[280] Here is the newspaper account: "At about five o'clock on Saturday the hosts began to assemble, but at 5.30 news was received that the expected guest had succumbed to a painful affection of the foot. In a short time, however, another bulletin announced Mr. Dickens's intention to attend the dinner at all hazards. At a little after six, having been assisted up the stairs, he was joined by Mr. Greeley, and the hosts forming in two lines silently permitted the distinguished gentlemen to pass through. Mr. Dickens limped perceptibly; his right foot was swathed, and he leaned heavily on the arm of Mr. Greeley. He evidently suffered great pain."
[281] "I think I shall be pretty correct in both places as to the run being on the Final readings. We had an immense house here" (Edinburgh, 12th of December) "last night, and a very large turnaway. But Glasgow being shady and the charges very great, it will be the most we can do, I fancy, on these first Scotch readings, to bring the Chappells safely home (as to them) without loss."
[282] The close of the letter has an amusing picture which I may be excused for printing in a note. "The only news that will interest you is that the good-natured Reverdy Johnson, being at an Art Dinner in Glasgow the other night, and falling asleep over the post-prandial speeches (only too naturally), woke suddenly on hearing the name of 'Johnson' in a list of Scotch painters which one of the orators was enumerating; at once plunged up, under the impression that somebody was drinking his health; and immediately, and with overflowing amiability, began returning thanks. The spectacle was then presented to the astonished company, of the American Eagle being restrained by the coat tails from swooping at the moon, while the smaller birds endeavoured to explain to it how the case stood, and the cock robin in possession of the chairman's eye twittered away as hard as he could split. I am told that it was wonderfully droll."
[283] I take from the letter a mention of the effect on a friend. "The night before last, unable to get in, B. had a seat behind the screen, and was nearly frightened off it, by the Murder. Every vestige of colour had left his face when I came off, and he sat staring over a glass of champagne in the wildest way."
[284] In this letter Dickens wrote: "I thank you heartily" (23rd of June 1869) "for your great kindness and interest. It would really pain me if I thought you could seriously doubt my implicit reliance on your professional skill and advice. I feel as certain now as I felt when you came to see me on my breaking down through over fatigue, that the injunction you laid upon me to stop in my course of Readings was necessary and wise. And to its firmness I refer (humanly speaking) my speedy recovery from that moment. I would on no account have resumed, even on the turn of this year, without your sanction. Your friendly aid will never be forgotten by me; and again I thank you for it with all my heart."
[285] In drawing the agreement for the publication, Mr. Ouvry had, by Dickens's wish, inserted a clause thought to be altogether needless, but found to be sadly pertinent. It was the first time such a clause had been inserted in one of his agreements. "That if the said Charles Dickens shall die during the composition of the said work of the Mystery of Edwin Drood, or shall otherwise become incapable of completing the said work for publication in twelve monthly numbers as agreed, it shall be referred to John Forster, Esq, one of Her Majesty's Commissioners in Lunacy, or in the case of his death, incapacity, or refusal to act, then to such person as shall be named by Her Majesty's Attorney-General for the time being, to determine the amount which shall be repaid by the said Charles Dickens, his executors or administrators, to the said Frederic Chapman as a fair compensation for so much of the said work as shall not have been completed for publication." The sum to be paid at once for 25,000 copies was £7500; publisher and author sharing equally in the profit of all sales beyond that impression; and the number reached, while the author yet lived, was 50,000. The sum paid for early sheets to America was £1000; and Baron Tauchnitz paid liberally, as he always did, for his Leipzig reprint. "All Mr. Dickens's works," M. Tauchnitz writes to me, "have been published under agreement by me. My intercourse with him lasted nearly twenty-seven years. The first of his letters dates in October 1843, and his last at the close of March 1870. Our long relations were not only never troubled by the least disagreement, but were the occasion of most hearty personal feeling; and I shall never lose the sense of his kind and friendly nature. On my asking him his terms for Edwin Drood, he replied 'Your terms shall be mine.'"
[286] "I have a very remarkable story indeed for you to read. It is in only two chapters. A thing never to melt into other stories in the mind, but always to keep itself apart." The story was published in the 37th number of the new series of All the Year Round, with the title of "An Experience." The "new series" had been started to break up the too great length of volumes in sequence, and the only change it announced was the discontinuance of Christmas Numbers. He had tired of them himself; and, observing the extent to which they were now copied in all directions (as usual with other examples set by him), he supposed them likely to become tiresome to the public.
[287] The reader curious in such matters will be helped to the clue for much of this portion of the plot by reference to pp. 90, 103, and 109, in Chapters XII, XIII, and XIV.
[288] I subjoin what has been written to me by an American correspondent. "I went lately with the same inspector who accompanied Dickens to see the room of the opium-smokers, old Eliza and her Lascar or Bengalee friend. There a fancy seized me to buy the bedstead which figures so accurately in Edwin Drood, in narrative and picture. I gave the old woman a pound for it, and have it now packed and ready for shipment to New York. Another American bought a pipe. So you see we have heartily forgiven the novelist his pleasantries at our expense. Many military men who came to England from America refuse to register their titles, especially if they be Colonels; all the result of the basting we got on that score in Martin Chuzzlewit."
[289] Mr. Grant Wilson has sent me an extract from a letter by Fitz-Greene Halleck (author of one of the most delightful poems ever written about Burns) which exactly expresses Dickens as he was, not only in 1842, but, as far as the sense of authorship went, all his life. It was addressed to Mrs. Rush of Philadelphia, and is dated the 8th of March 1842. "You ask me about Mr. Boz. I am quite delighted with him. He is a thorough good fellow, with nothing of the author about him but the reputation, and goes through his task as Lion with exemplary grace, patience, and good nature. He has the brilliant face of a man of genius. . . . His writings you know. I wish you had listened to his eloquence at the dinner here. It was the only real specimen of eloquence I have ever witnessed. Its charm was not in its words, but in the manner of saying them."