umorist, "The Trial from Pickwick." Whoever went for
the first time to see and hear Charles Dickens read one or other of his
writings, did well in selecting a night when he was going to relate his
immortal ghost story of Christmas. In compliance with the well-known
wish of the Novelist, the audience, as a rule, contrived to assemble
and to have actually taken their places several minutes before the time
fixed for the Reader's appearance upon the platform. Occasionally
it happened, nevertheless, that a stray couple or so would be still
drifting in, here and there, among the serried ranks of the stalls,
when, book in hand, with a light step, a smile on his face, and a flower
in his button-hole, the author had already rapidly advanced and
taken his place before his quaintly constructed but graceful little
reading-desk. Then it was, perhaps, at those very times, that a
stranger to the whole scene regarded himself almost as under a personal
obligation to these vexatious stragglers. For, until every one of
them had quietly settled down, there stood the Novelist, cheerfully,
patiently, glancing to the right and to the left, taking the bearings of
his night's company, as one might say, with an air of the most perfect
ease and self-possession. Whosoever, consequently, was in attendance
there for the first time, had an opportunity, during any such momentary
pause, of familiarising himself with the appearance of the famous
writer, with whose books he had probably been intimately acquainted for
years upon years previously, but whom until then he had never had the
chance of beholding face to face.

Everyone, even to the illiterate wayfarers in the public streets, had,
to a certain extent, long since come to know what manner of man Charles
Dickens was by means of his widely-scattered photographs. But, there,
better than any photograph, was the man himself,--the master of all
English humorists, the most popular author during his own lifetime that
ever existed; one whose stories for thirty years together had been read
with tears and with laughter, and whose books had won for him personal
affection, as well as fame and fortune. Anyone seeing him at those
moments for the first time, would unquestionably think--How like he
was to a very few indeed, how utterly unlike the vast majority of his
countless cartes-de-visites! To the last there was the bright,
animated, alert carriage of the head--phrenologically a noble
head--physiognomically a