He was evidently overstrained and was only kept going by stimulants. He wrote to Miss Dickens (29th March 1868): “I have coughed from two or three in the morning until five or six, and have been absolutely sleepless. I have had no appetite besides, and no taste.”
And again, to the same correspondent, he writes that he has established this system:—“At seven in the morning (in bed) a tumbler of new cream and two tablespoonfuls of rum. At twelve, a sherry cobbler and a biscuit. At three (dinner-time) a pint of champagne. At five minutes to eight, an egg beaten up in a glass of sherry. Between the parts, the strongest beef-tea that can be made, drunk hot. At quarter past ten, soup, and anything to drink that I can fancy. . . . Dolby is as tender as a woman and as watchful as a doctor” (2nd April 1868).
On the return voyage he was asked to read, and “I respectfully replied that sooner than do it, I would assault the captain, and be put in irons.”
When he arrived at home the two Newfoundland dogs behaved exactly as usual: this may remind us
of another C.D. My father used to tell us how, after his five years’ voyage in the Beagle, he went into the yard at his Shrewsbury home and whistled in a particular way, and the dog came for a walk as if he had done the same thing the day before. Two of Dickens’ dogs were, however, greatly excited: the faithful Mrs Bouncer being one of them.
A letter to Cerjat (1868) gives an echo from the great railway accident in which Dickens had so lucky an escape:—
“My escape in the Staplehurst accident of three years ago is not to be obliterated from my nervous system. To this hour I have sudden vague rushes of terror, even when riding [228] in a hansom cab, which are perfectly unreasonable but quite insurmountable. I used to make nothing of driving a pair of horses habitually through the most crowded parts of London. I cannot now drive, with comfort myself, on the country roads here; and I doubt if I could ride at all in the saddle.”
In 1866 he consulted Dr Beard about symptoms of grave significance. And in 1869 Beard went down to Preston and put a stop to a projected reading, and ruled, with the approval of Sir Thomas Watson, that anything like a reading tour must be finally stopped.
In January and March 1870, he was working at Edwin Drood, his unfinished book. He gave some farewell readings, and his last public appearance was at the Royal Academy dinner, where he spoke of Maclise.
His daughter has given a touching account of his death. He was at Gad’s Hill on 30th May 1870 at work over Edwin Drood, but there was “an appearance of fatigue and weariness about him very unlike his usual air of fresh activity.”