What I Remember, Volume 2

i my mother was most agreeably surprised by a card brought in to her with "Mr. and Mrs. Charles Dickens" on it. We had been among his heartiest admirers from the early days of Pickwick.

and interest that we saw the creator of

t the man who wrote Pickwick! What we saw was a dandified, pretty-boy-looking sort of figure, sin

e at about that period of his life, quoted fro

e shuttles about-eyebrows, eyes, mouth and all-in a very singular manner when speaking. Surmount this with a loose coil of common-coloured hair, and set it on a small compact figure, ve

second of these guesses been less accurate, th

peak from my remembrance of him at a later day, when I had become intimate with him; but curiously enough, I find on looking back into my memory, that if I had been asked to describe him, as I first saw him, I too should have said that he was very small. Carlyle's words refer to Dickens's youth soon after he had published Pickwick; and no doubt at this p

think I should have passed him in the street wit

incident or anecdote which memory holds, on the grounds set forth by the great writer himself, who says in the introduction to the American Notes (first printed in the biography)-"Very many works having just the same scope and range have been already published. But

poet, as narrated by Mr. Forster. Dickens is as accurate as a topographer in his description of the villa, as looked down on from Fiesole. How often-ah, how often!-

en it noticed, that those wonderful eyes which saw so much and so keenly, were appreciably, though to a very slight degree, near-sighted eyes. Very few persons, even among those who knew him well, were aware of this, for Dickens never used a glass. But he continually exercised his vision by looking at distant objects, and making them out as

which seemed to attend him. His laugh was brimful of enjoyment. There was a peculiar humorous protest in it when recounting or hearing anything specially absurd, as who should say "'Pon my soul this is too ridiculous! This passes all bounds!" and bursting out afresh as though the sense of t

een observation which he poured out in them. There was no stint, no reservation for trade purposes. So with his conversation-every thought, every fancy, every feeling was expresse

e fashion as a solar microscope renders any object observed through it. The world in general beholds its Pecksniffs and its Mrs. Nicklebys through a different medium. And at any rate Dickens got at the quintessence of his creatures, and enables u

been misapplied and degraded, is yet, when rightly used, perhaps the grandest that can be applied to a human being, was especially applicable to him. He was a hearty man, a large-hearted man that is to say. He was perhaps the largest-hearted man I ever knew. I think he made a nearer approach to ob

none of the indifferentism of that pseudo-philosophic moderation, which, when a scoundrel or a scoundrelly action is on the tapis, hints that there is much to be said on both sides. Dickens hated

and graphic enough, but the image offered by the last words appears to me a singularly infelicitous one. There was nothing of the hardness or of the (moral) sharpness of steel about the expression of Dickens's face and features. Kindling mirth and genial fun were the expressions

her visits and meetings-to Tavistock House, to Gadshill, at Verey's in Regent Street, a place he much patronised, &c., &c. I remember one day meeting Chauncy Hare Townsend at Tavistock House and thinki

ght about by a movement of mind on his part, which already I think those who knew him best will agree with me in thinking had commenced. We differed on many points of politics. But there is one department of English social life-one with which I am probably more intimately acquainted than with any other, and which has always been to me one of much interest-our public school system, respecting which our agreement was

to declare his belief that there were no institutions in England so socially liberal as its public schools, and that there was nowhere in the country so complete an absence of servility to mere rank, position, and riches. 'A boy there'" (Mr. Forster here quotes Di

tters published by his sister-in-law and eldest daughter had they been get-at-able at the time when they might have been available for that publicati

o not remember now which were and which were not. But if it should be the case that any of those printed her

for the most part consisting of what I considered tit-bits from the byways of Ital

ckens said, with nailing forefinger levelled at me, "Give us that for Household Words. Give it us just as you have now been telling it to us"-which I accordingly did. Whether the publication of that article was in anywise connected with the fact that when I wished to purchase a second copy of that most extraordinary work I was told that it was out of print, and not to be had, I do not know.

