us chances led
Dickens to his saying about the smallness of the world; but the close
relation often found thus existing between things and persons far apart,
suggests not so much the smallness of the world as the possible
importance of the least things done in it, and is better explained by
the grander teaching of Carlyle, that causes and effects, connecting
every man and thing with every other, extend through all space and time.

It was at the close of 1855 the negociation for its purchase began.
"They wouldn't," he wrote (25th of November), "take L1700 for the
Gadshill property, but 'finally' wanted L1800. I have finally offered
L1750. It will require an expenditure of about L300 more before yielding
L100 a year." The usual discovery of course awaited him that this first
estimate would have to be increased threefold. "The changes absolutely
necessary" (9th of February 1856) "will take a thousand pounds; which
sum I am always resolving to squeeze out of this, grind out of that, and
wring out of the other; this, that, and the other generally all three
declining to come up to the scratch for the purpose." "This day,"[219]
he wrote on the 14th of March, "I have paid the purchase money for
Gadshill Place. After drawing the cheque (L1790) I turned round to give
it to Wills, and said, 'Now isn't it an extraordinary thing--look at the
Day--Friday! I have been nearly drawing it half a dozen times when the
lawyers have not been ready, and here it comes round upon a Friday as a
matter of course.'" He had no thought at this time of reserving the
place wholly for himself, or of making it his own residence except at
intervals of summer. He looked upon it as an investment only. "You will
hardly know Gadshill again," he wrote in January 1858, "I am improving
it so much--yet I have no interest in the place." But continued
ownership brought increased liking; he took more and more interest in
his own improvements, which were just the kind of occasional occupation
and resource his life most wanted in its next seven or eight years; and
any farther idea of letting it he soon abandoned altogether. It only
once passed out of his possession thus, for four months in 1859; in the
following year, on the sale of Tavistock House, he transferred to it his
books and pictures and choicer furniture; and thenceforward, varied only
by houses taken from time to time for the London season, he made it his
permanent family abode. Now and then, even during th