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THE SUNDAY OREGOXIAX. PORTLAND, JUNE 7, 1908.
OF
ANNIVERSARY
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BV WARWICK JAMES PRICE.
LOVB knows no anniversaries. The
heart never needs be prodded to
warm remembrances by a decennial
or a centenary.
That the world, then, has reached the
SSth June 9th since Charles Dickens, in
1870. laid by forever the pen which had
made him master of the tears and laugh
ter of thousands, neither broadens nor
deepens ur love for the man, but it
dooR impart a welcome timeliness to the
retelling of his brief and brilliant story.
English fiction offers many a name
lying close to the hearts of today's
"Gentle Readers." Joseph Addison seems
a bit far-off, perhais a little cold in his
persistent uprightness, but we hold him
dear. The very frailties of Goldsmith
make him the more truly an object of af
fectionate regard. We take genuine de
light In the great-heartedness of that Sir
"Walter who "never lost a friend." Ad
miration for "William Makepeace Thack
eray, white waistcoat and all," grows 10
downright attachment. Brown-eyed, vi
vacious Jane Austen stirs delight no less
than lasting fondness. But none, of these
(nor yet Robert Louis Stevenson, cherry
and gallant) is so dseply loved as
Charles Dickens. We know the person
ages of "Boz" by heart, we play at
games witli his incidents and names,
while from grateful souls we believe
that there never was such fun, and that
there never will be conceived again such
Inimitable beings as live today, immortal.
In those ever-fresh, ever-varied pages.
Hoy's Bravery Vnder Hardship.
Charles John Huff ham Dickens (so was
lie baptised) owed nothing to birth or
culture. When he arrived in the world,
February 7, 1812 (just as America was
Joining conflict for the second time with
the mother country), he entered the home
of a procrastinating, Improvident, hand-
4 rt-m Ol 1 1 h -aovt nf a trn-ammant rarT
at Landport, near Portsmouth. That
father's failings have been drawn for-all
time in Micawber and "Little Dorrit"
still pictures forth vividly that Marshal
sea Debtors Prison where the bankrupt
parent was set to work when this sec
ond of his eight children was a lad of
ten.
The family moved up to great, gray
London to be near its Incompetent head,
and little Charles, at an age when most
children are at their games, went to
work, for the princely salary of six shil
lings the week, in a blacking factory.
Think of the bright, imaginative little
follow (he had actually written a "trag
edy" when seven!) condemned to 14 hours
of miserable drudgery In every 24, menial
work In surroundings that are flattered
by the word uncongenial. But that boy
was father of the man that was to be.
The uncomplaining manliness, the gallant
endurance of hardship, the spirit of
quiet heroism which the novelist was
ever to hold up to admiration, these
traits all shone clear in this over-worked,
under-aged factory-boy, as he "Learned
In suffering what he taught In song."
Iater there chanced along a small leg
acy to the unworthy father, who came
out of tiie Marshalsea and began life
anew as a reporter on the "Morning
Chronicle." Then the boy was given a
couple of years' schooling.
The School of the Streets.
Tears after, when an acquaintance
asked where the creator of Pickwick had
been educated, his Micawber of a parent
guffawed unsympathetically and ven
tured that "he sort o' educated himself."
It was as true as unfeeling. The crumbs
of learning which had fallen to Charles.
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Just entering his teens, and earlier for a
brief space at Chatham, were of scant
account. Books and the London streets
were his realest teachers. "Don Quixote"
and "Gil Bias." "The Vicar of Wake
field" and "Robinson Cruso," "Tom
Jones" and "Sir Roger de Coverly"
these had been his earliest masters, as
well as glorious companions when the
tedious factory hours had ended and he
was again in his London garret, least
alone when most solitary. " I
Browning once said he had graduated
from the "University of Italy," and In
the same sense Dickens' alma mater was
the busy, heartless "University of Lon
don." The city highways and byways
were his school and he became their au
thentic historian. Like Dr. Johnson,' he
bore passionate love for Fleet street and
the Strand. When he depicts a country
village it seeems conscious, dramatic, un
real; but his pictures of the bustling
metropolis are perfect. To the present
day traveler, acquainted fitly with his
Dickens, the whole of London Is redo
lent of him. especially the sections which
He along the river. His characters stilt.
are everywhere to be met with in twen
tieth century flesh.