s to his periodical, and many more are not of a nature to interest the public even th

f letters, from Dickens here printed are published with the permis

ated 3rd December, 1861, which my

s any man I know; for all your study and seclusion conduce to the general good, and disseminate truths that men cannot too earnestly take to heart. Yes, a capi

ratifying to me personally, but not withou

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15th Novem

, just as the post leaves, to ask you this

uppressed treatise, ask

Don't you think you ca

pages? If you cannot,

hfully yo

LES D

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l have consisted of a succinct statement of all the difficulties of the position with which Italy was then struggling, had to confine itself to the limits of an article in All The Year Round, and needed in truth to be pointed. I have observed that, in all our many conversations on Italian matters, Dickens's views and opinions coincided with my own, without, I

tion to "my Falstaff

ill give in extenso, bribed again by the very flatteri

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hour's notice] "on the occasion of your last visit without my having seen you, that I have never since got it out of my mind. I felt as if it were my fault

otentate, and shall presently appear." [I am asham

ng the discussions of a preposterous clerical body called a Convocation, and whether the weakened hopefulness of mankind whi

nd the roc's egg hung up, I suppose you will get rid of it bodily and turn to at another." [

antageously made longer for such work-or say life." [Ah! if the small matters rehearsed had been all, I could more contentedly have put

d of your daughter, who seems to have made a great impression on him. I wish he had had the keepers

I thought it of a mechanical sort, with no great amount of imagination in it. It seemed to me as if he 'didn't find me' in that, a

aithful

ES DIC

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charming person. As to Gibson, no criticism could be sounder. I had a considerable liking for Gibson as a man, and

, 25th July, after a page of remar

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borrowed money in France for the poor consideration of lower interest, which" [sic, but I suspect which must be a slip of the pen for than] "they could have got in England, greatly to the re-establishment of a reputation for public good faith. As to Louis Napoleon, his position in the whole matter is to me like his position in Europ

as twice announced, and each time very mysteriously disappeared from the bills), was announced at the little theatre in Dean Street, Soho, as a 'great attraction for one night only,' to play last Monday. An appropriately dirty little rag of a bill, fluttering in the wind

aithful

ES DIC

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ovember, 1866, and reached me at Brest. It was written to congratulate me on my second marriage

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then approaching marriage, and to assure you of my most cordial and affectionat

stand high upon the list of happy ones. As to your wife's winning a high reputation out of your house-if you care for that; it is not much as

our mother. Bear me in your mind then as the unconscious instrument of your having given your best affection to a worthy ob

fully

ES DIC

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m I am despatching to America at the end of this week, will dine with me at Verey's in Regent Street at six exact to be wished God-s

bable" man. At all events I highly appreciate what the Irishman called a tatur-tatur dinner, whether the gender in the case be masculine or feminine; and I incline to

eptember, 1868,

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to become a candidate for the representation of any place in the House of Commons.' Indeed it is a dismal sight, is that arena altogether. Its irrationality and dishonesty are quite shocking." [What would he have said now!] "How disheartening it is, that in affairs spiritual or temporal mankind will not begin at the beginning,

led out my growl

egards, my d

fully

ES DIC

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hat year came anothe

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S HOTEL,

The MS. accompanying it was stopped at All The Year Round office (in compliance with g

mmery there is no such idea floating. Everybody knows that the Church of England as an endowed establishment is doomed, and would be, even if its hand

utable to me. Still, it is the ambition of many men; and the honester

y dear T

ordiall

ES DIC

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harlatan, which he, to whom all charlatans were odi

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nstructing one grammatical sentence; but who is (ungrammatically) deep in Heaven's confidence on the abstrus

and what with the last new Government device of getting in the taxes before the

from it, which has, alas! a peculiarly sad and touching significance when read with the remembrance of the catastrophe then hurryi

, and to India, and likewise to Australia. My only dimness of perception in this wise is, that I don't know when. If I did but know when, I should be so wonderfully clear about it all! At present I can't see even s

ards, ever, my

fectiona

ES DIC

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he last words I