The New York Herald Newspaper, February 19, 1874, Page 4

4 CHARLES DICKENS. The Story of His Life and Death. His Domestic Difficulties and Sepa- ration from His Wife. HIS SECOND VISIT TO AMERICA. copenncaitii His Impressions of New York, Boston, Phila- delphia, Baltimore and Washington. OLOSING SCENES OF HIS LIFE. ‘Tux Lire OF CHARLES DickENs. By Jonn Forster. Vol. tit, 1862-1570, pp, 952 London: Chap man & Hall. We have received the last and concluding vol- ume of the “Life of Charies Dickens." The com- pletion of this work is the most important literary event since the publication of Moore’s "Life of | Byron.” The volume betore us begins with the ‘writing of “Copperfield” and closes with the death of Dickens. We are sure our readers will gladly accompany us as we (ollow Mr. Forster in contem- Plating the fulfilment and close of the life of the Most famous Englishman o/ this generation, Te 1450, when Dickens dinished “Copperfield,” he ‘Was in the thirty-eighth year of his age, and was al- ready the most celebrated English writer living. ‘Thackeray, as the author of “Vanity Fair” and “Beary Esmond,” might dispute this predom!- Rance, just as George Eliot, with “Adam Bede,” came later to dispute i. But, while Thackeray and George Wliot might satisfy the higher tastes of the ehitivated few, and while in the graver essentials of literary work, philosophy, depth of insight into character and wide range of thought, there is nothing in Dickens to equal Becky Sharp and Adam Bede, still Lis genius Was more in sympathy ‘with the heart of England. He came home to Pnglish-apesking people as BO Man had come since Burns. Like Burns, his inmfuence moved alike the loftiest and the lowliest. His characters be- came proverbs, his stories were upon everg stage, bas fancies embodied themselves tn our language. Even now the writer or the orator finds no surer way of conveying his mearing than to use ‘the name of Pagip or Pecksnif or Micawber. He lived tn am atmosphere of incense. America vied with England in affectionate appreciation when living, and in sorrow when he died. As years go he Wes not an old man when be passed away, and M6 Was in the ripeness of fame. poraries—those who labored with him in the fame cailing—gave litm a praise as hearty as the people. Even literary emulation lost its envy. Thackeray and Bulwer were enthusiastic in com- Mending his werk, and nothing is more eloquent than the words of Cariyle—himseif a master and King, and celebrated long before Dickens was even a reporter for the press—which Mr. Forster quotes in vhis volume, “It is almost thirty years,” says Mr. Cariyle, him began; and on my side I may say every new meeting ripened it into more and more clear dis- cernment of his rare and great worth as a brother man—s most cordial, sincere, clear-sighted, quietly decisive, just and loving man—tull at length he had grown to such s recognition with me asI have rarely had for any man of my time.” “lam profoundly sorry for you, and, indeed, for myself and for us all. [tis an event worla wide, a unique Of talents suddeniy extinct, and has ‘eclipsed,’ we oo May say, ‘the harmless gayety of nature.’ No Geath since 1566 (‘the death of his wie’) has fallen OB me With such a stroke. No literary man’s hitherto ever did. The good, the gentle, high- gifted, ever friendly, noble Dickeus—every inch of Bim af honest map. “COPPERFIELD” AND BLEAK “MOUSE."’ “Copperfield” filled the measure of the fame of Dickens. No book since “Pickwick” had been so Widely read, and there was “the suspicion,” as Mr. Forster remarks, “that underneath the fiction lay Something of the author's life.” “Copperfiela” was followed by “Bleak House,” and we hear interesting stories as to the resemblances between some of the fictions and prominent persons then living. Miss Mowcher appears to bave been a jady in private English life, who com- plained to Dickens of his using her as an illus tration. Mrs. Nickleby was copied from the author's own mother, while Micawber was a por- trait of bis father. We have some queer speeches and sentences from the elder Dickens, which might have been taken from Micawber, “The ban-dogs wouldy shoruy have him at bay,” “He Was about to proceed to Paris to consolidate Augustus’ French,” “The Supreme Being must be apentirely diferent individual irom what I have every reason to believe Him if He would care in the least for the society of your relations.” All this is in the best manner of Micawber. Boythorn, in “Bleak House,” is & portrait of Walter Savage Landor, while Harold Skimpole was sketched from Leigh Hunt. Dickens admits the portrait, and we learn that he softened the picture and changed the name from Leander to Harold in obedience to the representations of Forster and Barry Corn- wall. Leigh Hunt was not aware of the resem- Diance until kind friends pointed it ont, and we Dave a manly letter from Dickens to him en- deavoring to soften the pain occasioned by the delineation. Mr. Forster takes some pains to prove that Dickens did not draw his own char- acter as David Copperfield. No one would have Supposed that he did. The Peggotty group “were the author's own favorite people,” while Mrs, Steerforth was an especial iavorite of Thackeray's, In “Bleak House,” Joe, the wretched boy, was 4 character that {nterested him deeply, and we agree with Mr. Forster that it is one of the most tragic and touching of his creations. A CHRISTMAS PANTOMIME. “Bleak House” was finished, and the death of friends came to darken the days, Watson, whom he loved so well, Mrs. Macready and Count d’Orsay! | “ah, me! Ab, he says, “but this is all a dream, may be, ani death will wake us!” We have merry glimpses ot home life, pleasant to weil apon, thinking of the clouds that came so soon, There Was 4 Cliristmas pantomime tn 1854, in Dickens’ house, Mark Lemon playing as the giantess Glumadulen, 1) ns tie ghost of Gaffer Thumb, under the » bames of Tne Infant Phenomenon and the Mc Garncs, The other parts were played by the children of Lemon and Dickens—one child singing @ ballad about “Miss Villikins,” which made Thackeray “Toil of his seat with laughter." Then, it being Crimean war times, we had Dickens asa testy od Baron, Singing ballads to the children against the Czar of Russia, Merry times, and only twenty years ago! Only twenty years! and Thackeray, Lemon ana Dickens, with their gibes and laaghter, gone into Vue sladows and the night, IDLE DAYS IN PRANCE. “Hard Times” was written, which gave extrava- gant pleasure to Mr. Ruskin, but to 50 cue else, for tt had no \\fe, Then a trip to Italy. and Switzer: jJand and muck roaming on the Continent, al! brill- jantly sketched here in the best vein. Then came three summers at Boulogne, anda pleture of Bue génie, Empress of the Freuch, worth looking at now:—*The Empress was very pretty, and her Blight figure sat capitaiiy on her gray morse, When the Empefor gave her the despated to