[203] Here is another picture of Regiments in the Streets of which the date is the 30th of January. "It was cold this afternoon, as bright as Italy, and these Elysian Fields crowded with carriages, riders, and foot passengers. All the fountains were playing, all the Heavens shining. Just as I went out at 4 o'clock, several regiments that had passed out at the Barrière in the morning to exercise in the country, came marching back, in the straggling French manner, which is far more picturesque and real than anything you can imagine in that way. Alternately great storms of drums played, and then the most delicious and skilful bands, 'Trovatore' music, 'Barber of Seville' music, all sorts of music with well-marked melody and time. All bloused Paris (led by the Inimitable, and a poor cripple who works himself up and down all day in a big wheeled car) went at quick march down the avenue, in a sort of hilarious dance. If the colours with the golden eagle on the top had only been unfurled, we should have followed them anywhere, in any cause—much as the children follow Punches in the better cause of Comedy. Napoleon on the top of the Column seemed up to the whole thing, I thought."
[204] Apropos of this, I may mention that the little shaggy white terrier who came with him from America, so long a favourite in his household, had died of old age a few weeks before (5th of Oct. 1855) in Boulogne.
[205] "We have wet weather here—and dark too for these latitudes—and oceans of mud. Although numbers of men are perpetually scooping and sweeping it away in this thoroughfare, it accumulates under the windows so fast, and in such sludgy masses, that to get across the road is to get half over one's shoes in the first outset of a walk." . . . "It is difficult," he added (20th of Jan.) "to picture the change made in this place by the removal of the paving stones (too ready for barricades), and macadamization. It suits neither the climate nor the soil. We are again in a sea of mud. One cannot cross the road of the Champs Elysées here, without being half over one's boots." A few more days brought a welcome change. "Three days ago the weather changed here in an hour, and we have had bright weather and hard frost ever since. All the mud disappeared with marvellous rapidity, and the sky became Italian. Taking advantage of such a happy change, I started off yesterday morning (for exercise and meditation) on a scheme I have taken into my head, to walk round the walls of Paris. It is a very odd walk, and will make a good description. Yesterday I turned to the right when I got outside the Barrière de l'Etoile, walked round the wall till I came to the river, and then entered Paris beyond the site of the Bastille. To-day I mean to turn to the left when I get outside the Barrière, and see what comes of that."
[206] This was much the tone of Edwin Landseer also, whose praise of Horace Vernet was nothing short of rapture; and how well I remember the humour of his description of the Emperor on the day when the prizes were given, and, as his old friend the great painter came up, the comical expression in his face that said plainly "What a devilish odd thing this is altogether, isn't it?" composing itself to gravity as he took Edwin by the hand, and said in cordial English "I am very glad to see you." He stood, Landseer told us, in a recess so arranged as to produce a clear echo of every word he said, and this had a startling effect. In the evening of that day Dickens, Landseer, Boxall, Leslie "and three others" dined together in the Palais Royal.
[207] The framework for this sketch was a graphic description, also done by Dickens, of the celebrated Charity at Rochester founded in the sixteenth century by Richard Watts, "for six poor travellers, who, not being Rogues or Proctors, may receive gratis for one night, lodging, entertainment, and fourpence each." A quaint monument to Watts is the most prominent object on the wall of the south-west transept of the cathedral, and underneath it is now placed a brass thus inscribed: "Charles Dickens. Born at Portsmouth, seventh of February 1812. Died at Gadshill Place by Rochester, ninth of June 1870. Buried in Westminster Abbey. To connect his memory with the scenes in which his earliest and his latest years were passed, and with the associations of Rochester Cathedral and its neighbourhood which extended over all his life, this Tablet, with the sanction of the Dean and Chapter, is placed by his Executors."
[208] So curious a contrast, taking Copperfield for the purpose, I have thought worth giving in fac-simile; and can assure the reader that the examples taken express very fairly the general character of the Notes to the two books respectively.
[209] In the same letter was an illustration of the ruling passion in death, which, even in so undignified a subject, might have interested Pope. "You remember little Wieland who did grotesque demons so well. Did you ever hear how he died? He lay very still in bed with the life fading out of him—suddenly sprung out of it, threw what is professionally called a flip-flap, and fell dead on the floor."
[210] One of its incidents made such an impression on him that it will be worth while to preserve his description of it. "I have been (by mere accident) seeing the serpents fed to-day, with the live birds, rabbits, and guinea pigs—a sight so very horrible that I cannot get rid of the impression, and am, at this present, imagining serpents coming up the legs of the table, with their infernal flat heads, and their tongues like the Devil's tail (evidently taken from that model, in the magic lanterns and other such popular representations), elongated for dinner. I saw one small serpent, whose father was asleep, go up to a guinea pig (white and yellow, and with a gentle eye—every hair upon him erect with horror); corkscrew himself on the tip of his tail; open a mouth which couldn't have swallowed the guinea pig's nose; dilate a throat which wouldn't have made him a stocking; and show him what his father meant to do with him when he came out of that ill-looking Hookah into which he had resolved himself. The guinea pig backed against the side of the cage—said 'I know it, I know it!'—and his eye glared and his coat turned wiry, as he made the remark. Five small sparrows crouching together in a little trench at the back of the cage, peeped over the brim of it, all the time; and when they saw the guinea pig give it up, and the young serpent go away looking at him over about two yards and a quarter of shoulder, struggled which should get into the innermost angle and be seized last. Everyone of them then hid his eyes in another's breast, and then they all shook together like dry leaves—as I daresay they may be doing now, for old Hookah was as dull as laudanum. . . . Please to imagine two small serpents, one beginning on the tail of a white mouse, and one on the head, and each pulling his own way, and the mouse very much alive all the time, with the middle of him madly writhing."
[211] There was a situation in the Frozen Deep where Richard Wardour, played by Dickens, had thus to carry about Frank Aldersley in the person of Wilkie Collins.
[212] The mention of a performance of Lord Lytton's Money at the theatre will supply the farce to this tragedy. "I have rarely seen anything finer than Lord Glossmore, a chorus-singer in bluchers, drab trowsers, and a brown sack; and Dudley Smooth, in somebody else's wig, hindside before. Stout also, in anything he could lay hold of. The waiter at the club had an immense moustache, white trowsers, and a striped jacket; and he brought everybody who came in, a vinegar-cruet. The man who read the will began thus: 'I so-and-so, being of unsound mind but firm in body . . .' In spite of all this, however, the real character, humour, wit, and good writing of the comedy, made themselves apparent; and the applause was loud and repeated, and really seemed genuine. Its capital things were not lost altogether. It was succeeded by a Jockey Dance by five ladies, who put their whips in their mouths and worked imaginary winners up to the float—an immense success."