
his native town, quite captivating to him, though in a different style
from the mermaid. But if his head and heart were turned in his youth by
these two nymphs in his native town, there was soon a transfer of his
affections to quite another direction. His new passion was a much more
permanent one, for now there dawned upon him so perfect a creature that
he fell in love irrevocably; all his thoughts and all his delights
centred in her, who suddenly became indeed the mistress of his soul. She
filled the measure of his being, and became a part and parcel of his
life. Who was this mysterious young person that had crossed his
boyhood's path and made him hers forever? Whose daughter was she that
could thus enthrall the ardent young man in Salem, who knew as yet so
little of the world and its sirens? She is described by one who met her
long before Hawthorne made her acquaintance as "the prettiest low-born
lass that ever ran on the greensward," and she must have been a radiant
child of beauty, indeed, that girl! She danced like a fairy, she sang
exquisitely, so that every one who knew her seemed amazed at her perfect
way of doing everything she attempted. Who was it that thus summoned all
this witchery, making such a tumult in young Hawthorne's bosom? She was
"daughter to Leontes and Hermione," king and queen of Sicilia, and her
name was Perdita! It was Shakespeare who introduced Hawthorne to his
first real love, and the lover never forgot his mistress. He was
constant ever, and worshipped her through life. Beauty always captivated
him. Where there was beauty he fancied other good gifts must naturally
be in possession. During his childhood homeliness was always repulsive
to him. When a little boy he is remembered to have said to a woman who
wished to be kind to him, "Take her away! She is ugly and fat, and has a
loud voice."

When quite a young man he applied for a situation under Commodore Wilkes
on the Exploring Expedition, but did not succeed in obtaining an
appointment. He thought this a great misfortune, as he was fond of
travel, and he promised to do all sorts of wonderful things, should he
be allowed to join the voyagers.

One very odd but characteristic notion of his, when a youth, was, that
he should like a competent income which should neither increase nor
diminish, for then, he said, it would not engross too much of his
attention. Surrey's little poem, "The Means to obtain a Happy Life,"
expressed exactly what his idea of happiness was when a lad. When a
school-boy he wrote verses for the newspapers, but he ignored their
existence in after years with a smile of droll disgust. One of his
quatrains lives in the memory of a friend, who repeated it to me
recently:--

"The ocean hath its silent caves,
Deep, quiet, and alone;
Above them there are troubled waves,
Beneath them there are none."

When the Atlantic Cable was first laid, somebody, not knowing the author
of the lines, quoted them to Hawthorne as applicable to the calmness
said to exist in the depths of the ocean. He listened to the verse, and
then laughingly observed, "I know something of the deep sea myself."

In 1836 he went to Boston, I am told, to edit the "American Magazine of
Useful Knowledge," for which he was to be paid a salary of six hundred
dollars a year. The proprietors soon became insolvent, so that he
received nothing, but he kept on just the same as if he had been paid
regularly. The plan of the work proposed by the publishers of the
magazine admitted no fiction into its pages. The magazine was printed on
coarse paper and was illustrated by engravings painful to look at. There
were no contributors except the editor, and he wrote the whole of every
number. Short biographical sketches of eminent men and historical
narratives filled up its pages. I have examined the columns of this
deceased magazine, and read Hawthorne's narrative of Mrs. Dustan's
captivity. Mrs. Dustan was carried off by the Indians from Haverhill,
and Hawthorne does not much commiserate the hardships she endured, but
reserves his sympathy for her husband, who was _not_ carried into
captivity, and suffered nothing from the Indians, but who, he says, was
a tenderhearted man, and took care of the children during Mrs. D.'s
absence from home, and probably knew that his wife would be more than a
match for a whole tribe of savages.

When the Rev. Mr. Cheever was knocked down and flogged in the streets of
Salem and then imprisoned, Hawthorne came out of his retreat and visited
him regularly in jail, showing strong sympathy for the man and great
indignation for those who had maltreated him.

Those early days in Salem,--how interesting the memory of them must be
to the friends who knew and followed the gentle dreamer in his budding
career! When the whisper first came to the timid boy, in that "dismal
chamber in Union Street," that he too possessed the soul of an artist,
there were not many about him to share the divine rapture that must have
filled his proud young heart. Outside of his own little family circle,
doubting and desponding eyes looked upon him, and many a stupid head
wagged in derision as he passed by. But there was always waiting for him
a sweet and honest welcome by the pleasant hearth where his mother and
sisters sat and listened to the beautiful creations of his fresh and
glowing fancy. We can imagine the happy group gathered around the
evening lamp! "Well, my son," says the fond mother, looking up from her
knitting-work, "what have you got for us to-night? It is some time since
you read us a story, and your sisters are as impatient as I am to have a
new one." And then we can hear, or think we hear, the young man begin in
a low and modest tone the story of "Edward Fane's Rosebud," or "The
Seven Vagabonds," or perchance (O tearful, happy evening!) that tender
idyl of "The Gentle Boy!" What a privilege to hear for the first time a
"Twice-Told Tale," before it was even _once_ told to the public! And I
know with what rapture the delighted little audience must have hailed
the advent of every fresh indication that genius, so seldom a visitant
at any fireside, had come down so noiselessly to bless their quiet
hearthstone in the sombre old town. In striking contrast to Hawthorne's
audience nightly convened to listen while he read his charming tales and
essays, I think of poor Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, facing those
hard-eyed critics at the house of Madame Neckar, when as a young man and
entirely unknown he essayed to read his then unpublished story of "Paul
and Virginia." The story was simple and the voice of the poor and
nameless reader trembled. Everybody was unsympathetic and gaped, and at
the end of a quarter of an hour Monsieur de Buffon, who always had a
loud way with him, cried out to Madame Neckar's servant, "Let the horses
be put to my carriage!"

Hawthorne seems never to have known that raw period in authorship which
is common to most growing writers, when the style is "overlanguaged,"
and when it plunges wildly through the "sandy deserts of rhetoric," or
struggles as if it were having a personal difficulty with Ignorance and
his brother Platitude. It was capitally said of Chateaubriand that "he
lived on the summits of syllables," and of another young author that "he
was so dully good, that he made even virtue disreputable." Hawthorne had
no such literary vices to contend with. His looks seemed from the start
to be

"Commercing with the skies,"

and he marching upward to the goal without impediment. I was struck a
few days ago with the untruth, so far as Hawthorne is concerned, of a
passage in the Preface to Endymion. Keats says: "The imagination of a
boy is healthy, and the mature imagination of a man is healthy; but
there is a space of life between, in which the soul is in a ferment, the
character undecided, the way of life uncertain, the ambition
thick-sighted." Hawthorne's imagination had no middle period of
decadence or doubt, but continued, as it began, in full vigor to the
end.

* * * * *

In 1852 I went to Europe, and while absent had frequent most welcome
letters from the delightful dreamer. He had finished the "Blithedale
Romance" during my wanderings, and I was fortunate enough to arrange for
its publication in London simultaneously with its appearance in Boston.
One of his letters (dated from his new residence in Concord, June 17,
1852) runs thus:--

"You have succeeded admirably in regard to the 'Blithedale Romance,'
and have got L150 more than I expected to receive. It will come in
good time, too; for my drafts have been pretty heavy of late, in
consequence of buying an estate!!! and fitting up my house. What a
truant you are from the Corner! I wish, before leaving London, you
would obtain for me copies of any English editions of my writings
not already in my possession. I have Routledge's edition of 'The
Scarlet Letter,' the 'Mosses,' and 'Twice-Told Tales'; Bohn's
editions of 'The House of the Seven Gables,' the 'Snow-Image' and
the 'Wonder-Book,' and Bogue's edition of 'The Scarlet
Letter';--these are all, and I should be glad of the rest. I meant
to have written another 'Wonder-Book' this summer, but another task
has unexpectedly intervened. General Pierce of New Hampshire, the
Democratic nominee for the Presidency, was a college friend of mine,
as you know, and we have been intimate through life. He wishes me to
write his biography, and I have consented to do so; somewhat
reluctantly, however, for Pierce has now reached that altitude when
a man, careful of his personal dignity, will begin to think of
cutting his acquaintance. But I seek nothing from him, and therefore
need not be ashamed to tell the truth of an old friend.... I have
written to Barry Cornwall, and shall probably enclose the letter
along with this. I don't more than half believe what you tell me of
my reputation in England, and am only so far credulous on the
strength of the L200, and shall have a somewhat stronger sense of
this latter reality when I finger the cash. Do come home in season
to preside over the publication of the Romance."

He had christened his estate The Wayside, and in a postscript to the
above letter he begs me to consider the name and tell him how I like it.

Another letter, evidently foreshadowing a foreign appointment from the
newly elected President, contains this passage:--

"Do make some inquiries about Portugal; as, for instance, in what
part of the world it lies, and whether it is an empire, a kingdom,
or a republic. Also, and more particularly, the expenses of living
there, and whether the Minister would be likely to be much pestered
with his own countrymen. Also, any other information about foreign
countries would be acceptable to an inquiring mind."

When I returned from abroad I found him getting matters in readiness to
leave the country for a consulship in Liverpool. He seemed happy at the
thought of flitting, but I wondered if he could possibly be as contented
across the water as he was in Concord. I remember walking with him to
the Old Manse, a mile or so distant from The Wayside, his new residence,
and talking over England and his proposed absence of several years. We
strolled round the house, where he spent the first years of his married
life, and he pointed from the outside to the windows, out of which he
had looked and seen supernatural and other visions. We walked up and
down the avenue, the memory of which he has embalmed in the "Mosses,"
and he discoursed most pleasantly of all that had befallen him since he
led a lonely, secluded life in Salem. It was a sleepy, warm afternoon,
and he proposed that we should wander up the banks of the river and lie
down and watch the clouds float above and in the quiet stream. I recall
his lounging, easy air as he tolled me along until we came to a spot
secluded, and ofttimes sacred to his wayward thoughts. He bade me lie
down on the grass and hear the birds sing. As we steeped ourselves in
the delicious idleness, he began to murmur some half-forgotten lines
from Thomson's "Seasons," which he said had been favorites of his from
boyhood. While we lay there, hidden in the grass, we heard approaching
footsteps, and Hawthorne hurriedly whispered, "Duck! or we shall be
interrupted by somebody." The solemnity of his manner, and the thought
of the down-flat position in which we had both placed ourselves to avoid
being seen, threw me into a foolish, semi-hysterical fit of laughter,
and when he nudged me, and again whispered more lugubriously than ever,
"Heaven help me, Mr. ---- is close upon us!" I felt convinced that if
the thing went further, suffocation, in my case at least, must ensue.

He kept me constantly informed, after he went to Liverpool, of how he
was passing his time; and his charming "English Note-Books" reveal the
fact that he was never idle. There were touches, however, in his private
letters which escaped daily record in his journal, and I remember how
delightful it was, after he landed in Europe, to get his frequent
missives. In one of the first he gives me an account of a dinner where
he was obliged to make a speech. He says:--

"I tickled up John Bull's self-conceit (which is very easily done)
with a few sentences of most outrageous flattery, and sat down in a
general puddle of good feeling." In another he says: "I have taken a
house in Rock Park, on the Cheshire side of the Mersey, and am as
snug as a bug in a rug. Next year you must come and see how I live.
Give my regards to everybody, and my love to half a dozen.... I wish
you would call on Mr. Savage, the antiquarian, if you know him, and
ask whether he can inform me what part of England the original
William Hawthorne came from. He came over, I think in 1634.... It
would really be a great obligation if he could answer the above
query. Or, if the fact is not within his own knowledge, he might
perhaps indicate some place where such information might be obtained
here in England. I presume there are records still extant somewhere
of all the passengers by those early ships, with their English
localities annexed to their names. Of all things, I should like to
find a gravestone in one of these old churchyards with my own name
upon it, although, for myself, I should wish to be buried in
America. The graves are too horribly damp here."

The hedgerows of England, the grassy meadows, and the picturesque old
cottages delighted him, and he was never tired of writing to me about
them. While wandering over the country, he was often deeply touched by
meeting among the wild-flowers many of his old New England
favorites,--bluebells, crocuses, primroses, foxglove, and other flowers
which are cultivated in out gardens, and which had long been familiar to
him in America.

I can imagine him, in his quiet, musing way, strolling through the
daisied fields on a Sunday morning and hearing the distant church-bells
chiming to service. His religion was deep and broad, but it was irksome
for him to be fastened in by a pew-door, and I doubt if he often heard
an English sermon. He very rarely described himself as _inside_ a
church, but he liked to wander among the graves in the churchyards and
read the epitaphs on the moss-grown slabs. He liked better to meet and
have a talk with the _sexton_ than with the _rector_.

He was constantly demanding longer letters from home; and nothing gave
him more pleasure than, monthly news from "The Saturday Club," and
detailed accounts of what was going forward in literature. One of his
letters dated in January, 1854, starts off thus:--

"I wish your epistolary propensities were stronger than they are.
All your letters to me since I left America might be squeezed into
one.... I send Ticknor a big cheese, which I long ago promised him,
and my advice is, that he keep it in the shop, and daily, between
eleven and one o'clock, distribute slices of it to your half-starved
authors, together with crackers and something to drink.... I thank
you for the books you send me, and more especially for Mrs. Mowatt's
Autobiography, which seems to me an admirable book. Of all things I
delight in autobiographies; and I hardly ever read one that
interested me so much. She must be a remarkable woman, and I cannot
but lament my ill fortune in never having seen her on the stage or
elsewhere.... I count strongly upon your promise to be with us in
May. Can't you bring Whipple with you?"

One of his favorite resorts in Liverpool was the boarding-house of good
Mrs. Blodgett, in Duke Street, a house where many Americans have found
delectable quarters, after being tossed on the stormy Atlantic. "I have
never known a better woman," Hawthorne used to say, "and her motherly
kindness to me and mine I can never forget." Hundreds of American
travellers will bear witness to the excellence of that beautiful old
lady, who presided with such dignity and sweetness over her hospitable
mansion.

On the 13th of April, 1854, Hawthorne wrote to me this characteristic
letter from the consular office in Liverpool:--

"I am very glad that the 'Mosses' have come into the hands of our
firm; and I return the copy sent me, after a careful revision. When
I wrote those dreamy sketches, I little thought that I should ever
preface an edition for the press amidst the bustling life of a
Liverpool consulate. Upon my honor, I am not quite sure that I
entirely comprehend my own meaning, in some of these blasted
allegories; but I remember that I always had a meaning, or at least
thought I had. I am a good deal changed since those times; and, to
tell you the truth, my past self is not very much to my taste, as I
see myself in this book. Yet certainly there is more in it than the
public generally gave me credit for at the time it was written.

"But I don't think myself worthy of very much more credit than I
got. It has been a very disagreeable task to read the book. The
story of 'Rappacini's Daughter' was published in the Democratic
Review, about the year 1844; and it was prefaced by some remarks on
the celebrated French author (a certain M. de l'Aubepine), from
whose works it was translated. I left out this preface when the
story was republished; but I wish you would turn to it in the
Democratic, and see whether it is worth while to insert it in the
new edition. I leave it altogether to your judgment.

"A young poet named ---- has called on me, and has sent me some
copies of his works to be transmitted to America. It seems to me
there is good in him; and he is recognized by Tennyson, by Carlyle,
by Kingsley, and others of the best people here. He writes me that
this edition of his poems is nearly exhausted, and that Routledge is
going to publish another enlarged and in better style.

"Perhaps it might be well for you to take him up in America. At all
events, try to bring him into notice; and some day or other you may
be glad to have helped a famous poet in his obscurity. The poor
fellow has left a good post in the customs to cultivate literature
in London!

"We shall begin to look for you now by every steamer from Boston.
You must make up your mind to spend a good while with us before
going to see your London friends.

"Did you read the article on your friend De Quincey in the last
Westminster? It was written by Mr. ---- of this city, who was in
America a year or two ago. The article is pretty well, but does
nothing like adequate justice to De Quincey; and in fact no
Englishman cares a pin for him. We are ten times as good readers and
critics as they.

"Is not Whipple coming here soon?"

Hawthorne's first visit to London afforded him great pleasure, but he
kept out of the way of literary people as much as possible. He
introduced himself to nobody, except Mr. ----, whose assistance he
needed, in order to be identified at the bank. He wrote to me from 24
George Street, Hanover Square, and told me he delighted in London, and
wished he could spend a year there. He enjoyed floating about, in a sort
of unknown way, among the rotund and rubicund figures made jolly with
ale and port-wine. He was greatly amused at being told (his informants
meaning to be complimentary) "that he would never be taken for anything
but an Englishman." He called Tennyson's "Charge of the Light Brigade,"
just printed at that time, "a broken-kneed gallop of a poem." He
writes:--

"John Bull is in high spirits just now at the taking of Sebastopol.
What an absurd personage John is! I find that my liking for him
grows stronger the more I see of him, but that my admiration and
respect have constantly decreased."

One of his most intimate friends (a man unlike that individual of whom
it was said that he was the friend of everybody that did not need a
friend) was Francis Bennoch, a merchant of Wood Street, Cheapside,
London, the gentleman to whom Mrs. Hawthorne dedicated the English
Note-Books. Hawthorne's letters abounded in warm expressions of
affection for the man whose noble hospitality and deep interest made his
residence in England full of happiness. Bennoch was indeed like a
brother to him, sympathizing warmly in all his literary projects, and
giving him the benefit of his excellent judgment while he was sojourning
among strangers. Bennoch's record may be found in Tom Taylor's admirable
life of poor Haydon, the artist. All literary and artistic people who
have had the good fortune to enjoy his friendship have loved him. I
happen to know of his bountiful kindness to Miss Mitford and Hawthorne
and poor old Jerdan, for these hospitalities happened in my time; but he
began to befriend all who needed friendship long before I knew him. His
name ought never to be omitted from the literary annals of England; nor
that of his wife either, for she has always made her delightful fireside
warm and comforting to her husband's friends.

Many and many a happy time Bennoch, Hawthorne, and myself have had
together on British soil. I remember we went once to dine at a great
house in the country, years ago, where it was understood there would be
no dinner speeches. The banquet was in honor of some society,--I have
quite forgotten what,--but it was a jocose and not a serious club. The
gentleman who gave it, Sir ----, was a most kind and genial person, and
gathered about him on this occasion some of the brightest and best from
London. All the way down in the train Hawthorne was rejoicing that this
was to be a dinner without speech-making; "for," said he, "nothing would
tempt me to go if toasts and such confounded deviltry were to be the
order of the day." So we rattled along, without a fear of any impending
cloud of oratory. The entertainment was a most exquisite one, about
twenty gentlemen sitting down at the beautifully ornamented table.
Hawthorne was in uncommonly good spirits, and, having the seat of honor
at the right of his host, was pretty keenly scrutinized by his British
brethren of the quill. He had, of course, banished all thought of
speech-making, and his knees never smote together once, as he told me
afterwards. But it became evident to my mind that Hawthorne's health was
to be proposed with all the honors. I glanced at him across the table,
and saw that he was unsuspicious of any movement against his quiet
serenity. Suddenly and without warning our host rapped the mahogany, and
began a set speech of welcome to the "distinguished American romancer."
It was a very honest and a very hearty speech, but I dared not look at
Hawthorne. I expected every moment to see him glide out of the room, or
sink down out of sight from his chair. The tortures I suffered on
Hawthorne's account, on that occasion, I will not attempt to describe
now. I knew nothing would have induced the shy man of letters to go down
to Brighton, if he had known he was to be spoken at in that manner. I
imagined his face a deep crimson, and his hands trembling with nervous
horror; but judge of my surprise, when he rose to reply with so calm a
voice and so composed a manner, that, in all my experience of
dinner-speaking, I never witnessed such a case of apparent ease.
(Easy-Chair C ---- himself, one of the best makers of after-dinner or
any other speeches of our day, according to Charles Dickens,--no
inadequate judge, all will allow,--never surpassed in eloquent effect
this speech by Hawthorne.) There was no hesitation, no sign of lack of
preparation, but he went on for about ten minutes in such a masterly
manner, that I declare it was one of the most successful efforts of the
kind ever made. Everybody was delighted, and, when he sat down, a wild
and unanimous shout of applause rattled the glasses on the table. The
meaning of his singular composure on that occasion I could never get him
satisfactorily to explain, and the only remark I ever heard him make, in
any way connected with this marvellous exhibition of coolness, was
simply, "What a confounded fool I was to go down to that speech-making
dinner!"

