t the
house, the child died, suddenly. The news was communicated to Forster,
who was also at the dinner, and he decided that it would be better not
to tell the poor father till the speech of the evening had been made.
So Dickens made his speech, and a brilliant one it was--it is
brilliant even as one reads it now, in the coldness of print, without
the glamour of the speaker's voice, and presence, and yet brilliant
with an undertone of sadness, which the recent death of the speaker's
father would fully explain. And Forster, who knew of the yet later
blow impending on his friend, had to sit by and listen as that dear
friend, all unconscious of the dread application of the words, spoke
of "the actor" having "sometimes to come from scenes of sickness, of
suffering, ay, even of death itself, to play his part;" and then went
on to tell how "all of us, in our spheres, have as often to do
violence to our feelings, and to hide our hearts in fighting this
great battle of life, and in discharging our duties and
responsibilities."

In this same year, 1851, Dickens left the house in Devonshire Terrace,
now grown too small for his enlarging household, and, after a long
sojourn at Broadstairs, moved into Tavistock House, in Tavistock
Square. Here "Bleak House" was begun at the end of November, the first
number being published in the ensuing March. It is a fine work of art
unquestionably, a very fine work of art--the canvas all crowded with
living figures, and yet the main lines of the composition
well-ordered and harmonious. Two threads of interest run through the
story, one following the career of Lady Dedlock, and the other tracing
the influence of a great Chancery suit on the victims immeshed in its
toils. From the first these two threads are distinct, and yet happily
interwoven. Let us take Lady Dedlock's thread first. She is the wife
of Sir Leicester Dedlock, whose "family is as old as the hills, and a
great deal more respectable," and she is still very beautiful, though
no longer in the bloom of youth, and she is cold and haughty of
manner, as a woman of highest fashion sometimes may be. But in her
past there is an ugly hidden secret; and a girl of sweetest
disposition walks her kindly course through the story, who might call
Lady Dedlock "mother." This secret, or perhaps rather the fact that
there is a secret at all, she reveals in a moment of surprise to the
family lawyer; and she lays herself still further open to his
suspi