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n the service of his own creations, made an irresistible appeal to the public, and till the day of his collapse, ten years later, their popularity showed no sign of waning. The amount of money which he earned thereby was amazing; the American tour alone gave him a net profit of L20,000; and he expected to make as much more in two seasons in England. But he paid dearly for these triumphs, being often in trouble with his voice, suffering from fits of sleeplessness, aggravating the pain in his foot, and affecting his heart. In spite, then, of the success of the readings, his faithful friends like Forster would gladly have seen him abandon a practice which could add little to his future fame, while it threatened to shorten his life. But, however arduous the task which he set himself, when the moment came Dickens could brace himself to meet the demands and satisfy the high expectations of his audience. His nerves seemed to harden, his voice to gain strength; his spirit flashed out undimmed, and he won triumph after triumph, in quiet cathedral cities, in great industrial towns, in the more fatiguing climate of America and before the huge audiences of Philadelphia and New York. He began his programme with a few chosen pieces from _Pickwick_ and the Christmas Books, and with selected characters like Paul Dombey and Mrs. Gamp; he added Dotheboys Hall and the story of David Copperfield in brief; in his last series, against the advice of Forster, he worked up the more sensational passages from _Oliver Twist_. His object, he says, was 'to leave behind me the recollection of something very passionate and dramatic, done with simple means, if the act would justify the theme'. It was because the art of reading was unduly strained that Forster protested, and his judgement is confirmed by Dickens's boast (perhaps humorously exaggerated) that 'at Clifton we had a contagion of fainting, and yet the place was not hot--a dozen to twenty ladies taken out stiff and rigid at various times'. The physical effects of this fresh strain soon appeared. After a month his doctor ordered him to cease reading; and, though he resumed it after a few days' rest, in April 1869 he had a worse attack of giddiness and was obliged to abandon it permanently. The history of these readings illustrates the character of Dickens perhaps better than any other episode in his later life. But the same restless energy is visible even in his life at Gadshill, which was his
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