read (an- nouncing the fall of Sebastopol), ene fasbed and fred up in @ very pleasant way and kissed it with 48 Datural an impulse a8 One could desire to see.” Then “Little Dorris’ and & pilgrimage to Paris, where Dickens lived @ romping, giided life. The acting of Lemaitre strongly impressed uim, and ‘we have bim trying to live cosily in the Rue Balzac quarter of the Champs Elyséea, ana waiking @tound the barriers to see Paris, and sitting for bus pioture to Ary Scherer, “a frank and noble fel- low," and having @ good time with Thackeray, me! ae His gifted contem- | “since my acquaintance with | NEW YORK HERALD, THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 1874~TRIPLE SHEET. Sometimes Sir Alexander Cockburn came with Landseer and Macready and otherago assist in the rleasures of Paria, Much of bis time was given to the theatres. At Scribe’s he dined frequently, one evening mecting Auber, “a stylish little elderly man, rather petulant in manner.” On another oc- casion he discussed De Foe with Lamartine, who complimented him on his French. He meets George Sand, who w unlike his preconceptions, “just the kind of a woman in appearance whom you might suppose to be the Queen's monthly nurse—chiefly matronly, swarthy, black eyed—a& singularly ordinary woman.” Emile de Girardin gave him a banquet of Oriental splendor, which gave him great gratification and which he de- scribes at length to Mr. Forster as though it were @ scene In the “Arabian Niguts."" His description of it, which ue deciares to be strictly prosaic, sounds @ little Oriental, but not inappropriately 80:— “No man anacquainted with my determination never to embellish or (ancify such accounts would be- i shall let of, when we meet, of the three gorgeous olen lieve in the description. Of dining at Eusle Girarnn’s: drawing. rooms, with 10.000 wax candles, in sconces, terminating 10 a dining room of magnificence, with tWo enormous tra Blass doors “in it looking (across an ante, 0 { Tull of clean plates) straight int tchen, with the cooks, in their white paper caps, dish. Ing the dinner, From his seat in the midst of agiantina fairy story) bebolds the kitchen and the snow-white tables, and the profound order and silence there prevailing. Ferth from the plate glass doors issues the banquet—the most wonderful feast ever tasied by mortal. t the present price of trufiles, that article alone costing (for eight people) at least five poundsy On the table are ground glass juzs of peculiar construction, laden with the finest growth of champagne and the coolestice, Wath the third course is issued port wine, (previously unheard of in @ good state on thid ‘Continent) which would fetch two guineas a tt at any sale. The dinner done, Oriental flowers, in vases of golden cobweb, are placed upon the board. With the ice is issued brandy, buried for 100 years. To that succeeds | coffee, brought by the brother of one of the convicts trom the remotest East In exchange for an equal quentity of California gold dust. The company being returned to the | drawing room, tables roll in by unseen agency, laden with cigarettes from the harem of the Sultan, and with cool drinks in which the flavor o1 the lemon arrived yea- terday from Algeria, struggles voluptuously with the deli- cate orange arrived this morning from Lisbon, That period passed’ and the uesty reposing on divans worked with many-colored blossoms, big table rolls in, heavy with massive furniture of silver, and breathing incense in the form of a lit. tle present of tea, direct from China—table and ail, T believe—but cannot swear to it, and am resolved to be rosaic. All this time the ‘host perpetually repeats, ‘Ce petit diner-cl un’ est que pour faire de Monsiour Dickens; ilne compte pas; cen’ est rien.’ And even now I have forgotten to set down half of it—in Particular the item of a far larger plum pudding than was ever seen in England at Ohristinas time, served with acelestial sauce, in color like the orange blossom and in substance ‘like the blossom, powdered and bathed in dew, and called in the carte (carte in a gold frame, like a’ little fish slice, to be handed about), ‘Hommage & Villustre ecrivain d’angieterre.’’ That illustrious man staggered out at the last drawing room door, speechless with wonder finally, and even at that Anoment his host, holding to his lips a chalice set with precious stones and containing nectar distilled from the air that blew over the fields of beans in bloom for fifteen summers, remarked, ‘Le diner que nous avons eu, Mon- sieur, nest rien—lil' ne compte pas—il a ets tout-d-fait en tamille—il faut diner (en verite, dine bientos Au plaisir! Au revoir! Audiner!)"” THE SEPARATION FROM HIS WIFE. When we come to the separation of Mr. Dickens from his wife we cannot but admire the delicacy and reserve with which Mr. Forster treats it. This is the one event-in the life of the illustrious novelist which darkens his fame, We do not sympathize with that morbid and unhealthy senti- ment which gloats over the frailties of men of | genius—the unhappiness of a Byron, a Shake- | speare or @ Milton. Men like these, supremely gifted and richly endowed, have lives apart from the doings and adventures of the mere body. tne table, the host (ik t 1 | t {and always must be “Childe Harold.” But Dickens during his own life called attention to his | sorrows, and, after dismissing his wife and the mother of his children from a home in which she had lived for a quarter of @ century, publicly entreatea the world to justify him in the act, THE BEGINNING OF UNHAPPINESS. Mr. Forster leads us up to the time of separation by a delicate analysis of the novelist’s character. | Despising society and failing to find in his home those satisfactions which the true home life de- mands, a tone of restlessness became apparent | about 1857, Lf Dickens had any social tendencies it | was for those bencatn rather than those above him | in life. This is attributed to defects of temperament coming from early trials and successes, Mastering ; fortune and fame he did not atta renunciation and self-sacrifice. Uu' Copperfield” was finished bis Ife was in ,books, His friend- ships were with the creatures of his rich and marvellous fancy. Combined with habits of singular prevision, method and order, he had an impatience of nature, rushing at enjoyment with- Bond counting ita cost. Alter “Copperfield” his imagination seemed to fail, to wantaspur, While | his subsequent works embodied creations of char- acter and humor as ine as any in his earlier days— Marigold, Lirriper, Pip—he had lost the old | | free and fertile method. So, as Mr. Forster noted, “there came trom time to time intervais of | Unusual impatience and restlessness, strange to | see in connection with his home.” Old pursuits | | were laid aside for new occupations and excite- Ments—political addresses, private theatricals, readings, “strolling, wandering ways,” a