Page:Hopkinson Smith--In Dickens's London.djvu/147

JOHN FORSTER'S HOUSE larger audiences by which, as much as by his books, the world knew him."

Years after, in describing the memorable meeting, Forster says: "There was certainly no want of animation when we met. I have but to write the words to bring back the eager face and figure, as they flashed upon me so suddenly this wintry Saturday night that almost before I could be conscious of his presence I felt the grasp of his hand. It is almost all I find it possible to remember of the brief, bright meeting. Hardly did he seem to have come when he was gone. But all that the visit proposed he accomplished. He saw his little book in its final form for publication; and, to a select few brought together on Monday the 2nd of December at my house, had the opportunity of reading it aloud.&hellip; and when I expressed to Dickens, after he left us, my grief that he had so tempestuous a journey for such brief enjoyment, he replied that the visit had been one of happiness and delight to him. 'I would not recall an inch of the way to or from you, if it had been twenty times as long and twenty thousand times as wintry. It was worth any travel—anything! With the soil of the road in the very grain of my cheeks, I swear I wouldn't have missed that week, that first night of our meeting, that one evening of the reading at your rooms, aye, and the second reading too, for any easily stated or conceived consideration.'"

Still, ten years later, Mr. Dickens brought this home of Forster into "Bleak House," assuming that Mr. Tulkinghorn had his chambers on one of the upper floors.

"Here"—I quote from the novel—"in a large house, formerly a house of state, lives Mr. Tulkinghorn. It is let 89