In fact, when I saw him subsequently in London, I think I should have passed him in the street without recognising him.  I never saw a man so changed.

Any attempt to draw a complete pen-and-ink portrait of Dickens has been rendered for evermore superfluous, if it were not presumptuous, by the masterly and exhaustive life of him by John Forster.  But one may be allowed to record one’s own impressions, and any small incident or anecdote which memory holds, on the grounds set forth by the great writer himself, who says in the introduction to the American Notes (first printed in the biography)—­“Very many works having just the same scope and range have been already published.  But I think that these two volumes stand in need of no apology on that account.  The interest of such productions, if they have any, lies in the varying impressions made by the same novel things on different minds, and not in new discoveries or extraordinary adventures.”

At Florence Dickens made a pilgrimage to Landor’s villa, the owner being then absent in England, and gathered a leaf of ivy from Fiesole to carry back to the veteran poet, as narrated by Mr. Forster.  Dickens is as accurate as a topographer in his description of the villa, as looked down on from Fiesole.  How often—­ah, how often!—­have I looked down from that same dwarf wall over the matchless view where Florence shows the wealth of villas that Ariosto declares made it equivalent to two Romes!

Dickens was only thirty-three when I first saw him, being just two years my junior.  I have said what he appeared to me then.  As I knew him afterwards, and to the end of his days, he was a strikingly manly man, not only in appearance but in bearing.  The lustrous brilliancy of his eyes was very striking.  And I do not think that I have ever seen it noticed, that those wonderful eyes which saw so much and so keenly, were appreciably, though to a very slight degree, near-sighted eyes.  Very few persons, even among those who knew him well, were aware of this, for Dickens never used a glass.  But he continually exercised his vision by looking at distant objects, and making them out as well as he could without any artificial assistance.  It was an instance of that force of will in him, which compelled a naturally somewhat delicate frame to comport itself like that of an athlete.  Mr. Forster somewhere says of him, “Dickens’s habits were robust, but his health was not.”  This is entirely true as far as my observation extends.

Of the general charm of his manner I despair of giving any idea to those who have not seen or known him.  This was a charm by no means dependent on his genius.  He might have been the great writer he was and yet not have warmed the social atmosphere wherever he appeared with that summer glow which seemed to attend him.  His laugh was brimful of enjoyment.  There was a peculiar humorous protest in it when recounting or hearing anything specially absurd, as who should