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diff --git a/27234-h/27234-h.htm b/27234-h/27234-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4cb01eb --- /dev/null +++ b/27234-h/27234-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,2923 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" /> +<title>My Father as I Recall Him</title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + P { margin-top: .75em; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + P.headingsummary { margin-left: 5%;} + H1, H2 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + } + H3, H4, H5 { + text-align: left; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + BODY{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + table { border-collapse: collapse; } +table {margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto;} + td { vertical-align: top; border: 1px solid black;} + td p { margin: 0.2em; } + .blkquot {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em;} /* block indent */ + + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .pagenum {position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; + color: gray; + } + + div.gapspace { height: 0.8em; } + .citation {vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: none;} + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<h2> +<a href="#startoftext">My Father as I Recall Him, by Mamie Dickens</a> +</h2> +<pre> +The Project Gutenberg eBook, My Father as I Recall Him, by Mamie Dickens + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: My Father as I Recall Him + + +Author: Mamie Dickens + + + +Release Date: November 11, 2008 [eBook #27234] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MY FATHER AS I RECALL HIM*** +</pre> +<p><a name="startoftext"></a></p> +<p>Transcribed from the Roxburghe Press edition by David Price, +ccx074@pglaf.org</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/coverb.jpg"> +<img alt="Cover of book" src="images/covers.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p0ab.jpg"> +<img alt="Charles Dickens" src="images/p0as.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>The pages of this little book were in type and about to be +sent for correction to my sister—who had been for some +months in very delicate health—when she suddenly became +still more gravely ill. The hand which had traced the words +of love and veneration dedicated to our father’s memory +grew too feeble to hold a pen, and before the proofs of her +little volume could be submitted to her for revision, my dear +sister died.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">K. P.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p0bb.jpg"> +<img alt="Mamie Dickens" src="images/p0bs.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<h1><!-- page 3--><a name="page3"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +3</span>MY FATHER AS I RECALL HIM.</h1> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">by</span><br /> +MAMIE DICKENS.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">the</span><br +/> +<i>ROXBURGHE PRESS</i>,<br /> +<span class="smcap">fifteen</span>, <span class="smcap">victoria +street</span>,<br /> +<span class="smcap">westminster</span>.</p> +<p><!-- page 4--><a name="page4"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +4</span><span class="smcap">this work</span>, <span +class="smcap">and all the publications of the roxburghe +press</span>, <span class="smcap">are supplied to the trade by +messrs. simpkin</span>, <span class="smcap">marshall</span>, +<span class="smcap">hamilton</span>, <span class="smcap">kent +& company</span>, <span class="smcap">limited</span>, <span +class="smcap">and can be obtained through any +bookseller</span>.</p> +<h2><!-- page 5--><a name="page5"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +5</span>CONTENTS.</h2> +<table> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="smcap">Page</span>.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Chapter I</span>.</p> +<p>Seeing “Gad’s Hill” as a child.—His +domestic side and home love.—His love of +children.—His neatness and punctuality.—At the table, +and as host.—The original of “Little Nell.”</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page7">7</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Chapter II</span>.</p> +<p>Buying Christmas presents.—In the dance.—The +merriest of them all.—As a conjurer.—Christmas at +“Gad’s Hill.”—Our Christmas +dinners.—A New Year’s Eve frolic.—New Year on +the Green.—Twelfth Night festivities.</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page25">25</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Chapter III</span>.</p> +<p>My father at his work.—Rooms in which he +wrote.—Love for his child characters.—Genius for +character drawing.—Nicholas Nickleby.—His writing +hours.—His only amanuensis.—“Pickwick” +and “Boz.”—Death of Mr. Thackeray.</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page46">46</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Chapter IV</span>.</p> +<p>Fondness for Athletic Sports.—His love of +bathing.—His study of the raven.—Calling the doctor +in.—My father with our dogs.—The cats of +“Gad’s Hill.”—”Bumble” and +“Mrs. Bouncer.”—A strange friendship.</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page69">69</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Chapter V</span>.</p> +<p>Interest in London birds.—Our pet bird +“Dick.”—Devotion of his dogs.—Decision to +visit America.—His arrival in New York.—Comments on +American courtesies.—Farewell public appearances.</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page88">88</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><!-- page 6--><a name="page6"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +6</span><span class="smcap">Chapter VI</span>.</p> +<p>Last words spoken in public.—A railroad accident in +1865.—At home after his American +visit.—”Improvements” at “Gad’s +Hill.”—At “Gad’s Hill” once +more.—The closing day of his life.—Burial at +Westminster.</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page103">103</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<p> </p> +<h2>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.</h2> +<table> +<tr> +<td><p>Charles Dickens</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">Frontispiece</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Mamie Dickens</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">Facing Dedication</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Charles Dickens reading in the garden</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">page <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page7">7</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Mr. Pickwick slides</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page25">25</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Mr. John Leech</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page28">28</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Mr. Pickwick under the Mistletoe</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page45">45</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Mrs. Bouncer</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page86">86</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>To Miss Dickens’ Pomeranian “Mrs. +Bouncer”</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page86">86</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>The Empty Chair</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page101">101</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Charles Dickens’ Grave</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page127">127</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<h2><!-- page 7--><a name="page7"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +7</span>CHAPTER I.</h2> +<p class="gutsumm">Seeing “Gad’s Hill” as a +child.—His domestic side and home-love.—His love of +children.—His neatness and punctuality.—At the table, +and as host.—The original of “Little Nell.”</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p7b.jpg"> +<img alt="Charles Dickens Reading in Garden" src="images/p7s.jpg" +/> +</a></p> +<p>If, in these pages, written in remembrance of my father, I +should tell you my dear friends, nothing new of him, I can, at +least, promise you that what I shall tell will be told +faithfully, if simply, and perhaps there may be some things not +familiar to you.</p> +<p>A great many writers have taken it upon themselves to write +lives of my father, to tell anecdotes of him, and to print all +manner of things about him. Of all these published books I +have read but one, the only genuine “Life” thus far +written of him, the one sanctioned by my father himself, <!-- +page 8--><a name="page8"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +8</span>namely: “The Life of Charles Dickens,” by +John Forster.</p> +<p>But in what I write about my father I shall depend chiefly +upon my own memory of him, for I wish no other or dearer +remembrance. My love for my father has never been touched +or approached by any other love. I hold him in my heart of +hearts as a man apart from all other men, as one apart from all +other beings.</p> +<p>Of my father’s childhood it is but natural that I should +know very little more than the knowledge possessed by the great +public. But I never remember hearing him allude at any +time, or under any circumstances, to those unhappy days in his +life except in the one instance of his childish love and +admiration for “Gad’s Hill,” which was destined +to become so closely associated with his name and works.</p> +<p>He had a very strong and faithful attachment for places: +Chatham, I think, being his first love in this respect. For +it was <!-- page 9--><a name="page9"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +9</span>here, when a child, and a very sickly child, poor little +fellow, that he found in an old spare room a store of books, +among which were “Roderick Random,” “Peregrine +Pickle,” “Humphrey Clinker,” “Tom +Jones,” “The Vicar of Wakefield,” “Don +Quixote,” “Gil Blas,” “Robinson +Crusoe,” “The Arabian Nights,” and other +volumes. “They were,” as Mr. Forster wrote, +“a host of friends when he had no single +friend.” And it was while living at Chatham that he +first saw “Gad’s Hill.”</p> +<p>As a “very queer small boy” he used to walk up to +the house—it stood on the summit of a high hill—on +holidays, or when his heart ached for a “great +treat.” He would stand and look at it, for as a +little fellow he had a wonderful liking and admiration for the +house, and it was, to him, like no other house he had ever +seen. He would walk up and down before it with his father, +gazing at it with delight, and the latter would tell him that +perhaps if he <!-- page 10--><a name="page10"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 10</span>worked hard, was industrious, and +grew up to be a good man, he might some day come to live in that +very house. His love for this place went through his whole +life, and was with him until his death. He takes “Mr. +Pickwick” and his friends from Rochester to Cobham by the +beautiful back road, and I remember one day when we were driving +that way he showed me the exact spot where “Mr. +Pickwick” called out: “Whoa, I have dropped my +whip!” After his marriage he took his wife for the +honeymoon to a village called Chalk, between Gravesend and +Rochester.</p> +<p>Many years after, when he was living with his family in a +villa near Lausanne, he wrote to a friend: “The green woods +and green shades about here are more like Cobham, in Kent, than +anything we dream of at the foot of the Alpine +passes.” And again, in still later years, one of his +favorite walks from “Gad’s Hill” was to a +village called Shorne, where there was a <!-- page 11--><a +name="page11"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 11</span>quaint old +church and graveyard. He often said that he would like to +be buried there, the peace and quiet of the homely little place +having a tender fascination for him. So we see that his +heart was always in Kent.</p> +<p>But let this single reference to his earlier years suffice, so +that I may write of him during those years when I remember him +among us and around us in our home.</p> +<p>From his earliest childhood, throughout his earliest married +life to the day of his death, his nature was home-loving. +He was a “home man” in every respect. When he +became celebrated at a very early age, as we know, all his joys +and sorrows were taken home; and he found there sympathy and the +companionship of his “own familiar friends.” In +his letters to these latter, in his letters to my mother, to my +aunt, and, later on, to us his children, he never forgot anything +that he knew would be of interest about his work, <!-- page +12--><a name="page12"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 12</span>his +successes, his hopes or fears. And there was a sweet +simplicity in his belief that such news would most certainly be +acceptable to all, that is wonderfully touching and child-like +coming from a man of genius.</p> +<p>His care and thoughtfulness about home matters, nothing being +deemed too small or trivial to claim his attention and +consideration, were really marvellous when we remember his +active, eager, restless, working brain. No man was so +inclined naturally to derive his happiness from home +affairs. He was full of the kind of interest in a house +which is commonly confined to women, and his care of and for us +as wee children did most certainly “pass the love of +women!” His was a tender and most affectionate nature.</p> +<p>For many consecutive summers we used to be taken to +Broadstairs. This little place became a great favorite with +my father. He was always very happy there, <!-- page +13--><a name="page13"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 13</span>and +delighted in wandering about the garden of his house, generally +accompanied by one or other of his children. In later +years, at Boulogne, he would often have his youngest boy, +“The Noble Plorn,” trotting by his side. These +two were constant companions in those days, and after these walks +my father would always have some funny anecdote to tell us. +And when years later the time came for the boy of his heart to go +out into the world, my father, after seeing him off, wrote: +“Poor Plorn has gone to Australia. It was a hard +parting at the last. He seemed to become once more my +youngest and favorite little child as the day drew near, and I +did not think I could have been so shaken. These are hard, +hard things, but they might have to be done without means or +influence, and then they would be far harder. God bless +him!”</p> +<p>When my father was arranging and rehearsing his readings from +“Dombey,” the <!-- page 14--><a +name="page14"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 14</span>death of +“little Paul” caused him such real anguish, the +reading being so difficult to him, that he told us he could only +master his intense emotion by keeping the picture of Plorn, well, +strong and hearty, steadily before his eyes. We can see by +the different child characters in his books what a wonderful +knowledge he had of children, and what a wonderful and truly +womanly sympathy he had with them in all their childish joys and +griefs. I can remember with us, his own children, how kind, +considerate and patient he always was. But we were never +afraid to go to him in any trouble, and never had a snub from him +or a cross word under any circumstances. He was always glad +to give us “treats,” as he called them, and used to +conceive all manner of those “treats” for us, and if +any favor had to be asked we were always sure of a favorable +answer. On these occasions my sister “Katie” +was generally our messenger, we others waiting <!-- page 15--><a +name="page15"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 15</span>outside the +study door to hear the verdict. She and I used to have +delightful treats in those summer evenings, driving up to +Hampstead in the open carriage with him, our mother, and +“Auntie,” <a name="citation15"></a><a +href="#footnote15" class="citation">[15]</a> and getting out for +a long walk through the lovely country lanes, picking wild roses +and other flowers, or walking hand in hand with him listening to +some story.</p> +<p>There never existed, I think, in all the world, a more +thoroughly tidy or methodical creature than was my father. +He was tidy in every way—in his mind, in his handsome and +graceful person, in his work, in keeping his writing table +drawers, in his large correspondence, in fact in his whole +life.</p> +<p>I remember that my sister and I occupied <!