craving / tofnd some means by which life might become | easier. This craving called from Forster the re- monstrance of [riendship, and to one of these en- his « treaties we find Dickens, in 1867, saying, sadly:—“I | have no relief but in action. I am become incapa- | ble of rest. [should rust, break and die if I spared myself. Much better to die doing.” Other let- ters breathe strange yearnings. At one time he wishes to live in the Pyrenees for six months. Then he has an idea of living in Switzerland, above the snow line, in “some astonishing convent.” “Am altogether tn & disheveled s f mind—motes of new books in the dirty air.” piness I have missed in life and one tmend and companion I have never made?” Again the “serious idea” of a winter on the top of Mount St. Bernard, with the monks and dogs for a whole winter, Another time his fancy fies to Australia, ouly he wili fn Little Dorrit’ before leaving. “The old days! the o.d days! he moans, “shall I ever, | wonder, get the frame of mind back as it | used to be th * “2 feel that the skeleton in my domestic closet is a pretty big one.” THE CLOUD FALLS. ‘hen came the sorrowful avowal—not altogether Ubexpected, says Mr, Forster, but “a great shock, nevertheless.” “Poor Catherine,” writes Dickens— Catherine being his wife—‘‘and I are not made for each other, aud there is no help forit. Itis not only that she Kes me uneasy and unhappy, but that I make ner so, too, and much more 80. She is exactly What you know in the way of being amiable and complying; bat we are strangely as- sorted for the voud there is between us. God koows she Would have been a thousand times hap- pier if she had married another kind of man, and that her avoidance of this destiny would have been at least equally good for ua both. to the heart by tuts sake, that lever fell in her way.” “Nothing on earth could make ber understand me or suit us to each other. Her temperament will not go with mine.”” “What is now vefalling me I have seen steadily coming since Mary was born, and Il know too weil that you cannot, and no one can, help me.” Again another letter: ~The years have not made it easier ar for either of us; and, for her sake as well as mine, the wish will force itself to pon me that something might be done.” And again;—“I claim no immunity trom blame. There is plenty of fault on my side, I dare say, in the way of a thousand uncertainties, caprices and diMecul- ties of disposition; owt only one thing will alter all that, and that is, the end which alterseverything.” THE END, This was in 1857. wife lived apart. “The eldest son went with his mother, Dickens at once giving effect to her ex- pressed wish in this respect; and the other chil- dren remained with nimseif, their intercourse with Mrs. Dickens betmg lett entirely to themselves,” They never met during the remainder of their lives, She had lived with him a quarter of a cen- tary and had borne him tem children, She was the wife of hia youth and his fame. Before he aied he coldly wrote these words about her in his will:—"I desire bere simply to record the fact that my wife, since her separation by consent, laa been in the receipt from me of an annual income of £000, while all the great charges of # numer- ous aud expensive family ba) evolved wholly upon myself.” The man who dismissed his wife and who wrote these words, waa the creator of Agnes, and the sweet, beautiful story of love and | devotion which that fanciful life contained. It is | not for us to look deeply into the hearts of men ] ee However Byron may have sinned, to us he is | In i864 Mr. Dickens and his | } rather to take from their tives the tnaptration of genius, But this narrative, even as Mr. Porster telts it, ls @ 8ad story of impulse and selfishness, and it so dartens the character of Diekens that we turn from ite contemplation with bitter, bitter sorrow. TUR SRCOND VINIT TO AUBRICA, Two chapters of this volume, im all ity pages, Bre given to the experiences of Dickens in Am ica. This event attracted so much interest at the time and was 80 marked an incident, remem- bering his visit in earlier days, that these chapters Will de universally read. Mr. Porster confines lus narrative of the tour to Mr. Dickens’ own language, 4s written to himself and other frien private and letters from day to day, We learn that ap to the last moment he “had not been abie to clear of wholly a shade of misgiving that some of the old grudges might make themselves /elt," but “from the instant of his setting foot in Boston not & vestige of such fearremained, The greeting was to the full as extraordinary as that twenty-five years | before.” Boston particularly impressed Dickens, reminding him of kdinburgh, “Nothing en- chanted him s0 much a8 What be again saw of the delightful domestic life of Cambridge, simple, sel! respectrul, candid and affectionate.” Boston had grown more mercantile, and the coat of living be found enormous, and his first reading was #0 suc cessful that he wrote Mr. Forster, “It is really (m- possible to exaggerate the magnificence of tne re- ception or the effect of the reading." Stili be added, “We are allin the clouds until I have brokea ground in New York.” FIRST APPEARANCE IN NEW YORK. We learn that before coming to New York he Was making aclean profit of over $9,000 a werk. He gave his first reading at Steinway Hall Decem- ber 14, 1867, and next morning wrote ;—“Amazing success! A very fine audience—far better than at | Boston. Carol and Triai on first night great—scill | greater Copperfield and Bob Sawyer on secon" The houses paid tim about $3,000 an evening, and we fing him sending £3,000 10 Engiand by the firss packet. Here we have @ iittle story about tue Westminster Hotel:— “Last night | was getting into bed just at twelve | tentations, evidently able, straightforward and o'clock, when Dolby came to my room to inform me | that the house was on fire, I got Scott up directly, | told him first to pack the books and clovnes for | readings; dressed and pocketed my jewels and papers, while the manager stuffed himself out with money. Alter a time the fre was traced to agrate, and then everybody talked to everybody else—the ladies being particularly loquacious and cheerfal. I may remark that the second landlord no sooner | saw ne, on this agitating occasion, than, with his | property blazing, he insisted on taking me down into a room full of hot smoke to drink brandy and } water with him!" IMPRESSIONS OF NEW YORK, Dickens wasin New York a week before he could recognize its prodigious increase. ‘The only por- tion,” he writes, “that comes back to me even now is the part of Broadway in which the Carleton Hotel tsed to stand. There is avery fine new park in the outskirts, and the number of grand houses and splendid equipages is quite surprising. There are hotela here with 500 bedrooms, and I | The “Black | don't know how many boarders.” Crook” he found to be “the most