in his determinations a
something that had almost the tone of fierceness; something in his
nature that made his resolves insuperable, however hasty the opinions on
which they had been formed."

[217] The Board of Health returns, showing that out of every annual
thousand of deaths in London, the immense proportion of four hundred
were those of children under four years old, had established the
necessity for such a scheme. Of course the stress of this mortality fell
on the children of the poor, "dragged up rather than brought up," as
Charles Lamb expressed it, and perishing unhelped by the way.

[218] Here is the rough note: in which the reader will be interested to
observe the limits originally placed to the proposal. The first Readings
were to comprise only the _Carol_, and for others a new story was to be
written. He had not yet the full confidence in his power or versatility
as an actor which subsequent experience gave him. "I propose to announce
in a short and plain advertisement (what is quite true) that I cannot so
much as answer the numerous applications that are made to me to read,
and that compliance with ever so few of them is, in any reason,
impossible. That I have therefore resolved upon a course of readings of
the _Christmas Carol_ both in town and country, and that those in London
will take place at St. Martin's Hall on certain evenings. Those evenings
will be either four or six Thursdays, in May and the beginning of
June. . . . I propose an Autumn Tour, for the country, extending through
August, September, and October. It would comprise the Eastern Counties,
the West, Lancashire, Yorkshire, and Scotland. I should read from 35 to
40 times in this tour, at the least. At each place where there was a
great success, I would myself announce that I should come back, on the
turn of Christmas, to read a new Christmas story written for that
purpose. This story I should first read a certain number of times in
London. I have the strongest belief that by April in next year, a very
large sum of money indeed would be gained by these means. Ireland would
be still untouched, and I conceive America alone (if I could resolve to
go there) to be worth Ten Thousand Pounds. In all these proceedings, the
Business would be wholly detached from me, and I should never appear in
it. I would have an office, belonging to the Readings and to nothing
else, opened in London; I would have the advertisements emanating from
it, and also sig