The Plunge Into Print.
The youth tried a brief hand at the
law. but newspaperdom held more fas
cination for him than any barrister's of
fice, and, studying shorthand, he became
first one of the True Sun's parliamentary
reporters, then serving the Chronicle in
like capacity. It is Interesting to note
the Inbred hankering after the Journal
istic life which cropped to the surface
through all the man's 68 years. Several
times he actually ventured upon ther un
certain waters of the Fourth Estate, but
TYPICAL NOTES IN PRAISE OF DICKENS
The good, the gentle, high-gifted, ever-friendly,, noble Dickens
ever' inch of him an Honest Man. Carlyle.
Dickens' stymie is descriptive, racy and flowing; it is instinct with
new images and singular illustrations. Bagehot.
Dickens shows that the haunts of the blackest crimes are sometimes
lighted up by the presence and influence of the noblest souls. Channing.
Chief in thy generation born of men
Whom English praise Reclaimed as English-born,
Vilh eyes that matched the world-wide eyes of morn
For gleam of tears or laughter, tenderest then .
AVlien thoughts of children warmed their light, or when
Reverence of age with love and labor worn,
Or God-like pity fired with God-like scorn,
Shot through the tame that winged thy swift pen :
Where stars and suns that we beheld not burn.
Higher even than here, though highest was here thy place,
Ixve sees thy spirit laugh and speak and shine
AVith Shakespeare, and the soft, bright soul of Sterne,
And Fieldings' kindliest might, and Goldsmith's grace;
Scarce one more loved or worthier than thine.
r Swinburne.
- How poor the world of fancy would be, how "dispeopled of her
dreams," if, in some ruin of the social system, the books of Dickens
were lost. Lang.
The philosophy of Dickens is the philosophy of kindness, of a genial
interest in all things great and small, of a light English joyousness,
and a sunny universal benevolence. Masson
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never with success, save in Household
Words, which started in 1S50 climbed,
at the height of Its prosperity, to a cir
culation close upon 100,000 copies a week.
The reporter of other men's sayings and
doings was soon to beget his own "shad
ows of the real" shades far more actual,
more living than the flesh and bIoodte
lngs who were getting ready to put on
mourning for the Fourth William. One
Autumn day of 1S33 a young fellow of 21
almost stealthily dropped Into a red mail
box on the Strand a stoutish envelope ad
dressed to the old Monthly Magazine. A
fortnight later and the same figure was
buying a copy of the current Issue look
ing down Its table of contents, trembling
ly, shame-facedly! and then stepptng
aside from the unseeing stream of passers-by.
Into some convenient vestibule,
to dash from his blue eyes the teal's that
had sprung thereVat the sight of a title:
"A Dinner "at Poplar Walk, by Box."
So was taken the first doubting step
which was to lead along the, now main
traveled road whose millstones read
Pickwick and Nlckleby and'Dombey .-and
Copperfield. Boi figured for a year in
the Monthly's pages, then "went over" to
the columns of the evening edition of his
own paper (his salary was by that raised
from five to seven guineas a week) ; and
then stood before, the world "between
covers." with no less an one than Crulk
shank's self as his illustrator.
Master of Tears and Laughter.
Sketches by. Boz bears date of 1836 on
the title page of the much-to-be-desired
first edition, and the same Spring saw
the initial issue of the "Postjiumous Pa
pers of the Pickwick Club." Four of the
monthly numbers came out in the amber
of Chapman and Hall's types; Seymour,
the original illustrator, yielded to "Phiz"
Browne but "Pretty good" was the best
that London was saying of the venture.
