hard winter's work before him. Steadily refusing all
invitations to go out during the weeks he was reading, he only went into
one other house besides the Parker, habitually, during his stay in
Boston. Every one who was present remembers the delighted crowds that
assembled nightly in the Tremont Temple, and no one who heard Dickens,
during that eventful month of December, will forget the sensation
produced by the great author, actor, and reader. Hazlitt says of Kean's
Othello, "The tone of voice in which he delivered the beautiful
apostrophe 'Then, O, farewell,' struck on the heart like the swelling
notes of some divine music, like the sound of years of departed
happiness." There were thrills of pathos in Dickens's readings (of David
Copperfield, for instance) which Kean himself never surpassed in
dramatic effect.

He went from Boston to New York, carrying with him a severe catarrh
contracted in our climate. In reality much of the time during his
reading in Boston he was quite ill from the effects of the disease, but
he fought courageously against its effects, and always came up, on the
night of the reading, all right. Several times I feared he would be
obliged to postpone the readings, and I am sure almost any one else
would have felt compelled to do so; but he declared no man had a right
to break an engagement with the public, if he were able to be out of
bed. His spirit was wonderful, and, although he lost all appetite and
could partake of very little food, he was always cheerful and ready for
his work when the evening came round. Every morning his table was
covered with invitations to dinners and all sorts of entertainments, but
he said, "I came for hard work, and I must try to fulfil the
expectations of the American public." He did accept a dinner which was
tendered to him by some of his literary friends in Boston; but the day
before it was to come off he was so ill he felt obliged to ask that the
banquet might be given up. The strain upon his strength and nerves was
very great during all the months he remained in the country, and only a
man of iron will could have accomplished all he did. And here let me
say, that although he was accustomed to talk and write a great deal
about eating and drinking, I have rarely seen a man eat and drink less.
He liked to dilate in imagination over the brewing of a bowl of punch,
but I always noticed that when the punch was ready, he drank less of it
than any one who might be presen