During all those long years, while Hawthorne was absent in Europe, he
was anything but an idle man. On the contrary, he was an eminently busy
one, in the best sense of that term; and if his life had been prolonged,
the public would have been a rich gainer for his residence abroad. His
brain teemed with romances, and once I remember he told me he had no
less than five stories, well thought out, any one of which he could
finish and publish whenever he chose to. There was one subject for a
work of imagination that seems to have haunted him for years, and he has
mentioned it twice in his journal. This was the subsequent life of the
young man whom Jesus, looking on, "loved," and whom he bade to sell all
that he had and give to the poor, and take up his cross and follow him.
"Something very deep and beautiful might be made out of this," Hawthorne
said, "for the young man went away sorrowful, and is not recorded to
have done what he was bidden to do."

One of the most difficult matters he had to manage while in England was
the publication of Miss Bacon's singular book on Shakespeare. The poor
lady, after he had agreed to see the work through the press, broke off
all correspondence with him in a storm of wrath, accusing him of
pusillanimity in not avowing full faith in her theory; so that, as he
told me, so far as her good-will was concerned, he had not gained much
by taking the responsibility of her book upon his shoulders. It was a
heavy weight for him to bear in more senses than one, for he paid out of
his own pocket the expenses of publication.

I find in his letters constant references to the kindness with which he
was treated in London. He spoke of Mrs. S.C. Hall as "one of the best
and warmest-hearted women in the world." Leigh Hunt, in his way, pleased
and satisfied him more than almost any man he had seen in England. "As
for other literary men," he says in one of his letters, "I doubt whether
London can muster so good a dinner-party as that which assembles every
month at the marble palace in School Street."

All sorts of adventures befell him during his stay in Europe, even to
that of having his house robbed, and his causing the thieves to be tried
and sentenced to transportation. In the summer-time he travelled about
the country in England and pitched his tent wherever fancy prompted. One
autumn afternoon in September he writes to me from Leamington:--

"I received your letter only this morning, at this cleanest and
prettiest of English towns, where we are going to spend a week or
two before taking our departure for Paris. We are acquainted with
Leamington already, having resided here two summers ago; and the
country round about is unadulterated England, rich in old castles,
manor-houses, churches, and thatched cottages, and as green as
Paradise itself. I only wish I had a house here, and that you could
come and be my guest in it; but I am a poor wayside vagabond, and
only find shelter for a night or so, and then trudge onward again.
My wife and children and myself are familiar with all kinds of
lodgement and modes of living, but we have forgotten what home
is,--at least the children have, poor things! I doubt whether they
will ever feel inclined to live long in one place. The worst of it
is, I have outgrown my house in Concord, and feel no inclination to
return to it.

"We spent seven weeks in Manchester, and went most diligently to the
Art Exhibition; and I really begin to be sensible of the rudiments
of a taste in pictures."

It was during one of his rambles with Alexander Ireland through the
Manchester Exhibition rooms that Hawthorne saw Tennyson wandering about.
I have always thought it unfortunate that these two men of genius could
not have been introduced on that occasion. Hawthorne was too shy to seek
an introduction, and Tennyson was not aware that the American author was
present. Hawthorne records in his journal that he gazed at Tennyson with
all his eyes, "and rejoiced more in him than in all the other wonders of
the Exhibition." When I afterwards told Tennyson that the author whose
"Twice-Told Tales" he happened to be then reading at Farringford had met
him at Manchester, but did not make himself known, the Laureate said in
his frank and hearty manner: "Why didn't he come up and let me shake
hands with him? I am sure I should have been glad to meet a man like
Hawthorne anywhere."

At the close of 1857 Hawthorne writes to me that he hears nothing of the
appointment of his successor in the consulate, since he had sent in his
resignation. "Somebody may turn up any day," he says, "with a new
commission in his pocket." He was meanwhile getting ready for Italy, and
he writes, "I expect shortly to be released from durance."

In his last letter before leaving England for the Continent he says:--

"I made up a huge package the other day, consisting of seven closely
written volumes of journal, kept by me since my arrival in England,
and filled with sketches of places and men and manners, many of
which would doubtless be very delightful to the public. I think I
shall seal them up, with directions in my will to have them opened
and published a century hence; and your firm shall have the refusal
of them then.

"Remember me to everybody, for I love all my friends at least as
well as ever."

Released from the cares of office, and having nothing to distract his
attention, his life on the Continent opened full of delightful
excitement. His pecuniary situation was such as to enable him to live
very comfortably in a country where, at that time, prices were moderate.

In a letter dated from a villa near Florence on the 3d of September,
1858, he thus describes in a charming manner his way of life in Italy:--

"I am afraid I have stayed away too long, and am forgotten by
everybody. You have piled up the dusty remnants of my editions, I
suppose, in that chamber over the shop, where you once took me to
smoke a cigar, and have crossed my name out of your list of authors,
without so much as asking whether I am dead or alive. But I like it
well enough, nevertheless. It is pleasant to feel at last that I am
really away from America,--a satisfaction that I never enjoyed as
long as I stayed in Liverpool, where it seemed to me that the
quintessence of nasal and hand-shaking Yankeedom was continually
filtered and sublimated through my consulate, on the way outward and
homeward. I first got acquainted with my own countrymen there. At
Rome, too, it was not much better. But here in Florence, and in the
summer-time, and in this secluded villa, I have escaped out of all
my old tracks, and am really remote.

"I like my present residence immensely. The house stands on a hill,
overlooking Florence, and is big enough to quarter a regiment;
insomuch that each member of the family, including servants, has a
separate suite of apartments, and there are vast wildernesses of
upper rooms into which we have never yet sent exploring expeditions.

"At one end of the house there is a moss-grown tower, haunted by
owls and by the ghost of a monk, who was confined there in the
thirteenth century, previous to being burned at the stake in the
principal square of Florence. I hire this villa, tower and all, at
twenty-eight dollars a month; but I mean to take it away bodily and
clap it into a romance, which I have in my head ready to be written
out.

"Speaking of romances, I have planned two, one or both of which I
could have ready for the press in a few months if I were either in
England or America. But I find this Italian atmosphere not favorable
to the close toil of composition, although it is a very good air to
dream in. I must breathe the fogs of old England or the east-winds
of Massachusetts, in order to put me into working trim.
Nevertheless, I shall endeavor to be busy during the coming winter
at Rome, but there will be so much to distract my thoughts that I
have little hope of seriously accomplishing anything. It is a pity;
for I have really a plethora of ideas, and should feel relieved by
discharging some of them upon the public.

"We shall continue here till the end of this month, and shall then
return to Rome, where I have already taken a house for six months.
In the middle of April we intend to start for home by the way of
Geneva and Paris; and, after spending a few weeks in England, shall
embark for Boston in July or the beginning of August. After so long
an absence (more than five years already, which will be six before
you see me at the old Corner), it is not altogether delightful to
think of returning. Everybody will be changed, and I myself, no
doubt, as much as anybody. Ticknor and you, I suppose, were both
upset in the late religious earthquake, and when I inquire for you
the clerks will direct me to the 'Business Men's Conference.' It
won't do. I shall be forced to come back again and take refuge in a
London lodging. London is like the grave in one respect,--any man
can make himself at home there; and whenever a man finds himself
homeless elsewhere, he had better either die or go to London.

"Speaking of the grave reminds me of old age and other disagreeable
matters; and I would remark that one grows old in Italy twice or
three times as fast as in other countries. I have three gray hairs
now for one that I brought from England, and I shall look venerable
indeed by next summer, when I return.

"Remember me affectionately to all my friends. Whoever has a
kindness for me may be assured that I have twice as much for him."

Hawthorne's second visit to Rome, in the winter of 1859, was not a
fortunate one. His own health was excellent during his sojourn there,
but several members of his family fell ill, and he became very nervous
and longed to get away. In one of his letters he says:--

"I bitterly detest Rome, and shall rejoice to bid it farewell
forever; and I fully acquiesce in all the mischief and ruin that has
happened to it, from Nero's conflagration downward. In fact, I wish
the very site had been obliterated before I ever saw it."

He found solace, however, during the series of domestic troubles
(continued illness in his family) that befell, in writing memoranda for
"The Marble Faun." He thus announces to me the beginning of the new
romance:--

"I take some credit to myself for having sternly shut myself up for
an hour or two almost every day, and come to close grips with a
romance which I have been trying to tear out of my mind. As for my
success, I can't say much; indeed, I don't know what to say at all.
I only know that I have produced what seems to be a larger amount of
scribble than either of my former romances, and that portions of it
interested me a good deal while I was writing them; but I have had
so many interruptions, from things to see and things to suffer, that
the story has developed itself in a very imperfect way, and will
have to be revised hereafter. I could finish it for the press in the
time that I am to remain here (till the 15th of April), but my brain
is tired of it just now; and, besides, there are many objects that I
shall regret not seeing hereafter, though I care very little about
seeing them now; so I shall throw aside the romance, and take it up
again next August at The Wayside."

He decided to be back in England early in the summer, and to sail for
home in July. He writes to me from Rome:--

"I shall go home, I fear, with a heavy heart, not expecting to be
very well contented there.... If I were but a hundred times richer
than I am, how very comfortable I could be! I consider it a great
piece of good fortune that I have had experience of the discomforts
and miseries of Italy, and did not go directly home from England.
Anything will seem like Paradise after a Roman winter.

"If I had but a house fit to live in, I should be greatly more
reconciled to coming home; but I am really at a loss to imagine how
we are to squeeze ourselves into that little old cottage of mine. We
had outgrown it before we came away, and most of us are twice as big
now as we were then.

"I have an attachment to the place, and should be sorry to give it
up; but I shall half ruin myself if I try to enlarge the house, and
quite if I build another. So what is to be done? Pray have some
plan for me before I get back; not that I think you can possibly hit
on anything that will suit me.... I shall return by way of Venice
and Geneva, spend two or three weeks or more in Paris, and sail for
home, as I said, in July. It would be an exceeding delight to me to
meet you or Ticknor in England, or anywhere else. At any rate, it
will cheer my heart to see you all and the old Corner itself, when I
touch my dear native soil again."

I went abroad again in 1859, and found Hawthorne back in England,
working away diligently at "The Marble Faun." While travelling on the
Continent, during the autumn I had constant letters from him, giving
accounts of his progress on the new romance. He says: "I get along more
slowly than I expected.... If I mistake not, it will have some good
chapters." Writing on the 10th of October he tells me:--

"The romance is almost finished, a great heap of manuscript being
already accumulated, and only a few concluding chapters remaining
behind. If hard pushed, I could have it ready for the press in a
fortnight; but unless the publishers [Smith and Elder were to bring
out the work in England] are in a hurry, I shall be somewhat longer
about it. I have found far more work to do upon it than I
anticipated. To confess the truth, I admire it exceedingly at
intervals, but am liable to cold fits, during which I think it the
most infernal nonsense. You ask for the title. I have not yet fixed
upon one, but here are some that have occurred to me; neither of
them exactly meets my idea: 'Monte Beni; or, The Faun. A Romance.'
'The Romance of a Faun.' 'The Faun of Monte Beni.' 'Monte Beni: a
Romance.' 'Miriam: a Romance.' 'Hilda: a Romance.' 'Donatello: a
Romance.' 'The Faun: a Romance.' 'Marble and Man: a Romance.' When
you have read the work (which I especially wish you to do before it
goes to press), you will be able to select one of them, or imagine
something better. There is an objection in my mind to an Italian
name, though perhaps Monte Beni might do. Neither do I wish, if I
can help it, to make the fantastic aspect of the book too prominent
by putting the Faun into the title-page."

Hawthorne wrote so intensely on his new story, that he was quite worn
down before he finished it. To recruit his strength he went to Redcar,
where the bracing air of the German Ocean soon counteracted the ill
effect of overwork. "The Marble Faun" was in the London printing-office
in November, and he seemed very glad to have it off his hands. His
letters to me at this time (I was still on the Continent) were jubilant
with hope. He was living in Leamington, and was constantly writing to me
that I should find the next two months more comfortable in England than
anywhere else. On the 17th he writes:--

"The Italian spring commences in February, which is certainly an
advantage, especially as from February to May is the most
disagreeable portion of the English year. But it is always summer by
a bright coal-fire. We find nothing to complain of in the climate of
Leamington. To be sure, we cannot always see our hands before us for
fog; but I like fog, and do not care about seeing my hand before me.
We have thought of staying here till after Christmas and then going
somewhere else,--perhaps to Bath, perhaps to Devonshire. But all
this is uncertain. Leamington is not so desirable a residence in
winter as in summer; its great charm consisting in the many
delightful walks and drives, and in its neighborhood to interesting
places. I have quite finished the book (some time ago) and have sent
it to Smith and Elder, who tell me it is in the printer's hands, but
I have received no proof-sheets. They wrote to request another title
instead of the 'Romance of Monte Beni,' and I sent them their choice
of a dozen. I don't know what they have chosen; neither do I
understand their objection to the above. Perhaps they don't like the
book at all; but I shall not trouble myself about that, as long as
they publish it and pay me my L600. For my part, I think it much my
best romance; but I can see some points where it is open to assault.
If it could have appeared first in America, it would have been a
safe thing....

"I mean to spend the rest of my abode in England in blessed
idleness: and as for my journal, in the first place I have not got
it here; secondly, there is nothing in it that will do to publish."

* * * * *

Hawthorne was, indeed, a consummate artist, and I do not remember a
single slovenly passage in all his acknowledged writings. It was a
privilege, and one that I can never sufficiently estimate, to have
known him personally through so many years. He was unlike any other
author I have met, and there were qualities in his nature so sweet and
commendable, that, through all his shy reserve, they sometimes asserted
themselves in a marked and conspicuous manner. I have known rude people,
who were jostling him in a crowd, give way at the sound of his low and
almost irresolute voice, so potent was the gentle spell of command that
seemed born of his genius.

Although he was apt to keep aloof from his kind, and did not hesitate
frequently to announce by his manner that

"Solitude to him
Was blithe society, who filled the air
With gladness and involuntary songs,"

I ever found him, like Milton's Raphael, an "affable" angel, and
inclined to converse on whatever was human and good in life.

Here are some more extracts from the letters he wrote to me while he was
engaged on "The Marble Faun." On the 11th of February, 1860, he writes
from Leamington in England (I was then in Italy):--

"I received your letter from Florence, and conclude that you are now
in Rome, and probably enjoying the Carnival,--a tame description of
which, by the by, I have introduced into my Romance.

"I thank you most heartily for your kind wishes in favor of the
forthcoming work, and sincerely join my own prayers to yours in its
behalf, but without much confidence of a good result. My own opinion
is, that I am not really a popular writer, and that what popularity
I have gained is chiefly accidental, and owing to other causes than
my own kind or degree of merit. Possibly I may (or may not) deserve
something better than popularity; but looking at all my productions,
and especially this latter one, with a cold or critical eye, I can
see that they do not make their appeal to the popular mind. It is
odd enough, moreover, that my own individual taste is for quite
another class of works than those which I myself am able to write.
If I were to meet with such books as mine, by another writer, I
don't believe I should be able to get through them.

* * * * *
"To return to my own moonshiny Romance; its fate will soon
be settled, for Smith and Elder mean to publish on the 28th of this
month. Poor Ticknor will have a tight scratch to get his edition
out contemporaneously; they having sent him the third volume
only a week ago. I think, however, there will be no danger of
piracy in America. Perhaps nobody will think it worth stealing.
Give my best regards to William Story, and look well at his Cleopatra,
for you will meet her again in one of the chapters which I wrote
with most pleasure. If he does not find himself famous henceforth,
the fault will be none of mine. I, at least, have done my duty by
him, whatever delinquency there may be on the part of other critics.

"Smith and Elder persist in calling the book 'Transformation,' which
gives one the idea of Harlequin in a pantomime; but I have strictly
enjoined upon Ticknor to call it 'The Marble Faun; a Romance of Monte
Beni.'"

In one of his letters written at this period, referring to his design of
going home, he says:--

"I shall not have been absent seven years till the 5th of July next,
and I scorn to touch Yankee soil sooner than that.... As regards
going home I alternate between a longing and a dread."

Returning to London from the Continent, in April, I found this letter,
written from Bath, awaiting my arrival:--

"You are welcome back. I really began to fear that you had been
assassinated among the Apennines or killed in that outbreak at Rome.
I have taken passages for all of us in the steamer which sails the
16th of June. Your berths are Nos. 19 and 20. I engaged them with
the understanding that you might go earlier or later, if you chose;
but I would advise you to go on the 16th; in the first place,
because the state-rooms for our party are the most eligible in the
ship; secondly, because we shall otherwise mutually lose the
pleasure of each other's company. Besides, I consider it my duty,
towards Ticknor and towards Boston, and America at large, to take
you into custody and bring you home; for I know you will never come
except upon compulsion. Let me know at once whether I am to use
force.

"The book (The Marble Faun) has done better than I thought it
would; for you will have discovered, by this time, that it is an
audacious attempt to impose a tissue of absurdities upon the public
by the mere art of style of narrative. I hardly hoped that it would
go down with John Bull; but then it is always my best point of
writing, to undertake such a task, and I really put what strength I
have into many parts of this book.

"The English critics generally (with two or three unimportant
exceptions) have been sufficiently favorable, and the review in the
Times awarded the highest praise of all. At home, too, the notices
have been very kind, so far as they have come under my eye. Lowell
had a good one in the Atlantic Monthly, and Hillard an excellent one
in the Courier; and yesterday I received a sheet of the May number
of the Atlantic containing a really keen and profound article by
Whipple, in which he goes over all my works, and recognizes that
element of unpopularity which (as nobody knows better than myself)
pervades them all. I agree with almost all he says, except that I am
conscious of not deserving nearly so much praise. When I get home, I
will try to write a more genial book; but the Devil himself always
seems to get into my inkstand, and I can only exorcise him by
pensful at a time.

"I am coming to London very soon, and mean to spend a fortnight of
next month there. I have been quite homesick through this past
dreary winter. Did you ever spend a winter in England? If not,
reserve your ultimate conclusion about the country until you have
done so."

We met in London early in May, and, as our lodgings were not far apart,
we were frequently together. I recall many pleasant dinners with him and
mutual friends in various charming seaside and country-side places. We
used to take a run down to Greenwich or Blackwall once or twice a week,
and a trip to Richmond was always grateful to him. Bennoch was
constantly planning a day's happiness for his friend, and the hours at
that pleasant season of the year were not long enough for our delights.
In London we strolled along the Strand, day after day, now diving into
Bolt Court, in pursuit of Johnson's whereabouts, and now stumbling
around the Temple, where Goldsmith at one time had his quarters.
Hawthorne was never weary of standing on London Bridge, and watching
the steamers plying up and down the Thames. I was much amused by his
manner towards importunate and sometimes impudent beggars, scores of
whom would attack us even in the shortest walk. He had a mild way of
making a severe and cutting remark, which used to remind me of a little
incident which Charlotte Cushman once related to me. She said a man in
the gallery of a theatre (I think she was on the stage at the time) made
such a disturbance that the play could not proceed. Cries of "Throw him
over" arose from all parts of the house, and the noise became furious.
All was tumultuous chaos until a sweet and gentle female voice was heard
in the pit, exclaiming, "No! I pray you don't throw him over! I beg of
you, dear friends, don't throw him over, but--_kill him where he is_."

