A brief mention of certain public and private institutions in London having more or less informal associations with Dickens will form a fitting conclusion to the present chapter.
THE OFFICE OF “HOUSEHOLD WORDS,” WELLINGTON STREET, STRAND. ([Page 80].)
The principal entrance was where the centre window on the ground floor is shown.
The building is now demolished.
In 1838 the author of “Pickwick” (then lately completed) was elected a member of the Athenæum Club, his sponsor being Mr. Serjeant Storks, and continued his membership of that very exclusive confraternity for the rest of his life. The late Rev. F. G. Waugh, author of a booklet on the Athenæum Club, did not think that Dickens considered himself a popular member, probably because he seldom spoke to anyone unless previously addressed. When not taking his sandwich standing, his usual seat in the coffee-room was the table on the east side of the room, just south of the fireplace. “I believe,” says Mr. Waugh, in a letter to the present writer, “the last letter he wrote from here was to his son, who did not receive it till after his father’s death.” The club, which preserves the novelist’s favourite chair, was the scene, too, of a happy incident—the reconciliation of Thackeray and Dickens after a period of strained relationship. This occurred only a few days before the death of the author of “Vanity Fair,” when the two great writers, meeting by accident in the lobby of the club, suddenly turned and saw each other, “and the unrestrained impulse of both was to hold out the hand of forgiveness and fellowship.”
“... In the hall, that trysting-place,
Two severed friends meet face to face:
’Tis Boz and Makepeace, good and true
(‘Behind the coats,’ hats not a few).
A start, and both uncertain stand;
Then each has clasped the other’s hand!”[47]