preposterous peg to hang ballets on that was ever seen. The people who act in it have not the slightest idea of what | it is about, and never had; but, after taxing my | intellectual powers to the utmost, I fancy I have discovered “Black Crook"? to be a malignant hunchback leagued with the Powers of Darkness to separate two lovers; and that the Powers of Lightness, coming (in no skirts, however) to the | rescue, he is deteated.” We had a little excite- ment about the Fenians; and Dickens makes a note of it. “I do not think,’ he says, ‘that there is any sympathy whatever with the Fenians on the part of the American people, though political ad- | venturers may make @ capital out of a show of It.” “The local politics of the place are in a most de- praved condition, if half of what is said is true. I prefer not to talk of these things, but at odd in- tervals I look round for myself.” Furthermore, we note, “great social improvements in respect of manners and forbearance have come to pass since I was here before; but in public Iie I see as yet but little change.” In those days Tammany reigned, and it is interesting to note the impression tts do- | minion made upon the great writer. POLITICS AND THE POLICE. The season was unusually severe—during the | winter visit, memorably severe, as all remember— with extreme cold and heavy falls of snow. “I | turnea out,” he writes, “in rather a gorgeous sleigh yesterday, with any quantity of buffalo | robes, and made an imposing appearance.”’ And | again to his daughter:—“If you were to behold me | driving out, furred up to the mustache with an im- “Why is it,” he cries, “that a sense | comes always crushing on me, as of one hap- | Tam often cut | ing what a pity it 1s, for her 4 ‘in the newspapers is untrue, mense white, red and yellow striped rug for @ cov- ering, you would suppose me to be or Hungarian or Polish nationality.” He was not pleased with the railway travel. The roads were “traly alarm- ing,” ‘much more than when I was here before.’’ The treatment of the baggage he found to be per- fectly outrageous, nearly every case he had being broken, and he describes his servant Scott in a railway car near Boston weeping bitterly over a smashed writing desk. We are pleased to note his opinions of the New York police. “I have no- where,” he writes, ‘at home or abroad, seen 80 fine a police a8 the police of New York, and their bearing in the streets 1s above all praise.” He must have had his own troubles about crossing Broadway, for we note his opinion that ‘the laws concerning street traffic and travel are wildly out- raged by the people for whose benefit they are in- tended.” Yet, notwithstanding the Fenians and vhe baggage smashers, the speculators in tickets and the omnibus drivers and Tammany, New York seems to have pleased Dickens, for he again adds “there is umdoubdtedly improvement in every di- rection.” JOURNALISM IN AMERICA. Christmas came to Dickens in Boston, and we have a pretty story of a branch of holly with real red berries, which a certain Captain Dolliver, of the Boston Custom House, imported and put on | bis breakfast table on Christmas morning. “In such affectionate touches as this these New England people are especially amiable.” He regrets that as @ general rule whatever is said about him and finds that fires in America are a matter of course. The newspapers were civil, but their abuse of Mr. Dolby, his manager, annoyed him. There is a strange story about one Boston paper, “The editor had applied for our advertisements, saying that it was at Mr. Dolby’s disposal for paragraphs The advertisements were not sent. Dolby did not enrich its columns paragraphically ; and among its news to-day is the item that ‘this chap calling himself Dolby got drunk down town last night and ‘was taken to the police station for fighting an Irish- man.’ “Iam sorry to say,” adds Dickens, “that Idon’t find anybody to be much shocked by this liveliness.’ After this sad experience with the Boston press Dickens las an allusion to our own journals in New York. “The Tribune,” he writes, “4s an excellent paper. Horace Greeley is editor- in-cbief and a considerable shareholder too.” Then comes a compliment, which we are glad to notice and repeat, “All the people connected with 1t whom I have seen are ofthe best class,” “It is alsoa very One property,” he adds, “but here the New Yore HERALD beats It hollow, hollow, hollow.” When Mr. Dickens was in New York Henry J. Ray- mond was alive and editing his great journal, and our readers will understand what would now be @ most surprising statement—that the “New York Times ia another able and well edited paper.” “NOTHING IN AMERICA LASTS LONG.’ Jt was his intention toreadin New York every week; but this was changed, tor an amusing rea- gon, “It is,” he writes, ‘one of the popular pecu- larities which I mos¢ particularly notice that they must not have a thing too easily, Nothing in the country lasts long, and a thing is prized the more the less easy itis made.” So he planned his trip to the South and West, meaning to go to Chicago and St. Louis—a plan his ill-health interrupted. He notes again that he had not read a single time ata lower clear profit per night than $2,000. About this time the severe weather and other cit- camstanceg affected tis health, and we find him complaining of a irightin! cold—a severe catarrh— and the low action of the heart which compelled him after his readings, at times, to lie upon @ bed in a very faint and shady state, and to remain tn ‘Who lived with his woter in tue Champs Kiyeces, | Uke Dickens sad Byron, or Shakespeare—but | bed at times until the afternoon, In Boston it - | and twenty years ago. was fearea he would have to stop reading alte- gether, but his wii overcame all. ‘There were troubles with speculators, of which much ts said that need scarcely be repeated now. On one ocecasion there was a strike among tho ushers because Volby bad taken one of them “to task tn the Britian manner.” But, adds Dickens, “there 1s really little to be done at night. Amert- can people are 80 accustomed to take care of themselves that one of these immense audiences will tall tnto their places with an ease amazing to & frequenter of St. James’ Hall.” The cold still annoyed tim, “My landiord,” he says, referring to the Westminster, “invented for me a drink of brandy, rum and snow, and called tt @ ‘Rocky Mountain Sneezer;’ and ‘did I teil you that the favorite drink beiore you get up is an eye- opener?’ The nature of this latter drink ta not, Geseribed, and we fear that his generous hosts, with their sneezers and eye-openers, were pla; ing pranks witn the novelist, He motes that Doctor Marigold was @ “tremendous hit’ in New York; that “at the end they made a great shout and gave a rush towards the platform as if they were going to carry me off, It puts a strong ad- Gitional arrow into my quiver.” The last house in New York rose to about $3,500, and the manager, Dickens adda, “ts always going about with an im- mense bundie that looks like a sola cushion, bat is tn reality paper money.” “The work is hard, the climate ts hard, the life ts hard; but, so far, the gain is cxormous,"” IMPRESSIONS OF BROOKLYN. “Brooklyn, you must understand,” writes Dickens, “is a kind of sleeping place for New York, aud 18 supposed to be agreat place in & money way.” His readings be called “ecclesiastical en- tertainments,’? because they took place in the churen of Mr, Beecher. He found the church “a wonderiul place to speak in.’ “We had it enor- mously fall last night (Marigold and Trial), bat it scarcely required an effort. Mr. Ward Beecher being present in bis pew, [sent to invite him to come around belore he left. I found him an unos- agreeable map; extremely well tuformed and with @ good knowledge of art.” After Brooklyn the tour extended to Washington, and we find that the visit to the national capital was a subject of appre- hension, “Horace Greeley dined with me last turday,” he says, “and did not like my going to Washington, now fui] of the greatest rowdics and worst kind of people in the States,’ So Mr. Dolby was sent to examiue into the moral at- mosphere of Washington, and in a few days de- cided that Mr. Greeley and “the croakers’’ were wrong. “You may like to have @ line to let you know that it is all right here,” he writes from Washington, “and that the croakers were simply ridiculous,” Mr. Forster gives the following inter- esting details of this journey :— ANECDOTE OF LINCOLN, It will be no violation of the rule of avoiding private detail if the very interesting close of this letter is given. Its anecdow of President Lincoln was re- peatedly told by Dickens atter his return, and I am under no 0 vo withhold from it the authority .of Mr. Sumner’s name. “lam going to-morrow to see the President, wio has sent to me twice. I dined with Charles Sumner last Sunday, against my rule; and, as I had stipulated tor no party, seeretary Stanton was the only other guest besides his own secretary. Stanton is aman witha very remarkable memory, and extraor- dinarily tamiliar with my books. * * * He and Sum- ner having been the first (wo public men at the dying President's bedside, and having remained with him until he breathed his last, we fell into & very interesting con- versation after dinner, when, each of them giving his own Narrative separately, the usual discrepancies about details of time were observable. Then Mr. Stanton told me a curious little story, which will form the remainder of this short letter. On the aiternoon ot the day on which the President was shot there was @ Cabinet Council, at which he presided. Mr. Stanton, being at the time Commander-in-Chief of the Northern troops that were concentrated about here, arrived rather late. In- deed, they were waiting for him, and, on bis entering the room, the Presiient broke off in something he was | saying, and remarked :—‘Let us proceed to business, gen- tlemen,’ Mr, Stanton then noticed, with great surpri that the President sat with an air o1 dignity in his chai instead of lolling about in the most ungainly attitud i} | o as his invariable custom was, and that irrelevant of questionable starles he was grave ani caim, and quite a differentman. Mr. Stanton, on let ing the council with the Attorney Gercral, said to him ‘Thatis the most satisiactory Cabine. meeting [have attendea for many along day, What an extraordinary change in Mr. Lincoln |’ ‘he Attorney General re- piled, ‘We all saw that before you came in. While we were waiting ior you, he said, with his chin down on his breast, “Gendemen, ‘something very extraordinary is going to happen, and that very soon.” To whieh the At- torney General had, observed. ‘something good, sit) T hope? when the President answered very gravely, {Pont know, I don't know; but ft will happei and shortly, too.’ As they were all impressed his manner the Attorne; General too! him up again. ‘Have you received any information, sir, not et disclosed to ust’ ‘No,’ answered the President; put ihave had adream, and I have now had the same dream three times. Onee on the night preceding the attle of Bull Kun; once on the night preceding such another (naming batile also not tavorable to we North). jis cnin sank on his breast again, and he sat retlecting. ‘Might one ask the nature of ‘this dream, sir? said the Aitorney General ‘Well,’ replied the President, without lifting his head or changing his att- ‘oad, Tolling river, and Cam in aL deift—but this is not business,’ d looking round the table a3 g g — en as they walked on together, it would be curious to not whether anything ensued on this; and they agreed to Botice. He was shot that night” ANDREW JOHNSON, On his birthday. the 7th of February, Dickens had his interview with i resident Andrew Johnson. “This scrambling seribblement is resumed _ this morning, because I have just seen the Presi- dent, who had sent to me very courteously asking me to make my own appointment. He isa man with @ remarkable face, indicating courage, heul- ness, and, certainly, strength of purpose. It is a face of the Webster type. it without the “bounce” of Webster's face. 1 would ‘¢ picked him out anywhere as @ char- er of mark. Figure, rather stoutish for an American ; trite under the middle size ; hands clasped in front of nim; manner, suppressed, guarded, anxious. E: looked at the other very hura, © ¢ * own cabinet that I saw him. AsTI came away Thornton | leigh—turned out for & state occasion—to deliver his credentials. There was to be a Cabinet coun- cilattwelve. The room was very much like a London club's ante-drawing room. On the walls two engravings only-one, of his own portrait and one of Lincoln's. J * In the outer room sitting acertain sun- burned General Blair, wiih ny evidences of the war upon tim. He got up'to shake hands witn me, and then T found that he had been out on the prairie with me five- * * * The papers having re- ferred to my birthday’s falling, to-day, my room is filled with most exquisite fowers. They came pouring in from ail sorts of people, at breakiast tine. The audiences here ure very fine.’ So ready to laugh or cry, and doing both so freely that you would suppose them to be Man- chester shillings, rather than ashington hail sove- reigns.” drove up in a BALTIMORE—-THE NEGROES. Thus all was sunshine and cheerfulness in Wash- ington—the novelist writing in his merriest mood, notwithstanding his illness, About this time the terrible step was taken of avoiding Chicago—a circumstance that led to some angry comment at | the time, stories Noating into print that he had a sister or some such relative living in the Western metropolis in indigence, and that he was ashamed to visit the city in consequence; but we learn now that wretched health was the only reason. “The worst of it is,’ he writes, “that everybody one ad- yises with has a monomanta about Chicago, heavens, sir,’ the great Philadelphia authority said to ine this morning, ‘if youdon’t read in Chicago the peuple will go into fits.'’ ‘Well,’ I answered, ‘I would rather they went into fits than 1 did;’ but be did not seem to see it at all.” Balt- more, although “as far south as Vglentiain Spain’” and generally of a sunny nature even In wintry times, welcomed the novelist with a snow storm. “They are very handsome women,” he says of the Baltimore ladies, ‘with an Eastern touch in them, and dress brilliantly. I Dave rarely seen 80 fine an audience. They are a bright responsive people.” And again, he finds it a ‘very apprehensive, im- pulsive audience.” Here we have a little touch of political observation, not without interest, con- cerning the negro and the South. “It is remarka- ble,” writes Mr. Dickens from Baltimore, ‘how the Ghost of Slavery haunts the town; and how the shambimg, untidy, evasive and postponing irrepressible proceeds about his free work, going round and round it, instead of atit. The melan- choly absurdity of giving these people votes—at any rate, at present—would glare at one out of every rolbof the eye, chuckle in their mouths and bump in their heads, if one did not see, as one can- not help seeing in this country, that their emfran- chisement 18 @ mere party trick to cateh votes,"* “1 strongly believe,” he adds elsewhere, “that they (the negroes) will die out of this eountry fast, It seems, looking at them, 60 manifestly absurd to suppose it possible that they can even hold their own against a restiess, shifty, striving, stronger Tace."’ PHILADELPHIA, There are few notes about the visit to Patladel- phia, except that he was welcomed with cold, light, frosty weather and was pleased with nis hotel, “Everything is very good, every waiter is Ger- man,” &c. “The town is very clean and the day as light and bine as a fine Italian day.” Mr. Pors- ter again informs us that while the tone of party politics still impressed Dickens unfavorably he had noticed great changes and improvements socially. “So far I have had no more intrusion or boredom than I have when I lead the same life in England,”’ ‘1 have now readin New York to 40,000 | people, and am quite as well known in the streeta there as in London. People wiil turn back, turn | “seeing nothing but drowned farms, ‘Good | | Prince had made Dickens related to the Queen the story of Presi | Sgain and face me and have 6 look at me, or will bad to be assisted at once into wigan room." time quietly writing “ Drood,"” say to one another, ‘Loox here, Dickens ts | He coming! But mo one ever stops or ed-| aud im many ways. He took great pleasure dresses me.” On one occasion, sitting | in helping young aathors. “You aaked mo about in his carriage, near tho Post Office at Nossau street, waiting ior Mr. Dolby, a atranser—I should says merchant's bookkeeper—stepped up to the door, took off his hat, and said ina friendly Way, ‘Mr. Dickens, I should very much like to have the honor of shaking hands with you,’ and, that done, presented two others, Nothing could be more quiet or lesa intrusive.” “1 find the people lighter and more humorous than formerly, and there must be @ great deal of tnnocent imagination among every Class, or they never could pet with such ex- traordinary pleasure as they do the Boots’ story of the elopement of the two little children, They seem to see the children, and the women set up & shrill undercurrent of half pity and half pleasure that is quite affecting,” “I have remitted to Coutts, in English gold, £10,000 odd, ‘These figures are between ourselves at present, but are they not magnificent?” But all the time the same sad repining—the constant shadow that still attended him—the slave in the shadow of nis triumph. “The work is very severe.” “It is very distressing.” “I am so dead beat when I come off that they lay me down on @ sola, after I have been washed and dressed, and I lie there extremely faint for a quarter of an hour,’’ ‘ROUGHING IT IN CENTRAL NEW YORK. Then came tmpeachment troubles, and Dickens, with a fine showman’s sense of what will please the public, fears “that the great excitement about the President’s impeachment will damage our re- ceipts, But then comes the former reflection that “nothing lasts long’ in America, and that be- fore he resumes his Eastern readings, March 9, “the people may be heartily tired of the Pr dent's name.” The weather pursued him to Buf- faio—snow, frost and gales. Rochester waa in @ panic for fear the Genessee River would take a no- tion and swamp the town, Syracuse he found “a Most out-of-the-way and unintelligible looking place, with apparently no peopie in it,” but paying him nearly $2,500 the first nignt. His voice trou- bles him, and he must dine at three o'clock to re- cover it before reading. On one occasion he was caught in a flood “ata place called Utica, the greater part ef which was under water, while the high and dry part could produce nothing partica- lar to eat.” “I was fortunate enough to get a bedroom and garnished it with an enormous Jugof gin punch, over which {and the manager played a double dummy rubber.” From here to Albany, after many struggles with the flood, barns adrift like Noah's ark, deserted villages, broken hinges and ail manner of ruin.” The iiness con- tinued, now in the foot—‘no appetite,” “no taste,” even laudanum of no use. He writes to New York for “a composing mixture.” Even the syu.pathetic and devoted people around him can- not comprehend his misery. “I cannot eat,” he writes, ‘and have established this system:—At seven in the morning, in bed, a tumbler of new cream and two table spoonsful of rum. At twelve, @ sherry cobbler and a biscuit. At three (dinner time), @ pint of champagne, At five minutes to eight, an egg beaten up ina glass of sherry. Be- tween the parts the strongest beef tea that can be made, drunk hot. At @ quarter past ten, soup and any littie thing to drink that I can fancy.” NIAGARA REVISITED, Here 1s Mr. Forater’s narrative of the trip to Niagara :— This Buffalo has beceme @ large and tmportant city, awith numbers of Germans and Irish init But itis ver, ‘curious to Notice as We touch the frontier that the Ameri- can female beauty dies Carlet and a woman's face clumsil; compounded of German, Iri estern America an‘ Canadian, not yet fused logether and not yet moulded, obtains instead. Our show of beauty at night is, gener- ally, remarkable; but we bad not a dozen pretty women in the whole throng last night, and the faces were all Diunt. I have just been walking about and observing the ' same‘thing in the streets. The winter has been so severe that the hotel on the English side at Niagara (which has the best view of the falls, and is for that reason very perferable) is not yet opened. So we go pertorce to the American, Which telegraphs back to our telegrain:—"All Mr. Dick- it