After the reading they were duly commented upon,
and revised until he thought he could do no more; yet twice before our
departure the proofs were taken out of the hand-bag where they were
safely stowed away, and again more or less altered.
Whittier's ever-growing fame was not taken by him as a matter of
course. "I cannot think very well of my own things," he used to say;
"and what is mere fame worth when thee is at home, alone, and sick
with headaches, unable either to read or to write?" Nevertheless, he
derived very great pleasure and consolation from the letters and
tributes which poured in upon him from hearts he had touched or lives
he had quickened. "That I like," he would say sometimes; "that is
worth having." But he must often have known the deeps of sadness in
winter evenings when he was too ill to touch book or pen, and when he
could do nothing during the long hours but sit and think over the
fire.
We slept in Elizabeth's chamber. The portrait of their mother, framed
in autumn leaves gathered in the last autumn of her life, hung upon
the wall. Here, too, as in our bedroom at Dickens's, the Diary of
Pepys lay on the table. Dickens had read his copy faithfully, and
written notes therein. Of this copy the leaves had not been cut; but
with it lay the "Prayers of the Ages," and volumes of poems, which had
all been well read, and "Pickwick" upon the top.
In the year 1867 Charles Dickens came to America to give his famous
Readings.
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