ce. "He was the life and soul of the
entire affair," says Forster. "I never seem till then to have known
his business capabilities. He took everything on himself, and did the
whole of it without an effort. He was stage director, very often stage
carpenter, scene arranger, property man, prompter, and band-master.
Without offending any one, he kept every one in order. For all he had
useful suggestions.... He adjusted scenes, assisted carpenters,
invented costumes, devised playbills, wrote out calls, and enforced,
as well as exhibited in his own proper person, everything of which he
urged the necessity on others." Dickens had once thought of the stage
as a profession, and was, according to all accounts, an amateur actor
of very unusual power. But of course he only acted for his amusement,
and I don't know that I should have dwelt upon this performance, which
was followed by others of a similar kind, if it did not, in Forster's
description, afford such a signal instance of his efficiency as a
practical man. The second event to be mentioned as happening in 1845,
is the publication of another very pretty Christmas story, "The
Cricket on the Hearth."

Though Dickens had ceased to edit _The Daily News_ on the 9th of
February, 1846, he contributed to the paper for some few weeks longer.
But by the month of May his connection with it had entirely ceased;
and on the 31st of that month, he started, by Belgium and the Rhine,
for Lausanne in Switzerland, where he had determined to spend some
time, and commence his next great book, and write his next Christmas
story.

A beautiful place is Lausanne, as many of my readers will know; and a
beautiful house the house called Rosemont, situated on a hill that
rises from the Lake of Geneva, with the lake's blue waters stretching
below, and across, on the other side, a magnificent panorama of snowy
mountains, the Simplon, St. Gothard, Mont Blanc, towering to the sky.
This delightful place Dickens took at a rent of some L10 a month. Then
he re-arranged all the furniture, as was his energetic wont. Then he
spent a fortnight or so in looking about him, and writing a good deal
for Lord John Russell on Ragged Schools, and for Miss Coutts about her
various charities; and finally, on the 28th of June, as he announced
to Forster in capital letters, BEGAN DOMBEY.

But as the Swiss pine with home-sickness when away from their own
dear land, so did this Londoner, amid all the glories of the Alps,
pin