in Genoa
itself: a wonderful palace, with an entrance-hall fifty feet high, and
larger than "the dining-room of the Academy," and bedrooms "in size
and shape like those at Windsor Castle, but greatly higher," and a
view from the windows over gardens where the many fountains sparkled,
and the gold fish glinted, and into Genoa itself, with its "many
churches, monasteries, and convents pointing to the sunny sky," and
into the harbour, and over the sapphire sea, and up again to the
encircling hills--a view, as Dickens declared, that "no custom could
impair, and no description enhance."

But with the beginning of October came again the time for work; and
beautiful beyond all beauty as were his surroundings, the child of
London turned to the home of his heart, and pined for the London
streets. For some little space he seemed to be thinking in vain, and
cudgelling his brains for naught, when suddenly the chimes of Genoa's
many churches, that seemed to have been clashing and clanging nothing
but distraction and madness, rang harmony into his mind. The subject
and title of his new Christmas book were found. He threw himself into
the composition of "The Chimes."

Earnest at all times in what he wrote, living ever in intense and
passionate sympathy with the world of his imagination, he seems
specially to have put his whole heart into this book. "All my
affections and passions got twined and knotted up in it, and I became
as haggard as a murderer long before I wrote 'the end,'"--so he told
Lady Blessington on the 20th of November; and to Forster he expressed
the yearning that was in him to "leave" his "hand upon the time,
lastingly upon the time, with one tender touch for the mass of toiling
people that nothing could obliterate." This was the keynote of "The
Chimes." He intended in it to strike a great and memorable blow on
behalf of the poor and down-trodden. His purpose, so far as I can make
it out, was to show how much excuse there is for their shortcomings,
and how in their errors, nay even in their crimes, there linger traces
of goodness and kindly feeling. On this I shall have something to say
when discussing "Hard Times," which is somewhat akin to "The Chimes"
in scope and purpose. Meanwhile it cannot honestly be affirmed that
the story justifies the passion that Dickens threw into its
composition. The supernatural machinery is weak as compared with that
of the "Carol." Little Trotty Veck, dreaming to the sound of the bell