PERSONAL.  39

There  was  the  perpetual  brain-work  going  on  without  in-
termission day  by  day.  There  was  also  the  fondness  for
good  living,  inherited  from  his  father,  encouraged  by
friends  and  acquaintances,  and  confirmed  by  habit.  It
Is  folly  to  deny  it,  Charles  Dickens  lived  fast.  His
domestic  troubles  may  have  helped  this  life  on.  It  cer-
tainly increased  after  his  wife  left  him.  There  were  two  parties
upon  the  question  to  blame,  and,  though  he  was  too  proud  to
seek  advice,  it  irked  him  to  feel  that  he  stood  condemned  by
many  whose  opinions  he  once  valued.  A  coolness  grew  up
between  him  and  his  publishers.  Neighbouring  gentry  fell  oif
from  intimacy.  Society  criticised  the  relations  existing  between
him  and  his  wife's  sister.  Matrimonial  connections  formed-
by  two  of  his  older  children  were  disturbed.  His  literary  pre-
eminence, always  acknowledged,  failed  to  pi*event  a  social  dis-
tance every  day  increasing  between  him  and  the  circle  in  which
he  had  been  the  leader.  ..."

65

Mr.  Dickens's  A3iateur  Theatricals.     A  Eeminis-
cence.
London:  Macmillan^s  Magazine.  January,  1871.
pp.  206,  215.  Eeprinted  in  the  Eclectic  Magazine  (New
York).     March,  1871.     pp.  322,  330.
An  interesting  record  of  many  incidents  in  connection  with
the  private  theatricals  in  which  Dickens  and  his  colleagues  took
prominent  parts.  The  farce  of  Mr.  Nightingale's  Diary  (the
joint  production  of  Dickens  and  Mark  Lemon),  and  the  acting
in  it,  are  fully  described  by  the  writer,  who  also  participated  in
these  festivities.  He  thus  expresses  his  opinion  of  Dickens's
acting  abilities  : — "To  say  that  his  acting  was  amateurish  is  to


40  PERSONAL.