One of our most royal times was at a parting dinner at the house of
Barry Cornwall. Among the notables present were Kinglake and Leigh Hunt.
Our kind-hearted host and his admirable wife greatly delighted in
Hawthorne, and they made this occasion a most grateful one to him. I
remember when we went up to the drawing-room to join the ladies after
dinner, the two dear old poets, Leigh Hunt and Barry Cornwall, mounted
the stairs with their arms round each other in a very tender and loving
way. Hawthorne often referred to this scene as one he would not have
missed for a great deal.

His renewed intercourse with Motley in England gave him peculiar
pleasure, and his genius found an ardent admirer in the eminent
historian. He did not go much, into society at that time, but there were
a few houses in London where he always seemed happy.

I met him one night at a great evening-party, looking on from a nook a
little removed from the full glare of the _soiree_. Soon, however, it
was whispered about that the famous American romance-writer was in the
room, and an enthusiastic English lady, a genuine admirer and
intelligent reader of his books, ran for her album and attacked him for
"a few words and his name at the end." He looked dismally perplexed, and
turning to me said imploringly in a whisper, "For pity's sake, what
shall I write? I can't think of a word to add to my name. Help me to
something." Thinking him partly in fun, I said, "Write an original
couplet,--this one, for instance,--

'When this you see,
Remember me,'"

and to my amazement he stepped forward at once to the table, wrote the
foolish lines I had suggested, and, shutting the book, handed it very
contentedly to the happy lady.

We sailed from England together in the month of June, as we had
previously arranged, and our voyage home was, to say the least, an
unusual one. We had calm summer, moonlight weather, with no storms. Mrs.
Stowe was on board, and in her own cheery and delightful way she
enlivened the passage with some capital stories of her early life.

When we arrived at Queenstown, the captain announced to us that, as the
ship would wait there six hours, we might go ashore and see something of
our Irish friends. So we chartered several jaunting-cars, after much
tribulation and delay in arranging terms with the drivers thereof, and
started off on a merry exploring expedition. I remember there was a good
deal of racing up and down the hills of Queenstown, much shouting and
laughing, and crowds of beggars howling after us for pence and beer. The
Irish jaunting-car is a peculiar institution, and we all sat with our
legs dangling over the road in a "dim and perilous way." Occasionally a
horse would give out, for the animals were sad specimens, poorly fed
and wofully driven. We were almost devoured by the ragamuffins that ran
beside our wheels, and I remember the "sad civility" with which
Hawthorne regarded their clamors. We had provided ourselves before
starting with much small coin, which, however, gave out during our first
mile. Hawthorne attempted to explain our inability further to supply
their demands, having, as he said to them, nothing less than a sovereign
in his pocket, when a voice from the crowd shouted, "Bedad, your honor,
I can change that for ye"; and the knave actually did it on the spot.

Hawthorne's love for the sea amounted to a passionate worship; and while
I (the worst sailor probably on this planet) was longing, spite of the
good company on board, to reach land as soon as possible, Hawthorne was
constantly saying in his quiet, earnest way, "I should like to sail on
and on forever, and never touch the shore again." He liked to stand
alone in the bows of the ship and see the sun go down, and he was never
tired of walking the deck at midnight. I used to watch his dark,
solitary figure under the stars, pacing up and down some unfrequented
part of the vessel, musing and half melancholy. Sometimes he would lie
down beside me and commiserate my unquiet condition. Seasickness, he
declared, he could not understand, and was constantly recommending most
extraordinary dishes and drinks, "all made out of the _artist's_ brain,"
which he said were sovereign remedies for nautical illness. I remember
to this day some of the preparations which, in his revelry of fancy, he
would advise me to take, a farrago of good things almost rivalling
"Oberon's Feast," spread out so daintily in Herrick's "Hesperides." He
thought, at first, if I could bear a few roc's eggs beaten up by a
mermaid on a dolphin's back, I might be benefited. He decided that a
gruel made from a sheaf of Robin Hood's arrows would be strengthening.
When suffering pain, "a right gude willie-waught," or a stiff cup of
hemlock of the Socrates brand, before retiring, he considered very good.
He said he had heard recommended a dose of salts distilled from the
tears of Niobe, but he didn't approve of that remedy. He observed that
he had a high opinion of hearty food, such as potted owl with Minerva
sauce, airy tongues of sirens, stewed ibis, livers of Roman Capitol
geese, the wings of a Phoenix not too much done, love-lorn nightingales
cooked briskly over Aladdin's lamp, chicken-pies made of fowls raised by
Mrs. Carey, Nautilus chowder, and the like. Fruit, by all means, should
always be taken by an uneasy victim at sea, especially Atalanta pippins
and purple grapes raised by Bacchus & Co. Examining my garments one day
as I lay on deck, he thought I was not warmly enough clad, and he
recommended, before I took another voyage, that I should fit myself out
in Liverpool with a good warm shirt from the shop of Nessus & Co. in
Bold Street, where I could also find stout seven-league boots to keep
out the damp. He knew another shop, he said, where I could buy
raven-down stockings, and sable clouds with a silver lining, most warm
and comfortable for a sea voyage.

His own appetite was excellent, and day after day he used to come on
deck after dinner and describe to me what he had eaten. Of course his
accounts were always exaggerations, for my amusement. I remember one
night he gave me a running catalogue of what food he had partaken during
the day, and the sum total was convulsing from its absurdity. Among the
viands he had consumed, I remember he stated there were "several yards
of steak," and a "whole warrenful of Welsh rabbits." The "divine spirit
of Humor" was upon him during many of those days at sea, and he revelled
in it like a careless child.

That was a voyage, indeed, long to be remembered, and I shall ever look
back upon it as the most satisfactory "sea turn" I ever happened to
experience. I have sailed many a weary, watery mile since then, but
_Hawthorne_ was not on board!

The summer after his arrival home he spent quietly in Concord, at the
Wayside, and illness in his family made him at times unusually sad. In
one of his notes to me he says:--

"I am continually reminded nowadays of a response which I once heard
a drunken sailor make to a pious gentleman, who asked him how he
felt, 'Pretty d--d miserable, thank God!' It very well expresses my
thorough discomfort and forced acquiescence."

Occasionally he wrote requesting me to make a change, here and there, in
the new edition of his works then passing through the press. On the 23d
of September, 1860, he writes:--

"Please to append the following note to the foot of the page, at the
commencement of the story called 'Dr. Heidegger's Experiment,' in
the 'Twice-Told Tales': 'In an English Review, not long since, I
have been accused of plagiarizing the idea of this story from a
chapter in one of the novels of Alexandra Dumas. There has
undoubtedly been a plagiarism, on one side or the other; but as my
story was written a good deal more than twenty years ago, and as the
novel is of considerably more recent date, I take pleasure in
thinking that M. Dumas has done me the honor to appropriate one of
the fanciful conceptions of my earlier days. He is heartily welcome
to it; nor is it the only instance, by many, in which the great
French romancer has exercised the privilege of commanding genius by
confiscating the intellectual property of less famous people to his
own use and behoof.'"

Hawthorne was a diligent reader of the Bible, and when sometimes, in my
ignorant way, I would question, in a proof-sheet, his use of a word, he
would almost always refer me to the Bible as his authority. It was a
great pleasure to hear him talk about the Book of Job, and his voice
would be tremulous with feeling, as he sometimes quoted a touching
passage from the New Testament. In one of his letters he says to me:--

"Did not I suggest to you, last summer, the publication of the Bible
in ten or twelve 12mo volumes? I think it would have great success,
and, at least (but, as a publisher, I suppose this is the very
smallest of your cares), it would result in the salvation of a great
many souls, who will never find their way to heaven, if left to
learn it from the inconvenient editions of the Scriptures now in
use. It is very singular that this form of publishing the Bible in a
single bulky or closely printed volume should be so long continued.
It was first adopted, I suppose, as being the universal mode of
publication at the time when the Bible was translated. Shakespeare,
and the other old dramatists and poets, were first published in the
same form; but all of them have long since been broken into dozens
and scores of portable and readable volumes; and why not the Bible?"

During this period, after his return from Europe, I saw him frequently
at the Wayside, in Concord. He now seemed happy in the dwelling he had
put in order for the calm and comfort of his middle and later life. He
had added a tower to his house, in which he could be safe from
intrusion, and where he could muse and write. Never was poet or romancer
more fitly shrined. Drummond at Hawthornden, Scott at Abbotsford,
Dickens at Gad's Hill, Irving at Sunnyside, were not more appropriately
sheltered. Shut up in his tower, he could escape from the tumult of
life, and be alone with only the birds and the bees in concert outside
his casement. The view from this apartment, on every side, was lovely,
and Hawthorne enjoyed the charming prospect as I have known, few men to
enjoy nature.

His favorite walk lay near his house,--indeed it was part of his own
grounds,--a little hillside, where he had worn a foot-path, and where he
might be found in good weather, when not employed in the tower. While
walking to and fro on this bit of rising ground he meditated and
composed innumerable romances that were never written, as well as some
that were. Here he, first announced to me his plan of "The Dolliver
Romance," and, from what he told me of his design of the story as it
existed in his mind, I thought it would have been the greatest of his
books. An enchanting memory is left of that morning when he laid out the
whole story before me as he intended to write it. The plot was a grand
one, and I tried to tell him how much I was impressed by it. Very soon
after our interview, he wrote to me:--

"In compliance with your exhortations, I have begun to think
seriously of that story, not, as yet, with a pen in my hand, but
trudging to and fro on my hilltop.... I don't mean to let you see
the first chapters till I have written the final sentence of the
story. Indeed, the first chapters of a story ought always to be the
last written.... If you want me to write a good book, send me a good
pen; not a gold one, for they seldom suit me; but a pen flexible and
capacious of ink, and that will not grow stiff and rheumatic the
moment I get attached to it. I never met with a good pen in my
life."

Time went on, the war broke out, and he had not the heart to go on with
his new Romance. During the month of April, 1862, he made a visit to
Washington with his friend Ticknor, to whom he was greatly attached.
While on this visit to the capital he sat to Leutze for a portrait. He
took a special fancy to the artist, and, while he was sitting to him,
wrote a long letter to me. Here is an extract from it:--

"I stay here only while Leutze finishes a portrait, which I think
will be the best ever painted of the same unworthy subject. One
charm it must needs have,--an aspect of immortal jollity and
well-to-doness; for Leutze, when the sitting begins, gives me a
first-rate cigar, and when he sees me getting tired, he brings out a
bottle of splendid champagne; and we quaffed and smoked yesterday,
in a blessed state of mutual good-will, for three hours and a half,
during which the picture made a really miraculous progress. Leutze
is the best of fellows."

In the same letter he thus describes the sinking of the Cumberland, and
I know of nothing finer in its way:--

"I see in a newspaper that Holmes is going to write a song on the
sinking of the Cumberland; and feeling it to be a subject of
national importance, it occurs to me that he might like to know her
present condition. She lies with her three masts sticking up out of
the water, and careened over, the water being nearly on a level with
her maintop,--I mean that first landing-place from the deck of the
vessel, after climbing the shrouds. The rigging does not appear at
all damaged. There is a tattered bit of a pennant, about a foot and
a half long, fluttering from the tip-top of one of the masts; but
the flag, the ensign of the ship (which never was struck, thank
God), is under water, so as to be quite invisible, being attached to
the gaff, I think they call it, of the mizzen-mast; and though this
bald description makes nothing of it, I never saw anything so
gloriously forlorn as those three masts. I did not think it was in
me to be so moved by any spectacle of the kind. Bodies still
occasionally float up from it. The Secretary of the Navy says she
shall lie there till she goes to pieces, but I suppose by and by
they will sell her to some Yankee for the value of her old iron.

"P.S. My hair really is not so white as this photograph, which I
enclose, makes me. The sun seems to take an infernal pleasure in
making me venerable,--as if I were as old as himself."

Hawthorne has rested so long in the twilight of impersonality, that I
hesitate sometimes to reveal the man even to his warmest admirers. This
very day Sainte-Beuve has made me feel a fresh reluctance in unveiling
my friend, and there seems almost a reproof in these words, from the
eloquent French author:--

"We know nothing or nearly nothing of the life of La Bruyere, and
this obscurity adds, it has been remarked, to the effect of his
work, and, it may be said, to the piquant happiness of his destiny.
If there was not a single line of his unique book, which from the
first instant of its publication did not appear and remain in the
clear light, so, on the other hand, there was not one individual
detail regarding the author which was well known. Every ray of the
century fell upon each page of the book and the face of the man who
held it open in his hand was veiled from our sight."

Beautifully said, as usual with Sainte-Beuve, but I venture,
notwithstanding such eloquent warning, to proceed.

After his return home from Washington Hawthorne sent to me, during the
month of May, an article for the Atlantic Monthly, which he entitled
"Chiefly about War-Matters." The paper, excellently well done
throughout, of course, contained a personal description of President
Lincoln, which I thought, considered as a portrait of a living man, and
drawn by Hawthorne, it would not be wise or tasteful to print. The
office of an editor is a disagreeable one sometimes, and the case of
Hawthorne on Lincoln disturbed me not a little. After reading the
manuscript, I wrote to the author, and asked his permission to omit his
description of the President's personal appearance. As usual,--for he
was the kindest and sweetest of contributors, the most good-natured and
the most amenable man to advise I ever knew,--he consented to my
proposal, and allowed me to print the article with the alterations. If
any one will turn to the paper in the Atlantic Monthly (it is in the
number for July, 1862), it will be observed there are several notes; all
of these were written by Hawthorne himself. He complied with my request
without a murmur, but he always thought I was wrong in my decision. He
said the whole description of the interview and the President's personal
appearance were, to his mind, the only parts of the article worth
publishing. "What a terrible thing," he complained, "it is to try to let
off a little bit of truth into this miserable humbug of a world!"
President Lincoln is dead, and as Hawthorne once wrote to me, "Upon my
honor, it seems to me the passage omitted has an historical value," I
will copy here verbatim what I advised my friend, both on his own
account and the President's, not to print nine years ago. Hawthorne and
his party had gone into the President's room, annexed, as he says, as
supernumeraries to a deputation from a Massachusetts whip-factory, with
a present of a splendid whip to the Chief Magistrate:--

"By and by there was a little stir on the staircase and in the
passage way, and in lounged a tall, loose-jointed figure, of an
exaggerated Yankee port and demeanor, whom (as being about the
homeliest man I ever saw, yet by no means repulsive or disagreeable)
it was impossible not to recognize as Uncle Abe.

"Unquestionably, Western man though he be, and Kentuckian by birth,
President Lincoln is the essential representative of all Yankees,
and the veritable specimen, physically, of what the world seems
determined to regard as our characteristic qualities. It is the
strangest and yet the fittest thing in the jumble of human
vicissitudes, that he, out of so many millions, unlooked for,
unselected by any intelligible process that could be based upon his
genuine qualities, unknown to those who chose him, and unsuspected
of what endowments may adapt him for his tremendous responsibility,
should have found the way open for him to fling his lank personality
into the chair of state,--where, I presume, it was his first impulse
to throw his legs on the council-table, and tell the Cabinet
Ministers a story. There is no describing his lengthy awkwardness,
nor the uncouthness of his movement; and yet it seemed as if I had
been in the habit of seeing him daily, and had shaken hands with him
a thousand times in some village street; so true was he to the
aspect of the pattern American, though with a certain extravagance
which, possibly, I exaggerated still further by the delighted
eagerness with which I took it in. If put to guess his calling and
livelihood, I should have taken him for a country schoolmaster as
soon as anything else. He was dressed in a rusty black frock-coat
and pantaloons, unbrushed, and worn so faithfully that the suit had
adapted itself to the curves and angularities of his figure, and had
grown to be an outer skin of the man. He had shabby slippers on his
feet. His hair was black, still unmixed with gray, stiff, somewhat
bushy, and had apparently been acquainted with neither brush nor
comb that morning, after the disarrangement of the pillow; and as to
a nightcap, Uncle Abe probably knows nothing of such effeminacies.
His complexion is dark and sallow, betokening, I fear, an
insalubrious atmosphere around the White House; he has thick black
eyebrows and an impending brow; his nose is large, and the lines
about his mouth are very strongly defined.

"The whole physiognomy is as coarse a one as you would meet anywhere
in the length and breadth of the States; but, withal, it is
redeemed, illuminated, softened, and brightened by a kindly though
serious look out of his eyes, and an expression of homely sagacity,
that seems weighted with rich results of village experience. A great
deal of native sense; no bookish cultivation, no refinement; honest
at heart, and thoroughly so, and yet, in some sort, sly,--at least,
endowed with a sort of tact and wisdom that are akin to craft, and
would impel him, I think, to take an antagonist in flank, rather
than to make a bull-run at him right in front. But, on the whole, I
liked this sallow, queer, sagacious visage, with the homely human
sympathies that warmed it; and, for my small share in the matter,
would as lief have Uncle Abe for a ruler as any man whom it would
have been practicable to put in his place.

"Immediately on his entrance the President accosted our member of
Congress, who had us in charge, and, with a comical twist of his
face, made some jocular remark about the length of his breakfast. He
then greeted us all round, not waiting for an introduction, but
shaking and squeezing everybody's hand with the utmost cordiality,
whether the individual's name was announced to him or not. His
manner towards us was wholly without pretence, but yet had a kind of
natural dignity, quite sufficient to keep the forwardest of us from
clapping him on the shoulder and asking for a story. A mutual
acquaintance being established, our leader took the whip out of its
case, and began to read the address of presentation. The whip was an
exceedingly long one, its handle wrought in ivory (by some artist in
the Massachusetts State Prison, I believe), and ornamented with a
medallion of the President, and other equally beautiful devices; and
along its whole length there was a succession of golden bands and
ferrules. The address was shorter than the whip, but equally well
made, consisting chiefly of an explanatory description of these
artistic designs, and closing with a hint that the gift was a
suggestive and emblematic one, and that the President would
recognize the use to which such an instrument should be put.

"This suggestion gave Uncle Abe rather a delicate task in his reply,
because, slight as the matter seemed, it apparently called for some
declaration, or intimation, or faint foreshadowing of policy in
reference to the conduct of the war, and the final treatment of the
Rebels. But the President's Yankee aptness and not-to-be-caughtness
stood him in good stead, and he jerked or wiggled himself out of
the dilemma with an uncouth dexterity that was entirely in
character; although, without his gesticulation of eye and
mouth,--and especially the flourish of the whip, with which he
imagined himself touching up a pair of fat horses,--I doubt whether
his words would be worth recording, even if I could remember them.
The gist of the reply was, that he accepted the whip as an emblem of
peace, not punishment; and, this great affair over, we retired out
of the presence in high good-humor, only regretting that we could
not have seen the President sit down and fold up his legs (which is
said to be a most extraordinary spectacle), or have heard him tell
one of those delectable stories for which he is so celebrated. A
good many of them are afloat upon the common talk of Washington, and
are certainly the aptest, pithiest, and funniest little things
imaginable; though, to be sure, they smack of the frontier freedom,
and would not always bear repetition in a drawing-room, or on the
immaculate page of the Atlantic."

