I^ISEN BY PERSEVERANCE. 



way of life has of late, alas ! confirmed. I must accept the 

 drawback — since it is one — with the powers I have ; and I 

 must hold upon the tenure prescribed to me.' In writing 

 regarding the plans for books floating through his mind, 

 there is the same undertone of unrest. ' Am altogether in a 

 dishevelled state of mind — motes of new books in the dirty air, 

 miseries of older growth threatening to close upon me. Why 

 is it that, as with poor David, a sense comes always crushing 

 on me now, when I fall into low spirits, as of one happiness I 

 have missed in life, and one friend and companion I have 

 never made?' Then followed a complete account and dis- 

 closure of the skeleton in the domestic closet, which amounted 

 to an apparently complete incompatibility between himself and 

 his wife. 



A friend presented Dickens with a Swiss chalet, which 

 arrived from Paris in ninety-four pieces, fitting like a puzzle, and 

 which formed a great resort to him during the summer months. 

 In wTiting to an American friend, he said : ' I have put five 

 mirrors in the chalet 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 sail- 

 dotted 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.' The 

 course of his life at Gad's Hill, unless when disturbed by 

 visitors, was regular and methodical, as it had always been, 

 his time being divided between working and walking. He 

 enjoyed the dogs which from time to time he collected around 



