There
will only be besides, Wills, Wilkie Collins, and Mr. Arthur Chappell.
Will you come? No dress. Evening left quite free."
I went, and the God-speed party was a very pleasant one. But I liked
best to have him, as I frequently had, all to myself. I suppose I
am not, as Johnson said, a "clubbable" man. At all events I highly
appreciate what the Irishman called a tatur-tatur dinner, whether the
gender in the case be masculine or feminine; and I incline to give
my adherence to the philosophy of the axiom that declares "two to
be company, and three none." But then I am very deaf, and that has
doubtless much to do with it.
On the 10th of September, 1868, Dickens writes:--
* * * * *
"The madness and general political bestiality of the General Elections
will come off in the appropriate Guy Fawkes days. It was proposed to
me, under very flattering circumstances indeed, to come in as the
third member for Birmingham; I replied in what is now my stereotyped
phrase, 'that no consideration on earth would induce me to become
a candidate for the representation of any place in the House of
Commons.' Indeed it is a dismal sight, is that arena altogether. Its
irrationality and dishonesty are quite shocking." [What would he have
said now!] "How disheartening it is, that in affairs spiritual or
temporal mankind will not begin at the beginning, but _will_ begin
with assumptions.
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