Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography | Page 7

the separation from whom threw a strange, sad
shadow over his home. How handsome he was then! With his deep,
dark, lustrous eyes, that you saw yourself in, and the merry mouth
wreathed with laughter, and the luxuriant mass of dark hair that he
wore in a sort of stack over his lofty forehead! He had a slight lisp in
his pleasant voice, and ran on in rapid talk for an hour, with a shy
reluctance to talk about his own works, but with the most
superabounding vivacity I have ever met with in any man. His two
daughters, one of whom afterward married the younger Collins, a
brother novelist, were then schoolgirls of eight and ten years, came in,
with books in their hands, to give their father a good-morning kiss.
After parting with him, when I had reached his gate, he called after me

in a very loud voice, "If you see Mrs. Lucretia Mott, tell her that I have
not forgotten the slave." His "American Notes" appeared the next week.
There were some things in that hasty and faulty volume for which I
sent him a cordial note of thanks, and I speedily received the following
characteristic reply, which I still prize as a precious relic of the man:
I DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, REGENTS PARK, Oct. 26th, 1842.
MY DEAR SIR:--I am heartily obliged to you for your frank and manly
letter. I shall always remember it in connection with my American
book; and never--believe me--save in the foremost rank of its pleasant
and honorable associations. Let me subscribe myself, as I really am
Faithfully your Friend,
CHARLES DICKENS.
Mr. Theodore Ledyard Cuyler.
I hold that Dickens was the most original genius in our fictitious
literature since the days of Walter Scott. As a social reformer his fame
is quite as great as it is as a master of romance. His pen was mighty to
the pulling down of many a social abuse, and from the loving kindness
of his writings has been got many an inspiration to deeds of charity.
But how could a man who went so far as he did go no further? How
could the reformer who struck at so many social wrongs spare that
hideous fountain-head of misery in London, the dram-shop? And how
could he descend to scurrilously satirize all societies formed for the
promotion of temperance? A still greater marvel is that so kind-hearted
a man as Mr. Dickens, who sought honestly the amelioration of the
condition of his fellow-men, could utterly ignore the transforming
power of Christianity. He did not cast contempt on the Bible, and never
soiled his pages with infidelity, neither did he ever enlighten, and warm
and vivify them with evangelical uplifting truth. Only a few feet of
earth separate the grave of Charles Dickens from the grave of William
Wilberforce. Both loved their fellow-men; but the great difference
between them was that one of them invoked the spiritual power of the
Gospel of Christ, which the other lamentably ignored.

CHAPTER III
GREAT BRITAIN SIXTY YEARS AGO (_Continued_)
_Carlyle--Mrs. Baillie--The Young Queen--Napoleon_
One of the lions of whom I was in pursuit was Thomas Carlyle. Very
few Americans at that time had ever seen him, for he lived a very
secluded and laborious life in a little brick house at Chelsea, in the
southwest of London; and he rarely kept open doors. His life was the
opposite to that of Dickens and Macaulay, and he was never lionized,
except when he went to Edinburgh to deliver his address before the
University, years afterwards. I sent him a note in which I informed him
of the enthusiastic admiration which we college students felt for him,
and that I desired to call and pay him my respects. To my note he
responded promptly: "You will be welcome to-morrow at three o'clock,
the hour when I become accessible in my garret here." I found his
"garret" to be a comfortable front room on the second floor of his
modest home. It was well lined with books, and a portrait of Oliver
Cromwell hung behind his study chair. He was seated at his table with
a huge German volume open before him. His greeting was very hearty,
but, with a comical look of surprise, he said in broad Scotch: "You are
a verra young mon." I told him of the appetite we college boys had for
his books, and he assured me at once that while he had met some of our
eminent literary men he had never happened to meet a college boy
before. "Your Mr. Longfellow," said he, "called to see me yesterday.
He is a man skilled in the tongues. Your own name I see is Dootch. The
word 'Cuyler' means a delver, or one who digs underground. You must