SCENE FROM MANFRED.1 A lower valley in the Alps. A Cataract. It is not noon-the sunbow's rays still arch But mine now drink this sight of loveliness; The charms of Earth's least-mortal daughters grow The blush of earth, embracing with her heaven,— The beauties of the sunbow which bends o er thee. I read that thou wilt pardon to a Son Of Earth, whom the abstruser powers permit 1 Manfred was partly written in Switzerland in 1816, and finished during the following year. Byron described the work himself: "It is in three acts, but of a very wild, metaphysical, and inexplicable kind. Almost all the persons-but two or three-are spirits of the earth and air, or the waters; the scene is in the Alps; the hero a kind of magician who is tormented by a species of remorse, the cause of which is left half unexplained. I have at least rendered it quite impossible for the stage." The poet's effort to render it unactable failed, for Manfred has been placed on the stage several times In 1868-9 it was revived at Drury Lane Theatre with great scenic display. Of the part quoted above Jeffrey wrote: This scene is one of the most poetical and most sweetly written in the poem." VOL. II. But why should I repeat it? 'twere in vain. I said, with men, and with the thoughts of men, I held but slight communion; but instead, On the swift whirl of the new breaking wave I felt myself degraded back to them, As I do thee;-and with my knowledge grew 27 Witch. Proceed. Man. Oh! I but thus prolong'd my words, Witch. Spare not thyself-proceed. Man. She was like me in lineaments--her eyes, Her hair, her features, all, to the very tone Even of her voice, they said were like to mine; But soften'd all, and temper'd into beauty: She had the same lone thoughts and wanderings, The quest of hidden knowledge, and a mind To comprehend the universe: nor these Alone, but with them gentler powers than mine, Pity, and smiles, and tears-which I had not; And tenderness-but that I had for her; Humility-and that I never had. Her faults were mine-her virtues were her own. I loved her, and destroy'd her! Witch. With thy hand? Man. [The WITCH disappears. Man. (Alone). We are the fools of time and terror: Steal on us and steal from ws; yet we live, This vital weight upon the struggling heart, Man. Not with my hand, but heart - which broke her Or joy that ends in agony or faintness- It gazed on mine, and wither'd. I have shed I saw-and could not staunch it. A being of the race thou dost despise, Man. Daughter of Air! I tell thee, since that hour- But peopled with the Furies;-I have gnash'd The affluence of my soul-which one day was Witch. That I can aid thee. In all the days of past and future, for In life there is no present, we can number And champion human fears.-The night approaches. BYRON. CHARLES DICKENS. REMINISCENCES OF HIS LIFE AND CHARACTER. BY JAMES T. FIELDS. [Mr. Fields is a successful publisher and a successful author--a combination so rare that it commands special attention. He was born at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, America, in 1820. He has published three volumes of poems, 1849, 1854, and 1858; he has edited a complete edition in twenty volumes of the works of Thomas De Quincey; and he has contributed numerous interesting essays and sketches to the Atlantic Monthly Magazine, of which he is the editor. His position as partner in the Boston publishing firm of Ticknor and Fields brought him into communication with nearly all the most eminent men and women of letters in England and America; and as his relations with all were of the most friendly character, he was enabled to collect much valuable material for the series of delightful reminiscences which in 1871 he published in his magazine under the general title of "Our Whispering Gallery." The following extract from Miss Mitford's Literary Recollections shows the high esteem which Mr. Fields won from his friends: "He sends me charming letters, verses which are fast ripening into true poetry, excellent books; and this autumn he brought back himself, and came to pay me a visit; and he must come again, for of all the kindnesses with which he loads me, I like his company the best."] August, 1870.-On a sunny morning in October last the writer of these recollections heard from the author's lips the first chapters of a new story, the concluding lines of which initial pages were then scarcely dry from the pen. The story is unfinished, and he who read that autumn morning with such vigour of voice and dramatic power is in his grave. This private reading took place in the little room where the great novelist for many years has been accustomed to write, and in the house where on a pleasant evening in June he died. The spot is one of the loveliest in Kent, and must always be remembered as the last residence of Charles Dickens. He used to declare his firm belief that Shakspeare was specially fond of Kent, and that the poet chose Gad's Hill and Rochester for the scenery of his plays from intimate personal knowledge of their localities. He said he had no manner of doubt but that one of Shakspeare's haunts was the old inn at Rochester, and that this conviction came forcibly upon him one night as he was walking that way, and discovered Charles' Wain over the chimney, just as Shakspeare has described it, in words put into the mouth of the carrier in King Henry the Fourth. There is no prettier place than Gad's Hill in all England for the earliest and latest flowers; and Dickens chose it, when he had arrived at the fulness of his fame and prosperity, as the home in which he most wished to spend the remainder of his days. When a boy, he would often pass the house with his father, and frequently said to him, "If ever I have a dwelling of my own, Gad's Hill Place is the house I mean to buy.' In that beautiful retreat he has for many years been accustomed to welcome his friends, and find relaxation from the crowded life of London. On the lawn, playing at bowls, in the Swiss summer-house charmingly shaded by green leaves, he