Title: My Father as I Recall Him
Author: Dickens, Mamie, 1838-1896
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "My Father as I Recall Him" ***


Transcribed from the Roxburghe Press edition by David Price,
ccx074@pglaf.org

                         [Picture: Cover of book]

                        [Picture: Charles Dickens]

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.

                                                                     K. P.

                         [Picture: Mamie Dickens]



                        MY FATHER AS I RECALL HIM.


                                    BY
                              MAMIE DICKENS.

                                   THE
                            _ROXBURGHE PRESS_,
                        FIFTEEN, VICTORIA STREET,
                               WESTMINSTER.

THIS WORK, AND ALL THE PUBLICATIONS OF THE ROXBURGHE PRESS, ARE SUPPLIED
TO THE TRADE BY MESSRS. SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, HAMILTON, KENT & COMPANY,
LIMITED, AND CAN BE OBTAINED THROUGH ANY BOOKSELLER.



CONTENTS.

                                                                     PAGE.

CHAPTER I.                                                               7

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.”

CHAPTER II.                                                             25

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.

CHAPTER III.                                                            46

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.

CHAPTER IV.                                                             69

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.

CHAPTER V.                                                              88

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.

CHAPTER VI.                                                            103

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.



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

Charles Dickens                                               Frontispiece

Mamie Dickens                                            Facing Dedication

Charles Dickens reading in the garden                               page 7

Mr. Pickwick slides                                                     25

Mr. John Leech                                                          28

Mr. Pickwick under the Mistletoe                                        45

Mrs. Bouncer                                                            86

To Miss Dickens’ Pomeranian “Mrs. Bouncer”                              86

The Empty Chair                                                        101

Charles Dickens’ Grave                                                 127

CHAPTER I.


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.”

               [Picture: Charles Dickens Reading in Garden]

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.

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,
namely: “The Life of Charles Dickens,” by John Forster.

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.

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.

He had a very strong and faithful attachment for places: Chatham, I
think, being his first love in this respect.  For it was 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.”

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 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.

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 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.

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.

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, 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.

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.

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, 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!”

When my father was arranging and rehearsing his readings from “Dombey,”
the 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 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,” {15} 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.

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.

I remember that my sister and I occupied 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
chair was out of its place, or a blind not quite straight, or a crumb
left on the floor, woe betide the offender.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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 most
humdrum, and never thrusting himself forward.

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 were,
but a moment ago had come across his path.

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.

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 shock of her sudden death so affected and prostrated him
that the publication of “Pickwick” was interrupted for two months.

“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.”

She was buried in Kensal Green Cemetery, and her grave bears the
following inscription, written by my father:

“Young, beautiful, and good, God in His mercy numbered her among His
angels at the early age of seventeen.”

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.”

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 shall soon meet, please God, and be happier than
ever we were in all our lives.  Oh! home—home—home!!!”



CHAPTER II.


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.

                      [Picture: Mr. Pickwick slides]

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 veneration for this most blessed anniversary.

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.

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
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.”

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.

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
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.

                        [Picture: Mr. John Leech]

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.
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.

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 nature, if I may so speak.  The action
and the exercise seemed to be a part of his abundant vitality.

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 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.

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 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, _à
propos_ 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 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.”

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.  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.”

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.

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 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.”

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 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.

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 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.

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 for dinner, and no word except of praise ever came to my
ears.

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 his own family and friends—a beautiful
Christmas spirit.

“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.

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 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 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.

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.”

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.  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!

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 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!

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.

“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.”

               [Picture: Mr. Pickwick under the Mistletoe]



CHAPTER III.


    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.

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 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!”

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 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 sight of his surroundings, but had actually become in
action, as in imagination, the creature of his pen.

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.

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!

That he was always in earnest, that he 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.”

His love and care for this little one are 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.”

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 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.”

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.”

In acknowledging the receipt of a letter concerning this book from Mr.
John Tomlin, an American, he wrote: “I thank you 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.”

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 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.”

But he was always pleased with praise, and always modest and grateful in
returning it.  “How can I thank you?” he writes to 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.”

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 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:

                                                  “DOUGHTY STREET, LONDON.
                                                     “December 12th, 1838.

    “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?

    “I have carefully done what you told me in your letter about the lamb
    and the two ‘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 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!

    “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.”

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 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.

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 above, in his reference to the Chimes, and the effect which they had
upon him.

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—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!”

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 ‘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.”

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 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, 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.

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 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.’”

On the Christmas Eve of 1863 my 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 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.”



CHAPTER IV.


    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.

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 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.”

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 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.

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 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?”

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.”

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 sure
that in many places during his travels my father was looked upon as an
amiable maniac with a penchant for washing.

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 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.”

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 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.”

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 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 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.

“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 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.

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 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 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.”

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 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 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.

