[239] If space were available here, his letters would supply many proofs of his interest in Mr. George Moore's admirable projects; but I can only make exception for his characteristic allusion to an incident that tickled his fancy very much at the time. "I hope" (20th of Aug. 1863) "you have been as much amused as I am by the account of the Bishop of Carlisle at (my very particular friend's) Mr. George Moore's schools? It strikes me as the funniest piece of weakness I ever saw, his addressing those unfortunate children concerning Colenso. I cannot get over the ridiculous image I have erected in my mind, of the shovel-hat and apron holding forth, at that safe distance, to that safe audience. There is nothing so extravagant in Rabelais, or so satirically humorous in Swift or Voltaire."
[240] Eight years later he wrote "Holiday Romance" for a Child's Magazine published by Mr. Fields, and "George Silverman's Explanation"—of the same length, and for the same price. There are no other such instances, I suppose, in the history of literature.
[241] "You will be grieved," he wrote (Saturday 19th of Nov. 1859) "to hear of poor Stone. On Sunday he was not well. On Monday, went to Dr. Todd, who told him he had aneurism of the heart. On Tuesday, went to Dr. Walsh, who told him he hadn't. On Wednesday I met him in a cab in the Square here, and he got out to talk to me. I walked about with him a little while at a snail's pace, cheering him up; but when I came home, I told them that I thought him much changed, and in danger. Yesterday at 2 o'clock he died of spasm of the heart. I am going up to Highgate to look for a grave for him."
[242] He was now hard at work on his story; and a note written from Gadshill after the funeral shows, what so frequently was incident to his pursuits, the hard conditions under which sorrow, and its claim on his exertion, often came to him. "To-morrow I have to work against time and tide and everything else, to fill up a No. keeping open for me, and the stereotype plates of which must go to America on Friday. But indeed the enquiry into poor Alfred's affairs; the necessity of putting the widow and children somewhere; the difficulty of knowing what to do for the best; and the need I feel under of being as composed and deliberate as I can be, and yet of not shirking or putting off the occasion that there is for doing a duty; would have brought me back here to be quiet, under any circumstances."
[243] The same letter adds: "The fourth edition of Great Expectations is now going to press; the third being nearly out. Bulwer's story keeps us up bravely. As well as we can make out, we have even risen fifteen hundred."
[244] "There was a very touching thing in the Chapel" (at Brompton). "When the body was to be taken up and carried to the grave, there stepped out, instead of the undertaker's men with their hideous paraphernalia, the men who had always been with the two brothers at the Egyptian Hall; and they, in their plain, decent, own mourning clothes, carried the poor fellow away. Also, standing about among the gravestones, dressed in black, I noticed every kind of person who had ever had to do with him—from our own gas man and doorkeepers and billstickers, up to Johnson the printer and that class of man. The father and Albert and he now lie together, and the grave, I suppose, will be no more disturbed I wrote a little inscription for the stone, and it is quite full."
[245] Of his former manager he writes in the same letter: "I miss him dreadfully. The sense I used to have of compactness and comfort about me while I was reading, is quite gone; and on my coming out for the ten minutes, when I used to find him always ready for me with something cheerful to say, it is forlorn. . . . Besides which, H. and all the rest of them are always somewhere, and he was always everywhere."
[246] The more detailed account of the scene which he wrote to his daughter is also well worth giving. "A most tremendous hall here last night. Something almost terrible in the cram. A fearful thing might have happened. Suddenly, when they were all very still over Smike, my Gas Batten came down, and it looked as if the room were falling. There were three great galleries crammed to the roof, and a high steep flight of stairs; and a panic must have destroyed numbers of people. A lady in the front row of stalls screamed, and ran out wildly towards me, and for one instant there was a terrible wave in the crowd. I addressed that lady, laughing (for I knew she was in sight of everybody there), and called out as if it happened every night—'There's nothing the matter I assure you; don't be alarmed; pray sit down——' and she sat down directly, and there was a thunder of applause. It took some five minutes to mend, and I looked on with my hands in my pockets; for I think if I had turned my back for a moment, there might still have been a move. My people were dreadfully alarmed—Boycott" (the gas-man) "in particular, who I suppose had some notion that the whole place might have taken fire—'but there stood the master,' he did me the honour to say afterwards, in addressing the rest, 'as cool as ever I see him a lounging at a Railway Station.'"
[247] The letter referred also to the death of his American friend Professor Felton. "Your mention of poor Felton's death is a shock of surprise as well as grief to me, for I had not heard a word about it. Mr. Fields told me when he was here that the effect of that hotel disaster of bad drinking water had not passed away; so I suppose, as you do, that he sank under it. Poor dear Felton! It is 20 years since I told you of the delight my first knowledge of him gave me, and it is as strongly upon me to this hour. I wish our ways had crossed a little oftener, but that would not have made it better for us now. Alas! alas! all ways have the same finger-post at the head of them, and at every turning in them."
[248] I give the letter in which he put the scheme formally before me, after the renewed and larger offers had been submitted. "If there were reasonable hope and promise, I could make up my mind to go to Australia and get money. I would not accept the Australian people's offer. I would take no money from them; would bind myself to nothing with them; but would merely make them my agents at such and such a per centage, and go and read there. I would take some man of literary pretensions as a secretary (Charles Collins? What think you?) and with his aid" (he afterwards made the proposal to his old friend Mr. Thomas Beard) "would do, for All the Year Round while I was away, The Uncommercial Traveller Upside Down. If the notion of these speculators be anything like accurate, I should come back rich. I should have seen a great deal of novelty to boot. I should have been very miserable too. . . . Of course one cannot possibly count upon the money to be realized by a six months' absence, but, £12,000 is supposed to be a low estimate. Mr. S. brought me letters from members of the legislature, newspaper editors, and the like, exhorting me to come, saying how much the people talk of me, and dwelling on the kind of reception that would await me. No doubt this is so, and of course a great deal of curious experience for after use would be gained over and above the money. Being my own master too, I could 'work' myself more delicately than if I bound myself for money beforehand. A few years hence, if all other circumstances were the same, I might not be so well fitted for the excessive wear and tear. This is about the whole case. But pray do not suppose that I am in my own mind favourable to going, or that I have any fancy for going." That was late in October. From Paris in November (1862), he wrote: "I mentioned the question to Bulwer when he dined with us here last Sunday, and he was all for going. He said that not only did he think the whole population would go to the Readings, but that the country would strike me in some quite new aspect for a Book; and that wonders might be done with such book in the way of profit, over there as well as here."