-- page 16--><a +name="page16"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 16</span>a little +garret room in Devonshire Terrace, at the very top of the +house. He had taken the greatest pains and care to make the +room as pretty and comfortable for his two little daughters as it +could be made. He was often dragged up the steep staircase +to this room to see some new print or some new ornament which we +children had put up, and he always gave us words of praise and +approval. He encouraged us in every possible way to make +ourselves useful, and to adorn and beautify our rooms with our +own hands, and to be ever tidy and neat. I remember that +the adornment of this garret was decidedly primitive, the +unframed prints being fastened to the wall by ordinary black or +white pins, whichever we could get. But, never mind, if +they were put up neatly and tidily they were always +“excellent,” or “quite slap-up” as he +used to say. Even in those early days, he made a point of +visiting every room in the house once each morning, and if a <!-- +page 17--><a name="page17"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +17</span>chair was out of its place, or a blind not quite +straight, or a crumb left on the floor, woe betide the +offender.</p> +<p>And then his punctuality! It was almost frightful to an +unpunctual mind! This again was another phase of his +extreme tidiness; it was also the outcome of his excessive +thoughtfulness and consideration for others. His sympathy, +also, with all pain and suffering made him quite invaluable in a +sick room. Quick, active, sensible, bright and cheery, and +sympathetic to a degree, he would seize the “case” at +once, know exactly what to do and do it. In all our +childish ailments his visits were eagerly looked forward to; and +our little hearts would beat a shade faster, and our aches and +pains become more bearable, when the sound of his quick footstep +was heard, and the encouraging accents of his voice greeted the +invalid. I can remember now, as if it were yesterday, how +the touch of his hand—he had a most sympathetic <!-- page +18--><a name="page18"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +18</span>touch—was almost too much sometimes, the help and +hope in it making my heart full to overflowing. He believed +firmly in the power of mesmerism, as a remedy in some forms of +illness, and was himself a mesmerist of no mean order; I know of +many cases, my own among the number, in which he used his power +in this way with perfect success.</p> +<p>And however busy he might be, and even in his hours of +relaxation, he was still, if you can understand me, always busy; +he would give up any amount of time and spare himself no fatigue +if he could in any way alleviate sickness and pain.</p> +<p>In very many of my father’s books there are frequent +references to delicious meals, wonderful dinners and more +marvellous dishes, steaming bowls of punch, etc, which have led +many to believe that he was a man very fond of the table. +And yet I think no more abstemious man ever lived.</p> +<p><!-- page 19--><a name="page19"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +19</span>In the “Gad’s Hill” days, when the +house was full of visitors, he had a peculiar notion of always +having the menu for the day’s dinner placed on the +sideboard at luncheon time. And then he would discuss every +item in his fanciful, humorous way with his guests, much to this +effect: “Cock-a-leekie? Good, decidedly good; fried +soles with shrimp sauce? Good again; croquettes of +chicken? Weak, very weak; decided want of imagination +here,” and so on, and he would apparently be so taken up +with the merits or demerits of a menu that one might imagine he +lived for nothing but the coming dinner. He had a small but +healthy appetite, but was remarkably abstemious both in eating +and drinking.</p> +<p>He was delightful as a host, caring individually for each +guest, and bringing the special qualities of each into full +notice and prominence, putting the very shyest at his or her +ease, making the best of the <!-- page 20--><a +name="page20"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 20</span>most humdrum, +and never thrusting himself forward.</p> +<p>But when he was most delightful, was alone with us at home and +sitting over dessert, and when my sister was with us +especially—I am talking now of our grownup days—for +she had great power in “drawing him out.” At +such times although he might sit down to dinner in a grave or +abstracted mood, he would, invariably, soon throw aside his +silence and end by delighting us all with his genial talk and his +quaint fancies about people and things. He was always, as I +have said, much interested in mesmerism, and the curious +influence exercised by one personality over another. One +illustration I remember his using was, that meeting someone in +the busy London streets, he was on the point of turning back to +accost the supposed friend, when finding out his mistake in time +he walked on again until he actually met the real friend, whose +shadow, as it <!-- page 21--><a name="page21"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 21</span>were, but a moment ago had come +across his path.</p> +<p>And then the forgetting of a word or a name. “Now +into what pigeon-hole of my brain did that go, and why do I +suddenly remember it now?” And as these thoughts +passed through his mind and were spoken dreamily, so they also +appeared in his face. Another instant, perhaps, and his +eyes would be full of fun and laughter.</p> +<p>At the beginning of his literary career he suffered a great +sorrow in the death—a very sudden death—of my +mother’s sister, Mary Hogarth. She was of a most +charming and lovable disposition, as well as being personally +very beautiful. Soon after my parents married, Aunt Mary +was constantly with them. As her nature developed she +became my father’s ideal of what a young girl should +be. And his own words show how this great affection and the +influence of the girl’s loved memory were with him to the +end of his life. The <!-- page 22--><a +name="page22"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 22</span>shock of her +sudden death so affected and prostrated him that the publication +of “Pickwick” was interrupted for two months.</p> +<p>“I look back,” he wrote, “and with unmingled +pleasure, to every link which each ensuing week has added to the +chain of our attachment. It shall go hard I hope ere +anything but death impairs the toughness of a bond now so firmly +riveted. That beautiful passage you were so kind and +considerate as to send to me has given me the only feeling akin +to pleasure, sorrowful pleasure it is, that I have yet had +connected with the loss of my dear young friend and companion, +for whom my love and attachment will never diminish, and by whose +side, if it please God to leave me in possession of sense to +signify my wishes, my bones whenever or wherever I die, will one +day be laid.”</p> +<p>She was buried in Kensal Green Cemetery, <!-- page 23--><a +name="page23"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 23</span>and her grave +bears the following inscription, written by my father:</p> +<p>“Young, beautiful, and good, God in His mercy numbered +her among His angels at the early age of seventeen.”</p> +<p>A year after her death, in writing to my mother from +Yorkshire, he says: “Is it not extraordinary that the same +dreams which have constantly visited me since poor Mary died +follow me everywhere? After all the change of scene and +fatigue I have dreamt of her ever since I left home, and no doubt +shall until I return. I would fain believe, sometimes, that +her spirit may have some influence over them, but their perpetual +repetition is extraordinary.”</p> +<p>In the course of years there came changes in our home, +inevitable changes. But no changes could ever alter my +father’s home-loving nature. As he wrote to Mr. +Forster, as a young man, so it was with him to the time of his +death: “We <!-- page 24--><a name="page24"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 24</span>shall soon meet, please God, and be +happier than ever we were in all our lives. Oh! +home—home—home!!!”</p> +<h2><!-- page 25--><a name="page25"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +25</span>CHAPTER II.</h2> +<p class="gutsumm">Buying Christmas presents.—In the +dance.—The merriest of them all.—As a +conjurer.—Christmas at “Gad’s +Hill.”—Our Christmas dinners.—A New +Year’s Eve frolic.—New Year on the +Green.—Twelfth Night festivities.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p25b.jpg"> +<img alt="Mr. Pickwick slides" src="images/p25s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>Christmas was always a time which in our home was looked +forward to with eagerness and delight, and to my father it was a +time dearer than any other part of the year, I think. He +loved Christmas for its deep significance as well as for its +joys, and this he demonstrates in every allusion in his writings +to the great festival, a day which he considered should be +fragrant with the love that we should bear one to another, and +with the love and reverence of his Saviour and Master. Even +in his most merry conceits of Christmas, there are always subtle +and tender touches which will bring tears to the eyes, and make +even the thoughtless have some special <!-- page 26--><a +name="page26"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 26</span>veneration +for this most blessed anniversary.</p> +<p>In our childish days my father used to take us, every +twenty-fourth day of December, to a toy shop in Holborn, where we +were allowed to select our Christmas presents, and also any that +we wished to give to our little companions. Although I +believe we were often an hour or more in the shop before our +several tastes were satisfied, he never showed the least +impatience, was always interested, and as desirous as we, that we +should choose exactly what we liked best. As we grew older, +present giving was confined to our several birthdays, and this +annual visit to the Holborn toy shop ceased.</p> +<p>When we were only babies my father determined that we should +be taught to dance, so as early as the Genoa days we were given +our first lessons. “Our oldest boy and his sisters +are to be waited upon next week by a professor of the noble art +of dancing,” he wrote to a friend at this <!-- page 27--><a +name="page27"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 27</span>time. +And again, in writing to my mother, he says: “I hope the +dancing lessons will be a success. Don’t fail to let +me know.”</p> +<p>Our progress in the graceful art delighted him, and his +admiration of our success was evident when we exhibited to him, +as we were perfected in them, all the steps, exercises and dances +which formed our lessons. He always encouraged us in our +dancing, and praised our grace and aptness, although criticized +quite severely in some places for allowing his children to expend +so much time and energy upon the training of their feet.</p> +<p>When “the boys” came home for the holidays there +were constant rehearsals for the Christmas and New Year’s +parties; and more especially for the dance on Twelfth Night, the +anniversary of my brother Charlie’s birthday. Just +before one of these celebrations my father insisted that my +sister Katie and I should teach the polka step to Mr. Leech and +himself. My <!-- page 28--><a name="page28"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 28</span>father was as much in earnest about +learning to take that wonderful step correctly, as though there +were nothing of greater importance in the world. Often he +would practice gravely in a corner, without either partner or +music, and I remember one cold winter’s night his awakening +with the fear that he had forgotten the step so strong upon him +that, jumping out of bed, by the scant illumination of the +old-fashioned rushlight, and to his own whistling, he diligently +rehearsed its “one, two, three, one, two, three” +until he was once more secure in his knowledge.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p28b.jpg"> +<img alt="Mr. John Leech" src="images/p28s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>No one can imagine our excitement and nervousness when the +evening came on which we were to dance with our pupils. +Katie, who was a very little girl was to have Mr. Leech, who was +over six feet tall, for her partner, while my father was to be +mine. My heart beat so fast that I could scarcely breathe, +I was so fearful for the success of our exhibition. <!-- +page 29--><a name="page29"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +29</span>But my fears were groundless, and we were greeted at the +finish of our dance with hearty applause, which was more than +compensation for the work which had been expended upon its +learning.</p> +<p>My father was certainly not what in the ordinary acceptation +of the term would be called “a good dancer.” I +doubt whether he had ever received any instruction in “the +noble art” other than that which my sister and I gave +him. In later years I remember trying to teach him the +Schottische, a dance which he particularly admired and desired to +learn. But although he was so fond of dancing, except at +family gatherings in his own or his most intimate friends’ +homes, I never remember seeing him join in it himself, and I +doubt if, even as a young man, he ever went to balls. +Graceful in motion, his dancing, such as it was, was natural to +him. Dance music was delightful to his cheery, genial +spirit; the time and steps of a dance suited his tidy <!-- page +30--><a name="page30"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +30</span>nature, if I may so speak. The action and the +exercise seemed to be a part of his abundant vitality.</p> +<p>While I am writing of my father’s fondness for dancing, +a characteristic anecdote of him occurs to me. While he was +courting my mother, he went one summer evening to call upon +her. The Hogarths were living a little way out of London, +in a residence which had a drawing-room opening with French +windows on to a lawn. In this room my mother and her family +were seated quietly after dinner on this particular evening, when +suddenly a young sailor jumped through one of the open windows +into the apartment, whistled and danced a hornpipe, and before +they could recover from their amazement jumped out again. A +few minutes later my father walked in at the door as sedately as +though quite innocent of the prank, and shook hands with +everyone; but the sight of their amazed faces proving too much +for <!-- page 31--><a name="page31"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +31</span>his attempted sobriety, his hearty laugh was the signal +for the rest of the party to join in his merriment. But +judging from his slight ability in later years, I fancy that he +must have taken many lessons to secure his perfection in that +hornpipe.</p> +<p>His dancing was at its best, I think, in the “Sir Roger +de Coverly”—and in what are known as country +dances. In the former, while the end couples are dancing, +and the side couples are supposed to be still, my father would +insist upon the sides keeping up a kind of jig step, and clapping +his hands to add to the fun, and dancing at the backs of those +whose enthusiasm he thought needed rousing, was himself never +still for a moment until the dance was over. He was very +fond of a country dance which he learned at the house of some +dear friends at Rockingham Castle, which began with quite a +stately minuet to the tune of “God save the Queen,” +and then dashed suddenly <!-- page 32--><a +name="page32"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 32</span>into +“Down the Middle and up Again.” His enthusiasm +in this dance, I remember, was so great that, one evening after +some of our Tavistock House theatricals, when I was thoroughly +worn out with fatigue, being selected by him as his partner, I +caught the infection of his merriment, and my weariness +vanished. As he himself says, in describing dear old +“Fezziwig’s” Christmas party, we were +“people who would dance and had no notion of +walking.” His enjoyment of all our frolics was +equally keen, and he writes to an American friend, <i>à +propos</i> of one of our Christmas merry-makings: “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 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 to do +this little <!-- page 33--><a name="page33"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 33</span>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 tip-top farm, with the wind +blowing straight in my face every day.”</p> +<p>At our holiday frolics he used sometimes to conjure for us, +the equally “noble art” of the prestidigitateur being +among his accomplishments. He writes of this, which he +included in the list of our Twelfth Night amusements, to another +American friend: “The actuary of the national debt +couldn’t calculate the number of children who are coming +here on Twelfth Night, in honor of Charlie’s birthday, for +which occasion I have provided a magic lantern and divers other +tremendous engines of that nature. <!