What I Remember, Volume 2

by Thomas Adolphus Trollope

But it is impossible for one who knew him as I did to confine what he remembers of him either to traits of outward appearance or to appreciations of his genius. I must say a few, a very few words of what Dickens appeared to me as a man. I think that an epithet, which, much and senselessly as it has been misapplied and degraded, is yet, when rightly used, perhaps the grandest that can be applied to a human being, was especially applicable to him. He was a hearty man, a large-hearted man that is to say. He was perhaps the largest-hearted man I ever knew. I think he made a nearer approach to obeying the divine precept, "Love thy neighbour as thyself," than one man in a hundred thousand. His benevolence, his active, energising desire for good to all God's creatures, and restless anxiety to be in some way active for the achieving of it, were unceasing and busy in his heart ever and always.

But he had a sufficient capacity for a virtue, which, I think, seems to be moribund among us—the virtue of moral indignation. Men and their actions were not all much of a muchness to him. There was none of the indifferentism of that pseudo-philosophic moderation, which, when a scoundrel or a scoundrelly action is on the tapis, hints that there is much to be said on both sides. Dickens hated a mean action or a mean sentiment as one hates something that is physically loathsome to the sight and touch. And he could be angry, as those with whom he had been angry did not very readily forget.

And there was one other aspect of his moral nature, of which I am reminded by an observation which Mr. Forster records as having been made by Mrs. Carlyle. "Light and motion flashed from every part of it [his face]. It was as if made of steel." The first part of the phrase is true and graphic enough, but the image offered by the last words appears to me a singularly infelicitous one. There was nothing of the hardness or of the (moral) sharpness of steel about the expression of Dickens's face and features. Kindling mirth and genial fun were the expressions which those who casually met him in society were habituated to find there, but those who knew him well knew also well that a tenderness, gentle and sympathetic as that of a woman, was a mood that his surely never "steely" face could express exquisitely, and did express frequently.

I used to see him very frequently in his latter years. I generally came to London in the summer, and one of the first things on my list was a visit to 20, Wellington Street. Then would follow sundry other visits and meetings—to Tavistock House, to Gadshill, at Verey's in Regent Street, a place he much patronised, &c., &c. I remember one day meeting Chauncy Hare Townsend at Tavistock House and thinking him a very singular and not particularly agreeable man. Edwin Landseer I remember dined there the same day. But he had been a friend of my mother's, and was my acquaintance of long long years before.

Of course we had much and frequent talk about Italy, and I may say that our ideas and opinions, and especially feelings on that subject, were always, I think, in unison. Our agreement respecting English social and political matters was less perfect. But I think that it would have become more nearly so had his life been prolonged as mine has been. And the approximation would, if I am not much mistaken, have been brought about by a movement of mind on his part, which already I think those who knew him best will agree with me in thinking had commenced. We differed on many points of politics. But there is one department of English social life—one with which I am probably more intimately acquainted than with any other, and which has always been to me one of much interest—our public school system, respecting which our agreement was complete. And I cannot refrain from quoting. The opinion which he expresses is as true as if he had, like me, an eight years' experience of the system he is speaking of. And the passage, which I am about to give, is very remarkable as an instance of the singular acumen, insight, and power of sympathy which enabled him to form so accurately correct an opinion on a matter of which he might be supposed to know nothing.

"In July," says Mr. Forster, writing of the year 1858-9, "he took earnest part in the opening efforts on behalf of the Royal Dramatic College, which he supplemented later by a speech for the establishment of schools for actors' children, in which he took occasion to declare his belief that there were no institutions in England so socially liberal as its public schools, and that there was nowhere in the country so complete an absence of servility to mere rank, position, and riches. 'A boy there'" (Mr. Forster here quotes Dickens's own words) "'is always what his abilities and personal qualities make him. We may differ about the curriculum and other matters, but of the frank, free, manly, independent spirit preserved in our public schools I apprehend there can be no kind of question.'"

I have in my possession a great number of letters from Dickens, some of which might probably have been published in the valuable collection of his letters published by his sister-in-law and eldest daughter had they been get-at-able at the time when they might have been available for that publication.[1] But I was at Rome, and the letters were safely stowed away in England in such sort that it would have needed a journey to London to get at them.

[Footnote 1: Some of the letters in question—such as I had with me—were sent to London for that purpose. I do not remember now which were and which were not. But if it should be the case that any of those printed here have been printed before, I do not think any reader will object to having them again brought under his eye.]

I was for several years a frequent contributor to Household Words, my contributions for the most part consisting of what I considered tit-bits from the byways of Italian history, which the persevering plough of my reading turned up from time to time.

In one case I remember the article was sent "to order," I was dining with him after I had just had all the remaining hairs on my head made to stand on end by the perusal of the officially published Manual for Confessors, as approved by superior authority for the dioceses of Tuscany. I was full of the subject, and made, I fancy, the hairs of some who sat at table with me stand on end also. Dickens said, with nailing forefinger levelled at me, "Give us that for Household Words. Give it us just as you have now been telling it to us"—which I accordingly did. Whether the publication of that article was in anywise connected with the fact that when I wished to purchase a second copy of that most extraordinary work I was told that it was out of print, and not to be had, I do not know. Of course it was kept as continually in print as the Latin Grammar, for the constant use of the class for whom it was provided, and who most assuredly could not have found their way safely through the wonderful intricacies of the Confessional without it. And equally, of course, the publishers of so largely-circulated a work did not succeed in preventing me from obtaining a second copy of it.