[New York City—Wednesday, 11 December 1867]
Wednesday. Laura Johnson & her two children came in before breakfast was over. Then Cyrus Field & a troop of kind agreeable friends—at last however we found a moment to run out and catch a walk.
At four Dickens came to dinner in our room with Eytinge & Anthony: his American designer & engraver. Afterward we went to see the “Black Crook” together and then home to the hotel where we sat talking until one o’clock. There is nothing I should like so much to do as to set down every word he said in that time but much must go down to oblivion. During dinner he talked quietly first of some of the temper accidents and calamities he had witnessed suggested to his memory by the visit of a young officer who had given a description of the late tornado at the West Indies where after the storm had ceased bodies floated towards the shore thickly heaped together like schools of fish as they press together sometimes driven in shore by fright.
He has been in one railway accident wh. was described in All the Year Round. Strangely enough his chronometer watch which had kept perfect time and was always to be depended upon up to that moment has never been quite trustworthy since although he himself was entirely uninjured.
He talked of actors & acting—said, if a man’s Hamlet was a sustained conception, it was not to be quarrelled with, the only question was, what a man of melancholy temperament would do under such circumstances. Talked of Charles Reade & the greatness of Griffith Gaunt and the pity of it that he did not stand on his own bottom instead of getting in with Dion Boucicault etc. etc. but after dinner he unbent and while we were in the box at the theatre showed how true his sympathies were with the actors, was especially careful to make no sound wh. could hurt their feelings by apparent want of attention. The play was very dull so we sat and talked. He told me that no ballet-dancer could have pretty feet and one dreadful thing was they could never wash them as water renders the feet tender and they must become horny. He asked about Longfellow’s sorrow again & expressed the deepest sympathy but said he was like a man purified by suffering.
We had punch in our room after the play where he laughed till the tears ran down his cheeks over Bob Sawyers party and the remembrance of the laughter he had seen depicted on the faces of people the night before. Jack Hopkins was such a favorite with J. that D. made up the face again and went over the necklace story until we roared aloud—at length he began to talk of Fechter and to describe the sensitive character of the man. He saw him first quite by accident in Paris having strolled into a little theatre there one night. He was making love to a woman & so elevated her as well as himself by the sentiment in which he enveloped her that they trod into purer ether and in another sphere quite lifted out of the present. “By heavens, I said a man who can do this can do anything!” “I never saw two people more purely & instantly elevated by the power of love. The manner in which he presses the hem of the dress of Lucy in the Bride of Lammermoor is something surpassing speech & simply wonderful. The man has a thread of genius in him which is unmistakable, yet I should not call him a man of genius exactly either.” Mr Dickens described him as a man full of plans for plays, one who had lost much money as a manager too. He was apt to come down to Gads Hill with his head full of plans about a play wh. he wished Mr Dickens to write out and which Fechter would act in the writing room using Mr Dickens small pillow for a baby in a manner to make the latter feel, if Fechter were but a writer how marvellous his powers of representation would be. “I who for so many years have been studying the best way of putting things felt utterly amazed and distanced by this man.”
Before the end of our talk Mr Dickens became penetrated by the memory of his friend and brought him before us in all the warmth of ardent sympathy. Fechter is sure to come to this country, we are sure to have the happiness of knowing him (if we all live) and in that event I shall consider last night as the beginning of a new friendship.
