ut the scheme formally before me,
after the renewed and larger offers had been submitted. "If there were
reasonable hope and promise, I could make up my mind to go to Australia
and get money. I would not accept the Australian people's offer. I would
take no money from them; would bind myself to nothing with them; but
would merely make them my agents at such and such a per centage, and go
and read there. I would take some man of literary pretensions as a
secretary (Charles Collins? What think you?) and with his aid" (he
afterwards made the proposal to his old friend Mr. Thomas Beard) "would
do, for _All the Year Round_ while I was away, The Uncommercial
Traveller Upside Down. If the notion of these speculators be anything
like accurate, I should come back rich. I should have seen a great deal
of novelty to boot. I should have been very miserable too. . . . Of course
one cannot possibly count upon the money to be realized by a six months'
absence, but, L12,000 is supposed to be a low estimate. Mr. S. brought
me letters from members of the legislature, newspaper editors, and the
like, exhorting me to come, saying how much the people talk of me, and
dwelling on the kind of reception that would await me. No doubt this is
so, and of course a great deal of curious experience for after use would
be gained over and above the money. Being my own master too, I could
'work' myself more delicately than if I bound myself for money
beforehand. A few years hence, if all other circumstances were the same,
I might not be so well fitted for the excessive wear and tear. This is
about the whole case. But pray do not suppose that I am in my own mind
favourable to going, or that I have any fancy for going." That was late
in October. From Paris in November (1862), he wrote: "I mentioned the
question to Bulwer when he dined with us here last Sunday, and he was
all for going. He said that not only did he think the whole population
would go to the Readings, but that the country would strike me in some
quite new aspect for a Book; and that wonders might be done with such
book in the way of profit, over there as well as here."

[249] A person present thus described (1st of February 1863) the second
night to Miss Dickens. "No one can imagine the scene of last Friday
night at the Embassy . . . a two hours' storm of excitement and pleasure.
They actually murmured and applauded right away into their carriages and
down the street."

CHAPTER XII.