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NOTES AND QUERIES. f n s. v. FEB. 10, 1912
" Walking up and down the hall of the courts
of law was Wilson, a tall, burly, handsome man of
eight-ancl -fifty, with a gait like O'Connell's, the
bluest eye you can imagine, and long hair falling
down in a wild way under the broad brim of his
hat."
The freedom of the city was voted by acclamation, and the parchment scroll hung framed in his study to the last.
Mamie Dickens, in that charming little book, ' My Father as I Recall Him ' of which an edition was issued last Christmas by Messrs. Cassell, with four illustrations in colour by Brock tells how he mourned for Little Nell " like a father."
" I am for the time nearly dead with work and grief for the loss of my child .... I went to bed last night utterly dispirited and done up. All night I have been pursued by the child ; and this morning I am unrefreshed and miserable. I do not know what to do with myself."
In striking contrast to this, and to the way in which Little Nell has won most hearts to the praise of the hard-hearted old Judge Jeffrey and of Hood, to Bret Harte's account of the gold-diggers by the Californian camp fire throwing down their cards to listen to her story we have Sir Frank T. Marzials, in his ' Life of Dickens,' saying :
"If it 'argues an insensibility' to stand un- moved among all these tears and admiration, I am afraid I must be rather pebble-hearted. To tell the whole damaging truth, I am, and always have been, only slightly affected by the story of Little Nell; have never felt any particular in- clination to shed a tear over it, and consider the closing chapters as failing of their due effect, on me at least, because they are pitched in a key that is altogether too high and unnatural." Some will consider this bold criticism indeed, in the face of so strong a contrary opinion, and Sir Frank Marzials himself modestly adds :
" Of course one makes a confession of this kind with diffidence. It is no light thing to stem the current of a popular opinion. But one can only go with the stream when one thinks the stream is flowing in a right channel. And here I think the stream is meandering out of its course. For me, Little Nell is scarcely more than a dream from cloudland."
During 1841 letters poured in to Dickens from all parts of the United States, expressing the delight his writings afforded, specially referring to Little Nell, and entreating him to visit America. He and his wife started on the desired visit on the 3rd of January, 1842. Of his welcome he has left a full account in his letters to Forster. People lined the streets when he went out. There were balls, dinners, and assemblies without end given in his honour, to say nothing of a public dinner at Boston, at which the tickets cost 31. each. "It is no
nonsense, and no common feeling," wrote
Channing to him. "It is all heart. There
never was, and never will be, such a triumph."
Ticknor, writing to Kenyon, said :
A triumph has been prepared for him, in which the whole country will join. He will have a progress through the States unequalled since Lafayette's."
Daniel Webster told the Americans that Dickens had done more already to ameliorate the condition of the English poor than all the statesmen Great Britain had sent into Parliament. But a change was to come on his visit to New York, when a public dinner was given to him, at which Washing- ton Irving took the chair. The committee, composed of the first gentlemen in America,, besought him not to speak on copyright, to which he had already alluded in Boston,. " although they every one agreed with me."
" I answered that I would. That nothing should deter me.... That the shame was theirs, not mine ; and that as I could not spare them when I got home, I would not be silenced there." No sooner did he commence his reference to international copyright than an outcry began ; but he held on, and The New York Herald of the following day gave a full report of his speech. He could scarcely be restrained from speaking against slavery as well, so that the enthusiasm for " the guest of the nation " waned. Yet his speeches on copyright had good effect, and he writes :
" I have in my portmanteau a petition for an International copyright law, signed by all the best American writers, with Washington Irving at their head. They have requested me to hand it to Clay for presentation, and to back it up with any remarks I may think proper to offer. So ' Hooroar for the principle, as the money-lender said, ven he vouldn't renoo the bill.' "
But both Dickens and his wife were longing to be back with their children again :
" As the time draws nearer, we get FEVERED with anxiety for home .... Kiss our darlings for us. We shall soon meet, please God, and be happier and merrier than ever we were, in all our lives .... Oh home home home home home home HOME HI"
The year of his return from America was that of Longfellow's visit to England. " Have no home but ours," wrote Dickens to him, when he heard of his coming. 'The _tay was most happy to all, and Forster speaks of Longfellow as " our attached Friend, who possesses all the qualities of delightful companionship, the culture and the charm which have no higher type or xample than the accomplished and genial American."