-- page 34--><a +name="page34"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 34</span>But the best +of it is that Forster and I have purchased between us the entire +stock-in-trade of a conjuror, the practice and display whereof is +entrusted to me. And 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 +burning ’em, and practising in my own room without anybody +to admire, you would never forget it as long as you +live.”</p> +<p>One of these conjuring tricks comprised the disappearance and +reappearance of a tiny doll, which would announce most unexpected +pieces of news and messages to the different children in the +audience; this doll was a particular favorite, and its arrival +eagerly awaited and welcomed.</p> +<p>That he loved to emphasize Christmas in every possible way, +the following extract from a note which he sent me in December, +1868, will evidence. After speaking of a reading which he +was to give on Christmas <!-- page 35--><a +name="page35"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 35</span>Eve, he says: +“It occurs to me that my table at St. James’ Hall +might be appropriately ornamented with a little holly next +Tuesday. If the two front legs were entwined with it, for +instance, and a border of it ran round the top of the fringe in +front, with a little sprig by way of bouquet at each corner, it +would present a seasonable appearance. If you think of this +and will have the materials ready in a little basket, I will call +for you at the office and take you up to the hall where the table +will be ready for you.”</p> +<p>But I think that our Christmas and New Year’s tides at +“Gad’s Hill” were the happiest of all. +Our house was always filled with guests, while a cottage in the +village was reserved for the use of the bachelor members of our +holiday party. My father himself, always deserted work for +the week, and that was almost our greatest treat. He was +the fun and life of those gatherings, the true Christmas spirit +of <!-- page 36--><a name="page36"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +36</span>sweetness and hospitality filling his large and generous +heart. Long walks with him were daily treats to be +remembered. Games passed our evenings merrily. +“Proverbs,” a game of memory, was very popular, and +it was one in which either my aunt or myself was apt to prove +winner. Father’s annoyance at our failure sometimes +was very amusing, but quite genuine. “Dumb +Crambo” was another favorite, and one in which my +father’s great imitative ability showed finely. I +remember one evening his dumb showing of the word +“frog” was so extremely laughable that the memory of +it convulsed Marcus Stone, the clever artist, when he tried some +time later to imitate it.</p> +<p>One very severe Christmas, when the snow was so deep as to +make outdoor amusement or entertainment for our guests +impossible, my father suggested that he and the inhabitants of +the “bachelors’ cottage” should pass the time +in unpacking <!-- page 37--><a name="page37"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 37</span>the French chalet, which had been +sent to him by Mr. Fetcher, and which reached Higham Station in a +large number of packing cases. Unpacking these and fitting +the pieces together gave them interesting employment, and some +topics of conversation for our luncheon party.</p> +<p>Our Christmas Day dinners at “Gad’s Hill” +were particularly bright and cheery, some of our nearest +neighbours joining our home party. The Christmas plum +pudding had its own special dish of coloured +“repoussé” china, ornamented with holly. +The pudding was placed on this with a sprig of real holly in the +centre, lighted, and in this state placed in front of my father, +its arrival being always the signal for applause. A +prettily decorated table was his special pleasure, and from my +earliest girlhood the care of this devolved upon me. When I +had everything in readiness, he would come with me to inspect the +result of my labors, before dressing <!-- page 38--><a +name="page38"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 38</span>for dinner, +and no word except of praise ever came to my ears.</p> +<p>He was a wonderfully neat and rapid carver, and I am happy to +say taught me some of his skill in this. I used to help him +in our home parties at “Gad’s Hill” by carving +at a side table, returning to my seat opposite him as soon as my +duty was ended. On Christmas Day we all had our glasses +filled, and then my father, raising his, would say: +“Here’s to us all. God bless us!” a toast +which was rapidly and willingly drunk. His conversation, as +may be imagined, was often extremely humorous, and I have seen +the servants, who were waiting at table, convulsed often with +laughter at his droll remarks and stories. Now, as I recall +these gatherings, my sight grows blurred with the tears that rise +to my eyes. But I love to remember them, and to see, if +only in memory, my father at his own table, surrounded by <!-- +page 39--><a name="page39"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +39</span>his own family and friends—a beautiful Christmas +spirit.</p> +<p>“It is good to be children sometimes, and never better +than at Christmas, when its Mighty Founder was a child +himself,” was his own advice, and advice which he followed +both in letter and spirit.</p> +<p>One morning—it was the last day of the year, I +remember—while we were at breakfast at “Gad’s +Hill,” my father suggested that we should celebrate the +evening by a charade to be acted in pantomime. The +suggestion was received with acclamation, and amid shouts and +laughing we were then and there, guests and members of the +family, allotted our respective parts. My father went about +collecting “stage properties,” rehearsals were +“called” at least four times during the morning, and +in all our excitement no thought was given to that necessary part +of a charade, the audience, whose business it is to guess the +pantomime. At luncheon someone asked <!-- page 40--><a +name="page40"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 40</span>suddenly: +“But what about an audience?” “Why, bless +my soul,” said my father, “I’d forgotten all +about that.” Invitations were quickly dispatched to +our neighbours, and additional preparations made for +supper. In due time the audience came, and the charade was +acted so successfully that the evening stands out in my memory as +one of the merriest and happiest of the many merry and happy +evenings in our dear old home. My father was so extremely +funny in his part that the rest of us found it almost impossible +to maintain sufficient control over ourselves to enable the +charade to proceed as it was planned to do. It wound up +with a country dance, which had been invented that morning and +practised quite a dozen times through the day, and which was +concluded at just a few moments before midnight. Then +leading us all, characters and audience, out into the wide hall, +and throwing wide open the door, my father, watch in hand, stood +<!-- page 41--><a name="page41"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +41</span>waiting to hear the bells ring in the New Year. +All was hush and silence after the laughter and merriment! +Suddenly the peal of bells sounded, and turning he said: “A +happy New Year to us all! God bless us.” +Kisses, good wishes and shaking of hands brought us again back to +the fun and gaiety of a few moments earlier. Supper was +served, the hot mulled wine drunk in toasts, and the maddest and +wildest of “Sir Roger de Coverlys” ended our evening +and began our New Year.</p> +<p>One New year’s day my father organized some field sports +in a meadow which was at the back of our house. “Foot +races for the villagers come off in my field to-morrow,” he +wrote to a friend, “and we have been hard at work all day, +building a course, making countless flags, and I don’t know +what else, Layard (the late Sir Henry Layard) is chief +commissioner of the domestic police. The country police +predict an immense crowd.”</p> +<p><!-- page 42--><a name="page42"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +42</span>There were between two and three thousand people present +at these sports, and by a kind of magical influence, my father +seemed to rule every creature present to do his or her best to +maintain order. The likelihood of things going wrong was +anticipated, and despite the general prejudice of the neighbours +against the undertaking, my father’s belief and trust in +his guests was not disappointed. But you shall have his own +account of his success. “We had made a very pretty +course,” he wrote, “and taken great pains. +Encouraged by the cricket matches’ experience, I allowed +the landlord of the Falstaff to have a drinking booth on the +ground. Not to seem to dictate or distrust, I gave all the +prizes in money. The great mass of the crowd were laboring +men of all kinds, soldiers, sailors and navvies. They did +not, between half-past ten, when we began, and sunset, displace a +rope or a stake; and they left every barrier and flag as neat as +they found it. <!-- page 43--><a name="page43"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 43</span>There was not a dispute, and there +was no drunkenness whatever. I made them a little speech +from the lawn at the end of the games, saying that, please God, +we would do it again next year. They cheered most lustily +and dispersed. The road between this and Chatham was like a +fair all day; and surely it is a fine thing to get such perfect +behaviour out of a reckless seaport town.” He was the +last to realize, I am sure that it was his own sympathetic nature +which gave him the love and honor of all classes, and that helped +to make the day’s sports such a great success!</p> +<p>My father was again in his element at the Twelfth Night +parties to which I have before alluded. For many +consecutive years, Miss Coutts, now the Baroness Burdett Coutts, +was in the habit of sending my brother, on this his birthday +anniversary, the most gorgeous of Twelfth-cakes, with an +accompanying box of bonbons and Twelfth Night characters. +The <!-- page 44--><a name="page44"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +44</span>cake was cut, and the favors and bonbons distributed at +the birthday supper, and it was then that my father’s +kindly, genial nature overflowed in merriment. He would +have something droll to say to everyone, and under his attentions +the shyest child would brighten and become merry. No one +was overlooked or forgotten by him; like the young Cratchits, he +was “ubiquitous.” Supper was followed by songs +and recitations from the various members of the company, my +father acting always as master of ceremonies, and calling upon +first one child, then another for his or her contribution to the +festivity. I can see now the anxious faces turned toward +the beaming, laughing eyes of their host. How attentively +he would listen, with his head thrown slightly back, and a little +to one side, a happy smile on his lips. O, those merry, +happy times, never to be forgotten by any of his own children, or +by any of their guests. Those merry, happy times!</p> +<p><!-- page 45--><a name="page45"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +45</span>And in writing thus of these dear old holidays, when we +were all so happy in our home, and when my father was with us, +let me add this little postscript, and greet you on this +Christmas of 1896, with my father’s own words: +“Reflect upon your present blessings—of which every +man has many—not on your past misfortunes, of which all men +have some. Fill your glass again with a merry face and +contented heart. Our life on it, but your Christmas shall +be merry and your New Year a happy one.</p> +<p>“So may the New Year be a happy one to you, happy to +many more whose happiness depends on you! So may each year +be happier than the last, and not the meanest of our brethren or +sisterhood debarred their rightful share in what our great +Creator formed them to enjoy.”</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p45b.jpg"> +<img alt="Mr. Pickwick under the Mistletoe" src="images/p45s.jpg" +/> +</a></p> +<h2><!-- page 46--><a name="page46"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +46</span>CHAPTER III.</h2> +<blockquote><p>My father at his work.—Rooms in which he +wrote.—Love for his child characters.—Genius for +character drawing.—Nicholas Nickleby.—His writing +hours.—His only amanuensis.—“Pickwick” +and “Boz.”—Death of Mr. Thackeray.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>When at work my father was almost always alone, so that, with +rare exceptions, save as we could see the effect of the +adventures of his characters upon him in his daily moods, we knew +but little of his manner of work. Absolute quiet under +these circumstances was essential, the slightest sound making an +interruption fatal to the success of his labors, although, oddly +enough, in his leisure hours the bustle and noise of a great city +seemed necessary to him. He writes, after an enforced +idleness of two years, spent in a quiet place; “The +difficulty of going at what I call a rapid pace is <!-- page +47--><a name="page47"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +47</span>prodigious; indeed, it is almost an impossibility. +I suppose this is partly the effect of two years’ ease, and +partly the absence of streets, and numbers of figures. I +cannot express how much I want these. It seems as if they +supplied something to my brain which, when busy, it cannot bear +to lose. For a week or fortnight I can write prodigiously +in a retired place, a day in London setting and starting me up +again. But the toil and labor of writing day after day +without that magic lantern is immense!”</p> +<p>As I have said, he was usually alone when at work, though +there were, of course, some occasional exceptions, and I myself +constituted such an exception. During our life at Tavistock +House, I had a long and serious illness, with an almost equally +long convalescence. During the latter, my father suggested +that I should be carried every day into his study to remain with +him, and, although I was fearful of disturbing him, he assured me +that he desired to have me <!-- page 48--><a +name="page48"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 48</span>with +him. On one of these mornings, I was lying on the sofa +endeavouring to keep perfectly quiet, while my father wrote +busily and rapidly at his desk, when he suddenly jumped from his +chair and rushed to a mirror which hung near, and in which I +could see the reflection of some extraordinary facial contortions +which he was making. He returned rapidly to his desk, wrote +furiously for a few moments, and then went again to the +mirror. The facial pantomime was resumed, and then turning +toward, but evidently not seeing, me, he began talking rapidly in +a low voice. Ceasing this soon, however, he returned once +more to his desk, where he remained silently writing until +luncheon time. It was a most curious experience for me, and +one of which, I did not until later years, fully appreciate the +purport. Then I knew that with his natural intensity he had +thrown himself completely into the character that he was +creating, and that for the time being he had not only lost <!-- +page 49--><a name="page49"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +49</span>sight of his surroundings, but had actually become in +action, as in imagination, the creature of his pen.</p> +<p>His “studies” were always cheery, pleasant rooms, +and always, like himself, the personification of neatness and +tidiness. On the shelf of his writing table were many +dainty and useful ornaments, gifts from his friends or members of +his family, and always, a vase of bright and fresh flowers. +The first study that I remember is the one in our Devonshire +Terrace home, a pretty room, with steps leading directly into the +garden from it, and with an extra baize door to keep out all +sounds and noise. The study at Tavistock House was more +elaborate; a fine large room, opening into the drawing-room by +means of sliding doors. When the rooms were thrown together +they gave my father a promenade of considerable length for the +constant indoor walking which formed a favorite recreation for +him after a hard day’s writing.</p> +<p><!-- page 50--><a name="page50"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +50</span>At “Gad’s Hill” he first made a study +from one of the large spare sleeping rooms of the house, as the +windows there overlooked a beautiful and favorite view of +his. His writing table was always placed near a window +looking out into the open world which he loved so keenly. +Afterwards he occupied for years a smaller room overlooking the +back garden and a pretty meadow, but this he eventually turned +into a miniature billiard room, and then established himself, +finally, in the room on the right side of the entrance hall +facing the front garden. It is this room which Mr. Luke +Fildes, the great artist and our own esteemed friend, made famous +in his picture “The Empty Chair,” which he sketched +for “The Graphic” after my father’s +death. The writing table, the ornaments, the huge waste +paper basket, which “the master” had made for his own +use, are all there, and, alas, the empty chair!