Whittier, as we have seen, was seldom tempted out of his
country home and habitual ways, but Dickens was for one moment too
much for him. To our surprise, he wrote to ask if he could possibly
get a seat to hear him. "I see there is a crazy rush for tickets." A
favorable answer was dispatched to him as soon as practicable, but he
had already repented of the indiscretion. "My dear Fields," he wrote,
"up to the last moment I have hoped to occupy the seat so kindly
promised me for this evening. But I find I must give it up. Gladden
with it the heart of some poor wretch who dangled and shivered all in
vain in your long _queue_ the other morning. I must read my
'Pickwick' alone, as the Marchioness played cribbage. I should so
like, nevertheless, to see Dickens and shake that creative hand of
his! It is as well, doubtless, so far as he is concerned, that I
cannot do it; he will have enough and too much of that, I fear. I
dreamed last night I saw him surrounded by a mob of ladies, each with
her scissors snipping at his hair, and he seemed in a fair way to be
'shaven and shorn,' like the Priest in 'The House that Jack Built.'"
The large events of humanity were to Whittier a portion of his own
experience, his personal life being, in the ordinary sense, devoid of
incident. The death of Charles Dickens, in 1871, was a personal loss,
just as his life had been a living gain to this remote and invalid
man. One long quiet summer afternoon shortly after, Whittier joined us
for the sake of talking about Dickens.
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