CHAPTER XIII.
DEVONSHIRE TERRACE AND BROADSTAIRS.
1840.
A Good Saying—Landor mystified—The Mirthful Side of Dickens—Extravagant Flights—Humorous Despair—Riding Exercise—First of the Ravens—The Groom Topping—The Smoky Chimneys—Juryman at an Inquest—Practical Humanity—Publication of Clock's First Number—Transfer of Barnaby settled—A True Prediction—Revisiting Old Scenes—C. D. to Chapman & Hall—Terms of Sale of Barnaby—A Gift to a Friend—Final Escape from Bondage—Published Libels about him—Said to be demented—To be insane and turned Catholic—Begging Letter-Writers—A Donkey asked for—Mr. Kindheart—Friendly Meetings—Social Talk—Reconciling Friends—Hint for judging Men.
It was an excellent saying of the first Lord Shaftesbury, that, seeing every man of any capacity holds within himself two men, the wise and the foolish, each of them ought freely to be allowed his turn; and it was one of the secrets of Dickens's social charm that he could, in strict accordance with this saying, allow each part of him its turn; could afford thoroughly to give rest and relief to what was serious in him, and, when the time came to play his gambols, could surrender himself wholly to the enjoyment of the time, and become the very genius and embodiment of one of his own most whimsical fancies.
Turning back from the narrative of his last piece of writing to recall a few occurrences of the year during which it had occupied him, I find him at its opening in one of these humorous moods, and another friend, with myself, enslaved by its influence. "What on earth does it all mean?" wrote poor puzzled Mr. Landor to me, inclosing a letter from him of the date of the 11th of February, the day after the royal nuptials of that year. In this he had related to our old friend a wonderful hallucination arising out of that event, which had then taken entire possession of him. "Society is unhinged here," thus ran the letter, "by her majesty's marriage, and I am sorry to add that I have fallen hopelessly in love with the Queen, and wander up and down with vague and dismal thoughts of running away to some uninhabited island with a maid of honor, to be entrapped by conspiracy for that purpose. Can you suggest any particular young person, serving in such a capacity, who would suit me? It is too much perhaps to ask you to join the band of noble youths (Forster is in it, and Maclise) who are to assist me in this great enterprise, but a man of your energy would be invaluable. I have my eye upon Lady . . . , principally because she is very beautiful and has no strong brothers. Upon this, and other points of the scheme, however, we will confer more at large when we meet; and meanwhile burn this document, that no suspicion may arise or rumor get abroad."
The maid of honor and the uninhabited island were flights of fancy, but the other daring delusion was for a time encouraged to such whimsical lengths, not alone by him, but (under his influence) by the two friends named, that it took the wildest forms of humorous extravagance; and of the private confidences much interchanged, as well as of the style of open speech in which our joke of despairing unfitness for any further use or enjoyment of life was unflaggingly kept up, to the amazement of bystanders knowing nothing of what it meant, and believing we had half lost our senses, I permit myself to give from his letters one further illustration. "I am utterly lost in misery," he writes to me on the 12th of February, "and can do nothing. I have been reading Oliver, Pickwick, and Nickleby to get my thoughts together for the new effort, but all in vain:
"My heart is at Windsor,
My heart isn't here;
My heart is at Windsor.
A following my dear.