So runs the passage which caused some good-natured discussion nine years
ago, between the contributor and the editor. Perhaps I was squeamish not
to have been, willing to print this matter at that time. Some persons,
no doubt, will adopt that opinion, but as both President and author have
long ago met on the other side of criticism and magazines, we will leave
the subject to their decision, they being most interested in the
transaction. I did what seemed best in 1862. In 1871 "circumstances have
changed" with both parties, and I venture to-day what I hardly dared
then.

* * * * *

Whenever I look at Hawthorne's portrait, and that is pretty often, some
new trait or anecdote or reminiscence comes up and clamors to be made
known to those who feel an interest in it. But time and eternity call
loudly for mortal gossip to be brief, and I must hasten to my last
session over that child of genius, who first saw the light on the 4th of
July, 1804.

One of his favorite books was Lockhart's Life of Sir Walter Scott, and
in 1862 I dedicated to him the Household Edition of that work. When he
received the first volume, he wrote to me a letter of which I am so
proud that I keep it among my best treasures.

"I am exceedingly gratified by the dedication. I do not deserve so
high an honor; but if you think me worthy, it is enough to make the
compliment in the highest degree acceptable, no matter who may
dispute my title to it. I care more for your good opinion than for
that of a host of critics, and have an excellent reason for so
doing; inasmuch as my literary success, whatever it has been or may
be, is the result of my connection with you. Somehow or other you
smote the rock of public sympathy on my behalf, and a stream gushed
forth in sufficient quantity to quench my thirst though not to drown
me. I think no author can ever have had publisher that he valued so
much as I do mine."

He began in 1862 to send me some articles from his English Journal for
the Atlantic magazine, which he afterwards collected into a volume and
called "Our Old Home." On forwarding one for December of that year he
says:--

"I hope you will like it, for the subject seemed interesting to me
when I was on the spot, but I always feel a singular despondency and
heaviness of heart in reopening those old journals now. However, if
I can make readable sketches out of them, it is no matter."

In the same letter he tells me he has been re-reading Scott's Life, and
he suggests some additions to the concluding volume. He says:--

"If the last volume is not already printed and stereotyped, I think
you ought to insert in it an explanation of all that is left
mysterious in the former volumes,--the name and family of the lady
he was in love with, etc. It is desirable, too, to know what have
been the fortunes and final catastrophes of his family and intimate
friends since his death, down to as recent a period as the death of
Lockhart. All such matter would make your edition more valuable; and
I see no reason why you should be bound by the deference to living
connections of the family that may prevent the English publishers
from inserting these particulars. We stand in the light of
posterity to them, and have the privileges of posterity.... I
should be glad to know something of the personal character and life
of his eldest son, and whether (as I have heard) he was ashamed of
his father for being a literary man. In short, fifty pages devoted
to such elucidation would make the edition unique. Do come and see
us before the leaves fall."

While he was engaged in copying out and rewriting his papers on England
for the magazine he was despondent about their reception by the public.
Speaking of them, one day, to me, he said: "We must remember that there
is a good deal of intellectual ice mingled with this wine of memory." He
was sometimes so dispirited during the war that he was obliged to
postpone his contributions for sheer lack of spirit to go on. Near the
close of the year 1862 he writes:--

"I am delighted at what you tell me about the kind appreciation of
my articles, for I feel rather gloomy about them myself. I am really
much encouraged by what you say; not but what I am sensible that you
mollify me with a good deal of soft soap, but it is skilfully
applied and effects all you intend it should.... I cannot come to
Boston to spend more than a day, just at present. It would suit me
better to come for a visit when the spring of next year is a little
advanced, and if you renew your hospitable proposition then, I shall
probably be glad to accept it; though I have now been a hermit so
long, that the thought affects me somewhat as it would to invite a
lobster or a crab to step out of his shell."

He continued, during the early months of 1863, to send now and then an
article for the magazine from his English Note-Books. On the 22d of
February he writes:--

"Here is another article. I wish it would not be so wretchedly long,
but there are many things which I shall find no opportunity to say
unless I say them now; so the article grows under my hand, and one
part of it seems just about as well worth printing as another.
Heaven sees fit to visit me with an unshakable conviction that all
this series of articles is good for nothing; but that is none of my
business, provided the public and you are of a different opinion. If
you think any part of it can be left out with advantage, you are
quite at liberty to do so. Probably I have not put Leigh Hunt quite
high enough for your sentiments respecting him; but no more genuine
characterization and criticism (so far as the writer's purpose to be
true goes) was ever done. It is very slight. I might have made more
of it, but should not have improved it.

"I mean to write two more of these articles, and then hold my hand.
I intend to come to Boston before the end of this week, if the
weather is good. It must be nearly or quite six months since I was
there! I wonder how many people there are in the world who would
keep their nerves in tolerably good order through such a length of
nearly solitary imprisonment?"

I advised him to begin to put the series in order for a volume, and to
preface the book with his "Consular Experiences." On the 18th of April
he writes:--

"I don't think the public will bear any more of this sort of
thing.... I had a letter from ----, the other day, in which he sends
me the enclosed verses, and I think he would like to have them
published in the Atlantic. Do it if you like, I pretend to no
judgment in poetry. He also sent this epithalamium by Mrs. ----, and
I doubt not the good lady will be pleased to see it copied into one
of our American newspapers with a few laudatory remarks. Can't you
do it in the Transcript, and send her a copy? You cannot imagine how
a little praise jollifies us poor authors to the marrow of our
bones. Consider, if you had not been a publisher, you would
certainly have been one of our wretched tribe, and therefore ought
to have a fellow-feeling for us. Let Michael Angelo write the
remarks, if you have not the time."

("Michael Angelo" was a clever little Irish-boy who had the care of my
room. Hawthorne conceived a fancy for the lad, and liked to hear stories
of his smart replies to persistent authors who called during my absence
with unpromising-looking manuscripts.) On the 30th of April he writes:--

"I send the article with which the volume is to commence, and you
can begin printing it whenever you like. I can think of no better
title than this, 'Our Old Home; a Series of English Sketches, by,'
etc. I submit to your judgment whether it would not be well to print
these 'Consular Experiences' in the volume without depriving them
of any freshness they may have by previous publication in the
magazine?

"The article has some of the features that attract the curiosity of
the foolish public, being made up of personal narrative and gossip,
with a few pungencies of personal satire, which will not be the less
effective because the reader can scarcely find out who was the
individual meant. I am not without hope of drawing down upon myself
a good deal of critical severity on this score, and would gladly
incur more of it if I could do so without seriously deserving
censure.

"The story of the Doctor of Divinity, I think, will prove a good
card in this way. It is every bit true (like the other anecdotes),
only not told so darkly as it might have been for the reverend
gentleman. I do not believe there is any danger of his identity
being ascertained, and do not care whether it is or no, as it could
only be done by the impertinent researches of other people. It seems
to me quite essential to have some novelty in the collected volume,
and, if possible, something that may excite a little discussion and
remark. But decide for yourself and me; and if you conclude not to
publish it in the magazine, I think I can concoct another article in
season for the August number, if you wish. After the publication of
the volume, it seems to me the public had better have no more of
them.

"J---- has been telling us a mythical story of your intending to
walk with him from Cambridge to Concord. We should be delighted to
see you, though more for our own sakes than yours, for our aspect
here is still a little winterish. When you come, let it be on
Saturday, and stay till Monday. I am hungry to talk with you."

I was enchanted, of course, with the "Consular Experiences," and find
from his letters, written at that time, that he was made specially happy
by the encomiums I could not help sending upon that inimitable sketch.
When the "Old Home" was nearly all in type, he began to think about a
dedication to the book. On the 3d of May he writes:--

"I am of three minds about dedicating the volume. First, it seems
due to Frank Pierce (as he put me into the position where I made all
those profound observations of English scenery, life, and character)
to inscribe it to him with a few pages of friendly and explanatory
talk, which also would be very gratifying to my own lifelong
affection for him.

"Secondly, I want to say something to Bennoch to show him that I am
thoroughly mindful of all his hospitality and kindness; and I
suppose he might be pleased to see his name at the head of a book of
mine.

"Thirdly, I am not convinced that it is worth while to inscribe it
to anybody. We will see hereafter."

The book moved on slowly through the press, and he seemed more than
commonly nervous about the proof-sheets. On the 28th of May he says in a
note to me:--

"In a proof-sheet of 'Our Old Home' which I sent you to-day (page
43, or 4, or 5 or thereabout) I corrected a line thus, 'possessing a
happy faculty of seeing my own interest.' Now as the public interest
was my sole and individual object while I held office, I think that
as a matter of scanty justice to myself, the line ought to stand
thus, 'possessing a happy faculty of seeing my own interest and the
public's.' Even then, you see, I only give myself credit for half
the disinterestedness I really felt. Pray, by all means, have it
altered as above, even if the page is stereotyped; which it can't
have been, as the proof is now in the Concord post-office, and you
will have it at the same time with this.

"We are getting into full leaf here, and your walk with J---might
come off any time."

An arrangement was made with the liberal house of Smith and Elder, of
London, to bring out "Our Old Home" on the same day of its publication
in Boston. On the 1st of July Hawthorne wrote to me from the Wayside as
follows:--

"I am delighted with Smith and Elder, or rather with you; for it is
you that squeeze the English sovereigns out of the poor devils. On
my own behalf I never could have thought of asking more than L50,
and should hardly have expected to get L10; I look upon the L180 as
the only trustworthy funds I have, our own money being of such a
gaseous consistency. By the time I can draw for it, I expect it will
be worth at least fifteen hundred dollars.

"I shall think over the prefatory matter for 'Our Old Home' to-day,
and will write it to-morrow. It requires some little thought and
policy in order to say nothing amiss at this time; for I intend to
dedicate the book to Frank Pierce, come what may. It shall reach you
on Friday morning.

"We find ---- a comfortable and desirable guest to have in the
house. My wife likes her hugely, and for my part, I had no idea that
there was such a sensible woman of letters in the world. She is just
as healthy-minded as if she had never touched a pen. I am glad she
had a pleasant time, and hope she will come back.

"I mean to come to Boston whenever I can be sure of a cool day.

"What a prodigious length of time you stayed among the mountains!

"You ought not to assume such liberties of absence without the
consent of your friends, which I hardly think you would get. I, at
least, want you always within attainable distance, even though I
never see you. Why can't you come and stay a day or two with us, and
drink some spruce beer?"

Those were troublous days, full of war gloom and general despondency.
The North was naturally suspicious of all public men, who did not bear a
conspicuous part in helping to put down the Rebellion. General Pierce
had been President of the United States, and was not identified, to say
the least, with the great party which favored the vigorous prosecution
of the war. Hawthorne proposed to dedicate his new book to a very dear
friend, indeed, but in doing so he would draw public attention in a
marked way to an unpopular name. Several of Hawthorne's friends, on
learning that he intended to inscribe his book to Franklin Pierce, came
to me and begged that I would, if possible, help Hawthorne to see that
he ought not to do anything to jeopardize the currency of his new
volume. Accordingly I wrote to him, just what many of his friends had
said to me, and this is his reply to my letter, which bears date the
18th of July, 1863:--

"I thank you for your note of the 15th instant, and have delayed my
reply thus long in order to ponder deeply on your advice, smoke
cigars over it, and see what it might be possible for me to do
towards taking it. I find that it would be a piece of poltroonery in
me to withdraw either the dedication or the dedicatory letter. My
long and intimate personal relations with Pierce render the
dedication altogether proper, especially as regards this book,
which would have had no existence without his kindness; and if he is
so exceedingly unpopular that his name is enough to sink the volume,
there is so much the more need that an old friend should stand by
him. I cannot, merely on account of pecuniary profit or literary
reputation, go back from what I have deliberately felt and thought
it right to do; and if I were to tear out the dedication, I should
never look at the volume again without remorse and shame. As for the
literary public, it must accept my book precisely as I think fit to
give it, or let it alone.

"Nevertheless, I have no fancy for making myself a martyr when it is
honorably and conscientiously possible to avoid it; and I always
measure out my heroism very accurately according to the exigencies
of the occasion, and should be the last man in the world to throw
away a bit of it needlessly. So I have looked over the concluding
paragraph and have amended it in such a way that, while doing what I
know to be justice to my friend, it contains not a word that ought
to be objectionable to any set of readers. If the public of the
North see fit to ostracize me for this, I can only say that I would
gladly sacrifice a thousand or two of dollars rather than retain the
good-will of such a herd of dolts and mean-spirited scoundrels. I
enclose the rewritten paragraph, and shall wish to see a proof of
that and the whole dedication.

"I had a call from an Englishman yesterday, and kept him to dinner;
not the threatened ----, but a Mr. ----, introduced by ----. He says
he knows you, and he seems to be a very good fellow. I have strong
hopes that he will never come back here again, for J---- took him on
a walk of several miles, whereby they both caught a most tremendous
ducking, and the poor Englishman was frightened half to death by the
thunder.... On the other page is the list of presentation people,
and it amounts to twenty-four, which your liberality and kindness
allow me. As likely as not I have forgotten two or three, and I held
my pen suspended over one or two of the names, doubting whether they
deserved of me so especial a favor as a portion of my heart and
brain. I have few friends. Some authors, I should think, would
require half the edition for private distribution."

"Our Old Home" was published in the autumn of 1863, and although it was
everywhere welcomed, in England the strictures were applied with a
liberal hand. On the 18th of October he writes to me:--

"You sent me the 'Reader' with a notice of the book, and I have
received one or two others, one of them from Bennoch. The English
critics seem to think me very bitter against their countrymen, and
it is, perhaps, natural that they should, because their self-conceit
can accept nothing short of indiscriminate adulation; but I really
think that Americans have more cause than they to complain of me.
Looking over the volume, I am rather surprised to find that whenever
I draw a comparison between the two people, I almost invariably cast
the balance against ourselves. It is not a good nor a weighty book,
nor does it deserve any great amount either of praise or censure. I
don't care about seeing any more notices of it."

Meantime the "Dolliver Romance," which had been laid aside on account of
the exciting scenes through which we were then passing, and which
unfitted him for the composition of a work of the imagination, made
little progress. In a note written to me at this time he says:--

"I can't tell you when to expect an instalment of the Romance, if
ever. There is something preternatural in my reluctance to begin. I
linger at the threshold, and have a perception of very disagreeable
phantasms to be encountered if I enter. I wish God had given me the
faculty of writing a sunshiny book."

I invited him to come to Boston and have a cheerful week among his old
friends, and threw in as an inducement a hint that he should hear the
great organ in the Music Hall. I also suggested that we could talk over
the new Romance together, if he would gladden us all by coming to the
city. Instead of coming, he sent this reply:--

"I thank you for your kind invitation to hear the grand instrument;
but it offers me no inducement additional to what I should always
have for a visit to your abode. I have no ear for an organ or a
jewsharp, nor for any instrument between the two; so you had better
invite a worthier guest, and I will come another time.

"I don't see much probability of my having the first chapter of the
Romance ready so soon as you want it. There are two or three
chapters ready to be written, but I am not yet robust enough to
begin, and I feel as if I should never carry it through.

"Besides, I want to prefix a little sketch of Thoreau to it,
because, from a tradition which he told me about this house of mine,
I got the idea of a deathless man, which is now taking a shape very
different from the original one. It seems the duty of a live
literary man to perpetuate the memory of a dead one, when there is
such fair opportunity as in this case: but how Thoreau would scorn
me for thinking that _I_ could perpetuate him! And I don't think so.

"I can think of no title for the unborn Romance. Always heretofore I
have waited till it was quite complete before attempting to name it,
and I fear I shall have to do so now. I wish you or Mrs. Fields
would suggest one. Perhaps you may snatch a title out of the
infinite void that will miraculously suit the book, and give me a
needful impetus to write it.

"I want a great deal of money..... I wonder how people manage to
live economically. I seem to spend little or nothing, and yet it
will get very far beyond the second thousand, for the present
year.... If it were not for these troublesome necessities, I doubt
whether you would ever see so much as the first chapter of the new
Romance.

"Those verses entitled 'Weariness,' in the last magazine, seem to me
profoundly touching. I too am weary, and begin to look ahead for the
Wayside Inn."

I had frequent accounts of his ill health and changed appearance, but I
supposed he would rally again soon, and become hale and strong before
the winter fairly set in. But the shadows even then were about his
pathway, and Allan Cunningham's lines, which he once quoted to me, must
often have occurred to him,--

"Cauld's the snaw at my head,
And cauld at my feet,
And the finger o' death's at my een,
Closing them to sleep."

We had arranged together that the "Dolliver Romance" should be first
published in the magazine, in monthly instalments, and we decided to
begin in the January number of 1864. On the 8th of November came a long
letter from him:--

"I foresee that there is little probability of my getting the first
chapter ready by the 15th, although I have a resolute purpose to
write it by the end of the month. It will be in time for the
February number, if it turns out fit for publication at all. As to
the title, we must defer settling that till the book is fully
written, and meanwhile I see nothing better than to call the series
of articles 'Fragments of a Romance.' This will leave me to exercise
greater freedom as to the mechanism of the story than I otherwise
can, and without which I shall probably get entangled in my own
plot. When the work is completed in the magazine, I can fill up the
gaps and make straight the crookednesses, and christen it with a
fresh title. In this untried experiment of a serial work I desire
not to pledge myself, or promise the public more than I may
confidently expect to achieve. As regards the sketch of Thoreau, I
am not ready to write it yet, but will mix him up with the life of
The Wayside, and produce an autobiographical preface for the
finished Romance. If the public like that sort of stuff, I too find
it pleasant and easy writing, and can supply a new chapter of it for
every new volume, and that, moreover, without infringing upon my
proper privacy. An old Quaker wrote me, the other day, that he had
been reading my Introduction to the 'Mosses' and the 'Scarlet
Letter,' and felt as if he knew me better than his best friend; but
I think he considerably overestimates the extent of his intimacy
with me.

"I received several private letters and printed notices of 'Our Old
Home' from England. It is laughable to see the innocent wonder with
which they regard my criticisms, accounting for them by jaundice,
insanity, jealousy, hatred, on my part, and never admitting the
least suspicion that there may be a particle of truth in them. The
monstrosity of their self-conceit is such that anything short of
unlimited admiration impresses them as malicious caricature. But
they do me great injustice in supposing that I hate them. I would as
soon hate my own people.

"Tell Ticknor that I want a hundred dollars more, and I suppose I
shall keep on wanting more and more till the end of my days. If I
subside into the almshouse before my intellectual faculties are
quite extinguished, it strikes me that I would make a very pretty
book out of it; and, seriously, if I alone were concerned, I should
not have any great objection to winding up there."

On the 14th of November came a pleasant little note from him, which
seemed to have been written in better spirits than he had shown of
late. Photographs of himself always amused him greatly, and in the
little note I refer to there is this pleasant passage:--

"Here is the photograph,--a grandfatherly old figure enough; and I
suppose that is the reason why you select it.

"I am much in want of _cartes de visite_ to distribute on my own
account, and am tired and disgusted with all the undesirable
likenesses as yet presented of me. Don't you think I might sell my
head to some photographer who would be willing to return me the
value in small change; that is to say, in a dozen or two of cards?"

The first part of Chapter I. of "The Dolliver Romance" came to me from
the Wayside on the 1st of December. Hawthorne was very anxious to see it
in type as soon as possible, in order that he might compose the rest in
a similar strain, and so conclude the preliminary phase of Dr. Dolliver.
He was constantly imploring me to send him a good pen, complaining all
the while that everything had failed him in that line. In one of his
notes begging me to hunt him up something that he could write with, he
says:--

"Nobody ever suffered more from pens than I have, and I am glad that
my labor with the abominable little tool is drawing to a close."

