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