inquiry; but remembering a song about
such an occurrence that was once popular at Salem House, and thinking he
might want to quote it, replied that I believed it was on St. Patrick's
Day. 'Yes, I know,' said Mr. Dick--'in the morning; but what year?' I
could give no information on this point." Original MS. of _Copperfield_.

CHAPTER XIX.

HAUNTED MAN AND HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

1848-1850.

Friendly Plea for Mr. Macrone--Completion of
Christmas Tale--The "Ghost" Story and the
"Bargain"--The Tetterby Family--Moral of the
Story--_Copperfield_ Sales--Letter from
Russia--The Periodical taking Form--Hopes of
Success--Doubts respecting it--New Design
chosen--Names proposed--Appearance of First
Number--Earliest Contributors--His Opinion of
Mr. Sala--Child's Dream of a Star--A Fancy
derived from his Childhood.

IT has been seen that his fancy for his Christmas book of 1848 first
arose to him at Lausanne in the summer of 1846, and that, after writing
its opening pages in the autumn of the following year, he laid it aside
under the pressure of his _Dombey_. These lines were in the letter that
closed his 1848 Broadstairs holiday. "At last I am a mentally matooring
of the Christmas book--or, as poor Macrone[156] used to write, 'booke,'
'boke,' 'buke,' &c." It was the first labour to which he applied himself
at his return.

In London it soon came to maturity; was published duly as _The Haunted
Man, or the Ghost's Bargain_; sold largely, beginning with a
subscription of twenty thousand; and had a great success on the Adelphi
stage, to which it was rather cleverly adapted by Lemon. He had placed
on its title page originally four lines from Tennyson's "Departure,"

"And o'er the hills, and far away
Beyond their utmost purple rim,
Beyond the night, across the day,
Thro' all the world IT follow'd him;"

but they were less applicable to the close than to the opening of the
tale, and were dropped before publication. The hero is a great chemist,
a lecturer at an old foundation, a man of studious philosophic habits,
haunted with recollections of the past "o'er which his melancholy sits
on brood," thinking his knowledge of the present a worthier substitute,
and at last parting with that portion of himself which he thinks he can
safely cast away. The recollections are of a great wrong done him in
early life, and