</p> +<p>That he was always in earnest, that he <!-- page 51--><a +name="page51"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 51</span>lived with +his creations, that their joys and sorrows were his joys and +sorrows, that at times his anguish, both of body and spirit, was +poignant and heart-breaking, I know. His interest in and +love for his characters were intense as his nature, and is shown +nowhere more strongly than in his sufferings during his portrayal +of the short life of “Little Nell,” like a father he +mourned for his little girl—the child of his +brain—and he writes: “I am, for the time, nearly dead +with work and grief for the loss of my child.” Again +he writes of her: “You can’t imagine (gravely I write +and speak) how exhausted I am to-day with yesterday’s +labors. I went to bed last night utterly dispirited and +done up. All night I have been pursued by the child; and +this morning I am unrefreshed and miserable. I do not know +what to do with myself.”</p> +<p>His love and care for this little one are <!-- page 52--><a +name="page52"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 52</span>shown most +pathetically in the suggestions which he gave to Mr. George +Cattermole for his illustrations of the “Old Curiosity +Shop.” “Kit, the single gentleman, and Mr. +Garland go down to the place where the child is and arrive there +at night. There has been a fall of snow. Kit, leaving +them behind, runs to the old house, and with a lantern in one +hand, and the bird in its cage in the other, stops for a moment +at a little distance, with a natural hesitation, before he goes +up to make his presence known. In a window—supposed +to be that of the child’s little room—a light is +burning, and in that room the child (unknown, of course, to her +visitors, who are full of hope), lies dead.”</p> +<p>Again: “The child lying dead in the little sleeping +room, behind the open screen. It is winter time, so there +are no flowers, but upon her breast and pillow there may be +strips of holly and berries and such green things. A +window, overgrown with ivy. The little boy who had that +talk with her <!-- page 53--><a name="page53"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 53</span>about the angels may be by the +bedside, if you like it so; but I think it will be quieter and +more peaceful if she is quite alone. I want the scene to +express the most beautiful repose and tranquillity, and to have +something of a happy look, if death can do this.”</p> +<p>Another: “The child has been buried within the church, +and the old man, who cannot be made to understand that she is +dead repairs to the grave and sits there all day long, waiting +for her arrival to begin another journey. His staff and +knapsack, her little bonnet and basket, lie beside him. +‘She’ll come to-morrow,’ he says, when it gets +dark, and then goes sorrowfully home. I think an hour glass +running out would keep up the notion; perhaps her little things +upon his knee or in his hand. I am breaking my heart over +this story, and cannot bear to finish it.”</p> +<p>In acknowledging the receipt of a letter concerning this book +from Mr. John Tomlin, an American, he wrote: “I thank you +<!-- page 54--><a name="page54"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +54</span>cordially and heartily for your letter, and for its kind +and courteous terms. To think that I have awakened among +the vast solitudes in which you dwell a fellow feeling and +sympathy with the creatures of many thoughtful hours, is the +source of the purest delight and pride to me; and believe me that +your expressions of affectionate remembrance and approval, +sounding from the green forests of the Mississippi, sink deeper +into my heart and gratify it more than all the honorary +distinctions that all the courts of Europe could confer. It +is such things as these that make one hope one does not live in +vain, and that are the highest rewards of an author’s +life.”</p> +<p>His genius for character sketching needs no proof—his +characters live to vouch for themselves, for their reality. +It is ever amazing to me that the hand which drew the pathetic +and beautiful creations, the kindly humored men, the lovely +women, the unfortunate little ones, could portray also <!-- page +55--><a name="page55"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 55</span>with +such marvellous accuracy the villainy and craftiness of such +characters as Bumble, Bill Sykes, Pecksniff, Uriah Heep and +Squeers. Undoubtedly from his earliest childhood he had +possessed the quick perception, the instinct, which could read in +people’s characters their tendencies toward good and evil, +and throughout his life he valued this ability above literary +skill and finish. Mr. Forster makes a point of this in his +biography, speaking of the noticeable traits in him: “What +I had most, indeed, to notice in him at the very outset of his +career, was his indifference to any praise of his performances on +their merely literary merit, compared with the higher recognition +of them as bits of actual life, with the meaning and purpose on +their part, and the responsibility on his, of realities rather +than creatures of fancy.”</p> +<p>But he was always pleased with praise, and always modest and +grateful in returning it. “How can I thank +you?” he writes to <!-- page 56--><a +name="page56"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 56</span>a friend who +was expressing his pleasure at “Oliver Twist.” +“Can I do better than by saying that the sense of poor +Oliver’s reality, which I know you have had from the first, +has been the highest of all praise to me? None that has +been lavished upon me have I felt half so much as that +appreciation of my intent and meaning. Your notices make me +very grateful, but very proud, so have a care.”</p> +<p>The impressions which were later converted into motives and +plots for his stories he imbibed often in his earliest +childhood. The crusade against the Yorkshire schools which +is waged in “Nicholas Nickleby,” is the working out +of some of these childish impressions. He writes himself of +them: “I cannot call to mind how I came to hear about +Yorkshire schools, when I was not a very robust child, sitting in +by-places near Rochester Castle with a head full of Partridge, +Strap, Tom Pipes and Sancho Panza, but I know my first +impressions of <!-- page 57--><a name="page57"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 57</span>the schools were picked up at this +time.” We can imagine how deeply the wrongs must have +sunk into the sensitive heart of the child, rankling there +through many years, to bear fruit in the scourging of them and +their abuses from the land. While he was at work upon +“Nicholas Nickleby,” he sent one of his +characteristic letters in reply to a little boy—Master +Hasting Hughes—who wrote to ask him to make some changes in +the story. As some of you may not have read this letter, +and as it is so extremely amusing, I shall quote part of it:</p> +<blockquote><p style="text-align: right">“<span +class="smcap">Doughty Street</span>, <span +class="smcap">London</span>.<br /> +“December 12th, 1838.</p> +<p>“Respected Sir: I have given Squeers one cut on the +neck, and two on the head, at which he appeared much surprised, +and began to cry, which, being a cowardly thing, is just what I +should have expected from him—wouldn’t you?</p> +<p>“I have carefully done what you told me in your letter +about the lamb and the two <!-- page 58--><a +name="page58"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +58</span>‘sheeps’ for the little boys. They +have also had some good ale and porter and some wine. I am +sorry you did not say what wine you would like them to +have. I gave them some sherry, which they liked very much, +except one boy who was a little sick and choked a good +deal. He was rather greedy, and that’s the truth, and +I believe it went the wrong way, which I say served him right, +and I hope you will say so too. Nick has had his roast +lamb, as you said he was to, but he could not eat it all, and +says if you do not mind his doing so he should like to have the +rest hashed to-morrow with some greens, which he is very fond of, +and so am I. He said he did not like to have his porter +hot, for he thought it spoilt the flavour, so I let him have it +cold. You should have seen him drink it. I thought he +never would have left off. I also gave him three pounds in +money, all in sixpences to make it seem more, and he said +directly that he should give more than half to his <!-- page +59--><a name="page59"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 59</span>mamma +and sister, and divide the rest with poor Smike. And I say +he is a good fellow for saying so; and if anybody says he +isn’t, I am ready to fight him whenever they +like—there!</p> +<p>“Fanny Squeers shall be attended to, depend upon +it. Your drawing of her is very like, except that I do not +think the hair is quite curly enough. The nose is +particularly like hers, and so are the legs. She is a +nasty, disagreeable thing, and I know it will make her very cross +when she sees it, and what I say is that I hope it may. You +will say the same, I know—at least I think you +will.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>The amount of work which he could accomplish varied greatly at +certain times, though in its entirety it was so immense. +When he became the man of letters, and ceased the irregular, +unmethodical life of the reporter, his mornings were invariably +spent at his desk. The time between breakfast and luncheon, +with an occasional <!-- page 60--><a name="page60"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 60</span>extension of a couple of hours into +the afternoon, were given over to his creations. The +exceptions were when he was taking a holiday or resting, though +even when ostensibly employed in the latter, cessation from story +writing meant the answering of letters and the closer attention +to his business matters, so that but little of real rest ever +came into his later life.</p> +<p>While in Italy he gave a fragmentary diary of his daily life +in a letter to a friend, and the routine was there very much what +it was at home. “I am in a regular ferocious +excitement with the Chimes; get up at seven; have a cold bath +before breakfast; and blaze away, wrathful and red-hot, until +three o’clock or so, when I usually knock off (unless it +rains) for the day. I am fierce to finish in a spirit +bearing some affinity to that of truth and mercy, and to shame +the cruel and the wicked, but it is hard work.” His +entire discomfort under sound interruptions is also shown in the +<!-- page 61--><a name="page61"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +61</span>above, in his reference to the Chimes, and the effect +which they had upon him.</p> +<p>Despite his regularity of working hours, as I have said, the +amount of work which my father accomplished varied greatly. +His manuscripts were usually written upon white +“slips,” though sometimes upon blue paper, and there +were many mornings when it would be impossible for him to fill +one of these. He writes on one occasion: “I am +sitting at home, patiently waiting for Oliver Twist, who has not +yet arrived.” And, indeed, “Oliver” gave +him considerable trouble, in the course of his adventures, by his +disinclination to be put upon paper easily. This slowness +in writing marked more prominently the earlier period of my +father’s literary career, though these “blank +days,” when his brain refused to work, were of occasional +occurrence to the end. He was very critical of his own +labors, and would bring nothing but the best of his brain to the +art which he so dearly loved—<!-- page 62--><a +name="page62"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 62</span>his venerated +mistress. But, on the other hand, the amount of work which +he would accomplish at other times was almost incredible. +During a long sojourn at Lausanne he writes: “I have not +been idle since I have been here. I had a good deal to +write for Lord John about the ragged schools; so I set to work +and did that. A good deal to Miss Coutts, in reference to +her charitable projects; so I set to work and did that. +Half of the children’s New Testament to write, or pretty +nearly. I set to work and did that. Next, I cleared +off the greater part of such correspondence as I had rashly +pledged myself to, and then—began Dombey!”</p> +<p>I know of only one occasion on which he employed an +amanuensis, and my aunt is my authority for the following, +concerning this one time: “The book which your father +dictated to me was ‘The Child’s History of +England.’ The reason for my being used in this +capacity of secretary was that <!-- page 63--><a +name="page63"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 63</span>‘Bleak +House’ was being written at the same time, and your father +would dictate to me while walking about the room, as a relief +after his long, sedentary imprisonment. The history was +being written for ‘Household Words,’ and ‘Bleak +House’ also as a serial, so he had both weekly and monthly +work on hand at the same time.” The history was +dedicated: “To my own dear children, whom I hope it will +help, by-and-by, to read with interest larger and better books +upon the same subject.”</p> +<p>My father wrote always with a quill pen and blue ink, and +never, I think, used a lead pencil. His handwriting was +considered extremely difficult to read by many people, but I +never found it so. In his manuscripts there were so many +erasures, and such frequent interlineations that a special staff +of compositors was used for his work, but this was not on account +of any illegibility in his handwriting. The manuscripts are +most of them, exhibited at <!-- page 64--><a +name="page64"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 64</span>the South +Kensington Museum in “the Forster Collection,” and +they all show I think, the extreme care and fastidiousness of the +writer, and his ever-constant desire to improve upon and simplify +his original sentence. His objection to the use of a lead +pencil was so great that even his personal memoranda, such as his +lists of guests for dinner parties, the arrangement of tables and +menus, were always written in ink. For his personal +correspondence he used blue note paper, and signed his name in +the left-hand corner of the envelope. After a +morning’s close work he was sometimes quite pre-occupied +when he came into luncheon. Often, when we were only our +home party at “Gad’s Hill,” he would come in, +take something to eat in a mechanical way—he never ate but +a small luncheon—and would return to his study to finish +the work he had left, scarcely having spoken a word in all this +time. Again, he would come in, having finished his work, +<!-- page 65--><a name="page65"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +65</span>but looking very tired and worn. Our talking at +these times did not seem to disturb him, though any sudden sound, +as the dropping of a spoon, or the clinking of a glass, would +send a spasm of pain across his face.</p> +<p>The sudden, almost instantaneous, popularity of +“Pickwick” was known to the world long before it was +realized by its anxious young author. All the business +transactions concerning its publication were modest to a degree, +and the preparations for such a success as came to it were +none. As to its popularity, Mr. Forster writes: +“Judges on the bench, and boys in the streets, gravity and +folly, the young and the old, those who were entering life, and +those who were quitting it, alike found it +irresistible.” Carlyle wrote: “An archdeacon +repeated to me, with his own venerable lips, the other evening, a +strange, profane story of a solemn clergyman who had been +summoned to administer consolation <!-- page 66--><a +name="page66"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 66</span>to a very ill +man. As he left the room he heard the sick man ejaculate: +“Well thank God, Pickwick will be out in ten days, +anyway!” No young author ever sprang into more sudden +and brilliant fame than “Boz,” and none could have +remained more thoroughly unspoiled, or so devoid of egotism under +success. His own opinion of his fame, and his estimate of +its value, may be quoted here: “To be numbered amongst the +household gods of one’s distant countrymen, and associated +with their homes and quiet pleasures; to be told that in each +nook and corner of the world’s great mass there lives one +well-wisher who holds communion with one in the spirit, is a +worthy fame, indeed. That I may be happy enough to cheer +some of your leisure hours for a long time to come, and to hold a +place in your pleasant thoughts, is the earnest wish of +‘Boz.’”