204 RISEN B V PERSE VERANCE. 



had, many of them, a strong personal interest, and supphed 

 many personal traits of both his earlier and later life to his 

 biographer. He tells in one of them his cure for the disorder 

 of sleeplessness, which was his 'turning out of bed at two, 

 after a hard day, pedestrian and otherwise, and walking thirty 

 miles into the country to breakfast.' For a short story contri- 

 buted to the Ne7v York Ledger, called ' Hunted Down,' he 

 received the large sum of one thousand pounds ; a ' Holiday 

 Romance,' and ' George Silverman's Explanation,' of the same 

 length, were written for an American child's magazine issued 

 by Mr. Fields, and for the same price. 



The success of Dickens' second series of readings was as 

 great and well assured as the first. Writing from Glasgow on 

 the 3d December 1861, he described the following strange 

 scene : — ' Such a pouring of hundreds into a place already full 

 to the throat, such indescribable confusion, such a rending and 

 tearing of dresses, and yet such a scene of good humour on 

 the whole, I never saw the faintest approach to. While I 

 addressed the crowd in the room, G. addressed the crowd in the 

 street. Fifty frantic men got up in all parts of the hall and 

 addressed me all at once. Other frantic men made speeches 

 to the walls. The whole B. family were borne in on the top of 

 a wave, and landed with their faces against the front of the 

 platform. I read \yith the platform crammed with people. I 

 got them to lie down upon it, and it was like some impossible 

 tableau or gigantic picnic — one pretty girl in full dress lying 

 on her side all night, holding on to one of the legs of my 

 table ! It was the most extraordinary sight. And yet, from 

 the moment I began to the moment of my leaving ofi', they never 

 missed a point, and they ended with a burst of cheers.' A 

 tempting offer, which could not be accepted, was made to him 