In the month of December Hawthorne attended the funeral of Mrs. Franklin
Pierce, and, after the ceremony, came to stay with us. He seemed ill and
more nervous than usual. He said he found General Pierce greatly needing
his companionship, for he was overwhelmed with grief at the loss of his
wife. I well remember the sadness of Hawthorne's face when he told us he
felt obliged to look on the dead. "It was," said he, "like a carven
image laid in its richly embossed enclosure, and there was a remote
expression about it as if the whole had nothing to do with things
present." He told us, as an instance of the ever-constant courtesy of
his friend General Pierce, that while they were standing at the grave,
the General, though completely overcome with his own sorrow, turned and
drew up the collar of Hawthorne's coat to shield him from the bitter
cold.

The same day, as the sunset deepened and we sat together, Hawthorne
began to talk in an autobiographical vein, and gave us the story of his
early life, of which I have already written somewhat. He said at an
early age he accompanied his mother and sister to the township in Maine,
which his grandfather had purchased. That, he continued, was the
happiest period of his life, and it lasted through several years, when
he was sent to school in Salem. "I lived in Maine," he said, "like a
bird of the air, so perfect was the freedom I enjoyed. But it was there
I first got my cursed habits of solitude." During the moonlight nights
of winter he would skate until midnight all alone upon Sebago Lake, with
the deep shadows of the icy hills on either hand. When he found himself
far away from his home and weary with the exertion of skating, he would
sometimes take refuge in a log-cabin, where half a tree would be burning
on the broad hearth. He would sit in the ample chimney and look at the
stars through the great aperture through which the flames went roaring
up. "Ah," he said, "how well I recall the summer days also, when, with
my gun, I roamed at will through the woods of Maine. How sad middle life
looks to people of erratic temperaments. Everything is beautiful in
youth, for all things are allowed to it then."

The early home of the Hawthornes in Maine must have been a lonely
dwelling-place indeed. A year ago (May 12, 1870) the old place was
visited by one who had a true feeling for Hawthorne's genius, and who
thus graphically described the spot.

"A little way off the main-travelled road in the town of Raymond
there stood an old house which has much in common with houses of its
day, but which is distinguished from them by the more evident marks
of neglect and decay. Its unpainted walls are deeply stained by
time. Cornice and window-ledge and threshold are fast falling with
the weight of years. The fences were long since removed from all the
enclosures, the garden-wall is broken down, and the garden itself is
now grown up to pines whose shadows fall dark and heavy upon the old
and mossy roof; fitting roof-trees for such a mansion, planted there
by the hands of Nature herself, as if she could not realize that her
darling child was ever to go out from his early home. The highway
once passed its door, but the location of the road has been changed;
and now the old house stands solitarily apart from the busy world.
Longer than I can remember, and I have never learned how long, this
house has stood untenanted and wholly unused, except, for a few
years, as a place of public worship; but, for myself, and for all
who know its earlier history, it will ever have the deepest
interest, for it was _the early home of Nathaniel Hawthorne_.

"Often have I, when passing through that town, turned aside to study
the features of that landscape, and to reflect upon the influence
which his surroundings had upon the development of this author's
genius. A few rods to the north runs a little mill-stream, its
sloping bank once covered with grass, now so worn and washed by the
rains as to show but little except yellow sand. Less than half a
mile to the west, this stream empties into an arm of Sebago Lake.
Doubtless, at the time the house was built, the forest was so much
cut away in that direction as to bring into view the waters of the
lake, for a mill was built upon the brook about half-way down the
valley, and it is reasonable to suppose that a clearing was made
from the mill to the landing upon the shore of the pond; but the
pines have so far regained their old dominion as completely to shut
out the whole prospect in that direction. Indeed, the site affords
but a limited survey, except to the northwest. Across a narrow
valley in that direction lie open fields and dark pine-covered
slopes. Beyond these rise long ranges of forest-crowned hills, while
in the far distance every hue of rock and tree, of field and grove,
melts into the soft blue of Mount Washington. The spot must ever
have had the utter loneliness of the pine forests upon the borders
of our northern lakes. The deep silence and dark shadows of the old
woods must have filled the imagination of a youth possessing
Hawthorne's sensibility with images which later years could not
dispel.

"To this place came the widowed mother of Hawthorne in company with
her brother, an original proprietor and one of the early settlers of
the town of Raymond. This house was built for her, and here she
lived with her son for several years in the most complete seclusion.
Perhaps she strove to conceal here a grief which she could not
forget. In what way, and to what extent, the surroundings of his
boyhood operated in moulding the character and developing the genius
of that gifted author, I leave to the reader to determine. I have
tried simply to draw a faithful picture of his early home."

On the 15th of December Hawthorne wrote to me:--

"I have not yet had courage to read the Dolliver proof-sheet, but
will set about it soon, though with terrible reluctance, such as I
never felt before.... I am most grateful to you for protecting me
from that visitation of the elephant and his cub. If you happen to
see Mr. ---- of L----, a young man who was here last summer, pray
tell him anything that your conscience will let you, to induce him
to spare me another visit, which I know he intended. I really am not
well and cannot be disturbed by strangers without more suffering
than it is worth while to endure. I thank Mrs. P---- and yourself
for your kind hospitality, past and prospective. I never come to see
you without feeling the better for it, but I must not test so
precious a remedy too often."

The new year found him incapacitated from writing much on the Romance.
On the 17th of January, 1864, he says:--

"I am not quite up to writing yet, but shall make an effort as soon
as I see any hope of success. You ought to be thankful that (like
most other broken-down authors) I do not pester you with decrepit
pages, and insist upon your accepting them as full of the old spirit
and vigor. That trouble, perhaps, still awaits you, after I shall
have reached a further stage of decay. Seriously, my mind has, for
the present, lost its temper and its fine edge, and I have an
instinct that I had better keep quiet. Perhaps I shall have a new
spirit of vigor, if I wait quietly for it; perhaps not."

The end of February found him in a mood which is best indicated in this
letter, which he addressed to me on the 25th of the month:--

"I hardly know what to say to the public about this abortive
Romance, though I know pretty well what the case will be. I shall
never finish it. Yet it is not quite pleasant for an author to
announce himself, or to be announced, as finally broken down as to
his literary faculty. It is a pity that I let you put this work in
your programme for the year, for I had always a presentiment that it
would fail us at the pinch. Say to the public what you think best,
and as little as possible; for example: 'We regret that Mr.
Hawthorne's Romance, announced for this magazine some months ago,
still lies upon the author's writing-table, he having been
interrupted in his labor upon it by an impaired state of health';
or, 'We are sorry to hear (but know not whether the public will
share our grief) that Mr. Hawthorne is out of health and is thereby
prevented, for the present, from proceeding with another of his
promised (or threatened) Romances, intended for this magazine'; or,
'Mr. Hawthorne's brain is addled at last, and, much to our
satisfaction, he tells us that he cannot possibly go on with the
Romance announced on the cover of the January magazine. We consider
him finally shelved, and shall take early occasion to bury him under
a heavy article, carefully summing up his merits (such as they were)
and his demerits, what few of them can be touched upon in our
limited space'; or, 'We shall commence the publication of Mr.
Hawthorne's Romance as soon as that gentleman chooses to forward it.
We are quite at a loss how to account for this delay in the
fulfilment of his contract; especially as he has already been most
liberally paid for the first number.' Say anything you like, in
short, though I really don't believe that the public will care what
you say or whether you say anything. If you choose, you may publish
the first chapter as an insulated fragment, and charge me with the
overpayment. I cannot finish it unless a great change comes over me;
and if I make too great an effort to do so, it will be my death; not
that I should care much for that, if I could fight the battle
through and win it, thus ending a life of much smoulder and scanty
fire in a blaze of glory. But I should smother myself in mud of my
own making. I mean to come to Boston soon, not for a week but for a
single day, and then I can talk about my sanitary prospects more
freely than I choose to write. I am not low-spirited, nor fanciful,
nor freakish, but look what seem to be realities in the face, and am
ready to take whatever may come. If I could but go to England now, I
think that the sea voyage and the 'Old Home' might set me all right.

"This letter is for your own eye, and I wish especially that no echo
of it may come back in your notes to me.

"P.S. Give my kindest regards to Mrs. F----, and tell her that one
of my choicest ideal places is her drawing-room, and therefore I
seldom visit it."

On Monday, the 28th of March, Hawthorne came to town and made my house
his first station on a journey to the South for health. I was greatly
shocked at his invalid appearance, and he seemed quite deaf. The light
in his eye was beautiful as ever, but his limbs seemed shrunken and his
usual stalwart vigor utterly gone. He said to me with a pathetic voice,
"Why does Nature treat us like little children! I think we could bear it
all if we knew our fate; at least it would not make much difference to
me now what became of me." Toward night he brightened up a little, and
his delicious wit flashed out, at intervals, as of old; but he was
evidently broken and dispirited about his health. Looking out on the bay
that was sparkling in the moonlight, he said he thought the moon rather
lost something of its charm for him as he grew older. He spoke with
great delight of a little story, called "Pet Marjorie," and said he had
read it carefully through twice, every word of it. He had much to say
about England, and observed, among other things, that "the extent over
which her dominions are spread leads her to fancy herself stronger than
she really is; but she is not to-day a powerful empire; she is much like
a squash-vine, which runs over a whole garden, but, if you cut it at the
root, it is at once destroyed." At breakfast, next morning, he spoke of
his kind neighbors in Concord, and said Alcott was one of the most
excellent men he had ever known. "It is impossible to quarrel with him,
for he would take all your harsh words like a saint."

He left us shortly after this for a journey to Washington, with his
friend Mr. Ticknor. The travellers spent several days in New York, and
then proceeded to Philadelphia. Hawthorne wrote to me from the
Continental Hotel, dating his letter "Saturday evening," announcing the
severe illness of his companion. He did not seem to anticipate a fatal
result, but on Sunday morning the news came that Mr. Ticknor was dead.
Hawthorne returned at once to Boston, and stayed here over night. He was
in a very excited and nervous state, and talked incessantly of the sad
scenes he had just been passing through. We sat late together,
conversing of the friend we had lost, and I am sure he hardly closed his
eyes that night. In the morning he went back to his own home in Concord.

His health, from that time, seemed to give way rapidly, and in the
middle of May his friend, General Pierce, proposed that they should go
among the New Hampshire hills together and meet the spring there.

The first letter we received from Mrs. Hawthorne[*] after her husband's
return to Concord in April gave us great anxiety. It was dated "Monday
eve," and here are some extracts from it:--

"I have just sent Mr. Hawthorne to bed, and so have a moment to
speak to you. Generally it has been late and I have not liked to
disturb him by sitting up after him, and so I could not write since
he returned, though I wished very much to tell you about him, ever
since he came home. He came back unlooked for that day; and when I
heard a step on the piazza, I was lying on a couch and feeling quite
indisposed. But as soon as I saw him I was frightened out of all
knowledge of myself,--so haggard, so white, so deeply scored with
pain and fatigue was the face, so much more ill he looked than I
ever saw him before. He had walked from the station because he saw
no carriage there, and his brow was streaming with a perfect rain,
so great had been the effort to walk so far.... He needed much to
get home to me, where he could fling off all care of himself and
give way to his feelings, pent up and kept back for so long,
especially since his watch and ward of most excellent, kind Mr.
Ticknor. It relieved him somewhat to break down as he spoke of that
scene.... But he was so weak and weary he could not sit up much, and
lay on the couch nearly all the time in a kind of uneasy somnolency,
not wishing to be read to even, not able to attend or fix his
thoughts at all. On Saturday he unfortunately took cold, and, after
a most restless night, was seized early in the morning with a very
bad stiff neck, which was acutely painful all Sunday. Sunday night,
however, a compress of linen wrung in cold water cured him, with
belladonna. But he slept also most of this morning.... He could as
easily build London as go to the Shakespeare dinner. It tires him so
much to get entirely through his toilet in the morning, that he has
to lie down a long time after it. To-day he walked out on the
grounds, and could not stay ten minutes, because I would not let him
sit down in the wind, and he could not bear any longer exercise. He
has more than lost all he gained by the journey, by the sad event.
From being the nursed and cared for,--early to bed and late to
rise,--led, as it were, by the ever-ready hand of kind Mr. Ticknor,
to become the nurse and night-watcher with all the responsibilities,
with his mighty power of sympathy and his vast apprehension of
suffering in others, and to see death for the first time in a state
so weak as his,--the death also of so valued a friend,--as Mr.
Hawthorne says himself, 'it told upon him' fearfully. There are
lines ploughed on his brow which never were there before.... I have
been up and alert ever since his return, but one day I was obliged,
when he was busy, to run off and lie down for fear I should drop
before his eyes. My head was in such an agony I could not endure it
another moment. But I am well now. I have wrestled and won, and now
I think I shall not fail again. Your most generous kindness of
hospitality I heartily thank you for, but Mr. Hawthorne says he
cannot leave home. He wants rest, and he says when the wind is
_warm_ he shall feel well. This cold wind ruins him. I wish he were
in Cuba or on some isle in the Gulf Stream. But I must say I could
not think him able to go anywhere, unless I could go with him. He is
too weak to take care of himself. I do not like to have him go up
and down stairs alone. I have read to him all the afternoon and
evening and after he walked in the morning to-day. I do nothing but
sit with him, ready to do or not to do, just as he wishes. The
wheels of my small _menage_ are all stopped. He is my world and all
the business of it. He has not smiled since he came home till
to-day, and I made him laugh with Thackeray's humor in reading to
him; but a smile looks strange on a face that once shone like a
thousand suns with smiles. The light for the time has gone out of
his eyes, entirely. An infinite weariness films them quite. I thank
Heaven that summer and not winter approaches."

[Footnote *: As I write this paragraph, my friend, the Reverend James
Freeman Clarke, puts into my hand the following note, which Hawthorne
sent to him nearly thirty years ago:--

54 PINCKNEY STREET, Friday, July 8, 1842.

MY DEAR SIR,--Though personally a stranger to you, I am about to
request of you the greatest favor which I can receive from any man.
I am to be married to Miss Sophia Peabody; and it is our mutual
desire that you should perform the ceremony. Unless it should be
decidedly a rainy day, a carriage will call for you at half past
eleven o'clock in the forenoon.

Very respectfully yours,

NATH. HAWTHORNE.

Rev. JAMES F. CLARKE, Chestnut Street.]

On Friday evening of the same week Mrs. Hawthorne sent off another
despatch to us:--

"Mr. Hawthorne has been miserably ill for two or three days, so that I
could not find a moment to speak to you. I am most anxious to have him
leave Concord again, and General Pierce's plan is admirable, now that
the General is well himself. I think the serene jog-trot in a private
carriage into country places, by trout-streams and to old farm-houses,
away from care and news, will be very restorative. The boy associations
with the General will refresh him. They will fish, and muse, and rest,
and saunter upon horses' feet, and be in the air all the time in fine
weather. I am quite content, though I wish I could go for a few _petits
sions_. But General Pierce has been a most tender, constant nurse for
many years, and knows how to take care of the sick. And his love for Mr.
Hawthorne is the strongest passion of his soul, now his wife is
departed. They will go to the Isles of Shoals together probably, before
their return.

"Mr. Hawthorne cannot walk ten minutes now without wishing to sit down,
as I think I told you, so that he cannot take sufficient air except in a
carriage. And his horror of hotels and rail-cars is immense, and human
beings beset him in cities. He is indeed very weak. I hardly know what
takes away his strength. I now am obliged to superintend my workman, who
is arranging the grounds. Whenever my husband lies down (which is sadly
often) I rush out of doors to see what the gardener is about.

"I cannot feel rested till Mr. Hawthorne is better, but I get along. I
shall go to town when he is safe in the care of General Pierce."

On Saturday this communication from Mrs. Hawthorne reached us:--

"General Pierce wrote yesterday to say he wished to meet Mr.
Hawthorne in Boston on Wednesday, and go from thence on their way.

"Mr. Hawthorne is much weaker. I find, than he has been before at
any time, and I shall go down with him, having a great many things
to do in Boston; but I am sure he is not fit to be left by himself,
for his steps are so uncertain, and his eyes are very uncertain too.
Dear Mr. Fields, I am very anxious about him, and I write now to say
that he absolutely refuses to see a physician officially, and so I
wish to know whether Dr. Holmes could not see him in some ingenious
way on Wednesday as a friend; but with his experienced, acute
observation, to look at him also as a physician, to note how he is
and what he judges of him comparatively since he last saw him. It
almost deprives me of my wits to see him growing weaker with no aid.
He seems quite bilious, and has a restlessness that is infinite. His
look is more distressed and harassed than before; and he has so
little rest, that he is getting worn out. I hope immensely in regard
of this sauntering journey with General Pierce.

"I feel as if I ought not to speak to you of anything when you are
so busy and weary and bereaved. But yet in such a sad emergency as
this, I am sure your generous, kind heart will not refuse me any
help you can render.... I wish Dr. Holmes would feel his pulse; I do
not know how to judge of it, but it seems to me irregular."

His friend, Dr. O.W. Holmes, in compliance with Mrs. Hawthorne's desire,
expressed in this letter to me, saw the invalid, and thus describes his
appearance in an article full of tenderness and feeling which was
published in the "Atlantic Monthly" for July, 1864:--

"Late in the afternoon of the day before he left Boston on his last
journey I called upon him at the hotel where he was staying. He had
gone out but a moment before. Looking along the street, I saw a form
at some distance in advance which could only be his,--but how
changed from his former port and figure! There was no mistaking the
long iron-gray locks, the carriage of the head, and the general look
of the natural outlines and movement; but he seemed to have shrunken
in all his dimensions, and faltered along with an uncertain, feeble
step, as if every movement were an effort. I joined him, and we
walked together half an hour, during which time I learned so much
of his state of mind and body as could be got at without worrying
him with suggestive questions,--my object being to form an opinion
of his condition, as I had been requested to do, and to give him
some hints that might be useful to him on his journey.

"His aspect, medically considered, was very unfavorable. There were
persistent local symptoms, referred especially to the
stomach,--'boring pain,' distension, difficult digestion, with great
wasting of flesh and strength. He was very gentle, very willing to
answer questions, very docile to such counsel as I offered him, but
evidently had no hope of recovering his health. He spoke as if his
work were done, and he should write no more.

"With all his obvious depression, there was no failing noticeable in
his conversational powers. There was the same backwardness and
hesitancy which in his best days it was hard for him to overcome, so
that talking with him was almost like love-making, and his shy,
beautiful soul had to be wooed from its bashful prudency like an
unschooled maiden. The calm despondency with which he spoke about
himself confirmed the unfavorable opinion suggested by his look and
history."

I saw Hawthorne alive, for the last time, the day he started on this his
last mortal journey. His speech and his gait indicated severe illness,
and I had great misgivings about the jaunt he was proposing to take so
early in the season. His tones were more subdued than ever, and he
scarcely spoke above a whisper. He was very affectionate in parting, and
I followed him to the door, looking after him as he went up School
Street. I noticed that he faltered from weakness, and I should have
taken my hat and joined him to offer my arm, but I knew he did not wish
to _seem_ ill, and I feared he might be troubled at my anxiety. Fearing
to disturb him, I followed him with my eyes only, and watched him till
he turned the corner and passed out of sight.

On the morning of the 19th of May, 1864, a telegram, signed by Franklin
Pierce, stunned us all. It announced the death of Hawthorne. In the
afternoon of the same day came this letter to me:--

"Pemigewasset House, Plymouth, N.H., Thursday morning, 5 o'clock

"My Dear Sir,--The telegraph has communicated to you the fact of our
dear friend Hawthorne's death. My friend Colonel Hibbard, who bears
this note, was a friend of H----, and will tell you more than I am
able to write.