</p> +<p>On the Christmas Eve of 1863 my <!-- page 67--><a +name="page67"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 67</span>father was +greatly shocked and distressed to hear of the sudden death of Mr. +Thackeray. Our guests, naturally, were full of the sad +news, and there was a gloom cast over everything. We all +thought of the sorrow of his two daughters, who were so devoted +to him, and whom his sudden taking away would leave so +desolate. In “The Cornhill Magazine” of the +February following, my father wrote: “I saw Mr. Thackeray +for the first time nearly twenty-eight years ago, when he +proposed to become the illustrator of my earliest book. I +saw him last shortly before Christmas, at the Athenæum +Club, when he told me he had been in bed three days, and that he +had it in his mind to try a new remedy, which he laughingly +described. He was cheerful, and looked very bright. +In the night of that day week he died. * * * * No one can be +surer than I of the greatness and goodness of his heart. In +no place should I take it upon myself <!-- page 68--><a +name="page68"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 68</span>at this time +to discourse of his books, of his refined knowledge of character, +of his subtle acquaintance with the weakness of human nature, of +his delightful playfulness as an essayist, of his quaint and +touching ballads, of his mastery over the English language. +But before me lies all that he had written of his latest story, +and the pain I have felt in perusing it has not been deeper than +the conviction that he was in the healthiest region of his powers +when he worked on this last labor. The last words he +corrected in print were ‘and my heart throbbed with an +exquisite bliss.’ God grant that on that Christmas +Eve, when he laid his head back on his pillow and threw up his +arms as he had been wont to do when very weary, some +consciousness of duty done, and of Christian hope throughout life +humbly cherished, may have caused his own heart so to throb when +he passed away to his rest.”</p> +<h2><!-- page 69--><a name="page69"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +69</span>CHAPTER IV.</h2> +<blockquote><p>Fondness for Athletic Sports.—His love of +bathing.—His study of the raven.—Calling the doctor +in.—My father with our dogs.—The cats of +“Gad’s Hill.”—“Bumble” and +“Mrs. Bouncer.”—A strange friendship.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>As a child my father was prevented from any active +participation in the sports and amusements of his boyish +companions by his extreme delicacy and frequent illnesses, so +that until his manhood his knowledge of games was gained merely +from long hours of watching others while lying upon the +grass. With manhood, however, came the strength and +activity which enabled him to take part in all kinds of outdoor +exercise and sports, and it seemed that in his passionate +enjoyment and participation in those later years he was +recompensed for the weary childhood years of suffering and +inability. Athletic sports were a passion with him in his +manhood, as I have said. In 1839 he rented a <!-- page +70--><a name="page70"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +70</span>cottage at Petersham, not far from London +“where,” to quote from Mr. Forster, “the +extensive garden grounds admitted of much athletic competition, +in which Dickens, for the most part, held his own against even +such accomplished athletes as Maclise and Mr. Beard. Bar +leaping, bowling and quoits were among the games carried on with +the greatest ardor, and in sustained energy Dickens certainly +distanced every competitor. Even the lighter recreations of +battledore and bagatelle were pursued with relentless +activity. At such amusements as the Petersham races, in +those days rather celebrated, and which he visited daily while +they lasted, he worked much harder than the running horses +did.”</p> +<p>Riding was a favorite recreation at all times with my father, +and he was constantly inviting one or another of his friends to +bear him company on these excursions. Always fond, in his +leisure hours, of companions, he seemed to find his rides and +walks quite <!-- page 71--><a name="page71"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 71</span>incomplete if made alone. He +writes on one occasion: “What think you of a fifteen-mile +ride out, ditto in, and a lunch on the road, with a wind-up of +six o’clock dinner in Doughty Street?” And +again: “Not knowing whether my head was off or on, it +became so addled with work, I have gone riding over the old road, +and shall be truly delighted to meet or be overtaken by +you.” As a young man he was extremely fond of riding, +but as I never remember seeing him on horseback I think he must +have deprived himself of this pastime soon after his +marriage.</p> +<p>But walking was, perhaps, his chiefest pleasure, and the +country lanes and city streets alike found him a close observer +of their beauties and interests. He was a rapid walker, his +usual pace being four miles an hour, and to keep step with him +required energy and activity similar to his own. In many of +his letters he speaks with most evident enjoyment of this +pastime. In one <!-- page 72--><a name="page72"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 72</span>he writes: “What a brilliant +morning for a country walk! I start +precisely—precisely, mind—at half-past one. +Come, come, come and walk in the green lanes!” Again: +“You don’t feel disposed, do you, to muffle yourself +up and start off with me for a good, brisk walk over Hampstead +Heath?”</p> +<p>Outdoor games of the simpler kinds delighted him. +Battledore and shuttlecock was played constantly in the garden at +Devonshire Terrace, though I do not remember my father ever +playing it elsewhere. The American game of bowls pleased +him, and rounders found him more than expert. Croquet he +disliked, but cricket he enjoyed intensely as a spectator, always +keeping one of the scores during the matches at +“Gad’s Hill.”</p> +<p>He was a firm believer in the hygiene of bathing, and cold +baths, sea baths and shower baths were among his most constant +practices. In those days scientific ablution was not very +generally practised, and I am <!-- page 73--><a +name="page73"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 73</span>sure that in +many places during his travels my father was looked upon as an +amiable maniac with a penchant for washing.</p> +<p>During his first visit to America, while he was making some +journey in a rather rough and uncomfortable canal boat, he wrote: +“I am considered very hardy in the morning, for I run up +barenecked and plunge my head into the half-frozen water by +half-past five o’clock. I am respected for my +activity, inasmuch as I jump from the boat to the towing path, +and walk five or six miles before breakfast, keeping up with the +horses all the time.” And from Broadstairs: “In +a bay window 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. At one +o’clock he disappears, 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 viewed +in another bay window on the ground floor, eating <!-- page +74--><a name="page74"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 74</span>a +good lunch; and after that, walking a dozen miles or so, or lying +on his back on the sand reading. Nobody bothers him, unless +they know he is disposed to be talked to; and I am told he is +very comfortable, indeed.”</p> +<p>During the hottest summer months of our year’s residence +in Italy, we lived at a little seaport of the Mediterranean +called Albaro. The bathing here was of the most primitive +kind, one division of the clear, dark-blue pools among the rocks +being reserved for women, the other for men, and as we children +were as much at home in the water as any known variety of fish, +we used to look with wonder at the so-called bathing of the +Italian women. They would come in swarms, beautifully +dressed, and with most elaborately arranged heads of hair, but +the slightest of wettings with them was the equivalent of a +bath. In the open bay at Albaro the current was very +strong, and the bathing most dangerous to even an experienced +<!-- page 75--><a name="page75"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +75</span>swimmer. I remember one morning the terrible +fright we were given by an uncle of ours; he swam out into the +bay, was caught by the current of an ebb tide and borne out of +reach of our eyes. A fishing boat picked him up still +alive, though greatly exhausted. “It was a world of +horror and anguish crowded into four or five minutes of dreadful +agitation,” wrote my father, “and to complete the +terror of it the entire family, including the children, were on +the rock in full view of it all, crying like mad +creatures.”</p> +<p>He loved animals, flowers and birds, his fondness for the +latter being shown nowhere more strongly than in his devotion to +his ravens at Devonshire Terrace. He writes +characteristically of the death of “Grip,” the first +raven: “You will be greatly shocked and grieved to hear +that the raven is no more. He expired to-day at a few +minutes after twelve o’clock, at noon. He had been +ailing for a few days, but we anticipated no serious result, +conjecturing that a portion of <!-- page 76--><a +name="page76"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 76</span>the white +paint he swallowed last summer might be lingering about his +vitals. Yesterday afternoon he was taken so much worse that +I sent an express for the medical gentleman, who promptly +attended and administered a powerful dose of castor oil. +Under the influence of this medicine he recovered so far as to be +able, at eight o’clock, p.m., to bite Topping (the +coachman). His night was peaceful. This morning, at +daybreak, he appeared better, and partook plentifully of some +warm gruel, the flavor of which he appeared to relish. +Toward eleven o’clock he was so much worse that it was +found necessary to muffle the stable knocker. At half-past, +or thereabouts, he was heard talking to himself about the horse +and Topping’s family, and to add some incoherent +expressions which are supposed to have been either a foreboding +of his approaching dissolution or some wishes relative to the +disposal of his little property, consisting chiefly of half-pence +which he had buried in <!-- page 77--><a name="page77"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 77</span>different parts of the garden. +On the clock striking twelve he appeared slightly agitated, but +he soon recovered, walked twice or thrice along the coach house, +stopped to bark, staggered, and exclaimed ‘Halloa, old +girl!’ (his favorite expression) and died. He behaved +throughout with decent fortitude, equanimity and +self-possession. I deeply regret that, being in ignorance +of his danger, I did not attend to receive his last +instructions.</p> +<p>“Something remarkable about his eyes occasioned Topping +to run for the doctor at twelve. When they returned +together, our friend was gone. It was the medical gentleman +who informed me of his decease. He did it with caution and +delicacy, preparing me by the remark that ‘a jolly queer +start had taken place.’ I am not wholly free from +suspicions of poison. A malicious butcher has been heard to +say that he would ‘do’ for him. His plea was +that he would not be molested in taking orders down the mews by +<!-- page 78--><a name="page78"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +78</span>any bird that wore a tail. Were they ravens who +took manna to somebody in the wilderness? At times I hope +they were, and at others I fear they were not, or they would +certainly have stolen it by the way. Kate is as well as can +be expected. The children seem rather glad of it. He +bit their ankles, but that was in play.” As my father +was writing “Barnaby Rudge” at this time, and wished +to continue his study of raven nature, another and a larger +“Grip” took the place of “our friend” but +it was he whose talking tricks and comical ways gave my father +the idea of making a raven one of the characters in this +book. My father’s fondness for “Grip” +was, however, never transferred to any other raven, and none of +us ever forgave the butcher whom we all held in some way +responsible for his untimely taking off.</p> +<p>But I think his strongest love, among animals, was for +dogs. I find a delightful anecdote told by him of a dog +belonging to a <!-- page 79--><a name="page79"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 79</span>lady whom he knew well, +“Of,” an immense, black, good-humored, Newfoundland +dog. He came from Oxford and had lived all his life in a +brewery. Instructions were given with him that if he were +let out every morning alone he would immediately find out the +river, regularly take a swim and come gravely home again. +This he did with the greatest punctuality, but after a little +while was observed to smell of beer. His owner was so sure +that he smelled of beer that she resolved to watch him. He +was seen to come back from his swim round the usual corner and to +go up a flight of steps into a beer shop. Being instantly +followed, the beer shopkeeper is seen to take down a pot (pewter +pot) and is heard to say: “Well, old chap, come for your +beer as usual, have you?” Upon which he draws a pint +and puts it down and the dog drinks it. Being required to +explain how this comes to pass the man says: “Yes, +ma’am. I know he’s your dog, ma’am, but I +didn’t when he first <!-- page 80--><a +name="page80"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 80</span>came. +He looked in, ma’am, as a brick-maker might, and then he +come in, as a brickmaker might, and he wagged his tail at the +pots, and he giv a sniff round and conveyed to me as he was used +to beer. So I draw’d him a drop, and he drunk it +up. Next morning he come agen by the clock and I +draw’d him a pint, and ever since he has took his pint +reg’lar.”</p> +<p>On account of our birds, cats were not allowed in the house; +but from a friend in London I received a present of a white +kitten—Williamina—and she and her numerous offspring +had a happy home at “Gad’s Hill.” She +became a favorite with all the household, and showed particular +devotion to my father. I remember on one occasion when she +had presented us with a family of kittens, she selected a corner +of father’s study for their home. She brought them +one by one from the kitchen and deposited them in her chosen +corner. My father called to me to remove them, saying <!-- +page 81--><a name="page81"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +81</span>that he could not allow the kittens to remain in his +room. I did so, but Williamina brought them back again, one +by one. Again they were removed. The third time, +instead of putting them in the corner, she placed them all, and +herself beside them, at my father’s feet, and gave him such +an imploring glance that he could resist no longer, and they were +allowed to remain. As the kittens grew older they became +more and more frolicsome, swarming up the curtains, playing about +on the writing table and scampering behind the book +shelves. But they were never complained of and lived +happily in the study until the time came for finding them other +homes. One of these kittens was kept, who, as he was quite +deaf, was left unnamed, and became known by the servants as +“the master’s cat,” because of his devotion to +my father. He was always with him, and used to follow him +about the garden like a dog, and sit with him while he +wrote. One evening we were <!-- page 82--><a +name="page82"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 82</span>all, except +father, going to a ball, and when we started, left “the +master” and his cat in the drawing-room together. +“The master” was reading at a small table, on which a +lighted candle was placed. Suddenly the candle went +out. My father, who was much interested in his book, +relighted the candle stroked the cat, who was looking at him +pathetically he noticed, and continued his reading. A few +minutes later, as the light became dim, he looked up just in time +to see puss deliberately put out the candle with his paw, and +then look appealingly toward him. This second and +unmistakable hint was not disregarded, and puss was given the +petting he craved. Father was full of this anecdote when +all met at breakfast the next morning.</p> +<p>Among our dogs were “Turk” and +“Linda,” the former a beautiful mastiff and the +latter a soft-eyed, gentle, good-tempered St. Bernard. +“Mrs. Bouncer,” a Pomeranian, came next, a tiny ball +of white fluffy fur, who came as a special gift to me, and +speedily <!