Dickens as an amateur actor and stage-manager; he goes to Lausanne in May, 1846, and begins "Dombey"; has great difficulty in getting on without streets; the "Battle of Life" written; "Dombey"; its pathos; pride the subject of the book; reality of the characters; Dickens' treatment of partial insanity; M. Taine's false criticism thereon; Dickens in Paris in the winter of 1846-7; private theatricals again; the "Haunted Man"; "David Copperfield" begun in May, 1849; it marks the culminating point in Dickens' career as a writer; _Household Words_ started on March 30, 1850; character of that periodical and its successor, _All the Year Round_; domestic sorrows cloud the opening of the year 1851; Dickens moves in same year from Devonshire Terrace to Tavistock House, and begins "Bleak House"; story of the novel; its Chancery episodes; Dickens is overworked and ill, and finds pleasant quarters at Boulogne 102 CHAPTER X. Dickens gives his first public (not paid) readings in December, 1853; was it _infra dig._ that he should read for money? he begins his paid readings in April, 1858; reasons for their success; care bestowed on them by the reader; their dramatic character; Carlyle's opinion of them; how the tones of Dickens' voice linger in the memory of one who heard him 121 CHAPTER XI. "Hard Times" commenced in _Household Words_ for April 1, 1854; it is an attack on the "hard fact" school of philosophers; what Macaulay and Mr. Ruskin thought of it; the Russian war of 1854-5, and the cry for "Administrative Reform"; Dickens in the thick of the movement; "Little Dorrit" and the "Circumlocution Office"; character of Mr. Dorrit admirably drawn; Dickens is in Paris from December, 1855, to May, 1856; he buys Gad's Hill Place; it becomes his hobby; unfortunate relations with his wife; and separation in May 1858; lying rumours; how these stung Dickens through his honourable pride in the love which the public bore him; he publishes an indignant protest in _Household Words_; and writes an unjustifiable letter 126 CHAPTER XII. "The Tale of Two Cities," a story of the great French Revolution; Phiz's connection with Dickens' works comes to an end; his art and that of Cruikshank; both too essentially caricaturists of an old school to be permanently the illustrators of Dickens; other illustrators; "Great Expectations"; its story and characters; "Our Mutual Friend" begun in May, 1864; a complicated narrative; Dickens' extraordinary sympathy for Eugene Wrayburn; generally his sympathies are so entirely right; which explains why his books are not vulgar; he himself a man of great real refinement 139 CHAPTER XIII.