Such, however, was very far from being Dickens' view. He had "undergone," he said, "as much sorrow and agitation" in the writing "as if the thing were real," and on the 3rd of November, when the last page was written, had indulged "in what women call a good cry;" and, as usually happens, the child that had cost much sorrow was a child of special love.[19] So, when all was over, nothing would do but he must come to London to read his book to the choice literary spirits whom he specially loved. Accordingly he started from Genoa on the 6th of November, travelled by Parma, Modena, Bologna, Ferrara, Venice--where, such was the enchantment of the place, that he felt it "cruel not to have brought Kate and Georgy, positively cruel and base";--and thence again by Verona, Mantua, Milan, the Simplon Pass, Strasbourg, Paris, and Calais, to Dover, and wintry England. Sharp work, considering all he had seen by the way, and how effectually he had seen it, for he was in London on the evening of the 30th of November, and, on the 2nd of December, reading his little book to the choice spirits aforesaid, all assembled for the purpose at Forster's house. There they are: they live for us still in Maclise's drawing, though Time has plied his scythe among them so effectually, during the forty-two years since flown, that each has passed into the silent land. There they sit: Carlyle, not the shaggy Scotch terrier with the melancholy eyes that we were wont to see in his later days, but close shaven and alert; and swift-witted Douglas Jerrold; and Laman Blanchard, whose name goes darkling in the literature of the last generation; and Forster himself, journalist and author of many books; and the painters Dyce, Maclise, and Stanfield; and Byron's friend and school companion, the clergyman Harness, who, like Dyce, pays to the story the tribute of his tears. Dickens can have been in London but the fewest of few days, for on the 13th of December he was leaving Paris for Genoa, and that after going to the theatre more than once. From Genoa he started again, on the 20th of January, 1845, with Mrs. Dickens, to see the Carnival at Rome. Thence he went to Naples, returning to Rome for the Holy Week; and thence again by Florence to Genoa. He finally left Italy in the beginning of June, and was back with his family in Devonshire Terrace at the end of that month.