ht the series to a close. "The reception at
Cambridge was something to be proud of in such a place. The colleges
mustered in full force, from the biggest guns to the smallest; and went
beyond even Manchester in the roars of welcome and rounds of cheers. The
place was crammed, and all through the reading everything was taken with
the utmost heartiness of enjoyment." The temptation of offers from
America had meanwhile again been presented to him so strongly, and in
such unlucky connection with immediate family claims threatening excess
of expenditure even beyond the income he was making, that he was fain to
write to his sister-in-law: "I begin to feel myself drawn towards
America as Darnay in the _Tale of Two Cities_ was attracted to Paris. It
is my Loadstone Rock." Too surely it was to be so; and Dickens was not
to be saved from the consequence of yielding to the temptation, by any
such sacrifice as had rescued Darnay.

The letter which told me of the close of his English readings had in it
no word of the farther enterprise, yet it seemed to be in some sort a
preparation for it. "Last Monday evening" (14th May) "I finished the 50
Readings with great success. You have no idea how I have worked at them.
Feeling it necessary, as their reputation widened, that they should be
better than at first, I have _learnt them all_, so as to have no
mechanical drawback in looking after the words. I have tested all the
serious passion in them by everything I know; made the humorous points
much more humorous; corrected my utterance of certain words; cultivated
a self-possession not to be disturbed; and made myself master of the
situation. Finishing with _Dombey_ (which I had not read for a long
time) I learnt that, like the rest; and did it to myself, often twice a
day, with exactly the same pains as at night, over and over and over
again." . . . Six days later brought his reply to a remark that no degree
of excellence to which he might have brought his readings could
reconcile me to what there was little doubt would soon be pressed upon
him. "It is curious" (20th May) "that you should touch the American
subject, because I must confess that my mind is in a most disturbed
state about it. That the people there have set themselves on having the
readings, there is no question. Every mail brings me proposals, and the
number of Americans at St. James's Hall has been surprising. A certain
Mr. Grau, who took Ristori out, and is highly responsible