LONDON! 1840. "my readers had thoroughly participated in the limited to one story. Swiveller. He had very early himself become greatly taken with it. "I am very glad indeed," he wrote to me after the first half-dozen chapters, "that "you think so well of the Curiosity Shop, and "especially that what may be got out of Dick "strikes you. I mean to make much of him. Dick "I feel the story extremely myself, which I take "to be a good sign; and am already warmly in"terested in it. I shall run it on now for four "whole numbers together, to give it a fair chance." Every step lightened the road as it became more and more real with each character that appeared in it, and I still recall the glee with which he told me what he intended to do not only with Dick Swiveller, but with Septimus Brass, changed afterwards to Sampson. Undoubtedly, however, Dick LONDON: 1840. Disadvantages of weekly publication. BROAD STAIRS: was his favourite. "Dick's behaviour in the mat"ter of Miss Wackles will, I hope, give you satis"faction," is the remark of another of his letters. "I cannot yet discover that his aunt has any be"lief in him, or is in the least degree likely to "send him a remittance, so that he will probably "continue to be the sport of destiny." His difficulties were the quickly recurring times of publication, the confined space in each number that yet had to contribute its individual effect, and (from the suddenness with which he had begun) the impossibility of getting in advance. "I was "obliged to cramp most dreadfully what I thought "a pretty idea in the last chapter. I hadn't room "to turn": to this or a similar effect his complaints are frequent, and of the vexations named it was by far the worst. But he steadily bore up against all, and made a triumph of the little story. To help his work he went twice to Broad17th June. stairs, in June and in September. From this he wrote to me (17th June): "It's now four o'clock "and I have been at work since half-past eight. "I have really dried myself up into a condition "which would almost justify me in pitching off "the cliff, head first-but I must get richer before "I indulge in a crowning luxury. Number 15, BROAD- London. marks. "which I began to-day, I anticipate great things "from. There is a description of getting gra"dually out of town, and passing through neigh-flight from "bourhoods of distinct and various characters, "with which, if I had read it as anybody else's "writing, I think I should have been very much "struck. The child and the old man are on their "journey of course, and the subject is a very "pretty one." Between these two Broadstairs visits he wrote to me: "I intended calling on you this “morning on my way back from Bevis-marks, In Bevis"whither I went to look at a house for Sampson "Brass. But I got mingled up in a kind of social "paste with the jews of Houndsditch, and roamed "about among them till I came out in Moorfields, "quite unexpectedly. So I got into a cab, and "came home again, very tired, by way of the "city-road.” At the opening of September he was again at Broadstairs. The residence he most desired there, Fort-house, stood prominently at the top of a breezy hill on the road to Kingsgate, with a corn-field between it and the sea, and this in many subsequent years he always occupied; but he was fain to be content, as yet, with Lawn- Lawn-house. house, a smaller villa between the hill and the corn-field, from which he now wrote of his atten tions to Mr. Sampson Brass's sister. "I have been Sally Brass, BROAD- 1840. Chapter 38. Changes in proofs. "at work of course" (2nd September) "and have "just finished a number. I have effected a reform "by virtue of which we breakfast at a quarter be"fore eight, so that I get to work at half-past, "and am commonly free by one o'clock or so, "which is a great happiness. Dick is now Samp'son's clerk, and I have touched Miss Brass in "Number 25, lightly, but effectively I hope." At this point it became necessary to close the first volume of the Clock, which was issued accordingly with a dedication to Rogers, and a preface to which allusion will be made hereafter. "I have opened the second volume," he wrote to me on the 9th of September, "with Kit; and I "saw this morning looking out at the sea, as if a "veil had been lifted up, an affecting thing that I "can do with him bye and bye. Nous verrons." "I am glad you like that Kit number," he wrote twelve days later, "I thought you would. I have "altered that about the opera-going. Of course "I had no intention to delude the many-headed "into a false belief concerning opera nights, but "merely to specify a class of senators. I needn't "have done it, however, for God knows they're "pretty well all alike." This referred to an objection made by me to something he had written. of "opera-going senators on Wednesday nights;" BROAD STAIRS: 1840. and, of another change made in compliance with some other objection of mine, he wrote on the 4th of October: "You will receive the proof here- Chapter 42. "with. I have altered it. You must let it stand "now. I really think the dead mankind a million "fathoms deep, the best thing in the sentence. I "have a notion of the dreadful silence down "there, and of the stars shining down upon "their drowned eyes-the fruit, let me tell you, "of a solitary walk by starlight on the cliffs. "As to the child-image I have made a note of it "for alteration. In number thirty there will be "some cutting needed, I think. I have, however, "something in my eye near the beginning which "I can easily take out. You will recognize a "description of the road we travelled between "Birmingham and Wolverhampton: but I had con"ceived it so well in my mind that the execution "doesn't please me quite as well as I expected. I Chapters "shall be curious to know whether you think "there's anything in the notion of the man and "his furnace-fire. It would have been a good "thing to have opened a new story with, I have "been thinking since." 43-45. In the middle of October he returned to town, LONDON. and by the end of the month he had so far advanced that the close of the story began to be not |