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 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, although this decision cost him a great deal of sorrow.

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, 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.

“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!!!”

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—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 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.”

                         [Picture: Mrs. Bouncer]

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.”

                                * * * * *

          [Picture: To Miss Dickens’ Pomeranian “Mrs. Bouncer”]



To
Miss Dickens’ Pomeranian.
“MRS. BOUNCER.”


    Furry, lazy, warm and bright,
    Peeing from her fringe of white,
    She blinks and sleeps both day and night,

                                                            A happy Spitz!

    She need not fear the cruel stick,
    Nor has she learnt a single trick—
    Just deigns her mistress’ hand to lick,

                                                             As she knits.

    She eats, and drinks, and eats again,
    Is never out in wind or rain,—
    Takes many a journey in the train,

                                                           And her admits.

    She has her own coquettish charms,
    Knows no sorrows, no alarms,
    And dozes in her mistress’ arms—

                                                           A sleepy Spitz.

    How small and piquant are her feet—
    Ben Allen’s sister had as neat—
    She looks so saucy, one could beat

                                                            Her into fits.

    Quite ravishing when neat and clean,
    Her cars seem lined with crinoline:
    She rules the house, a haughty queen,

                                                            A saucy Spitz!

    Just tolerates the frequent hug—
    Snoozing all day upon the rug,
    Complacent, philosophic—snug,

                                                       Her paws like mits.

    At dinner—ah! that pleasant Babel!
    Touch her paw beneath the table,
    She’d bite your foot—were she but able—

                                                          A naughty Spitz.

    To find her mistress how she flew!
    Faithful the coming step she knew
    Let others be as brave and true—

                                                            Lords or Wits!

    When SULTAN, TURK, and LINDA fleet
    The lost lov’d Master rushed to meet,
    _His_ kindly voice would always greet

                                                         The little Spitz!

    Alas! so furry, warm, and white,
    From this cold world she took her flight,
    No more on rug, by fireside bright,

                                                        Dear BOUNCER sits.

    PERCY FITZGERALD.



CHAPTER V.


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.

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.

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 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 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.”

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 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.”

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.  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 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: ‘_Me Voici_!  _C’est Moi_—_boulanger_—_me
tirez pas_, _Monsieur Frenche_!’  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 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.”

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 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.”

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 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.”

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 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.

                                * * * * *

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 his health and strength too cruelly.  And so he did.

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 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.”

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 the
many dear friends he made.  He writes from Boston, _à propos_ 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.”

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.”

He wrote home constantly, giving frequent commissions for improvements at
“Gad’s 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.

                        [Picture: The Empty Chair]

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.”

But even such warning as this failed to make him realize how much less
was his 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.



CHAPTER VI.


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.

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.

I do not think that my father ever—and this is saying a great deal—looked
handsomer 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.’”

There was a dead silence as my father turned away, much moved; and then
came from the audience such a burst and tumult 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.

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 ring in them, were the last
spoken by my father in public.

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.”

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 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.

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 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 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.

He said ‘I am gone,’ and died afterwards.  Then I stumbled over a lady
lying on her 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.”

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 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.”

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!

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, a vague sense of dread that I have no power to check.  It
comes and passes, but I cannot prevent its coming.”

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.

Early in May of 1868, we had him safely back with us, greatly
strengthened and invigorated by his ocean journey home, and I think he
was never happier at “Gad’s Hill” than during his last two years there.

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.

“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.”

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.

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: “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.”

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.

The “last improvement”—in truth, the very last—was the building of a
conservatory 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.”

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.

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 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.

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 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.”

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.

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 Monday morning, the
seventh, just as we were about to start for London, my sister suddenly
said: “I _must_ 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.

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 become more associated
with the place, and his desire to be buried near it.

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.”

He returned to the house for luncheon, 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.

                                * * * * *

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 stopped her, saying that he would go on with dinner, and
afterward to London.

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 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.

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 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.

                                * * * * *

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.

    “And may there be no sadness of farewell
             When I embark.
    For though when from out our bourne of Time and Place
             The flood may bear me far,
    I hope to see my Pilot face to face
             When I have crossed the bar.’

Those exquisite lines of Lord Tennyson’s 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.

                                * * * * *

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.

                                * * * * *

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.

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.

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 and strictly private manner,” should be strictly adhered to, as it
was.

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.”

                    [Picture: Charles Dickens’ Grave]

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 the Atlantic, to be placed with our own
flowers on that dear grave; and it is twenty-six years now since my
father died!

And for his epitaph what better than my father’s own words:

    “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.”

                                 THE END.

                   [Picture: Ex Libris Roxburghe Press]



Footnotes:


{15}  When I write about my aunt, or “Auntie,” as no doubt I may often
have occasion to do, it is of the aunt _par excellence_, 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.”





*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "My Father as I Recall Him" ***

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