The “Blind Man,” as he was called, appeared to afford Dickens as much amusement as if he saw his work then for the first time; but this was one of the qualities of his genius; there was inexhaustibility and freshness in everything to which he turned his attention.  The ingenuity and loving care shown by the “Blind Man” in deciphering or guessing at the apparently inexplicable addresses on letters and parcels excited his admiration.  “What a lesson to all of us,” he could not help saying, “to be careful in preparing our letters for the mail!” His own were always directed with such exquisite care, however, that had he been brother to the “Blind Man,” and considered it his special work in life to teach others how to save that officer trouble, he could hardly have done better.

Leaving the hurry and bustle of the Post-Office behind us, we strolled out into the streets of London.  It was past eight o’clock, but the beauty of the soft June sunset was only then overspreading the misty heavens.  Every sound of traffic had died out of those turbulent thoroughfares; now and then a belated figure would hurry past us and disappear, or perhaps in turning the corner would linger to “take a good look” at Charles Dickens.  But even these stragglers soon dispersed, leaving us alone in the light of day and the sweet living air to heighten the sensation of a dream.  We came through White Friars to the Temple, and thence into the Temple Garden, where our very voices echoed.  Dickens pointed up to Talfourd’s room, and recalled with tenderness the merry hours they had passed together in the old place.  Of course we hunted out Goldsmith’s abode, and Dr. Johnson’s, saw the site of the Earl of Essex’s palace, and the steps by which he was wont to descend to the river, now so far removed.  But most interesting of all to us there was “Pip’s” room, to which Dickens led us, and the staircase where the convict stumbled up in the dark, and the chimney nearest the river where, although less exposed than in “Pip’s” days, we could well understand how “the wind shook the house that night like discharges of cannon, or breakings of a sea.”  We looked in at the dark old staircase, so dark on that night when “the lamps were blown out, and the lamps on the bridges and the shore were shuddering,” then went on to take a peep, half shuddering ourselves, at the narrow street where “Pip” by and by found a lodging for the convict.  Nothing dark could long survive in our minds on that June night, when the whole scene was so like the airy work of imagination.  Past the Temple, past the garden to the river, mistily fair, with a few boats moving upon its surface, the convict’s story was forgotten, and we only knew this was Dickens’s home, where he had lived and written, lying in the calm light of its fairest mood.

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