He was passionately fond of the theatre, loved the lights and music and flowers, and the happy faces of the audience; he was accustomed to say that his love of the theatre never failed, and, no matter how dull the play, he was always careful while he sat in the box to make no sound which could hurt the feelings of the actors, or show any lack of attention.  His genuine enthusiasm for Mr. Fechter’s acting was most interesting.  He loved to describe seeing him first, quite by accident, in Paris, having strolled into a little theatre there one night.  “He was making love to a woman,” Dickens said, “and he so elevated her as well as himself by the sentiment in which he enveloped her, that they trod in a purer ether, and in another sphere, quite lifted out of the present.  ‘By heavens!’ I said to myself, ’a man who can do this can do anything.’  I never saw two people more purely and instantly elevated by the power of love.  The manner, also,” he continued, “in which he presses the hem of the dress of Lucy in the Bride of Lammermoor is something wonderful.  The man has genius in him which is unmistakable.”

Life behind the scenes was always a fascinating study to Dickens.  “One of the oddest sights a green-room can present,” he said one day, “is when they are collecting children for a pantomime.  For this purpose the prompter calls together all the women in the ballet, and begins giving out their names in order, while they press about him eager for the chance of increasing their poor pay by the extra pittance their children will receive.  ‘Mrs. Johnson, how many?’ ‘Two, sir.’  ‘What ages?’ ’Seven and ten.’  ‘Mrs. B., how many?’ and so on, until the required number is made up.  The people who go upon the stage, however poor their pay or hard their lot, love it too well ever to adopt another vocation of their free-will.  A mother will frequently be in the wardrobe, children in the pantomime, elder sisters in the ballet, etc.”

* * * * *

Dickens’s habits as a speaker differed from those of most orators.  He gave no thought to the composition of the speech he was to make till the day before he was to deliver it.  No matter whether the effort was to be a long or a short one, he never wrote down a word of what he was going to say; but when the proper time arrived for him to consider his subject, he took a walk into the country and the thing was done.  When he returned he was all ready for his task.

He liked to talk about the audiences that came to hear him read, and he gave the palm to his Parisian one, saying it was the quickest to catch his meaning.  Although he said there were many always present in his room in Paris who did not fully understand English, yet the French eye is so quick to detect expression that it never failed instantly to understand what he meant by a look or an act.  “Thus, for instance,” he said, “when I was impersonating Steerforth in ‘David Copperfield,’ and