"I enclose herewith a note which I commenced last evening to dear
Mrs. Hawthorne. O, how will she bear this shock! Dear mother--dear
children--

"When I met Hawthorne in Boston a week ago, it was apparent that he
was much more feeble and more seriously diseased than I had supposed
him to be. We came from Centre Harbor yesterday afternoon, and I
thought he was on the whole brighter than he was the day before.
Through the week he had been inclined to somnolency during the day,
but restless at night. He retired last night soon after nine
o'clock, and soon fell into a quiet slumber. In less than half an
hour changed his position, but continued to sleep. I left the door
open between his bedroom and mine,--our beds being opposite to each
other,--and was asleep myself before eleven o'clock. The light
continued to burn in my room. At two o'clock, I went to H----'s
bedside; he was apparently in a sound sleep, and I did not place my
hand upon him. At four o'clock I went into his room again, and, as
his position was unchanged, I placed my hand upon him and found that
life was extinct. I sent, however, immediately for a physician, and
called Judge Bell and Colonel Hibbard, who occupied rooms upon the
same floor and near me. He lies upon his side, his position so
perfectly natural and easy, his eyes closed, that it is difficult to
realize, while looking upon his noble face, that this is death. He
must have passed from natural slumber to that from which there is no
waking without the slightest movement.

"I cannot write to dear Mrs. Hawthorne, and you must exercise your
judgment with regard to sending this and the unfinished note,
enclosed, to her.

"Your friend,

"FRANKLIN PIERCE."

Hawthorne's lifelong desire that the end might be a sudden one was
gratified. Often and often he has said to me, "What a blessing to go
quickly!" So the same swift angel that came as a messenger to Allston,
Irving, Prescott, Macaulay, Thackeray, and Dickens was commissioned to
touch his forehead, also, and beckon him away.

The room in which death fell upon him,

"Like a shadow thrown
Softly and lightly from a passing cloud,"

looks toward the east; and standing in it, as I have frequently done,
since he passed out silently into the skies, it is easy to imagine the
scene on that spring morning which President Pierce so feelingly
describes in his letter.

On the 24th of May we carried Hawthorne through the blossoming orchards
of Concord, and laid him down under a group of pines, on a hillside,
overlooking historic fields. All the way from the village church to the
grave the birds kept up a perpetual melody. The sun shone brightly, and
the air was sweet and pleasant, as if death had never entered the world.
Longfellow and Emerson, Channing and Hoar, Agassiz and Lowell, Greene
and Whipple, Alcott and Clarke, Holmes and Hillard, and other friends
whom he loved, walked slowly by his side that beautiful spring morning.
The companion of his youth and his manhood, for whom he would willingly,
at any time, have given up his own life, Franklin Pierce, was there
among the rest, and scattered flowers into the grave. The unfinished
Romance, which had cost him so much anxiety, the last literary work on
which he had ever been engaged, was laid on his coffin.

"Ah! who shall lift that wand of magic power,
And the lost clew regain?
The unfinished window in Aladdin's tower
Unfinished must remain."

Longfellow's beautiful poem will always be associated with the memory of
Hawthorne, and most fitting was it that his fellow-student, whom he so
loved and honored, should sing his requiem.

DICKENS

* * * * *

"_O friend with heart as gentle for distress,
As resolute with wise true thoughts to bind
The happiest with the unhappiest 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, faithfully drawn,
are of all pictures the welcomest on human walls."_--Carlyle.

IV. DICKENS.

I observe my favorite chair is placed to-day where the portraits of
Charles Dickens are easiest seen, and I take the hint accordingly. Those
are likenesses of him from the age of twenty-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 Maclise 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 those 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 was even then famous over half the
globe! He came bounding into the Tremont House, fresh from the steamer
that had brought him to our shores, and his cheery voice rang through
the hall, as he gave a quick glance at the new scenes opening upon him
in a strange land 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 buoyant he was then! Young, handsome, almost worshipped 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 personal 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, what freshness of spirit, possessed 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 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 concerned 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 learn the story of his life from
his own lips.

About midnight on that eventful landing, "Boz,"--everybody called him
"Boz" in those days,--having finished his supper, came down into the
office of the hotel, and, joining the young Earl of M----, his
fellow-voyager, sallied out for a first 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 up one
continual shout of uproarious laughter 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 useful 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 suffered 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 ever mortal preside with such
felicitous success as did 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 so handsome, 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
frequent messages came down to us from the "Chair," begging that we
would hold up a little and moderate if possible the rapture of our
applause.

After Dickens left Boston he went on his American 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 enthusiasm; and when he came the second time to America,
there was no one of his old companions whom he missed more. Let us read
some of these letters written by Dickens nearly thirty years ago. The
friend to whom they were addressed was also an intimate and dear
associate of mine, and his children have kindly placed at my disposal
the whole correspondence. Here is the first letter, time-stained, but
preserved with religious care.

Fuller's Hotel, Washington, Monday, March 14, 1842.

My Dear Felton: I was more delighted than I can possibly tell you to
receive (last Saturday night) your welcome letter. We and the
oysters missed you terribly 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 again.

There are very interesting men in this place,--highly interesting,
of course,--but it's not a comfortable place; is it? If spittle
could wait at table we should be nobly 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 peculiar 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 threatening
message from ---- to produce him; and when he comes he goes to fetch
something, and, forgetting it by the way, 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
arrived seemed to diminish the distance between ourselves and home,
by one half at least.

And this morning (though we have not yet received our heap of
despatches, for which we are looking eagerly forward to this night's
mail),--this morning there reached us unexpectedly, through the
government bag (Heaven knows how they 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 juvenile 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 the 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 introduction to Mr. D., General G requests the honor of
an appointment for to-morrow." I draw a veil over my sufferings.
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 days. On Thursday morning we start for Pittsburg,
and so go by the Ohio to Cincinnati, Louisville, Kentucky,
Lexington, St. Louis; and either down the Lakes to Buffalo, or back
to Philadelphia, and by 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 that place, I'll
never write to you from England.

But if I _do_ find one, my right hand shall forget its cunning,
before I forget to be your truthful and constant correspondent; 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 by, that affectionate and elegant tribute which ---- sent me,
but because you are a man after my own heart, and I love you _well_.
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 excel in shrimps, to be far from
despicable in point of lobsters, 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 exercise 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
squeezing of a Quaker.

Clifton House, Niagara Falls, 29th April, 1842.

My Dear Felton: Before I go any farther, let me explain to you what
these great enclosures portend, lest--supposing them part and parcel
of my letter, and asking to be read--you shall fall into fits, from
which 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 I 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 respectable 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 honorable, and the most
concerned in the rights of literature.

Whether to limit its publication to one journal, or to extend 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,
first, that if they be published in several quarters, they must be
published in all _simultaneously_; secondly, that I hold them in
trust, to put them before the people.

I fear this is imposing a heavy tax upon your friendship; and I
don't fear it the less, by reason of being well assured that it is
one you will most readily pay. I shall be in Montreal about the 11th
of May. Will you write to me there, to the care of the Earl of
Mulgrave, and tell 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 tendency. Their
feet are always wet; and so much damp company 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. I _did_ receive
Longfellow's note. Sumner I have not yet heard from; for which
reason I am constantly bringing telescopes to bear on the ferryboat,
in hopes to see him coming over, accompanied by a modest
portmanteau.

To say anything about this wonderful place would be sheer nonsense.
It far exceeds my most sanguine expectations, though the impression
on my mind has been, from the first, nothing but beauty and peace. I
haven't drunk the water. Bearing in mind your caution, I have
devoted myself to beer, whereof there is an exceedingly pretty fall
in this house.

One of the noble hearts who sat for the Cheeryble brothers is dead.
If I had been in England, I would certainly have gone into mourning
for the loss of such a glorious 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 L600,000, or three millions of dollars!

What do you say to my _acting_ at the Montreal Theatre? I am an old
hand at such matters, and am going to join the officers of the
garrison in a public representation for the benefit of a local
charity. We shall have a good house, they say. I am going to enact
one Mr. Snobbington in a funny farce called A Good Night's Rest. I
shall want a flaxen wig and eyebrows; and my nightly rest is broken
by visions of there being no such commodities in Canada. I wake in
the dead of night in a cold perspiration, surrounded by imaginary
barbers, all denying the existence or possibility of obtaining such
articles. If ---- had a flaxen head, I would certainly have it
shaved and get a wig and eyebrows out of him, for a small pecuniary
compensation.

By the by, if you could only have seen the man at Harrisburg,
crushing a friendly Quaker in the parlor door! It was the greatest
sight I ever saw. I had told him not to admit anybody whatever,
forgetting that I had previously given this honest Quaker a special
invitation to come. The 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 Columbus. 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 be (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 North River for a couple of days. So
you see we shall not have much leisure for our voyaging
preparations.

You and Dr. Howe (to whom my love) MUST come to New York. On the 6th
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 be in us.

Mrs. Dickens unites with me in best regards to Mrs. Felton and your
little daughter, and I am always, my dear Felton,

Affectionately your friend,

CHARLES DICKENS.

P.S. I saw a good deal of Walker at Cincinnati. I like him very
much. We took to him mightily at first, because he resembled you in
face and figure, we thought. You 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 in his last letter that he "wants to
know you," and looks forward to Longfellow.

When Dickens arrived in Montreal 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, 1842.

My Dear Felton: I was delighted to receive your letter yesterday,
and was well pleased with its contents. I anticipated 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 be assailed in any
other country.....

I really cannot sufficiently thank you, dear Felton, for your warm
and hearty interest in these proceedings. But it would be idle to
pursue that theme, so let it pass.

The wig and whiskers are in a state of the highest preservation. 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 spectacles gleaming
not unlike those of my dear friend Pickwick, your face radiant with
as broad a grin as a staid professor may indulge in, and your very
coat, waistcoat, and shoulders expressive of what we should take
together 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 theatre in the daytime (at any minute
between twelve and three), and see me with my coat off, the stage
manager and universal director, urging impracticable ladies and
impossible gentlemen on to the very confines of insanity, shouting
and driving 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 H.
into some dim and faint understanding of a prompter's duties, and
struggling in such a vortex of noise, dirt, bustle, confusion, and
inextricable entanglement of speech and action as you would grow
giddy in contemplating. We perform A Roland 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.

O, 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 surprise them, or whether they will be too sharply
looking out for us; and what our pets will say; and how they'll
look, and who will be the first to come and shake hands, and so
forth! If I could but tell you how I have set my heart on rushing
into Forster's study (he is my great friend, and writes at the
bottom of all his letters, "My love to Felton"), and into Maclise's
painting-room, and into Macready'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
bow 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 cucumber; but when I
come upon them again I shall have lost all power of self-restraint,
and shall as certainly make a fool of myself (in the popular meaning
of that expression) as ever Grimaldi did in his way, 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 sincere affection, behind
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 couldn'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. Hoo-ray-ay-ay-ay-ay!"

About those joints of yours, I think you are mistaken. They _can't_
be stiff. At the worst they merely want the air of New York, which,
being 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 wrench open tight drawers and cupboards and
hermetically sealed bottles for practice? Perhaps they are dentists
out of the oyster season. Who knows?

Affectionately yours,

CHARLES DICKENS.

Dickens always greatly rejoiced in the theatre; and, having seen him act
with the Amateur Company of the Guild of Literature and Art, I can well
imagine the delight his impersonations in Montreal 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 Matthews, 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 Mrs. Nightingale's Diary (a farce in one act, the joint
production of Dickens and Mark Lemon), and Dickens played six characters
in the piece. Never have I seen such wonderful changes of face and form
as he gave us that night. He was alternately a rattling 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-eminent an actor as he was an author. 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 congenial duties;

"Will have the honor 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 home. 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.

Wherefore I indite a monstrously short and wildly uninteresting
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 farthing 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 eat
twenty dozen at one sitting, and would have eaten forty, if the
truth had not flashed upon the shopkeeper. 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 knocking 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 stomach, 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 already begun to wonder what
time next year you and Mrs. Felton and Dr. Howe will come across the
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 within 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 scoundrel, if one can do nothing else, and
I think we can make them smart a little in this way....

I 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, after singing all manner of
marine songs, wound up the entertainment 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. We were very
jovial indeed; and I assure you that I drank your health with
fearful vigor and energy.

On board that ship coming home I established a club, called the
United Vagabonds, to the large amusement of the rest of the
passengers. This holy brotherhood committed all kinds of
absurdities, and dined always, with a variety of solemn forms, 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 produced my
medicine-chest and recovered him. We had a few more sick men after
that, and I went round "the wards" every day in great state,
accompanied by two Vagabonds, habited 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 in one party at
Liverpool, shook hands, and parted most cordially....

Affectionately

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 written about half the first
since I came home, and hope to be out in October. This is "exclusive
news," to be communicated to any friends to whom you may like to
intrust it, my dear F.

What a capital epistolary pen Dickens held! He seems never to have
written the shortest note without 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 fiction
that playfulness is inconsistent with greatness. 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
complained that Dickens had "too much exuberant sociality" in his books
for _him_, and he wondered how any one could get through Pickwick. My
solemn friend evidently preferred the dropping-down-deadness of manner,
which he had been accustomed to find in Hervey'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 my
acquaintance an individual whom he described as "a fine, pompous,
gentlemanly man," and I thought it prudent, under the circumstances, to
decline the proffered introduction.

But I will proceed with those outbursts of bright-heartedness vouchsafed
to us in Dickens's letters. To me these epistles are good as fresh
"Uncommercials," or unpublished "Sketches by Boz."

1 Devonshire Terrace, York Gate, Regent's Park, London, 1st
September, 1842.

My 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 wringings out of the
dirtiest mortality, I shall be another man--indeed, almost the
creature they would make me.

I gave your message to Forster, who sends a despatch-box 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 finished),
and swears loudly by it. It is _True_, and Honorable I know, and I
shall hope to send it you, complete, by the first steamer in
November.

Your description of the porter and the carpet-bags prepares 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:--

OYSTERS
IN
EVERY STYLE
or
OPENINGS
OF
LIFE
by
YOUNG DANDO.

As to the man putting the luggage on his head, as a sort of sign, I
adopt it from this hour.

I date this from London, 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 the kitchen; it's a very
wet day, and I have had a fire lighted; the wine sparkles on a
side-table; the room looks the more snug from being the only
undismantled 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 impropriety; a great mound of proofs are waiting to
be read aloud, after dinner. With what a shout I would clap you down
into the easiest chair, my genial Felton, if you would 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 hard at me and fluttered about me at the same time, like
a giant butterfly. After a pause, he says, in a Sam Wellerish kind
of way: "I vent to the club this mornin', sir. There vorn't no
letters, sir." "Very good. Topping." "How's missis, sir?" "Pretty
well, Topping." "Glad to hear it, sir. My 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 reply affirmatively, and then he adds, as he
stirs the fire (as if he were thinking out loud), "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, 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 your 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,

CHARLES DICKENS.

P.S. All good angels prosper Dr. Howe. He, at least, will not like
me the less, I hope, for what I shall say of Laura.

London, 1 Devonshire Terrace, York Gate, Regent's Park, 31st
December, 1842.

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 has won golden opinions from all sorts of men,
except our friend in F----, who is a miserable creature; a
disappointed man in great poverty, to whom I have ever been most
kind and considerate (I need scarcely say that); and another friend
in B----, no less a person than an illustrious gentleman named ----,
who wrote a story called ----. They have done no harm, and have
fallen short of their mark, which, of course, was to annoy me. Now I
am perfectly free from any diseased curiosity in such respects, and
whenever I hear of a notice of this kind, I never read it; whereby I
always conceive (don't you?) that I get the victory. With 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 them, and will not at any 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 receive this. I hope you will like it. And I
particularly commend, my dear Felton, one Mr. Pecksniff and his
daughters to your tender regards. I have a kind of liking for them
myself.

Blessed star of morning, such a trip as we had into Cornwall, just
after Longfellow went away! The "we" means Forster, Maclise,
Stanfield (the renowned marine painter), and the Inimitable Boz. We
went down into Devonshire by the railroad, and there we hired an
open carriage from an innkeeper, patriotic in all Pickwick matters,
and went on with post horses. Sometimes we travelled all night,
sometimes all day, sometimes both. I kept the joint-stock purse,
ordered all the dinners, paid all the turnpikes, conducted facetious
conversations with the post boys, and regulated the pace at which we
travelled. Stanfield (an old sailor) consulted an enormous map on
all disputed points of wayfaring; and referred, moreover, to a
pocket-compass and other scientific instruments. The luggage was in
Forster's department; and Maclise, having nothing particular to do,
sang songs. Heavens! If you could have seen the necks of
bottles--distracting in their immense varieties of shape--peering
out of the carriage pockets! If you could have witnessed the deep
devotion of the post-boys, the wild attachment of the hostlers, the
maniac glee of the waiters. If you could have followed us into the
earthy old churches 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 the unspeakably green water was roaring,
I don't know how many hundred 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 had come and
gone, or smelt but one steam of the HOT punch (not white, dear
Felton, like that amazing compound I sent you a taste of, but a
rich, genial, glowing brown) which came in every evening in a huge
broad china bowl! 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 entanglements
that we were often obliged to beat him on the back with portmanteaus
before we could recover him. Seriously, I do believe there never was
such a trip. And they made such sketches, those two men, in the most
romantic of our halting-places, 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 couldn't calculate the number of
children 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 engines of that nature. But the best of it
is that Forster and I have purchased between us the entire stock in
trade of a conjurer, the practice and display whereof is intrusted
to me. And O my dear eyes, Felton, if you could see me conjuring the
company's watches into impossible tea-caddies, and causing pieces of
money to fly, and burning pocket-handkerchiefs without hurting 'em,
and practising in my own room, without anybody to admire, you would
never forget as long as you live. In those tricks which require a
confederate, I am assisted (by 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 has 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 _tells_ me things about you,
doesn'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 Barnaby. But 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
impression 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
welcome letter? The like to Hillard, 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 Allston, and all
friends who care for me and have outlived my book.... Always, my
dear Felton,

With true regard and affection, yours,

CHARLES DICKENS.

Here is a letter that seems to me something tremendous in its fun and
pathos:--

1 Devonshire Terrace, York Gate, Regent's Park, London, 2d March,
1843.

My Dear Felton: I don't know where to begin, but plunge headlong
with a terrible splash into this letter, on the chance of turning up
somewhere.

Hurrah! Up like a cork again, with the "North American Review" in my
hand. 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 attracted here. Brougham called the other day, with
the number (thinking I might 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 Ashburton (one of whose 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 like.

I am in great health and spirits and powdering away at Chuzzlewit,
with all manner of facetiousness rising up before me as I go on. As
to news, I have really none, saving that ---- (who never took any
exercise in his life) has been laid up with rheumatism for weeks
past, but is now, I hope, getting better. My little captain, as I
call him,--he who took me out, I mean, and with whom I had that
adventure 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 him in the morning, and bear him off to docks and rivers
and all sorts of queer places, whence he always returned late at
night, with rum-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-handkerchief round his
neck at dinner-time in a kind of jolly embarrassment, and then
forgetting what he had done with it; also of singing songs to wrong
tunes, and calling land objects by sea names, and never knowing
what o'clock it was, but taking midnight for seven in the evening;
with many other sailor oddities, all full of honesty, manliness, and
good temper. We took him to Drury Lane Theatre to see Much Ado About
Nothing. But I never could find out what he meant by turning round,
after he had watched the first two scenes with great attention, and
inquiring "whether it was a Polish piece." ...