-- page 83--><a name="page83"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 83</span>won her way by her grace and +daintiness into the affections of every member of the +household. My father became her special slave, and had a +peculiar voice for her—as he had for us, when we were +children—to which she would respond at once by running to +him from any part of the house when she heard his call. He +delighted to see her with the large dogs, with whom she gave +herself great airs, “because,” as he said, “she +looks so preposterously small.” A few years later +came “Don,” a Newfoundland, and then +“Bumble,” his son, named after “Oliver +Twist’s” beadle, because of “a peculiarly +pompous and overbearing manner he had of appearing to mount guard +over the yard when he was an absolute infant.” Lastly +came “Sultan,” an Irish bloodhound, who had a bitter +experience with his life at “Gad’s Hill.” +One evening, having broken his chain, he fell upon a little girl +who was passing and bit her so severely that my father considered +it necessary to have him shot, <!-- page 84--><a +name="page84"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 84</span>although this +decision cost him a great deal of sorrow.</p> +<p>For a short time I had the care of a mongrel called +“Gipsy.” She was not allowed to enter any of +the family rooms, and used to spend her time lying contentedly on +the rug outside the drawing-room. One afternoon a friend +came from Chatham bringing with him a wonderful poodle who had +been specially invited to perform all his tricks for my +father’s enjoyment. On his arrival, “Mrs. +Bouncer” became furious, and when he began his tricks she +went deliberately into the hall and escorted “Gipsy” +into the drawing-room, as much as to say: “I can’t +stand this. If strange dogs are to be made much of, surely +the dogs in the house may be at least permitted to enter the +room.” She would not look at “Fosco,” the +poodle, but sat throughout his performance with her back toward +him, the picture of offended dignity. Just as soon, +however, as he was fairly out of the house, <!-- page 85--><a +name="page85"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 85</span>and not until +then, she escorted “Gipsy” back to her rug. My +father was intensely amused by this behaviour of +“Bouncer’s” and delighted in telling this story +about her.</p> +<p>“Mrs. Bouncer” was honored by many messages from +her master during his absences from home. Here is one +written as I was convalescing from a serious illness: “In +my mind’s eye I behold ‘Mrs. Bouncer,’ still +with some traces of anxiety on her faithful countenance, +balancing herself a little unequally on her forelegs, pricking up +her ears with her head on one side, and slightly opening her +intellectual nostrils. I send my loving and respectful duty +to her.” Again: “Think of my dreaming of +‘Mrs. Bouncer,’ each night!!!”</p> +<p>My father’s love for dogs led him into a strange +friendship during our stay at Boulogne. There lived in a +cottage on the street which led from our house to the town, a +cobbler who used to sit at his window working all day with his +dog—a Pomeranian—<!-- page 86--><a +name="page86"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 86</span>on the table +beside him. The cobbler, in whom my father became very much +interested because of the intelligence of his Pomeranian +companion, was taken ill, and for many months was unable to +work. My father writes: “The cobbler has been ill +these many months. The little dog sits at the door so +unhappy and anxious to help that I every day expect to see him +beginning a pair of top boots.” Another time father +writes in telling the history of this little animal: “A +cobbler at Boulogne, who had the nicest of little dogs that +always sat in his sunny window watching him at his work, asked me +if I would bring the dog home as he couldn’t afford to pay +the tax for him. The cobbler and the dog being both my +particular friends I complied. The cobbler parted with the +dog heartbroken. When the dog got home here, my man, like +an idiot as he is, tied him up and then untied him. The +moment the gate was open, the dog (on the very day after his +arrival) ran out. Next day Georgy and I saw him lying <!-- +page 87--><a name="page87"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +87</span>all covered with mud, dead, outside the neighbouring +church. How am I ever to tell the cobbler? He is too +poor to come to England, so I feel that I must lie to him for +life, and say that the dog is fat and happy.”</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p87b.jpg"> +<img alt="Mrs. Bouncer" src="images/p87s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>Of horses and ponies we possessed but few during our +childhood, and these were not of very choice breed. I +remember, however, one pretty pony which was our delight, and +dear old “Toby,” the good sturdy horse which for many +years we used at “Gad’s Hill.” My father, +however, was very fond of horses, and I recall hearing him +comment on the strange fact that an animal “so noble in its +qualities should be the cause of so much villainy.”</p> +<p style="text-align: center">* * * * *</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p86b.jpg"> +<img alt="To Miss Dickens’ Pomeranian “Mrs. +Bouncer”" src="images/p86s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<h3>To<br /> +Miss Dickens’ Pomeranian.<br /> +“MRS. BOUNCER.”</h3> +<blockquote><p>Furry, lazy, warm and bright,<br /> +Peeing from her fringe of white,<br /> +She blinks and sleeps both day and night,</p> +<p style="text-align: right">A happy Spitz!</p> +<p>She need not fear the cruel stick,<br /> +Nor has she learnt a single trick—<br /> +Just deigns her mistress’ hand to lick,</p> +<p style="text-align: right">As she knits.</p> +<p>She eats, and drinks, and eats again,<br /> +Is never out in wind or rain,—<br /> +Takes many a journey in the train,</p> +<p style="text-align: right">And her admits.</p> +<p>She has her own coquettish charms,<br /> +Knows no sorrows, no alarms,<br /> +And dozes in her mistress’ arms—</p> +<p style="text-align: right">A sleepy Spitz.</p> +<p>How small and piquant are her feet—<br /> +Ben Allen’s sister had as neat—<br /> +She looks so saucy, one could beat</p> +<p style="text-align: right">Her into fits.</p> +<p>Quite ravishing when neat and clean,<br /> +Her cars seem lined with crinoline:<br /> +She rules the house, a haughty queen,</p> +<p style="text-align: right">A saucy Spitz!</p> +<p>Just tolerates the frequent hug—<br /> +Snoozing all day upon the rug,<br /> +Complacent, philosophic—snug,</p> +<p style="text-align: right">Her paws like mits.</p> +<p>At dinner—ah! that pleasant Babel!<br /> +Touch her paw beneath the table,<br /> +She’d bite your foot—were she but able—</p> +<p style="text-align: right">A naughty Spitz.</p> +<p>To find her mistress how she flew!<br /> +Faithful the coming step she knew<br /> +Let others be as brave and true—</p> +<p style="text-align: right">Lords or Wits!</p> +<p>When <span class="smcap">Sultan</span>, <span +class="smcap">Turk</span>, and <span class="smcap">Linda</span> +fleet<br /> +The lost lov’d Master rushed to meet,<br /> +<i>His</i> kindly voice would always greet</p> +<p style="text-align: right">The little Spitz!</p> +<p>Alas! so furry, warm, and white,<br /> +From this cold world she took her flight,<br /> +No more on rug, by fireside bright,</p> +<p style="text-align: right">Dear <span +class="smcap">Bouncer</span> sits.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Percy FitzGerald</span>.</p> +</blockquote> +<h2><!-- page 88--><a name="page88"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +88</span>CHAPTER V.</h2> +<p class="gutsumm">Interest in London birds.—Our pet bird +“Dick.”—Devotion of his dogs.—Decision to +visit America.—His arrival in New York.—Comments on +American courtesies.—Farewell public appearances.</p> +<p>The warm affection which was so characteristic of my father +toward people was also directed, as I have already told, towards +animals and birds. A few further anecdotes occur to me, and +I have ventured to give them here, before proceeding to tell of +his visit to America, his readings, and the, to me, sad story of +his last public appearance.</p> +<p>My father’s quick and amusing observation of London +birds and their habits, and of their fondness for “low +company,” is full of charm and quaint oddity. He +writes: “That anything born of an egg and invested with +wings should have got to the pass that it hops contentedly down a +ladder into a cellar, and calls that going home, is a +circumstance so amazing <!-- page 89--><a name="page89"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 89</span>as to leave one nothing more in this +connection to wonder at. I know a low fellow, originally of +a good family from Dorking, who takes his whole establishment of +wives in single file in at the door of the jug department of a +disorderly tavern near the Haymarket, manœuvres them among +the company’s legs, and emerges with them at the bottle +entrance, seldom in the season going to bed before two in the +morning. And thus he passes his life. But the family +I am best acquainted with reside in the densest part of Bethnal +Green. Their abstraction from the objects in which they +live, or rather their conviction that these objects have all come +into existence in express subservience to fowls, has so enchanted +me that I have made them the subject of many journeys at divers +hours. After careful observation of the two lords and of +the ten ladies of whom this family consists, I have come to the +conclusion that their opinions are represented by the leading +lord and leading lady, the latter, as I judge, an <!-- page +90--><a name="page90"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 90</span>aged +personage, afflicted with a paucity of feather and visibility of +quill that gives her the appearance of a bundle of office +pens. They look upon old shoes, wrecks of kettles, +saucepans and fragments of bonnets as a kind of meteoric +discharge for fowls to peck at. Gaslight comes quite as +natural to them as any other light; and I have more than a +suspicion that in the minds of the two lords, the early public +house at the corner has superseded the sun. They always +begin to crow when the public house shutters begin to be taken +down, and they salute the pot-boy the instant he appears to +perform that duty, as if he were Phœbus in +person.”</p> +<p>During one of his walks through the slums, my father was so +fascinated by the intelligence of a busy goldfinch drawing water +for himself in his cage—he had other accomplishments as +well—that he went in and bought it. But not a thing +would the little bird do, not a trick would he perform when he +got to his new home in Doughty Street, and would only <!-- page +91--><a name="page91"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 91</span>draw +up water in the dark or when he thought no one was looking. +“After an interval of futile and at length hopeless +expectation,” my father writes, “the merchant who had +educated him was appealed to. The merchant was a bow-legged +character, with a flat and cushiony nose, like the last new +strawberry. He wore a fur cap and shorts, and was of the +velveteen race velveteeny. He sent word that he would +‘look round.’ He looked round, appeared in the +doorway of the room, and slightly cocked up his evil eye at the +goldfinch. Instantly a raging thirst beset the bird, and +when it was appeased he still drew several unnecessary buckets of +water, leaping about the perch and sharpening his bill with +irrepressible satisfaction.”</p> +<p>While at Broadstairs one summer, our bathing woman, who reared +birds, gave a canary to my sister and myself. +“Dick,” who was only a few weeks old when he came to +us, grew to be a very king of birds, and became in time a most +important member of the household. <!-- page 92--><a +name="page92"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 92</span>There was a +fierce war waged against cats during his lifetime, and writing +from Boulogne my father very funnily describes our troubles with +the feline race: “War is raging against two particularly +tigerish and fearful cats (from the mill, I suppose), which are +always glaring in dark corners after our wonderful little +‘Dick.’ Keeping the house open at all points it +is impossible to shut them out, and they hide themselves in the +most terrific manner, hanging themselves up behind draperies like +bats, and tumbling out in the dead of night with frightful +caterwaulings. Hereupon French, the footman, borrows a gun, +loads it to the muzzle, discharges it twice in vain, and throws +himself over with the recoil exactly like a clown. But at +last, while I was in town, he aims at the more amiable cat of the +two and shoots that animal dead. Insufferably elated by +this victory he is now engaged from morning to night in hiding +behind bushes to get aim at the other. He does nothing else +whatever. All the boys <!-- page 93--><a +name="page93"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 93</span>encourage him +and watch for the enemy, on whose appearance they give an alarm, +which immediately serves as a warning to the creature, who runs +away. They—the boys—are at this moment (ready +dressed for church) all lying on their stomachs in various parts +of the garden. I am afraid to go out lest I should be +shot. Mr. Plornish, says his prayers at night in a whisper +lest the cat should overhear him and take offence. The +tradesmen cry out as they come up the avenue: ‘<i>Me +Voici</i>! <i>C’est +Moi</i>—<i>boulanger</i>—<i>me tirez pas</i>, +<i>Monsieur Frenche</i>!’ It is like living in a +state of siege, and the wonderful manner in which the cat +preserves the character of being the only person not much put out +by the intensity of this monomania is most ridiculous. The +finest thing is that immediately after I have heard the noble +sportsman blazing away at her in the garden in front I look out +of my room door into the drawing-room and am pretty sure to see +her coming in after the bird, in the calmest <!-- page 94--><a +name="page94"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 94</span>manner +possible, by the back window.” But no harm ever came +to “our wonderful little ‘Dick,’” who +lived to a ripe old age—sixteen years—and was buried +under a rose tree at “Gad’s Hill.”</p> +<p>On his return from his last visit to America he wrote a +charming account of his welcome home by the dogs at +“Gad’s Hill.” “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 received +from no one else. But when I drove into the stableyard, +‘Linda’ was <!-- page 95--><a name="page95"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 95</span>greatly excited; weeping profusely, +and throwing herself on her back that she might caress my foot +with her great forepaws. Mamie’s little dog, too, +‘Mrs. Bouncer,’ barked in the greatest agitation on +being called down and asked: ‘Who is this?’ tore +round me, like the dog in the Faust outlines.”</p> +<p>My father brought with him, on his return from his first visit +to America, a small, shaggy Havana spaniel, which had been given +to him and which he had named “Timber Doodle.” +He wrote of him: “Little doggy improves rapidly and now +jumps over my stick at the word of command.” +“Timber,” travelled with us in all our foreign +wanderings, and while at Albaro the poor little fellow had a most +unfortunate experience—an encounter of some duration with a +plague of fleas. Father writes: “‘Timber’ +has had every hair upon his body cut off because of the fleas, +and he looks like the ghost of a drowned dog come out of a pond +after a week or so. It is very awful to see him sidle into +a room. He knows <!-- page 96--><a name="page96"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 96</span>the change upon him, and is always +turning-round and round to look for himself. I think +he’ll die of grief; it is to be hoped that the hair will +grow again.”</p> +<p>For many years my father’s public readings were an +important part of his life, and into their performance and +preparation he threw the best energy of his heart and soul, +practising and rehearsing at all times and places. The +meadow near our home was a favorite place, and people passing +through the lane, not knowing who he was, or what doing, must +have thought him a madman from his reciting and +gesticulation. The great success of these readings led to +many tempting offers from the United States, which, as time went +on, and we realized how much the fatigue of the readings together +with his other work were sapping his strength, we earnestly +opposed his even considering. However, after much +discussion and deliberation he wrote to me on September 28th, +1867: “As I telegraphed after I saw you I am off to consult +<!