always seemed the best part of summer, beautiful as the season is in the delightful region where he lived. In a letter written not long ago to a friend in America, he thus described his home: "Divers birds sing here all day, and the nightingales all night. The place is lovely, and in perfect order. I have put five mirrors in the Swiss châlet (where I write), and they reflect and refract, in all kinds of ways, the leaves that are quivering at the windows, and the great fields of waving corn, and the saildotted river. My room is up among the branches of the trees; and the birds and the butterflies fly in and out, and the green branches shoot in at the open windows, and the lights and shadows of the clouds come and go with the rest of the company. The scent of the flowers, and indeed of everything that is growing for miles and miles, is most delicious.' There he could be most thoroughly enjoyed, for he never seemed so cheerfully at home anywhere else. At his own table, surrounded by his family and a few guests, old acquaintances from town-among them sometimes Forster, Carlyle, Reade, Collins, Layard, Maclise, Stone, Macready, Talfourd—he was always the choicest and liveliest companion. He was not what is called in society a professed talker, but he was something far better and rarer. In his own inimitable manner he would frequently relate to a friend, if prompted, stories of his youthful days, when he was toiling on the London Morning Chronicle, passing sleepless hours as a reporter on the road in a postchaise, driving day and night from point to point to take down the speeches of Sheil and O'Connell. He liked to describe the post-boys, who were accustomed to hurry him over the road that he might reach London in advance of his rival reporters, while, by the aid of a lantern, he was writing out for the press, as he flew over the ground, the words he had taken down in shorthand. Those were his days of severe training, when in rain and sleet and cold he dashed along, scarcely able to keep the blind ing mud out of his tired eyes; and he imputed much of his ability for steady hard work to his practice as a reporter, kept at his grinding business, and determined if possible to earn seven guineas a week. A large sheet was started at this period of his life, in which all the important speeches of Parliament were to be reported verbatim for future reference. Dickens was engaged on this gigantic journal. Mr. Stanley had spoken at great length on the condition of Ireland. It was a very long and eloquent speech, occupying many hours in the delivery. Eight reporters were sent in to do the work. Each one was required to report three-quarters of an hour, then to retire, write out his portion, and to be succeeded by the next. Young Dickens was detailed to lead off with the first part. It also fell to his lot, when the time came round, to report the closing portions of the speech. On Saturday the whole was given to the press, and Dickens ran down to the country for a Sunday's rest. Sunday morning had scarcely dawned when his father, who was a man of immense energy, made his appearance in his son's sleeping-room. Mr. Stanley was so dissatisfied with what he found in print, except the beginning and ending of his speech (just what Dickens had reported), that he sent immediately to the office and obtained the sheets of these parts of the report. He there found the name of the reporter, which, according to custom was written on the margin. Then he requested that the young man bearing the name of Dickens should be immediately sent for. Dickens' father, all aglow with the prospect of probable promotion in the office, went immediately to his son's stopping-place in the country and brought him back to London. In telling the story Dickens said: that way. Without further pause he began, and went rapidly on hour after hour to the end, often becoming very much excited, and frequently bringing down his hand with great violence upon the desk near which he stood." Dickens was, as has been intimated, one of the most industrious of men, and marvellous stories are told (not by himself) of what he has accomplished in a given time in literary and social matters. His studies were all from nature and life, and his habits of observation were untiring. If he contemplated writing Hard Times, he arranged with the master of Astley's circus to spend many hours behind the scenes with the riders and among the horses; and if the composition of the Tale of Two Cities were occupying his thoughts, he could banish himself to France for two years to prepare for that great work. Hogarth pencilled on his thumb-nail a striking face in a crowd that he wished to preserve; Dickens, with his transcendent memory, chronicled in his mind whatever of interest met his eye or reached his ear, any time or anywhere. Speaking of memory one day he said the memory of children was prodigious; it was a mistake to fancy children ever forgot anything. When he was delineating the character of Mrs. Pipchin, he had in his mind an old lodginghouse keeper in an English watering-place where he was living with his father and mother when he was but two years old. After the book was written he sent it to his sister, who wrote back at once: What does this mean? you have painted our lodging-house keeper, and you were but two years old at that time!" Characters and incidents crowded the chambers of his brain, all ready for use when occasion required. No subject of human interest was ever indifferent to him, and never a day went by that did not afford him some sugges tion to be utilized in the future. "I remember perfectly to this day the aspect of the room I was shown into, and the two gentlemen in it, Mr. Stanley and his father. His favourite mode of exercise was walking: Both gentlemen were extremely courteous to and when in America, two years ago, scarcely me, but I noted their evident surprise at the a day passed, no matter what the weather, that appearance of so young a man. While we he did not accomplish