cable. . . . There is a gleam of reason in the drawing-room. But
it is approached through a series of small chambers, like the joints of a
telescope, which are hung with inscrutable drapery."

Later impressions of Paris (1855-56) may find a place here. "A man who
brought some little vases home last night said, 'On connait bien en
France, que Monsieur Dick-in prend sa position sur la dignite de la
litterature. Ah! c'est grande chose! Et ces caracteres sont si
spirituellement tournees! Cette Madame Tojare (Todgers), ah! qu'elle est
drole et precisement comme une dame que je connais a Calais.'"

In the winter of 1856 he wrote:--"I met Madame Georges Sands the other
day at a dinner got up by Madame Viardot. . . . The human mind cannot
conceive anyone more astonishing opposed to all my preconceptions. If I
had been shown her in a state of repose, and asked what I thought her to
be, I should have said: 'The Queen's monthly nurse.' _Au reste_, she has
nothing of the _bas bleu_ about her, and is very quiet and agreeable."

On 20th May 1855, he wrote to Stanfield about the scenery of a play by
Wilkie Collins which was in preparation.

"There is only one scene in the piece, and that, my tarry lad, is the
inside of a light-house. Will you come and paint it for us one night,
and we'll all turn to and help." And again to the same friend (22nd May
1855): "The great ambition of my life will be achieved at last, in the
wearing of a pair of very coarse petticoat trousers."

He wrote to Stanfield about the performance--"Lemon and I did every
conceivable absurdity, I think, in the farce; and they never left off
laughing. . . . Then Scotch reels till 5 A.M."

Dickens could appreciate other actors, and he writes in 1862 of Fechter's
Hamlet as a "performance of extraordinary merit; by far the most
coherent, consistent, and intelligible Hamlet I ever saw."

On the same subject he wrote to Macready: "Fechter doing wonders over the
way here, with a picturesque French drama. Miss Kate Terry, in a small
part in it, perfectly charming. . . . She has a tender love-scene in
this piece, which is a really beautiful and artistic thing. . . . I told
Fechter: 'That this is the very best piece of womanly tenderness I have
ever seen on the stage, and you'll find that no audience can miss it.'"
{216}

_Dombey_ was published early in 1848, and during the whole of 1849 and
the summer and autumn of 1850 he was writing _David Copperfield_.