-- page 97--><a name="page97"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +97</span>with Mr. Forster and Dolby together. You shall +hear either on Monday or by Monday’s post from London how I +decide finally.” Three days later: “You will +have had my telegram that I go to America. After a long +discussion with Forster and consideration of what is to be said +on both sides, I have decided to go through with it, and have +telegraphed ‘yes’ to Boston.” There was, +at first, some talk of my accompanying him, but when the +programme of the tour was submitted to my father and he saw how +much time must be devoted to business and how little, indeed +almost no time could be given to sightseeing, this idea was given +up.</p> +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p>A farewell banquet was given him in London on the second of +November, and on the ninth he sailed. A large party of us +went to Liverpool to see him sail, and with heavy hearts to bid +him farewell. In those days a journey to America was a +serious matter, and we felt in our hearts that he was about to +tax <!-- page 98--><a name="page98"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +98</span>his health and strength too cruelly. And so he +did.</p> +<p>Soon after reaching the United States, my father contracted a +severe cold which never left him during his visit, and which +caused him the greatest annoyance. I will give you a few +quotations from his letters to show how pluckily he fought +against his ailment and under what a strain he continued his +work. On his arrival at New York on Christmas Day, in +response to a letter of mine which awaited him there, he wrote: +“I wanted your letter much, for I had a frightful cold +(English colds are nothing to those of this country) and was very +miserable.” He adds to this letter, a day or two +later: “I managed to read last night but it was as much as +I could do. To-day I am so unwell that I have sent for a +doctor.” Again he writes: “It likewise happens, +not seldom, that I am so dead beat when I come off the stage, +that they lay me down on a sofa after I have been washed and +dressed, and I lie there extremely faint for a quarter of an <!-- +page 99--><a name="page99"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +99</span>hour. In that time I rally and come +right.” Again: “On the afternoon of my birthday +my catarrh was in such a state that Charles Sumner coming in at +five o’clock and finding me covered with mustard poultices +and apparently voiceless, turned to Dolby and said: +‘Surely, Mr. Dolby, it is impossible that he can read +to-night.’ Says Dolby: ‘Sir, I have told Mr. +Dickens so four times to-day and I have been very anxious. +But you have no idea how he will change when he gets to the +little table.’ After five minutes of the little table +I was not, for the time, even hoarse. The frequent +experience of this return of force when it is wanted saves me +much anxiety, but I am not at times without the nervous dread +that I may some day sink altogether.”</p> +<p>But as a reward for his unstinted self-giving came the +wonderful success of his tour, the pride and delight which he +felt in the enthusiasm which greeted him everywhere, the personal +affection lavished upon him, and <!-- page 100--><a +name="page100"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 100</span>the many +dear friends he made. He writes from Boston, <i>à +propos</i> of these rewards: “When we reached here last +Saturday night we found that Mrs. Fields had not only garnished +the room with flowers, but also with holly (with real red +berries), and festoons of moss dependent from the looking-glasses +and picture-frames. The homely Christmas look of the place +quite affected us.”</p> +<p>Later, from Washington: “I couldn’t help laughing +at myself on my birthday here; it was observed as much as though +I were a little boy. Flowers and garlands of the most +exquisite kind, arranged in all manner of green baskets, bloomed +over the room; letters, radiant with good wishes, poured +in. Also, by hands unknown, the hall at night was +decorated; and after ‘Boots at the Holly Tree Inn’ +the audience rose, great people and all, standing and cheering +until I went back to the table and made them a little +speech.”</p> +<p>He wrote home constantly, giving frequent commissions for +improvements at “Gad’s <!-- page 101--><a +name="page101"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +101</span>Hill,” to be made before his return. He was +much impressed on his second visit, as on his first, I remember, +with the beauty of the American women. “The ladies +are remarkably handsome,” he wrote.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p101b.jpg"> +<img alt="The Empty Chair" src="images/p101s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>In the autumn of 1869 he began a series of farewell readings, +which were another heavy tax upon his health and strength. +During his tour at this time he writes to Mr. Forster after some +rather alarming symptoms had developed: “I told Beard, a +year after the Staplehurst accident, that I was certain that my +heart had been fluttered and wanted a little helping. This +the stethoscope confirmed; and considering the immense exertion I +am undergoing, and the constant jarring of express trains, the +case seems to me quite intelligible. Don’t say +anything in the ‘Gad’s’ direction about my +being a little out of sorts. I have broached the matter, of +course, but very lightly.”</p> +<p>But even such warning as this failed to make him realize how +much less was his <!-- page 102--><a name="page102"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 102</span>strength, and with indomitable +courage and spirit he continued his tour. The trouble in +his feet increased, and his sufferings from this cause were very +great. It became necessary at one time for him to have a +physician in attendance upon him at every reading. But in +spite of his perseverance, he became so ill that the readings had +to be stopped.</p> +<h2><!-- page 103--><a name="page103"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 103</span>CHAPTER VI.</h2> +<p class="gutsumm">Last words spoken in public.—A railroad +accident in 1865.—At home after his American +visit.—“Improvements” at “Gad’s +Hill.”—At “Gad’s Hill” once +more.—The closing days of his life.—Burial at +Westminster.</p> +<p>My father gave his last reading in St. James’ Hall, +London, on the fifteenth of March. The programme included +“The Christmas Carol” and the “Trial” +from “Pickwick.” The hall was packed by an +enormous audience, and he was greeted with all the warmth which +the personal affection felt for the reader inspired. We all +felt very anxious for him, fearing that the excitement and +emotion which must attend upon his public farewell would have a +bad effect upon him. But it had no immediate result, at any +rate, much to our relief.</p> +<p>I do not think that my father ever—and this is saying a +great deal—looked handsomer <!-- page 104--><a +name="page104"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 104</span>nor read +with more ability than on this, his last appearance. Mr. +Forster writes: “The charm of his reading was at its height +when he shut the volume of ‘Pickwick’ and spoke in +his own person. He said that for fifteen years he had been +reading his own books to audiences whose sensitive and kindly +recognition of them had given him instruction and enjoyment in +his art such as few men could have had; but that he nevertheless +thought it well now to retire upon older associations, and in +future to devote himself exclusively to the calling which first +made him known. ‘In but two short weeks from this +time I hope that you may enter in your own homes on a new series +of readings, at which my assistance will be indispensable; but +from these garish lights I vanish now, for evermore, with a +heartfelt, grateful, respectful, affectionate +farewell.’”</p> +<p>There was a dead silence as my father turned away, much moved; +and then came from the audience such a burst and tumult <!-- page +105--><a name="page105"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 105</span>of +cheers and applause as were almost too much to bear, mixed as +they were with personal love and affection for the man before +them. He returned with us all to “Gad’s +Hill,” very happy and hopeful, under the temporary +improvement which the rest and peace of his home brought him, and +he settled down to his new book, “Edwin Drood,” with +increased pleasure and interest.</p> +<p>His last public appearances were in April. On the fifth +he took the chair at the News-venders’ dinner. On the +thirtieth he returned thanks for “Literature” at the +Royal Academy banquet. In this speech he alluded to the +death of his old friend, Mr. Daniel Maclise, winding up thus: +“No artist, of whatsoever denomination, I make bold to say, +ever went to his rest leaving a golden memory more pure from +dross, or having devoted himself with a truer chivalry to the +art-goddess whom he worshipped.” These words, with +the old, true, affectionate <!-- page 106--><a +name="page106"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 106</span>ring in +them, were the last spoken by my father in public.</p> +<p>About 1865 my dear father’s health began to give way, a +peculiar affection of the foot which frequently caused him the +greatest agony and suffering, appearing about this time. +Its real cause—overwork—was not suspected either by +his physicians or himself, his vitality seeming something which +could not wear out; but, although he was so active and full of +energy, he was never really strong, and found soon that he must +take more in the way of genuine recreation. He wrote me +from France about this time: “Before I went away I had +certainly worked myself into a damaged state. But the +moment I got away I began, thank God, to get well. I hope +to profit from this experience, and to make future dashes from my +desk before I need them.”</p> +<p>It was while on his way home after this trip that he was in +the terrible railroad accident to which he afterwards referred in +a <!-- page 107--><a name="page107"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +107</span>letter to a friend, saying, that his heart had never +been in good condition after that accident. It occurred on +the ninth of June, a date which five years later was the day of +his death.</p> +<p>He wrote describing his experiences: “I was in the only +carriage which did not go over into the stream. It was +caught upon the turn by some of the ruin of the bridge, and +became suspended and balanced in an apparently impossible +manner. Two ladies were my fellow-passengers, an old one +and a young one. This is exactly what passed—you may +judge from it the length of our suspense: Suddenly we were off +the rail and beating the ground as the car of a half-emptied +balloon might. The old lady cried out ‘My God!’ +and the young one screamed. I caught hold of them both (the +old lady sat opposite, and the young one on my left) and said: +‘We can’t help ourselves, but we can be quiet and +composed. Pray, don’t cry out!’ The old +lady immediately <!-- page 108--><a name="page108"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 108</span>answered: ‘Thank you, rely +upon me. Upon my soul I will be quiet.’ We were +then all tilted down together in a corner of the carriage, which +then stopped. I said to them thereupon: ‘You may be +sure nothing worse can happen; our danger must be over. +Will you remain here without stirring while I get out of the +window?’ They both answered quite collectedly +‘Yes,’ and I got out without the least notion of what +had happened. Fortunately I got out with great caution, and +stood upon the step. Looking down I saw the bridge gone, +and nothing below me but the line of rail. Some people in +the other two compartments were madly trying to plunge out at a +window, and had no idea that there was an open, swampy field +fifteen feet down below them, and nothing else. The two +guards (one with his face cut) were running up and down on the +down-track of the bridge (which was not torn up) quite +wildly. I called out to them: ‘Look at me! Do +stop an instant <!-- page 109--><a name="page109"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 109</span>and look at me, and tell me whether +you don’t know me?’ One of them answered: +‘We know you very well, Mr. Dickens.’ +‘Then,’ I said, ‘my good fellow, for +God’s sake, give me your key, and send one of those +laborers here, and I’ll empty this carriage.’ +We did it quite safely, by means of a plank or two, and when it +was done I saw all the rest of the train, except the two baggage +vans, down the stream. I got into the carriage again for my +brandy flask, took off my travelling hat for a basin, climbed +down the brickwork, and filled my hat with water. Suddenly +I came upon a staggering man, covered with blood (I think he must +have been flung clean out of his carriage), with such a frightful +cut across the skull that I couldn’t bear to look at +him. I poured some water over his face, and gave him some +to drink, then gave him some brandy, and laid him down on the +grass.</p> +<p>He said ‘I am gone,’ and died afterwards. +Then I stumbled over a lady lying on her <!-- page 110--><a +name="page110"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 110</span>back +against a little pollard tree, with the blood streaming over her +face (which was lead color) in a number of distinct little +streams from the head. I asked her if she could swallow a +little brandy, and she just nodded, and I gave her some and left +her for somebody else. The next time I passed her she was +dead. Then a man examined at the inquest yesterday (who +evidently had not the least remembrance of what really passed) +came running up to me and implored me to help him find his wife, +who was afterward found dead. No imagination can conceive +the ruin of the carriages, or the extraordinary weights under +which the people were lying, or the complications into which they +were twisted up among iron and wood, and mud and water. I +am keeping very quiet here.”</p> +<p>This letter was written from “Gad’s Hill” +four days after the accident. We were spared any anxiety +about our father, as we did not hear of the accident until after +we were with <!-- page 111--><a name="page111"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 111</span>him in London. With his usual +care and thoughtfulness he had telegraphed to his friend Mr. +Wills, to summon us to town to meet him. The letter +continues: “I have, I don’t know what to call it, +constitutional (I suppose) presence of mind, and was not the +least fluttered at the time. I instantly remembered that I +had the MS. of a number with me, and clambered back into the +carriage for it. But in writing these scanty words of +recollection I feel the shake, and am obliged to stop.”</p> +<p>We heard, afterwards, how helpful he had been at the time, +ministering to the dying! How calmly and tenderly he cared +for the suffering ones about him!</p> +<p>But he never recovered entirely from the shock. More +than a year later he writes: “It is remarkable that my +watch (a special chronometer) has never gone quite correctly +since, and to this day there sometimes comes over me, on a +railway and in a hansom-cab, or any sort of conveyance, for a few +seconds, <!-- page 112--><a name="page112"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 112</span>a vague sense of dread that I have +no power to check. It comes and passes, but I cannot +prevent its coming.”</p> +<p>I have often seen this dread come upon him, and on one +occasion, which I especially recall, while we were on our way +from London to our little country station “Higham,” +where the carriage was to meet us, my father suddenly clutched +the arms of the railway carriage seat, while his face grew ashy +pale, and great drops of perspiration stood upon his forehead, +and though he tried hard to master the dread, it was so strong +that he had to leave the train at the next station. The +accident had left its impression upon the memory, and it was +destined never to be effaced. The hours spent upon +railroads were thereafter often hours of pain to him. I +realized this often while travelling with him, and no amount of +assurance could dispel the feeling.</p> +<p>Early in May of 1868, we had him safely back with us, greatly +strengthened and invigorated <!-- page 113--><a +name="page113"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 113</span>by his +ocean journey home, and I think he was never happier at +“Gad’s Hill” than during his last two years +there.</p> +<p>During that time he had a succession of guests, and none were +more honored, nor more heartily welcomed, than his American +friends. The first of these to come, if I remember rightly, +was Mr. Longfellow, with his daughters. My father writes +describing a picnic which he gave them; “I turned out a +couple of postilions in the old red jacket of the old Royal red +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.</p> +<p>“Nothing can surpass the respect paid to Longfellow +here, from the Queen downward. He is everywhere received +and courted, and finds the working men at least as well +acquainted with his books as the classes socially above +them.”</p> +<p><!