his eight or ten miles. spoke together I had taken a seat extended to It was on these expeditions that he liked to me in the middle of the room. Mr. Stanley recount to the companion of his rambles told me he wished to go over the whole speech stories and incidents of his early life; and and have it written out by me, and if I were when he was in the mood, his fun and humour ready he would begin now. Where would I knew no bounds. He would then frequently like to sit? I told him I was very well where discuss the numerous characters in his delightI was, and we could begin immediately. He ful books, and would act out, on the road, tried to induce me to sit at a desk; but at that dramatic situations, where Nickleby or Coppertime in the House of Commons there was field, or Swiveller would play distinguished nothing but one's knees to write upon, and I parts. It is remembered that he said on one had formed the habit of doing my work in of these occasions, that during the composition whence, spin and weave about it until it assumes form and beauty, and becomes instinct with life." He always had much to say of animals as well as of men, and there were certain dogs and horses he had met and known intimately which it was specially interesting to him to remember and picture. There was a particular dog in Washington which he was never tired of delineating. The first night Dickens read in the capital this dog attracted his attention. "He came into the hall by himself," said he, of his first stories he could never entirely dismiss the characters about whom he happened to be writing; that while the Old Curiosity Shop was in process of composition, Little Nell followed him about everywhere; that while he was writing Oliver Twist, Fagin the Jew would never let him rest, even in his most retired moments; that at midnight and in the morning, on the sea and on the land, Tiny Tim and little Bob Cratchit were ever tugging at his coat-sleeve, as if impatient for him to get back to his desk and continue the story of their lives. But he said after he had published sev-"got a good place before the reading began, eral books, and saw what serious demands his characters were accustomed to make for the constant attention of his already overtasked brain, he resolved that the phantom individuals should no longer intrude on his hours of recreation and rest, but that when he closed the door of his study he would shut them all in, and only meet them again when he came back to resume his task. That force of will with which he was so pre-eminently endowed enabled him to ignore these manifold existences till he chose to renew their acquaintance. He said also that when the children of his brain had once been launched free and clear of him into the world, they would sometimes turn up in the most unexpected manner to look their father in the face. Sometimes he would pull the arm of his companion and whisper, "Let us avoid Mr. Pumblechook, who is crossing the street to meet us;" or, "Mr. Micawber is coming; let us turn down this alley to get out of his way.' He always seemed to enjoy the fun of his comic people, and had unceasing mirth over Mr. Pickwick's misadventures. In answer one day to a question prompted by psychological curiosity, if he ever dreamed of any of his characters, his reply was "Never; and I am convinced that no writer (judging from my own experience, which cannot be altogether singular, but must be a type of the experience of others) has ever dreamed of the creatures of his own imagination. It would," he went on to say, "be like a man's dreaming of meeting himself, which is clearly an impossibility. Things exterior to one's self must always be the basis of dreams." The growing up of characters in his mind never lost for him a sense of the marvellous. "What an unfathomable mystery there is in it all!" he said one day. Taking up a wine-glass, he continued: "Suppose I choose to call this a character, fancy it a man, endue it with certain qualities; and soon the fine filmy webs of thought, almost impalpable, coming from every direction, we know not and paid strict attention throughout. He came the second night and was ignominiously shown out by one of the check-takers. On the third night he appeared again with another dog, which he had evidently promised to pass in free; but you see," continued Dickens, "upon the imposition being unmasked, the other dog apologized by a howl and withdrew. His intentions, no doubt, were of the best, but he afterwards rose to explain outside, with such inconvenient eloquence to the reader and his audience, that they were obliged to put him down stairs." All animals which he took under his especial patronage seemed to have a marked affection for him. Quite a colony of dogs has always been a feature at Gad's Hill. When Dickens returned home from his last visit to America, these dogs were frequently spoken of in his letters. In May, 1868, he writes: "As you ask me about the dogs, I begin with them. The two Newfoundland dogs coming to meet me, with the usual carriage and the usual driver, and beholding me coming in my usual dress out at the usual door, it struck me that their recollection of my having been absent for any unusual time was at once cancelled. They behaved (they are both young dogs) exactly in their usual manner; coming behind the basket phaeton as we trotted along, and lifting their heads to have their ears pulled—a special attention which they receive from no one else. But when I drove into the stable-yard, Linda (the St. Bernard) was greatly excited, weeping profusely, and throwing herself on her back, that she might caress my foot with her great fore-paws. M.'s little dog, too, Mrs. Bouncer, barked in the greatest agitation on being called down and asked, 'Who is this?' tearing round and round me like the dog in the Faust outlines." There were certain books of which Dickens liked to talk during his walks. Among his especial favourites were the writings of Cobbett, De Quincey, the Lectures on Moral Philosophy |