When Mr. Fields came in he repeated, “Mrs. Fields would persuade me he is a man easy to communicate with, sympathetic and accessible to his friends; but her eyes do not see clearly in this matter, I am sure.” “Look for yourself, dear Mr. Emerson,” I answered, laughing, “and then report to me afterward.”
While we were enjoying ourselves in this way, a great change has come to the country. The telegram arrived during the Reading bringing the news of the President’s impeachment, 126 against 47. Since Johnson is to be thrust out, and since another revolution is upon us (Heaven help us that it be a peaceful one), we can only be thankful that the majority is so large. Mr. Dickens’s account of the ability of Johnson, of his apparent integrity and of his present temperance, as contrasted with the present (reported) failures of Grant in this respect, have made me shudder, for I presume Grant is inevitably the next man. Mrs. Agassiz was evidently pleased with the appearance of General Grant and his wife. She liked their repose of manner and ease; but I think this rather a shallow judgment because poise and ease of manner belong to the coarsest natures and to the finest; in the latter it is conquest; and this is why these qualities have so high a place in the esteem of man; but it is likewise the gift of society people who neither feel nor understand the varied natures with whom they come in contact.
Longfellow is at work on a tragedy, of which no words are spoken at present. Today Mr. Dickens does not go out; he is writing letters home. Yesterday he and J. walked seven miles, which is about their average generally....
February 27.—Longfellow’s birthday. Last night Dickens went to a supper at Lowell’s and J. passed the evening with Longfellow. L.’s tragedy comes on apace. He looks to Fechter to help him. Dickens has doubtless done much to quicken him to write. He has two nearly finished in blank verse, both begun since this month came in. J. returned at half-past eleven, bringing an unread newspaper in his pocket which L. had lent him, telling him to read something to me about Dickens and return. Ah me! We could have cried as we read! It was the saddest of sad letters, written at the time the separation from his wife took place. The gentleman to whom he wrote it has died and the letter has stolen into print. I only hope the poor man may never see it.
Tonight he reads “Carol” and “Boots” and sups here with Longfellow afterward.
An entry in Mrs. Fields’s diary about two years later indicates with some clearness that she overestimated the sympathy between Longfellow and Dickens. After a visit from Longfellow, she wrote, May 24, 1870:—
When Mr. L. talks so much and so pleasantly, I am curiously reminded of Dickens’s saying to Forster, who lamented that he did not see Longfellow upon his return to London, “It was not a great loss this time, Forster; he had not a word to say for himself—he was the most embarrassing man in all England!” It is a difference of temperament which will never let those two men come together. They have no handle by which to take hold of each other. Longfellow told a gentleman at his table when J. was present that Dickens saved himself for his books, there was nothing to be learned in private—he never talked!!
To return to Dickens in Boston:—
Sunday, March 1.—What a week we have had! I feel utterly weary this morning, although I did start up with exceeding bravery and walked four miles just after breakfast, in order to see that the flowers were right at church and to ask some people to dinner today who could not, however, come. The air was very keen and exciting and I did not know I was tired until I came back and collapsed. Our supper came off Thursday, but without Dickens. His cold had increased upon him seriously and he was really ill after his long, difficult reading. But Longfellow was perfectly lovely, so easily pleased and so deeply pleased with my little efforts to make this day a festival time. Dickens and Whittier both sent affectionate and graceful notes when they found they really could not come. Our company stayed until two A.M., Emerson never more talkative and good. He is a noble purifier of the social atmosphere, always keeping the talk simple as possible but up to the highest pitch of thought and feeling.