uirements perfectly undersiood” 1 have not r been in more than two very bad inns I have been in some where a good deal ot ‘What is popularly eailed “slopping round” has prevailed; but have been able to get on very well. “Slopping round," so used, means an- tidiness and disorder. It ts a comically ‘expressive phrase and has many meanings Fields was asking the rice ofa quarter cask of sherry the other day. “Wa! lussr Fields,” the merchant replies, “that vari cording to quality. as is but nay'tral, If yer wa'n sherry just to slop round with ix {can Ax yer some at a very low tigger.” His letter was resumed at Rochester on the 1sth:— After two most brilliant days at the Falls of Niagara we got back here last night To-morrow morning we turn out at six for a long railway journey to Albany. But it is nearly all “back” now, thank God! Tdon't know how long, though, betore turning we might have gone t buffale, We went everywhere at the falls, w them inevery aspect. There is a suspension Toss Now some two miles or more trom the Horseshoe ; and another, half a mile nearer, is to be opened in July, They are very fine, but very ticklish, hanging aloft there in the continual vibration or the thundering water; nor is one greatly reassured by the rinted notice that troops must not cross them at a step, hat bands of music must not play in crossing, and the like. 1 shall never forget the last aspect in which we saw Niagara yesterday. We had been everywhere, when I etting where difficult gronna lor a good distance, and tas it rushed we could stand above the river and see | forward to its tremendous leap, coming for miles and miles, All the way to the was @ wonderful ‘contusion wi ter. As we stood watching it. with our faces to the top of the falls, our backs were toward the sun, The | majestic valley below the falls, ¢o seen through the vast cloud of spray, was made of rainbow. Nothing in Tur- ner’s finest water-color drawings, done in his greatest day, is so ethereal, so imaginative, so gorgeous in color as what then beheld. 1 seemed to be lifted from the earth and to be looking into heaven. WhatI once said to you, as I witnessed the scene five-and-twenty years ago, all came back at this most affecting and sublime sight. The “muddy vesture of our clay” falis trom us we look. I chartered # separate carriage for our men, 80 a they might see all in their own Way and at their own time, horizon on our right ot brignt green and FAREWELL AND HOME AGAIN. And now came the farewells, or rather & series | Of farewells. Back to Boston, very tll. “Longfel- , low and all the Cambridge men” urging him to givein. ‘Two snow storms” also, ‘and the town is blotted out in @ ceaseless whirl of snow and wind ;” but the personal affection of the people re- mained charming to the last. Back to New York, | having passage on the Russia, The chiel stewara’s | Toom engaged member tnat it is on tne sunny side of the ves: His last readings in New York ran as high as $3,298 | anight, but in Boston they reached 56, Lis | lowest receipts were in New Bedford—$1,640 a night—while the four Brooklyn readings brought ) $11,128, Then came the farewell dinner—Iforace } Greeley in the chatr—Dickens limping into the room with great diMcuity and pain and compelled to leave the room beiore the proceedings were over. “He promised his kindly entertainers that no copy of his ‘Notes’ or his ‘Chuzzlewit' should tn | future be issued by him without accompanying | mention of the changes he had seen—ot the polite- ness, delicacy, sweet temper, hospitality and con- sideration in all ways, for which he had to thank them.” “Un the following Monday be read to his last American audience, telling them at the close that he hoped often to recall them, equally by his fire and in the green summer weather, and never as amere pubiic audience, out as a host of per- sonal friends... Two days later he sailed for | England and reached home in the frst week of | May, 1968, | CLOSING NOURS—THE QUEEN. His life, aiter his return to Europe, bas few events that we need dwell upon, There were last readings and 4 formal retirement from the piat- form. His gains in Amertca confirmed his fortune, and he spent his time around Gadshill, beautifying he made £28,000 out of his readings, and there was a private rehearsal of Nancy Sikes, which Macready regarded a4 “equal to‘two Macbeths” tn power and tragic force. Domestic sorrows gathered over son went to Australia to seek his fortune in the bush, New honors came to him, however, and in March we find him in presence of the Queen. Mr, Forster tells us that the Queen's kindness left o strong impression on Dickens, During the con- versation there arose a mention of some discour- tesy shown to Prince Arthur by the Fenians in New York, and Dickens begged her Majesty not to confound the true Americans of that city with the Fenian portion of its Irish population, | on which she made the quiet commest that she was convinced the people avout the too much of the arfair, dent Lincoln's dream on the night before he was murdered, Her Majesty then took from 4 table her own book on the Highlands, with @n autograph inscription to Charles Dickens, and $0 Closed the | interview. Later we find him dining with the Prince of Wales and the King of the Beigians, “suf fering so much from distress in lis (oot thas be | y thought of struggliug (in an open carriage) up some very | “Cunard so considerate as to re- | anda improving the grounds, In a year and ahaiflie | his home; his brother Frederick died ; his youngest | new writers,” he writes; “if you will read ‘Kissing the Red,’ @ book I have read to-day, you will not find it hard to take an Interest in the author of such @ book.” = Tms was Edmund Yates, to whom the executors of Dickens, tn obedience to his will, presented his writing desk, aud “in whose literary success,” says Mr. Forster, “Dickens took the great est interest himself, and with whom he continued vo the last in intimate personal intercourse.” PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS, ‘The world cares to see ita great men closely, and Mr. Forster, with delicacy and taste, enables us to see the manner of man Dickens was in his ways and conversation, He had strong religious feelings without professions, “I now most sol- emnly impress upon you," he writes to his son, “the truth and beauty of the Christian religion as it came from Christ Himself, the impossibility of going wrong it you humbly but heartily respect tt,” “Never abandon the wholesome practice of saying your own private prayers night and morning, have never abandoned it myself, and I know the comfort of it.” He disliked display, monuments and (uneral ceremonies, and would not speak over Leigh Hunt's grave for that reason, His political opinions were hazy, and we find no definite ex. pression of them except in one place, where he laments “a non-working aristocracy and @ silent Parliament,” and