have felt, as I did, what a thing it is to have power.”
In 1845 we hear of private theatricals for the first time, when Dickens writes to Cattermole about taking a part in Every Man in his Humour. On a similar occasion in 1850 a master carpenter from one of the theatres said, “Ah, sir, it’s a universal observation in the profession, sir, that it was a great loss to the public when you took to writing books.”
In 1847 we hear of more acting, Every Man in his Humour being given again for the benefit of Leigh Hunt, with the help of George Cruickshank, George Henry Lewes, and Augustus Egg, as new members of the Company (i., p. 177).
In 1846 he gave up all connection with the Daily News, which he had rashly agreed to edit. He went to Switzerland, taking a villa (Rosemount) there, from May till November. Here he wrote The Battle of Life and began Dombey. It was here that he made friends of M. de Cerjat, Mr Haldimand, and of Hon. Richard and Mrs Watson of Rockingham Castle, to whom he afterwards dedicated his favourite book, David Copperfield.
It was at this time, too, that was founded his friendship with W. H. Wills, who became an assistant in editing All the Year Round, and in other ways.
In March 1846 he wrote to Wills:—“Tell Powell . . . that he needn’t ‘deal with’ the American notices of the Cricket. I never read one word of their abuse, and I should think it base to read their praises.”
He wrote, 27th November 1846, to Mr Watson (from Paris):—“We are lodged at last in the most
preposterous house in the world. . . . The bedrooms are like opera-boxes. The dining-rooms, stair-cases, and passages, quite inexplicable. . . . There is a gleam of reason in the drawing-room. But it is approached through a series of small chambers, like the joints of a telescope, which are hung with inscrutable drapery.”
Later impressions of Paris (1855–56) may find a place here. “A man who brought some little vases home last night said, ‘On connait bien en France, que Monsieur Dick-in prend sa position sur la dignité de la littérature. Ah! c’est grande chose! Et ces caractères sont si spirituellement tournées! Cette Madame Tojare (Todgers), ah! qu’elle est drôle et précisément comme une dame que je connais à Calais.’”
In the winter of 1856 he wrote:—“I met Madame Georges Sands the other day at a dinner got up by Madame Viardot. . . . The human mind cannot conceive anyone more astonishing opposed to all my preconceptions. If I had been shown her in a state of repose, and asked what I thought her to be, I should have said: ‘The Queen’s monthly nurse.’ Au reste, she has nothing of the bas bleu about her, and is very quiet and agreeable.”