The Chemawa American, November 21, 1928, Page 4, Image 4

PAGE 4
THE CHEMAWA AMERICAN
LIFE OF CHALES DICKENS
(Continued from page 1)
His father was a good-natured, lazy man, and his
mother a well-educated but not a very warm-hearted
woman. Little Charles was taught to read by his
mother, but he attended a school at Chatham - where
they lived for a time, and the great delight of his early
boyhood was the reading of a little library qf stories
which he discovered in an upstairs room of his father’s
house. It is said that he would go about for a whole
week together imagining himself to be the hero of
some of these romances.
Dickens always believed that his feeble health in
childhood was in one way an advantage to him, for,
while the other boys were playing, he had to read.
His father got into debt and the family moved to a
miserable house in Camden town, London.
Charles, who longed to go to school, was turned in­
to a little house-hold drudge and his parents seemed
to forget about his education entirely. His school
days were over when he was but fifteen years of age.
In 1827 he was employed at a salary of thirteen
shillings sixpence a week. This work was so well
done that he got a raise to fifteen shillings.
Later on his father was imprisoned for debt, the
bailiff took away all their furniture, leaving only
the beds and some pots and pans; and, worst of all,
they took the story-books which had given so much
-delight to Charles.
In those days a man who was imprisoned for debt
could have his family to live with him in the prison,
where a fair amount of liberty was allowed; and so
Dicken's mother, with her other children, went to stay
at the prison with his father while he was sent but to
work at the distasteful task of sticking labels on
blacking bottles, whereby he could earn a dollar or so
a week. At last his father was released and they
rented a home elsewhere.
When Charles was twelve years of age he was taken
away from his dirty work at label pasting and sent to
a school in Hampstead Road, where the teachers
seemed to have been the queerest sort of people imagin­
able. But Dickens was happier now than he had ever
been. He could indulge his taste for reading.
He left school when fourteen years old and studied
shorthand so that he could be a newspaper reporter.
So he taught himself shorthand, and by spending
much of his time at the British Museum managed to
make np for the shortcomings in his education.
He was twenty-two years old when he became a re­
porter. He saw so many funny, or queer, people that
he decided to write about them. Dora in “ David
Copperfield” was about his sweetheart who married
some one else.
He was presently the happiest and most successful
story teller in England. To the end of his days he
kept the love of the multitudes of readers which his
stories won for him.
He traveled a great deal. First he went to Edin­
burgh and the people gave him great banquets. Then
he came to America and all the people thought as
much of him as we did of “ Lindy.” He was not
pleased with all this fuss. It made him sick, but he
came back again. When he went back home he had
all kinds of trouble. There were deaths in the fami­
ly and his health was failing.
In 1865 he was riding on a train that was wrecked.
This scare made him very nervous and he never got
well. In 1867 he came to America again and contract­
ed a very bad cold. He was not able to throw this
cold off and he grew so sick that he could not sleep.
On June 8, 1870, he fell in a faint and died the next
day. According to his wishes he had a very plain
funeral. He was buried at Westminster Abbey.
I AM MUSIC
Servant and Master am I; servant of those dead, and
master of those living. Through me the spirits im­
mortal speak the message that makes the world weep,
and laugh, and wonder, and worship.
I tell the story of love, the story of hate-, the story
that saves and the story that damns. I am the incense
upon which prayers float to Heaven. I am the smoke
which palls over the field of battle where men lie dying
with me on their lips.
I am close to the marriage alter, and when the graves
open I stand nearby. I call the wanderer home, I res­
cue the soul from the depths, I open the lips of the lov­
ers, and through me the dead whisper to the living.
One I serve as I serve all; and the king I make my
slave as easily as I stibject his slave. I speak through
the birds of the air, the insects of the field, the crash
of waters on the rockribbed shores, the sighing of wind
in the trees, and I am even heard by the soul that
knows me in the clatter of wheels on the city streets.
I know no brother, yet all men are my brothers; I
am the father of the best that is in them, and they are
fathers of the best that is in me; I am of them and
they are of me. For I am the instrument of God.
I AM MUSIC.
N ov. 24
-
MOTION PICTURES
-
-
-
-
A lm ost H um an
Dec. 1
-
-
-
-
-
- Flying Luck
Dec. 15
-
-
-
-
-
Hold ’Em, Yale
Dec. 26
-
.
.
.
.
Kingof Kings
Jan. 12
-
-
-
-
-
-
Beau Geste
Jan. 26 -
-
-
-
Fireman, Save My Child
Feb. 9
.....................................
Rough Riders
Feb. 2 3 ..............................................Chang
March. 9
-
-
-
-
Old Ironsides