On the 4th of April I am going to preside at a public dinner for the
benefit of the printers; and if you were a guest at that table,
wouldn't I smite you on the shoulder, harder than ever I rapped the
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 fellow, and so
eccentric in his might, that on a mental review of his pictures I
can hardly tell you of them as leading to any one strong purpose.
But the annual Exhibition of the Royal Academy comes off in May, and
then I will endeavor to give you some notion of him. He is a
tremendous creature, 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 lived, poor fellow, five miles out of town, I drove C----
down. It was such a day as I hope, for the credit of nature, is
seldom seen in any parts but these,--muddy, foggy, wet, dark, cold,
and unutterably wretched in every possible respect. Now, C---- has
enormous whiskers, which straggle all down his throat in such
weather, and stick out in front of him, like a partially unravelled
bird's-nest; so that he looks queer enough at the best, but when he
is very wet, and in a state between jollity (he is always very jolly
with me) 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, without 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 undertaker (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"), 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 clergyman 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
clergyman. "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
insult to the Almighty, whose servant I am." "How is that, sir?"
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 blasphemous, and in all respects
contemptible. Let us pray." With which, my dear Felton, and in the
same breath, I give you my word, he knelt down, as we all did, and
began a very miserable jumble of an extemporary prayer. I 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 wasn't a clergyman, and it wasn't a funeral, he'd have
punched his head," I felt as if nothing but convulsions could
possibly relieve me.....

Faithfully always, my dear Felton,

C.D.

Was there ever such a genial, jovial creature as this master of humor!
When we read his friendly epistles, we cannot help wishing he had
written letters only, as when we read his novels we grudge the time he
employed on anything else.

Broadstairs, Kent, 1st September, 1843.

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.

I have been terrifying Dolby out of his wits, by setting in for a
paroxysm of sneezing, and it would be madness in me, with such a
cold, and on such a night, and with to-morrow's reading before me,
to go out. I need not add that I shall be heartily glad to see you
if you have time. Many thanks for the Life and Letters of Wilder
Dwight. I shall "save up" that book, to read on the passage home.
After turning over the leaves, I have shut it up and put it away;
for I am a great reader at sea, and wish to reserve the interest
that I find awaiting me in the personal following of the sad war.
Good God, when one stands among the hearths that war has broken,
what an awful consideration it is that such a tremendous evil _must_
be sometimes!

Ever affectionately yours,

CHARLES DICKENS.

* * * * *

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 addressing to me such
inquiries must be profoundly ignorant of the works of the great author,
whom they endeavor by implication to place among the "Unbelievers." 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
copied both in Europe and America, from his last will and testament,
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, through our Lord and Saviour
Jesus Christ, and I exhort my dear children humbly to try to guide
themselves by the teachings of the New Testament."

I wish it were in my power to bring 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 Christmas. 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 they break my childish sleep! What
images do I associate with the Christmas music as I see them set
forth on the Christmas tree? Known before all others, keeping far
apart from all the others, they gather round my little bed. An
angel, speaking to a group of shepherds in a field; some travellers,
with 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 site, and letting down a sick person on a bed, with ropes;
the same in a tempest, 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 sight 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!'"

The writer of these pages begs to 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 improper language," or "drank enough to hurt him." He was human,
very human, but he was no scoffer or doubter. His religion was of the
heart, and his faith 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 numerous nameless correspondents,
who have attempted to soil the moral character of Dickens, the following
little incident, related to me by himself, during a summer-evening walk
among the Kentish meadows, 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. We happened to be all
strangers to each other, but I noticed at once that a clergyman was of
the party. I was occupied with a ponderous article in the 'Times,' when
the sound of my own name drew my attention to the fact that a
conversation was going 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 conversation 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 an 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
consigned 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 prison for life.
After my fictitious biographer had occupied himself for nearly an hour
with the eloquent 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 author 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 intrusion 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 up 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 accustomed 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 man became livid with rage, and asked
for my card. 'You shall have it,' I said, and, coolly taking out
one, I presented it to him without bowing. We were just then nearing the
station in London, so that I was spared a longer interview with my
_truthful_ companion; but, if I were to live a hundred years, I should
not forget the abject condition into which the narrator of my crimes was
instantly plunged. His face turned white as his cravat, 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 mustered
up strength sufficient 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 indomitable 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, with what must have been a great effort, arrange a merry
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 afterwards, and he took advantage of the lull. Only his own pen
could possibly give an idea of that hilarious night, and I will merely
attempt a brief reference to it. As soon as we were seated at the table,
I read in his lustrous eye, and heard in his jovial voice, that all
solemn forms were to be dispensed with on that occasion, and that
merriment 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 plenipotentiary 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 up from his own uncontrollable throat. Among
other tomfooleries, we had an imitation of scenes at an English
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 capillary scraps are
left, just over his ears, to show what kind of thatch once covered his
jolly cranium. Dickens pretended that _his_ candidate was superior to
the other, _because_ he had no hair; and that mine, being profusely
supplied with that commodity was in consequence disqualified in a marked
degree for an election. His speech, for volubility and nonsense, was
nearly fatal to us all. We roared and writhed in agonies of laughter,
and the candidates themselves were literally choking and crying with the
humor of the thing. 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 interrupting shouts, among others, of a pretended husky old man
bawling out at intervals, "Three cheers for the bald 'un!" "Down vith
the hairy aristocracy!" "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 inimitable 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 could never persuade him to repeat
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,
unobserved. His recital of the incident 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 relied entirely upon his friend to keep him informed of
the dialogue and story of the play as it went on, by having bawled into
his ear, 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
inadvertently dropped. Dickens gave the two voices of these two
spectators with his best comic and dramatic 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 business of the evening to observe that they were noticed.
One bawled louder, and the other, with his elevated ear-trumpet,
listened more intently than ever. At length the scene culminated in a
most unexpected manner. "Now," screamed the hearing man to the deaf one,
"they are going to elope!" "_Who_ is going to elope?" asked the deaf
man, in a loud, vehement tone. "Why, them 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 must have missed telling me
something they've said before," roared the other in an enraged and
stentorian voice; "for there was nothing in their conduct all the
evening, as you have been representing it to me, that would warrant them
in such a proceeding!" At which the audience could not bear it any
longer, and screamed their delight till the curtain fell.

Dickens was always planning something to interest 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 walking-match, which should take place on his
return to Boston, and he drew up a set of humorous "articles," which he
sent to me with this injunction, "Keep them in a place of profound
safety, for attested execution, until my arrival in Boston." He went
into this matter of the walking-match with as much earnest directness as
if he were planning a new novel. The articles, as prepared by himself,
are thus drawn up:--

"Articles of agreement entered into at Baltimore, in the United
States of America, this third day of February in the year of our
Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-eight, between ----,
British subject, _alias_ the Man of Ross, and ----, American
citizen, _alias_ the Boston Bantam.

"Whereas, some Bounce having arisen between the above men in
reference to feats of pedestrianism and agility, they have agreed to
settle their differences and prove who is the better man, by means
of a walking-match for two hats a side and the glory of their
respective countries; and whereas they agree that the said match
shall come off, whatsoever the weather, on the Mill Dam Road outside
Boston, on Saturday, the 29th day of this present month; and whereas
they agree that the personal attendants on themselves during the
whole walk, and also the umpires and starters and declarers of
victory in the match shall be ---- of Boston, known in sporting
circles as Massachusetts Jemmy, and Charles Dickens of Falstaff's
Gad's Hill, whose surprising performances (without the least
variation) on that truly national instrument, the American catarrh,
have won for him 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 expiration of that one hour and a
half they are to carefully note the place at which they halt. On the
match's coming off they are to station themselves in the middle of
the road, at that precise point, and the men (keeping clear of them
and of each other) are to turn round them, right shoulder inward,
and walk back to the starting-point. The man declared by them to
pass the starting-point first is to be the victor and the winner of
the match.

"3. No jostling or fouling allowed.

"4. All cautions or orders issued to the men by the umpires,
starters, and declarers of victory to be considered final and
admitting of no appeal.

"5. 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 (at the expense of the subscribers to these articles) on a
broadside. The said broadside to be framed and glazed, and one copy
of the same to be carefully preserved by each of the subscribers to
these articles.

"6. The men to show on the evening of the day of walking, at six
o'clock precisely, at the Parker House, Boston, when and where a
dinner will be given them by The Gasper. The Gasper to occupy the
chair, faced by Massachusetts Jemmy. The latter promptly and
formally to invite, as soon as may be after the date of these
presents, the following 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 invited].

"Now, lastly. In token of their accepting the trusts and offices by
these articles conferred upon them, these articles are solemnly and
formally signed by Massachusetts Jemmy and by the Gad's Hill Gasper,
as well as by the men themselves.

"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, ----."

When 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 travelled 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. With watch in hand, Dickens
strode on over the Mill Dam toward Newton Centre. When we reached the
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 went in for refreshments. 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 again and walked back to town. Thirteen miles' stretch
on a brisk winter day did neither of us any harm, and Dickens was in
great spirits over the match that was so soon to come off. We agreed to
walk over the ground again on the appointed day, keeping company with
our respective men. Here is the account that Dickens himself drew up, of
that day's achievement, for the broadside.

THE SPORTING NARRATIVE.

THE MEN.

"The Boston Bantam (_alias_ Bright Chanticleer) is a young bird,
though too old to be caught with chaff. He comes of a thorough game
breed, and has a clear 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
Philadelphia; but this must be considered as a pedestrian
eccentricity, and cannot be accepted by the rigid chronicler as high
art. The old mower with the scythe and hour-glass has not yet laid
his mauley heavily on the Bantam's frontispiece, but he has had a
grip at the Bantam's top feathers, and in plucking out a handful was
very near making him like the great Napoleon Bonaparte (with the
exception of the victualling department), when the ancient one found
himself too much occupied to carry out the idea, and gave it up. The
Man of Ross (_alias_ old Alick Pope, _alias_
Allourpraises-whyshouldlords, etc.) is a thought and a half too
fleshy, and, if he accidentally sat down upon his baby, would do it
to the tune of fourteen stone. This popular codger is of the
rubicund and jovial sort, and has long been known as a piscatorial
pedestrian on the banks of the Wye. But Izaak Walton hadn't
pace,--look at his book and you'll find it slow,--and when that
article comes in question, the fishing-rod may prove to some of his
disciples a rod in pickle. Howbeit, the Man of Ross is a lively
ambler, and has a smart stride of his own.

THE TRAINING.

"If vigorous attention to diet could have brought both men up to the
post in tip-top feather, their condition would have left nothing to
be desired. But both might have had more daily practice in the
poetry of motion. Their breathings were confined to an occasional
Baltimore burst under the guidance of The Gasper, and to an amicable
toddle between themselves at Washington.

THE COURSE.

"Six miles and a half, good measure, from the first tree on the Mill
Dam Road, lies the little village (with no refreshments in it but
five oranges and a bottle of blacking) of Newton Centre. Here
Massachusetts Jemmy and The Gasper had established the
turning-point. The road comprehended every variety of inconvenience
to test the mettle of the men, and nearly the whole of it was
covered with snow.

THE START

was effected beautifully. The men taking their stand in exact line
at the starting-post, the first tree aforesaid, received from The
Gasper the warning, "Are you ready?" and then the signal, "One, two,
three. Go!" They got away exactly together, and at a spinning speed,
waited on by Massachusetts Jemmy and the Gasper.

THE RACE.

"In the teeth of an intensely cold and bitter wind, before which the
snow flew fast and furious across the road from right to left, the
Bantam slightly led. But the Man responded to the challenge, and
soon breasted him. For the first three miles each led by a yard or
so alternately; but the walking was very even. On four miles being
called by The Gasper the men were side by side; and then 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 anybody's game, a dollar on Rossius and two
half-dollars on the member of the feathery tribe. When five miles
were called, the men were still shoulder to shoulder. At about six
miles The Gasper put on a tremendous spirt to leave the men behind
and establish himself at the turning-point at the entrance of the
village. He afterwards declared that he received a mental
knock-downer on taking his station and facing about, to find Bright
Chanticleer close in upon him, and Rossius steaming up like a
locomotive. The Bantam rounded first; Rossius rounded wide; and from
that moment the Bantam steadily shot ahead. Though both were
breathed at the town, the Bantam quickly got his bellows into
obedient condition, and blew away like an orderly blacksmith in full
work. The forcing-pumps of Rossius likewise proved themselves tough
and true, and warranted first-rate, but he fell off in pace; whereas
the Bantam pegged away with his little drumsticks, as if he saw his
wives and a peck of barley waiting for him at the family perch.
Continually gaining upon him of Ross, 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.

REMARKS.

"The difficulties 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
eyebrows were frozen into icicles. To breathe 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) unexpected
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 Epigram:--

And when he walks the streets the paviors cry,
"God bless you, sir!"--and lay their rammers by.

The dinner at the Parker House, after the fatigues 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 Autocrat, 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 provided by Dickens was profusely
decorated with flowers, arranged by himself. The master of the 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 letters from various parts of the country. On
the 8th of March, 1868, he writes from a Western city:--

Sunday, 8th March, 1868.

My Dear Fields: We came here yesterday most comfortably in a
"drawing-room car," of which (Rule Britannia!) 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 institution. But I have an impression that we must be in 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 "Paettie de Shay," telegraph instantly, and the recipe
shall be purchased. We asked the Irish waiter what this dish 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 "Curraco," all of which drinks
are on the wine list. I mean to drink my love to ---- after dinner
in Movseaux. Your ruggeder nature shall be pledged in Abasinthe.

Ever affectionately,

CHARLES DICKENS.

On the 19th of March he writes from Albany:--

Albany, 19th March, 1868.

My Dear ----: I should have answered your kind and welcome note
before now, but that we have been in difficulties. After creeping
through water for miles upon miles, our train gave it up as a bad
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 relief should arrive.

2. Unpacking and releasing into the open country a great train of
cattle and sheep that had been in the water I 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 which 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. Their misery was so very human that I was
sorry to recognize several intimate acquaintances conducting
themselves in this forlornly gymnastic manner.

As there is no question that our friendship began in some previous
state of existence many years ago, I am now going to make bold to
mention a discovery we have made concerning Springfield. We find
that by remaining there next 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 Springfield (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 for a
ride with him. Queer quarters at Utica, and nothing particular to
eat; but the people so very anxious to please, that it was better
than the best cuisine. I made a jug of punch (in the bedroom
pitcher), and we drank our love to you and Fields. Dolby had more
than his share, under pretence of devoted enthusiasm. Ever
affectionately yours,

CHARLES DICKENS.

His readings everywhere were crowned with enthusiastic 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 extremely 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 would not allow him 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 prospect of a rest after all his toilsome days and
nights in America. While at sea he wrote the following letter to me:--

Aboard The Russia, Bound For Liverpool, Sunday, 26th April, 1868.

My Dear Fields: In order that you may have the earliest intelligence
of me, I begin this note to-day in my small cabin, purposing (if it
should prove practicable) to post it at Queenstown 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. We had made
more than thirteen hundred and odd miles at, noon to-day. The wind,
after being a little capricious, rather threatens at the present
time to turn against us, but our run 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 approaching 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. I have got on my right boot
to-day for the first time; the "true American" seems to be turning
faithless at last; and I 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 dash 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
convention with the United States post-office.

We have been picturing your movements, and have duly checked off
your journey home, and have talked about you continually. But I have
thought about, 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 everywhere; or how fervently I thank you.

All the working of the ship seems to be done on my forehead. 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 Dolby'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.
Except 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 I rather
doubt it; for there is motion enough on the ship to render writing
to a landsman, 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 declined.

More love, and more to that, from your ever affectionate friend,

C.D.

His first letter from home gave us all great pleasure, 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 received on the
16th. I will write to her very soon, and tell her 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!_ We talk about
you both at Gad's Hill every day of our lives. And I never see the
place looking very pretty indeed, or hear the birds sing all day
long and the nightingales all night, without restlessly wishing that
you were both there.

"With best love, and truest and most enduring regard, ever, my dear
Fields,

"Your most affectionate,

"C.D."

".... I hope 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 knibs (or nibs) promised to-morrow, and
should be too late for the Cunard packet, it will in that case come
by the next following Inman 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. Fechter is ill, and was ordered off to
Brighton yesterday. Wills is ill too, and banished into Sussex for
perfect rest. Otherwise, thank God, I find everything well and
thriving. You 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 Dear ----: 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 beholding me coming in my usual dress out at the
usual door, it struck me that their recollection of my having been
absent for any unusual time was at once cancelled. They behaved
(they are both young dogs) exactly in their usual manner; coming
behind the basket phaeton as we trotted along, and lifting their
heads 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 excited; weeping profusely, and
throwing herself 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 by 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 their market-chaises to say, "Welcome home, sir!" that all the
houses along the road were dressed with flags; and that our
servants, to cut out the rest, had dressed this house so, that every
brick of it was hidden. They had asked M----'s permission to "ring
the alarm-bell (!) when master drove up"; but M----, having some
slight idea that that compliment might awaken master's sense of the
ludicrous, had 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 hats at
the end of the sermon, the ringers bolted out and rang like mad
until I got home. (There had been a conspiracy 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 have put five 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
he great fields of waving corn, 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 windows, and the lights and shadows 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-conductor. We are
already settling--think of this!--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 fine 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 enclosure.
Will you tell Fields, with my love, (I suppose he hasn't used _all_
the pens yet?) that I think there is in Tremont 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 blessings 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, but without
Fechter, who has been very ill. The doctor's dismissal of him to
Paris, however, and his getting better there, enables him to get up
the play there. He and Wilkie missed so many pieces of stage effect
here, that, unless I am quite satisfied with his report, I shall go
over and try my stage-managerial hand at the Vaudeville Theatre. I
particularly 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. Although 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 governor of the Foundling Hospital, because, since the
Christmas number, they have had such an amazing access of visitors
and money?

My dear love to Fields once again. Same to you and him from M----
and G----. I cannot tell you both how I miss you, or how overjoyed I
should be to see you here.

Ever, my dear ----, your most affectionate friend,

C.D.

Excellent accounts of his health and spirits continued 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 Longfellow. 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 he
wrote to me from the Langham Hotel, and I went up to town to see
him, and to make an appointment for his coming 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 a time, and they finished off with a tour of
inspection of the kitchens, pantry, wine-cellar, pickles, sauces,
servants' sitting-room, general household 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 which I sent to D----) came down for a
day, and I 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 the six poor travellers who, "not being rogues or proctors,
shall have lodging, entertainment, and four pence each."

Nothing can surpass the respect paid to Longfellow here, from the
Queen downward. He is everywhere received and courted, and finds (as
I told him he would, when we talked of it in Boston) 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 Dolby's son
and heir,--a most jolly baby, who held on tight by the rector's left
whisker while the service was performed. What time, too, his little
sister, connecting me with the pony, trotted up and down the centre
isle, 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
particularly entreated.

I am delighted to find you both 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 distance. 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 greatly.
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 frightened. Don (the father)
was standing by me, shaking off the wet and looking on carelessly,
when all of a sudden he perceived something amiss, and went in with
a bound and brought Bumble out by the ear. The scientific way in
which he towed him along was charming.

Ever your loving

C.D.

* * * * *

During the summer of 1868 constant messages and letters came from
Dickens across the seas, containing pleasant references to his visit in
America, and giving charming accounts of his way 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 Farewell Readings, and have been so
busy and so fatigued that my hands have been quite full. Here are
Dolby and I again leading the kind of life that you know so well. We
stop next week (except 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
under_ is the cry from aloft when anything is going to be sent down
on deck, and the ghost is aloft on a yard....

You know all about public affairs, Irish churches, 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.

Mr Dear ----: ...And first, as you are curious about the Oliver
murder, I will tell you about that trial of the same at which you
_ought_ to have assisted. There were about a hundred people present
in all. I have changed my stage. Besides that back screen which 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 isolated, and the slightest action
becomes much more important. 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 table, beautifully
lighted, with a large staff of men ready to open oysters and set
champagne corks flying. Directly I had done, the screens being
whisked off by my people, there was disclosed 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 powerful lights of
mine, the scene was exquisitely pretty; the hall being newly
decorated, and very elegantly; and the whole looking like a great
bed of flowers and diamonds.

