Life of Charles Dickens | Page 2

foresees money embarrassments; publishes the
admirable "Christmas Carol" at Christmas, 1843; and determines to go
for a space to Italy 84

CHAPTER VIII.
Journey through France; Genoa; the Italy of 1844; Dickens charmed
with its untidy picturesqueness; he is idle for a few weeks; his palace at
Genoa; he sets to work upon "The Chimes"; gets passionately
interested in the little book; travels through Italy to read it to his friends
in London; reads it on December 2, 1844; is soon back again in Italy;
returns to London in the summer of 1845; on January 21, 1846, starts
_The Daily News_; holds the post of editor three weeks; "Pictures from
Italy" first published in Daily News 93

CHAPTER IX.
Dickens as an amateur actor and stage-manager; he goes to Lausanne in
May, 1846, and begins "Dombey"; has great difficulty in getting on
without streets; the "Battle of Life" written; "Dombey"; its pathos;
pride the subject of the book; reality of the characters; Dickens'
treatment of partial insanity; M. Taine's false criticism thereon; Dickens

in Paris in the winter of 1846-7; private theatricals again; the "Haunted
Man"; "David Copperfield" begun in May, 1849; it marks the
culminating point in Dickens' career as a writer; Household Words
started on March 30, 1850; character of that periodical and its successor,
_All the Year Round_; domestic sorrows cloud the opening of the year
1851; Dickens moves in same year from Devonshire Terrace to
Tavistock House, and begins "Bleak House"; story of the novel; its
Chancery episodes; Dickens is overworked and ill, and finds pleasant
quarters at Boulogne 102

CHAPTER X.
Dickens gives his first public (not paid) readings in December, 1853;
was it _infra dig._ that he should read for money? he begins his paid
readings in April, 1858; reasons for their success; care bestowed on
them by the reader; their dramatic character; Carlyle's opinion of them;
how the tones of Dickens' voice linger in the memory of one who heard
him 121

CHAPTER XI.
"Hard Times" commenced in Household Words for April 1, 1854; it is
an attack on the "hard fact" school of philosophers; what Macaulay and
Mr. Ruskin thought of it; the Russian war of 1854-5, and the cry for
"Administrative Reform"; Dickens in the thick of the movement;
"Little Dorrit" and the "Circumlocution Office"; character of Mr. Dorrit
admirably drawn; Dickens is in Paris from December, 1855, to May,
1856; he buys Gad's Hill Place; it becomes his hobby; unfortunate
relations with his wife; and separation in May 1858; lying rumours;
how these stung Dickens through his honourable pride in the love
which the public bore him; he publishes an indignant protest in
_Household Words_; and writes an unjustifiable letter 126

CHAPTER XII.
"The Tale of Two Cities," a story of the great French Revolution; Phiz's
connection with Dickens' works comes to an end; his art and that of
Cruikshank; both too essentially caricaturists of an old school to be
permanently the illustrators of Dickens; other illustrators; "Great
Expectations"; its story and characters; "Our Mutual Friend" begun in
May, 1864; a complicated narrative; Dickens' extraordinary sympathy
for Eugene Wrayburn; generally his sympathies are so entirely right;
which explains why his books are not vulgar; he himself a man of great
real refinement 139

CHAPTER XIII.
Dickens' health begins to fail; he is much shaken by an accident in June,
1865; but bates no jot of his high courage, and works on at his readings;
sails for America on a reading tour in November, 1867; is wretchedly
ill, and yet continues to read day after day; comes back to England, and
reads on; health failing more and more; reading has to be abandoned
for a time; begins to write his last and unfinished book, "Edwin Drood";
except health all seems well with him; on June 8, 1870, he works at his
book nearly all day; at dinner time is struck down; dies on the
following day, June the 9th; is buried in Westminster Abbey among his
peers; nor will his fame suffer eclipse 149
INDEX 163

LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS.

CHAPTER I.

Education is a kind of lottery in which there are good and evil chances,
and some men draw blanks and other men draw prizes. And in saying
this I do not use the word education in any restricted sense, as applying
exclusively to the course of study in school or college; nor certainly,
when I speak of prizes, am I thinking of scholarships, exhibitions,
fellowships. By education I mean the whole set of circumstances which
go to mould a man's character during the apprentice years of his life;
and I call that a prize when those circumstances have been such as to
develop the man's powers to the utmost, and to fit him to do