dreads the “enormous black cloud of poverty in every turn, which is spreading and deepening every hour!” He declined many temptations to enter the House of Commons, saying no consideration would induce him ta become a member of “that extraordinary assem: bly.” He returned from America, “indisposed ta. beheve that the political problems had been solved in the land of the free.” Formal dental is givet to the rumors that the Queen meant to make him a peer, ora member of the Privy Council, no 6uch honor or any honor being offered to him. He was fond of children and dogs and birds, and loved te ramble in the odd ways of London, having easpeck ally “a surprising fondness for wandering about poor neighborhoods on Christmas Day.” His two especial heroes were Sir Jovn Franklin and Car tyte. He was fond of acting and story telling, em pecially ghost stories, We infer from what Mr. Forster says that he was inclined to be superatt- tious, or rather to impressions of the supernatural, tor he spoke of an ever-recurring dream of & Wo man he had loved and who died —“the recollection of her is an essential part of my being, and is a# inseparable from my existence aa we beating ot my heart,” | THE DEATH OF DICKENS. But the end was coming swiftly—unheeded—bat not without warning. He had pains tn his feet, A railway accident had shattered his nerves and given him an invincible dislike to railway travel. ‘The vessels of the brain showed signs of trouble, and he was compelled to rest. His arm was affected, and when he last met Carlyle he carried tt 1n a sling, It was swollen and painful. There came & hemorrhage, and an inability to read the names on tho strect signs that alarmed him. Maclise, the painter—a dearly loved frend—and Mark Lemon died, and oppressed his spirita; and we ind nim mourning over the death of nearly all his old companions in the private plays. The feet became no worse and no better, aud on the 30th of May he went to Gadsnill, “He seemed very weary.” On Monday, the 6th of sune, he was out with his doga for the last time, The next day he strolled in the wood and came home to stady the effect of some new Chinese lanterns in his conservatory, Bitting all the evening in the dining room to note their effect. The next morning he Umped over to his chalet and wrote until luncheon. Alter luncheon, much against his custom, he re- turned to his desk. “He was late,” said Mr. Fors- ter, “leaving the chalet, but before dinner, which was ordered at six o'clock, with the intention of walking afterwards in the lanes, he wrote some letters, among them one to his iriend Charies Kent, appointing to see him tn London next day; and dinner was begun before Miss Hogarth saw, with alarm, a singular expression of trouble and pain in his face. ‘For an hour,’ he then told her, ‘he had been very ill,’ but ne wished dinner to go on. These were the only coherent words uttered by him. They were followed by some that fell from him disconnectedly, of quite other matters—of an approaching sate at a neighbor's house, of whether | Macready’s son was with his father at Cheltenham and of his own intention to go immediately to Lon- don—but, at these latter he had risen and his ais ter-in-law’s help alone prevented him from falling where he stood. Her effort then was to get him on the sofa, but after a slight struggle | he sank heavily on his left side. ‘On the ground’ were the last words he spoke. It was now a little over ten minutes past six o'clock. All possible | medical aid had been summoned. Bat att human | help was unavailing. Tuyere was effusion on the | brain, and though stertorous breathing continued | Bll night and until ten minutes past #ix o'clock on ; the evening of Thursday, the 9th of June, there | had never beena gleam of hope during the twenty- | four hours. He had lived four months beyond his fifty-eighth year.” Her Majesty the Queen tele- } graphed from Balmoral her “deepest regret at the | sad news of Charles Dickens’ death,” and in obe- dience to the general wish-of the people it was de- | termined that the only fit resting place for the Temains of a man so dear to England was the Abbey, in which the most illustrious Englishmen are laid. There he lies, surrounded by Garrick, | Cumberland, Macaulay and Johnson, ander the | statnes of Chancer, Shakespeare and Dryden, | sharing alike the immortality of their fame.. GERMAN IMMIGRATION, RONRL AEE dheracuaran Annual Report of the German Soctety. The German Society, founded In 1744 for the pro- tection of German immigrants landing at fthis port, has just issued its ninetieth annual report, from which it appears that the German immigra tion at this port during the past year amounted ta 101,000 persons, @ falling off of 26,150 compared with the year previous, when 030 Germana ' were Janded at Casue Garden, The following is an exibit of the German imioigrauion at Une port eh YOArN 1869 ene during the past | The majority of the present German immigration is destined for the Western and Northwestern , States. Among the whole number of Mormon it | migrants at this port during the past year (3, ’ | who were destined for the Utah Territory, only twelve were Germans. The treasurer's report | shows that the receipts of the society during the past year amounted to 705. The expenditures were $14,712, and a balance of $13,053 remained in the treasury. The capital of the society amounts to $54,700. The Relief Committee during the past year expended $9,288 in aid of | German immigrants in poor circumstances. In | addition $1,539 was distributed irom @ special fu | contributed by members, on checks issued by t donors, and srrangemants have also been made durtng’ the past winter to distribute provisions amoung the poor, Two physicians are engaged by the society who, during the past year, had under treatment 3165 patients, YACHTING. At the first general meeting for the year of the Eastern Yacht Clad, held at the Parker House, Boston, February 19, the follewing gentlemen were elected oMcers:—Commodore, John M. Vice Commodore, John Jeffries, Jr.; Rear Commodore, BK. D. Tucker; Secretary, Henry B. | Jackson; Treasurer, Addison Child; Measurer. | Frank D, cand; Regatta Committee. . | Whitney. John Hurd, B. Joy Jeffries, A, Winsor, T. D. Boardman, | Forbe: ART MATTERS, Water Color Society — An Meeting. The eighth annual meeting of the American So- ciety of Painters in Water Colors was hetd on Tuesday evening in the Association Building. It } was well attended, and the proceedings evinced the increasing interest taken in this branch of art. The reports of the secretary and treasurer were | an evidence of the flourishing condition of the so- ciety, which now numbers sixty-five members. Mossts, 4. ‘D smilie, J. ©. Nicoli and L, ©. Titeny cted president, secretary | and” treasurers (ovat J. a Brown, Walter M | frown, Fy Hopkinson Smith and A. 1. Bricher | were placed upon tue Byard of Contro'. The