-- page 114--><a name="page114"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +114</span>Between the comings and goings of visitors there were +delightfully quiet evenings at home, spent during the summer in +our lovely porch, or walking about the garden, until “tray +time,” ten o’clock. When the cooler nights came +we had music in the drawing-room, and it is my happiness now to +remember on how many evenings I played and sang all his favorite +songs and tunes to my father during these last winters while he +would listen while he smoked or read, or, in his more usual +fashion, paced up and down the room. I never saw him more +peacefully contented than at these times.</p> +<p>There were always “improvements”—as my +father used to call his alterations—being made at +“Gad’s Hill,” and each improvement was supposed +to be the last. As each was completed, my sister—who +was always a constant visitor, and an exceptionally dear one to +my father—would have to come down and inspect, and as each +was displayed, my father would say to her most solemnly: <!-- +page 115--><a name="page115"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +115</span>“Now, Katie, you behold your parent’s +latest and last achievement.” These “last +improvements” became quite a joke between them. I +remember so well, on one such occasion, after the walls and doors +of the drawing-room had been lined with mirrors, my +sister’s laughing speech to “the master”: +“I believe papa, that when you become an angel your wings +will be made of looking-glass and your crown of scarlet +geraniums.”</p> +<p>And here I would like to correct an error concerning +myself. I have been spoken of as my father’s +“favorite daughter.” If he had a favorite +daughter—and I hope and believe that the one was as dear to +him as the other—my dear sister must claim that +honor. I say this ungrudgingly, for during those last two +years my father and I seemed to become more closely united, and I +know how deep was the affectionate intimacy at the time of his +death.</p> +<p>The “last improvement”—in truth, the very +last—was the building of a conservatory <!-- page 116--><a +name="page116"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 116</span>between the +drawing and dining rooms. My father was more delighted with +this than with any previous alteration, and it was certainly a +pretty addition to the quaint old villa. The châlet, +too, which he used in summer as his study, was another favorite +spot at his favorite “Gad’s Hill.”</p> +<p>In the early months of 1870 we moved up to London, as my +father had decided to give twelve farewell readings there. +He had the sanction of the late Sir Thomas Watson to this +undertaking, on condition that there should be no railway +journeys in connection with them. While we were in London +he made many private engagements, principally, I know, on my +account, as I was to be presented that spring.</p> +<p>During this last visit to London, my father was not, however, +in his usual health, and was so quickly and easily tired that a +great number of our engagements had to be cancelled. He +dined out very seldom, and I remember that on the last occasion +he attended a very large <!-- page 117--><a +name="page117"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 117</span>dinner +party the effort was too much for him, and before the gentlemen +returned to the drawing-room, he sent me a message begging me to +come to him at once, saying that he was in too great pain to +mount the stairs. No one who had watched him throughout the +dinner, seeing his bright, animated face, and listening to his +cheery conversation, could have imagined him to be suffering +acute pain.</p> +<p>He was at “Gad’s Hill” again by the +thirtieth of May, and soon hard at work upon “Edwin +Drood.” Although happy and contented, there was an +appearance of fatigue and weariness about him very unlike his +usual air of fresh activity. He was out with the dogs for +the last time on the afternoon of the sixth of June, when he +walked into Rochester for the “Daily Mail.” My +sister, who had come to see the latest “improvement,” +was visiting us, and was to take me with her to London on her +return, for a short visit. The conservatory—the +“improvement” which Katie had been summoned to +inspect—had been <!-- page 118--><a +name="page118"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 118</span>stocked, +and by this time many of the plants were in full blossom. +Everything was at its brightest and I remember distinctly my +father’s pleasure in showing my sister the beauties of his +“improvement.”</p> +<p>We had been having most lovely weather, and in consequence, +the outdoor plants were wonderfully forward in their bloom, my +father’s favorite red geraniums making a blaze of color in +the front garden. The syringa shrubs filled the evening air +with sweetest fragrance as we sat in the porch and walked about +the garden on this last Sunday of our dear father’s +life. My aunt and I retired early and my dear sister sat +for a long while with my father while he spoke to her most +earnestly of his affairs.</p> +<p>As I have already said my father had such an intense dislike +for leave-taking that he always, when it was possible, shirked a +farewell, and we children, knowing this dislike, used only to +wave our hands or give him a silent kiss when parting. But +on this <!-- page 119--><a name="page119"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 119</span>Monday morning, the seventh, just as +we were about to start for London, my sister suddenly said: +“I <i>must</i> say good-bye to papa,” and hurried +over to the châlet where he was busily writing. As a +rule when he was so occupied, my father would hold up his cheek +to be kissed, but this day he took my sister in his arms saying: +“God bless you, Katie,” and there, “among the +branches of the trees, among the birds and butterflies and the +scent of flowers,” she left him, never to look into his +eyes again.</p> +<p>In the afternoon, feeling fatigued, and not inclined to much +walking, he drove with my aunt into Cobham. There he left +the carriage and walked home through the park. After dinner +he remained seated in the dining-room, through the evening, as +from that room he could see the effect of some lighted Chinese +lanterns, which he had hung in the conservatory during the day, +and talked to my aunt about his great love for “Gad’s +Hill,” his wish that his name might <!-- page 120--><a +name="page120"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 120</span>become more +associated with the place, and his desire to be buried near +it.</p> +<p>On the morning of the eighth he was in excellent spirits, +speaking of his book, at which he intended working through the +day and in which he was most intensely interested. He spent +a busy morning in the châlet, and it must have been then +that he wrote that description of Rochester, which touched our +hearts when we read it for the first time after its writer lay +dead: “Brilliant morning shines on the old city. Its +antiquities and ruins are surpassingly beautiful with the lusty +ivy gleaming in the sun and the rich trees waving in the balmy +air. Changes of glorious light from moving boughs, songs of +birds, scents from gardens, woods and fields, or rather, from the +one great garden of the whole cultivated island in its yielding +time, penetrate into the cathedral, subdue its earthly odor, and +preach the Resurrection and the Life.”</p> +<p>He returned to the house for luncheon, <!-- page 121--><a +name="page121"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 121</span>seemingly +perfectly well and exceedingly cheerful and hopeful. He +smoked a cigar in his beloved conservatory, and went back to the +châlet. When he came again to the house, about an +hour before the time fixed for an early dinner, he was tired, +silent and abstracted, but as this was a mood very usual to him +after a day of engrossing work, it caused no alarm nor surprise +to my aunt, who happened to be the only member of the family at +home. While awaiting dinner he wrote some letters in the +library and arranged some trifling business matters, with a view +to his departure for London the following morning.</p> +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p>It was not until they were seated at the dinner-table that a +striking change in the color and expression of his face startled +my aunt. Upon her asking him if he were ill, he answered +“Yes, very ill; I have been very ill for the last +hour.” But when she said that she would send for a +physician he <!-- page 122--><a name="page122"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 122</span>stopped her, saying that he would go +on with dinner, and afterward to London.</p> +<p>He made an earnest effort to struggle against the seizure +which was fast coming over him, and continued to talk, but +incoherently and very indistinctly. It being now evident +that he was in a serious condition, my aunt begged him to go to +his room before she sent for medical aid. “Come and +lie down,” she entreated. “Yes, on the +ground,” he answered indistinctly. These were the +last words that he uttered. As he spoke, he fell to the +floor. A couch was brought into the dining-room, on which +he was laid, a messenger was dispatched for the local physician, +telegrams were sent to all of us and to Mr. Beard. This was +at a few minutes after six o’clock. I was dining at a +house some little distance from my sister’s home. +Dinner was half over when I received a message that she wished to +speak to me. I found her in the hall with a change of dress +for me and a cab in waiting. Quickly <!-- page 123--><a +name="page123"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 123</span>I changed +my gown, and we began the short journey which brought us to our +so sadly-altered home. Our dear aunt was waiting for us at +the open door, and when I saw her face I think the last faint +hope died within me.</p> +<p>All through the night we watched him—my sister on one +side of the couch, my aunt on the other, and I keeping hot bricks +to the feet which nothing could warm, hoping and praying that he +might open his eyes and look at us, and know us once again. +But he never moved, never opened his eyes, never showed a sign of +consciousness through all the long night. On the afternoon +of the ninth the celebrated London physician, Dr. Russell +Reynolds, (recently deceased), was summoned to a consultation by +the two medical men in attendance, but he could only confirm +their hopeless verdict. Later, in the evening of this day, +at ten minutes past six, we saw a shudder pass over our dear +father, he heaved a deep sigh, a large tear rolled down his face +<!-- page 124--><a name="page124"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +124</span>and at that instant his spirit left us. As we saw +the dark shadow pass from his face, leaving it so calm and +beautiful in the peace and majesty of death, I think there was +not one of us who would have wished, could we have had the power, +to recall his spirit to earth.</p> +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p>I made it my duty to guard the beloved body as long as it was +left to us. The room in which my dear father reposed for +the last time was bright with the beautiful fresh flowers which +were so abundant at this time of the year, and which our good +neighbours sent to us so frequently. The birds were singing +all about and the summer sun shone brilliantly.</p> +<blockquote><p>“And may there be no sadness of farewell<br +/> + When I +embark.<br /> +For though when from out our bourne of Time and Place<br /> + The flood may +bear me far,<br /> +I hope to see my Pilot face to face<br /> + When I have +crossed the bar.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Those exquisite lines of Lord Tennyson’s <!-- page +125--><a name="page125"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +125</span>seem so appropriate to my father, to his dread of +good-byes, to his great and simple faith, that I have ventured to +quote them here.</p> +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p>On the morning after he died, we received a very kind visit +from Sir John Millais, then Mr. Millais, R.A. and Mr. Woolner, +R.A. Sir John made a beautiful pencil drawing of my father, +and Mr. Woolner took a cast of his head, from which he afterwards +modelled a bust. The drawing belongs to my sister, and is +one of her greatest treasures. It is, like all Sir +John’s drawings, most delicate and refined, and the +likeness absolutely faithful to what my father looked in +death.</p> +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p>You remember that when he was describing the illustrations of +Little Nell’s death-bed he wrote: “I want it to +express the most beautiful repose and tranquillity, and to have +something of a happy look, if death can.” Surely this +was what his death-bed expressed—infinite happiness and +rest.</p> +<p><!-- page 126--><a name="page126"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +126</span>As my father had expressed a wish to be buried in the +quiet little church-yard at Shorne, arrangements were made for +the interment to take place there. This intention was, +however, abandoned, in consequence of a request from the Dean and +chapter of Rochester Cathedral that his bones might repose +there. A grave was prepared and everything arranged when it +was made known to us, through Dean Stanley, that there was a +general and very earnest desire that he should find his last +resting-place in Westminster Abbey. To such a tribute to +our dear father’s memory we could make no possible +objection, although it was with great regret that we relinquished +the plan to lay him in a spot so closely identified with his life +and works.</p> +<p>The only stipulation which was made in connection with the +burial at Westminster Abbey was that the clause in his will which +read: “I emphatically direct that I be buried in an +inexpensive, unostentatious and <!-- page 127--><a +name="page127"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 127</span>and +strictly private manner,” should be strictly adhered to, as +it was.</p> +<p>At midday on the fourteenth of June a few friends and +ourselves saw our dear one laid to rest in the grand old +cathedral. Our small group in that vast edifice seemed to +make the beautiful words of our beautiful burial service even +more than usually solemn and touching. Later in the day, +and for many following days, hundreds of mourners flocked to the +open grave, and filled the deep vault with flowers. And +even after it was closed Dean Stanley wrote: “There was a +constant pressure to the spot and many flowers were strewn upon +it by unknown hands, many tears shed from unknown +eyes.”</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p127b.jpg"> +<img alt="Charles Dickens’ Grave" src="images/p127s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>And every year on the ninth of June and on Christmas day we +find other flowers strewn by other unknown hands on that spot so +sacred to us, as to all who knew and loved him. And every +year beautiful bright-coloured leaves are sent to us from across +<!-- page 128--><a name="page128"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +128</span>the Atlantic, to be placed with our own flowers on that +dear grave; and it is twenty-six years now since my father +died!</p> +<p>And for his epitaph what better than my father’s own +words:</p> +<blockquote><p>“Of the loved, revered and honoured head, +thou canst not turn one hair to thy dread purposes, nor make one +feature odious. It is not that the hand is heavy and will +fall down when released; it is not that the heart and pulse are +still; but that the hand was open, generous and true, the heart +brave, warm and tender, and the pulse a man’s. +Strike! shadow, strike! and see his good deeds springing from the +wound, to sow the world with life immortal.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">the +end</span>.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p129b.jpg"> +<img alt="Ex Libris Roxburghe Press" src="images/p129s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<h2>Footnotes:</h2> +<p><a name="footnote15"></a><a href="#citation15" +class="footnote">[15]</a> When I write about my aunt, or +“Auntie,” as no doubt I may often have occasion to +do, it is of the aunt <i>par excellence</i>, Georgina +Hogarth. She has been to me ever since I can remember +anything, and to all of us, the truest, best and dearest friend, +companion and counsellor. To quote my father’s own +words: “The best and truest friend man ever had.”</p> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MY FATHER AS I RECALL HIM***</p> +<pre> + + +***** This file should be named 27234-h.htm or 27234-h.zip****** + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/7/2/3/27234 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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