n one through half a dozen
chapters." Of course he yielded, nevertheless; and much consideration
followed over sundry other titles submitted. Reviving none of those
formerly rejected, here were a few of these now rejected in their turn.
THE HEARTH. THE FORGE. THE CRUCIBLE. THE ANVIL OF THE TIME. CHARLES
DICKENS'S OWN. SEASONABLE LEAVES. EVERGREEN LEAVES. HOME. HOME-MUSIC.
CHANGE. TIME AND TIDE. TWOPENCE. ENGLISH BELLS. WEEKLY BELLS. THE
ROCKET. GOOD HUMOUR. Still the great want was the line adaptable from
Shakespeare, which at last exultingly he sent on the 28th of January.

"I am dining early, before reading, and write literally with my mouth
full. But I have just hit upon a name that I think really an admirable
one--especially with the quotation _before_ it, in the place where our
present _H. W._ quotation stands.

"'The story of our lives, from year to year.'--_Shakespeare._"
"ALL THE YEAR ROUND.

"A weekly journal conducted by Charles Dickens."

With the same resolution and energy other things necessary to the
adventure were as promptly done. "I have taken the new office," he wrote
from Tavistock House on the 21st of February; "have got workmen in; have
ordered the paper; settled with the printer; and am getting an immense
system of advertising ready. Blow to be struck on the 12th of March. . . .
Meantime I cannot please myself with the opening of my story" (the _Tale
of Two Cities_, which _All the Year Round_ was to start with), "and
cannot in the least settle at it or take to it. . . . I wish you would come
and look at what I flatter myself is a rather ingenious account to which
I have turned the Stanfield scenery here." He had placed the
_Lighthouse_ scene in a single frame; had divided the scene of the
_Frozen Deep_ into two subjects, a British man-of-war and an Arctic sea,
which he had also framed; and the school-room that had been the theatre
was now hung with sea-pieces by a great painter of the sea. To believe
them to have been but the amusement of a few mornings was difficult
indeed. Seen from the due distance there was nothing wanting to the most
masterly and elaborate art.

The first number of _All the Year Round_ appeared on the 30th of April,
and the result of the first quarter's accounts of the sale will tell
everything that needs to be said of a success that went on without
intermission to the close. "A word before I go back to Gadshill," he
wrote from