Now, you must know that all this company were, before the wine went
round, unmistakably pale, and had horror-stricken faces. Next
morning, Harness (Fields knows--Rev. William--did an edition of
Shakespeare--old friend of the 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 had 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' doctor, had taken me aside and said, "My
dear Dickens, you may rely upon it that if only one woman cries out
when you murder the girl, there will be a contagion of hysteria all
over this place." It is impossible to soften it without spoiling it,
and you may suppose that I am rather anxious to discover how it goes
on the 5th of January!!! We are afraid to announce it elsewhere,
without knowing, except that I have thought it pretty safe to put it
up once in Dublin. I asked Mrs. K----, the famous actress, who was
at the 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
became speechless. Again, you may suppose that I am a little
anxious! I had previously tried it, merely sitting over the fire in
a chair, upon two ladies separately, one of whom was G----. They had
both said, "O, good gracious! if you are going to do _that_, it
ought to be seen; but it's awful." So once again you may suppose I
am a little anxious!...

Not a day passes but Dolby and I talk about you both, and recall
where 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, because
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 the East," published to-day,
by the by. I have described, with _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.

The atmosphere of this place, compounded of mists from the highlands
and smoke from the town factories, is crushing my eyebrows as I
write, and it rains as it never does rain anywhere else, and always
does rain here. 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 horrible 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 morning 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. Graskell'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 public-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

C.D.

All who witnessed the reading of Dickens in the "Oliver Twist" murder
scene unite in testifying to the wonderful effect he produced in it. Old
theatrical _habitues_ have told me that, since the days of Edmund Kean
and Cooper, no mimetic representation 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 Dear Fields: Hurrah, hurrah, hurrah! It is a remarkable instance
of magnetic sympathy that before I received your joyfully welcomed
announcement of your probable 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 10th; 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
yet announced, but they will be extra the London nights I send you,
and will in no wise interfere with them. We are doing most
amazingly. In the country the 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 gives me a twinge. We shall
have in London on the 2d of March, for the second murder night,
probably the greatest assemblage 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'll excuse east-winds,
won't you, if they shake the flowers roughly when you first set foot
on the lawn? I have only seen it once since Christmas, and that was
from last Saturday to Monday, when I went there for my birthday, and
had 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 surprisingly infirm
and aged. Could not possibly get on without his second wife to take
care of him, which she does to perfection. I went to Cheltenham
expressly to do the murder 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 emphasis, --"er--have
it--er--put aside. In my--er--best times--er--you remember them, my
dear boy--er--gone, gone! --no,"--with great emphasis 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 defiantly at Dolby as if Dolby had
contradicted him; and then trailed off into a weak pale likeness of
himself as if his whole appearance had been some clever optical
illusion.

I am away to Scotland on Wednesday next, the 17th, to finish there.
Ireland is already disposed of, and Manchester and Liverpool will
follow within six weeks. "Like lights in a theatre, they are being
snuffed out fast," as Carlyle says of the guillotined in his
Revolution. I suppose I shall be glad when they are all snuffed out.
Anyhow, 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 relate!) a spare day in
London. The warm weather has greatly spared F----'s bronchitis; but
I fear that he is quite unable to bear cold, or even changes of
temperature, 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
Navy, when I was at Bath the other day; though we have not yet heard
it from himself. Bath (setting aside remembrances 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
indifferent 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 lunches among the cornfields, walks in Cobham
Park, and a thousand other expeditions. Pray give our pretty M----
to understand that a great deal will be expected of her, and that
she will have to look her very best, to look as I have drawn her. If
your Irish people turn up at Gad's at the same time, as they
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 their beautiful vagabonds at a glance.

I wish Reverdy Johnson would dine in private and hold his tongue. He
overdoes the 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 propose 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

C.D.

A few weeks later, while on his reading tour, he sent off the
following:--

Adelphi Hotel, Liverpool, 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 custody 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, Corporation, and citizens 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 London 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
look sharp in the matter of landing on the bosom of the used-up,
worn-out, and rotten old Parient. I rather think that when the 12th
of June shall have shaken off these shackles, there _will_ be borage
on the lawn at Gad's. Your heart's desire in that matter, and in the
minor particulars of Cobham Park, Rochester Castle, and Canterbury
shall be fulfilled, please God! The red jackets shall turn out again
upon the turnpike road, and picnics among the cherry-orchards and
hop-gardens shall be heard of in Kent. Then, too, shall 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 Dolby specially charged him with the care of
you and yours. We shall be on the borders of Wales, and probably
about Hereford, when you arrive. Dolby has insane projects of
getting over here to meet you; so amiably hopeful and obviously
impracticable, that I encourage him to the utmost. The regular
little captain of the Russia, Cook, is just now changed into the
Cuba, whence arise disputes of seniority, etc. I wish he had been
with you, for I liked him very much when I was his passenger. I like
to think of your being in _my_ ship!

---- and ---- have been taking it by turns to be "on the point of
death," and have been complimenting one another greatly on the
fineness of the point attained. My people got a very good impression
of ----, and thought her a sincere and earnest little woman.

The Russia hauls out into the stream to-day, and I fear her people
may be too busy 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 ship 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 morning, in the most
wonderfully cheerful manner.)

My son Charley has come for the dinner, and Chappell (my Proprietor,
as--isn't it Wemmick?--says) is coming 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 when he sees the hall.
Seriously, it is less adapted to speaking than Westminster Abbey,
and is as large....

I hope you will see Fechter in a really clever piece by Wilkie. Also
you will see the Academy Exhibition, which will be a very good one;
and also we will, please God, see everything and more, and
everything else after that. I begin to doubt and fear on the subject
of your having a horror of me after seeing the murder. I don't
think a hand moved while I was doing it last night, or an eye looked
away. And there was a fixed expression of horror of me, all over the
theatre, which could not have been surpassed if I had been going to
be hanged to that red velvet table. It is quite a new sensation to
be execrated with that unanimity; 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 your most affectionate

C.D.

It will be remembered that Dickens broke down entirely during the month
of April, being completely 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 imitated 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 greatest strength and will could have survived it. When we
arrived in Queenstown, this note was sent on board our steamer.

Loving welcome to England. 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 I could rest! I am good for all country pleasures with you,
and am looking 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 C.D.

I hope this will be 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 undergone
important changes since I was last in London, taking in the noble Thames
embankments, which I had never seen, and the improvements in the city
markets. Dickens had moved up to London 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 Round, London, Wednesday, May 19, 1869.

My Dear Fields: Suppose we give the weather a longer chance, and say
Monday instead of Friday. I think we must be safer with that
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 weather. We will dine
here at six, and meet here at half past two. So IF you should want
to go elsewhere after dinner, it can be done, notwithstanding. Let
me know in a line what you say.

O the delight of a cold bath this morning, after those
lodging-houses! And a mild sniffler 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 Richmond. That way will leave us but two hours
and a half at Windsor. This would not be long enough to enable us to
see the inside of the castle, but would admit of our seeing the
outside, the Long Walk, etc. I will assume that such a survey will
suffice. That taken for granted, meet me at Waterloo Terminus (Loop
Line for Windsor) at 10.35, on Saturday morning.

The rendezvous for Monday evening will be _here at half past eight_.
As I don't know Mr. Eytinge'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 the time and place for
Gad's?

I shall be here on Friday for a few hours; meantime at Gad's
aforesaid.

With love to the ladies, ever faithfully,

C.D.

During my stay in England in that summer of 1869, I made many excursions
with Dickens both around the city and into the country. Among the most
memorable of these London rambles was a visit to the General
Post-Office, by arrangement with 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 "Pickwick" 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 nights we also visited the lock-up houses,
watch-houses, and opium-eating establishments. It was in 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 found the
haggard old woman blowing at a kind of pipe made of an old penny
ink-bottle. The identical 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'll pay up
according, deary, won't ye?" and the Chinamen and Lascars made
never-to-be-forgotten pictures in the scene. I watched Dickens intently
as he went among these outcasts of London, and saw with what deep
sympathy he encountered 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,
filthy as it was, that it might be warmed and cared for. I noticed that
whenever 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 forty or fifty
half-starved-looking wretches, I noticed a man among the crowd
whispering to another and 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 observation, 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 parting word.

Among other places, we went, a little past midnight, into one of the
Casual Wards, which were so graphically described, 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
attention, and he stood over it with a look of sympathizing 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
were standing in a room half filled with people of both sexes, whom the
police accompanying us knew to be thieves. Many of these abandoned
persons had served out their terms in jail or prison, and would probably
be again sentenced under the law. They were all silent and sullen as we
entered the room, until an old woman spoke up with a strong, beery
voice: "Good evening, gentlemen. We are all wery poor, but strictly
honest." At which cheerful apocryphal statement, all the inmates of the
room burst into boisterous laughter, 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 Dickens's favorite Detective W---- into a
sort of lock-up house, where persons are brought from the streets who
have been engaged in brawls, or detected 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 presiding 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 who 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
they live. It was well on toward morning, and we were sitting in
conversation with one of the officers, when the ponderous door opened
and one of these small wanderers was brought in. She was the queerest
little figure I ever beheld, and she walked in, holding the police
officer by the hand as solemnly and as quietly 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 enormous 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 parent, and had gone forth in quest of adventure.
The officer reported that he had discovered her in the middle of the
street, moving ponderingly along, without any regard to the horses and
vehicles all about her. When asked where she lived, she mentioned a
street which only existed in her own imagination, and she knew only her
Christian name. When she was interrogated by the proper authorities,
without the slightest apparent discomposure 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 brothers 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, cake
and _candy_." A messenger was sent out to procure these commodities,
which she instantly seized on their arrival and began 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 greatly impressed by the ingenious efforts 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
profound interest, and soon came forward and asked permission to speak
with the child. Of course his request 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 morning 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 away 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 of the size of London
than that great institution. The hurry and rush of letters! men 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 went from 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 inexhaustibility 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 letters 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 work 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 behind us, we strolled
out into the streets of London. It 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
disappear, 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 White 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. Johnson'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 interesting 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 bridges and the shore were shuddering," 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 chalet. 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 process he said which commonly set in the
moment he reached his garden gate.

It was ten years since I had seen Gad's Hill Place, and I observed at
once what extensive improvements had been made during 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. He 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 house, too, had been
greatly improved, and there was an air of assured comfort and ease about
the charming establishment. No one could surpass Dickens as a host; and
as there were certain household rules (hours 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 over, 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 colony. 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 were spoken to with pleasant words of
greeting, and the whole troop seemed wild 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, and he had hung the
staircase leading up from the hall of his house with fine old
impressions of the great master's best works. Observing our immediate
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 _thought_ as
displayed in these works, and his talk about the artist was delightful.
He used to say he never came down the stairs without pausing 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 cannot
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:--

"The hand of him here torpid lies,
That drew the 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 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, rain or shine, for a stretcher. Twelve,
fifteen, even twenty miles were not too much for Dickens, and many a
long tramp we 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 we were then traversing, and charming
narratives of incidents connected with the writing of his books.

Dickens's association with 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 autobiographic 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 bridge at
Rochester, footsore and tired, and eating bread that I had bought for
supper. One or two little houses, with the notice, 'Lodgings for
Travellers' 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 trampers 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 overhanging a lane, where a sentry was walking 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 observed them in their numberless gypsy-like
variety; thus early he looked lovingly on Gad's Hill Place, and wished
it might be 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 surroundings. When the after days came and
while travelling abroad, how vividly the childish love returned! As he
passed rapidly over the road on his way to France he once wrote: "Midway
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 queer 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 on. 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 Falstaff, 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 us 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 hard,
you might some day come to live in it." Though that's impossible!' said
the very 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 _my_
house, and I have reason to believe that what he said was true."

What stay-at-home is there who does not know the Bull Inn at Rochester,
from which Mr. Tupman and Mr. Jingle attended the ball, Mr. Jingle
wearing Mr. Winkle's coat? or who has not seen in fancy the
"gypsy-tramp," the "show-tramp," the "cheap jack," the "tramp-children,"
and the "Irish hoppers" all passing over "the Kentish Road, 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 skirting patch of
grass? Wild-flowers grow in abundance 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 stealing away like his own life, he never could find a
harsh word for the tramps, and many and 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 wild
rovers, several dogs being kept in the stable-yard, and the large outer
gates locked. But he seldom made an excursion in any direction without
finding some opportunity to benefit them. One of these many kindnesses
came to the public ear during the last summer of his life. He was
dressing in his own bedroom in the morning, when he saw two Savoyards
and two bears come up to the Falstaff Inn opposite. While he was
watching the odd company, two English bullies joined the little party
and insisted upon taking the muzzles off the bears in order to have a
dance with them. "At once," said Dickens, "I saw there would be trouble,
and I watched the scene with the greatest anxiety. In a moment I saw how
things were going, and without delay I found myself at the gate. I
called the gardener by the way, but he managed to hold himself at safe
distance behind the fence. I put the Savoyards instantly in a secure
position, asked the bullies what they were at, forced them to muzzle the
bears again, under threat of sending for the police, and ended the whole
affair in so short a time that I was not missed from the house.
Unfortunately, while I was covered with dust and blood, for the bears
had already attacked one of the men when I arrived, I heard a carriage
roll by. I thought nothing of it at the time, but the report in the
foreign journals which startled and shocked my friends so much came
probably from the occupants of that vehicle. Unhappily, in my desire to
save the men, I entirely forgot the dogs, and ordered the bears to be
carried into the stable-yard until the scuffle should be over, when a
tremendous tumult arose between the bears and the dogs. Fortunately we
were able to separate them without injury, and the whole was so soon
over that it was hard to make the family believe, when I came in to
breakfast, that anything of the kind had gone forward." It was the
newspaper report, causing anxiety to some absent friends, which led, on
inquiry, to this rehearsal of the incident.

Who does not know Cobham Park? Has Dickens not invited us
there in the old days to meet Mr. Pickwick, who pronounced it
"delightful!--thoroughly delightful," while "the skin of his expressive
countenance was rapidly peeling off with exposure to the sun"? Has he
not invited the world to enjoy the loveliness of its solitudes with him,
and peopled its haunts for us again and again?

Our first _real_ visit to Cobham Park was on a summer morning when
Dickens walked out with us from his own gate, and, strolling quietly
along the road, turned at length into what seemed a rural wooded
pathway. At first we did not associate the spot in its spring freshness
with that morning after Christmas when he had supped with the "Seven
Poor Travellers," and lain awake all night with thinking of them; and
after parting in the morning 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 sacredness by which 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 in their native soil beneath the forest-trees. They
were in one universal 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
solitude, 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 workmen and gardeners and
a general air of summer luxury. But to-day we were to go past the hall
and lunch on a green slope under the trees, (was it _just_ the spot
where Mr. 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 adventure with
Miss Wardle. There is the old sign, and here we are at the Leather
Bottle, Cobham, 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 cottages
whose inmates were evidently 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, "where
the dead had been quietly buried 'in the sure and certain hope' which
Christmas-time inspired." There too were the children, whom, seeing at
their play, he could not but be loving, 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 recall the little fellow on the top of a five-barred gate
in the picture Collins painted, known widely by the fine engraving made
of it at the time. And there too were the blossoming gardens, which now
shone in their new garments of resurrection. The stillness of midsummer
noon crept over everything as we lingered in the sun and shadow of the
old village. Slowly circling the hall, we came upon an avenue of
lime-trees leading up to a stately doorway in the distance. The path was
overgrown, birds and squirrels were hopping unconcernedly over the
ground, and the gates and chains were rusty with disuse. "This avenue,"
said Dickens, as we leaned upon the wall and looked into its cool
shadows, "is never crossed except to bear the dead body of the lord of
the hall to its last resting-place; a remnant of superstition, and one
which Lord and Lady D---- would be glad to do away with, but the
villagers would never hear of such a thing, and would consider it
certain death to any person who should go or come through this entrance.
It would be a highly unpopular movement for the present occupants 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 motley
society, brought together under such unnatural circumstances, would of
course interest Dickens. He seemed to take a profound pleasure in
wandering about the place, which was evidently filled with the
associations of former visits in his own mind. He was usually possessed
by a childlike eagerness to go to any spot which he had made up his mind
it was best to visit, and quick to come away, but he lingered long about
this leafy old haunt on that Sunday afternoon.

Of Cobham Hall itself much might be written without conveying an
adequate idea of its peculiar interest to this generation. The terraces,
and lawns, and cedar-trees, and deer-park, the names of Edward III. and
Elizabeth, the famous old Cobhams and their long line of distinguished
descendants, their invaluable pictures and historic chapel, have all
been the common property of the past and of the present. But the air of
comfort and hospitality diffused about the place by the present owners
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 with the place he loved so well. The chalet
has been transferred thither as a tribute from the Dickens family to the
kindness of their friends and former neighbors. We could not fail,
during our visit, to think of the connection his name would always have
with Cobham Hall, though he was then still by our side, and the little
chalet yet remained embowered in its own green trees overlooking the
sail-dotted Medway as it flowed towards the Thames.

The old city of Rochester, to which we have already referred as being
particularly well known to all Mr. Pickwick's admirers, is within
walking distance from Gad's Hill Place, and was the object of daily
visits from its occupants. The ancient castle, one of the best ruins in
England, as Dickens loved to say, because less has been done to it,
rises with rugged walls precipitously from the river. It is wholly
unrestored; just enough care has been bestowed to prevent its utter
destruction, but otherwise it stands as it has stood and crumbled from
year to year. We climbed painfully up to the highest steep of its
loftiest tower, and looked down on the wonderful scene spread out in the
glory of a summer sunset. Below, a clear trickling stream flowed and
tinkled as it has done since the rope was first lowered in the year 800
to bring the bucket up over the worn stones which still remain to attest
the fact. How happy Dickens was in the beauty of that scene! What
delight he took in rebuilding the old place, with every legend of which
he proved himself familiar, and repeopling it out of the storehouse of
his fancy. "Here was the kitchen, and there the dining-hall! How
frightfully dark they must have been in those days, with such small
slits for windows, and the fireplaces without chimneys! There were the
galleries; this is one of the four towers; the others, you will
understand, corresponded with this; and now, if you're not dizzy, we
will come out on the battlements for the view!" Up we went, of course,
following our cheery leader until we stood among the topmost
wall-flowers, which were waving yellow and sweet in the sunset air. East
and west, north and south, our eyes traversed the beautiful garden land
of Kent, the land beloved of poets through the centuries. Below lay the
city of Rochester on one hand, and in the heart of it an old inn where a
carrier was even then getting out, or putting in, horses and wagon for
the night. A procession, with banners and music, was moving slowly by
the tavern, and the quaint costumes in which the men were dressed
suggested days long past, when far other scenes were going forward in
this locality. It was almost like a pageant marching out of antiquity
for our delectation. Our master of ceremonies revelled that day in
repeopling the queer old streets down into which we were looking from
our charming elevation. His delightful fancy seemed especially alert on
that occasion, and we lived over again with him many a chapter in the
history of Rochester, full of interest to those of us who had come from
a land where all is new and comparatively barren of romance.

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. Rochester 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 master's hand led us gently on from
point to point, until 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 figurehead."

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
entertainment for six poor travellers. The establishment 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 conveyed.

Dickens's fancy for Rochester, and his numberless associations with it,
have left traces of that city in almost everything he wrote. From the
time when Mr. Snodgrass first discovered the castle ruin from Rochester
Bridge, to the last chapter of Edwin Drood, we observe hints of the
city's quaintness or silence; the unending pavements, which go on and
on till the wisest head would be puzzled to know where Rochester ends
and where Chath