Then the fifth installment Introduced its
readers to the innyard of the White
Hart Tavern, and to one Samuel Weller,
blacking the maidenly boots of that no-longer-young
lady who had just eloped
with Mr. Jingle and success dawned
clear and sure. That sun was -never to
set. It still shines as unwaveringly as
when the 25-year-old Dickens was there
introduced to fame by 'Son Samlvel."
The first five years of the reign of
Victoria C37-'4J) saw "Oliver Twist"
and "Nicholas Nickleby," "Old Curios
ity Shop" and "Barnaby Rudge," as
well as "Pickwick": all of them In that
"monthly parts" form of issue which
antedated our present-day "serial."
Had Dickens never written .another
word, how mucjt this world would yet
owe him! There was the ' benevolent,
verdant, elderly chairman of the Pick
wick Club; tne Fat Boy, and the
Wellers, father and son. There were
unhappy little Oliver Twist, and Bea-.
die Bumble, and Fagln, and the charm
ing Artful Dodger. There were Mrs.
Nickleby, weak and wordy copy of the
novelist's own mother, and Dick Swlv
eller, and Little Nell, and Dolly Varden,
and Grip the Raven worst and best of
all "nature fakes." As the literary
parent of this Immortal family trav
eled north to the Highlands, and then
across seas to 'The States," he might
have gone assured (thought he was far.
too modest a man ? -for ' any such
thought) that undytnf re'nown was al
ready his. , i
Helping the World Along.
"American Notes." "A Christmas
Carol" and "The Chimes" were the
next books he was to father. The
keenly observant sketches of our land
back In the forties is entertaining
through - very contrast with today's
realities, but the other two little tales
are far more than this. The humanity
which- was, through all his work, the
keynote of, Dickens, here sounded most
unmistakably. The tune xf that carol
and-the tone of those chimes have rung
down through all the intervening
years to uplift and aid the world. Many
a man has, because of them, looked
about him for his own "Tiny Tim," for
whom a Christmas dinner must be
bought. Never a man read the
"Chimes," as an old year went out, who
did not at least begin the new one
better.
Other holiday stories were to come
"The Battle of Life." "The Cricket
on the Health," "Crips the Carrier,"
"'lhe Haunted Man," and all the r'est-r
but. these first two .remained (and re
main) unequalled. , '
There were to be eight more novels.
"Martin Chuzzlwit" was to bring
hypocritical Pecksniff; Paul Pombey
was-.to ccme to claim and hold our love
and pity; David Copperfield was to live
again the hungry days and garret
nights of Dickens' own .hard boyhood;
"Bleak House" was to carry us for the
moment Into better, society than the
earlier novels, had. Introduced us to;
splendid SldneV Carton was, to shine
out Inspiring)' against the dark back
ground of "A Tale of Two Cities"; de
lightful little Jennie Wren was ' to
"drtssmake" for her doll customers in
"Our Mutual Friend": Pip's autobiog
raphy waa to be written in "Great Ex
pectations." Attacking the" phams and wrongs of
that early Vlctnrlan period, tearing off
the veils that for years had concealed
tha cruelties and horrors and injustices
of the poor laws, the workhouses, the
debtors, prisons, and the public schools
of the- time, Dickens often takes us
deep and dark. Yet he never befouls
us. We are the better for the experi
ences he gives; uplifted by his own
cheerinesai and hopefulness: strength
ened for the fight, here and now,
against such modern woes and wicked
nesses as we. feel he would go bravely
attack.
A Moneymaker, but Modest.
America welcomed Dickens upon his
second visit here in '67, as few other
notabilities have been welcomed. He
came over to read "The Holytrte Inn"
to us. and "Dr. Marigold," as well as
selections from the longer books, never
to be forgotten by those whoso privi
lege it was to sit and listen. He read
well, because there was inborn in him
so much of the actor, and lie made
from those readings full' as much
money as. during his lifetime, waa to
come In from all his 15 volumes.
The man took good rare of his
profits, too: the boy had had too hard
a time keeping body and soul together
to fail to know the value of shillings
and pence. "'Gadshlll," the roomy,
homey, solid-looking place near Roch
ester, which he had admired and covet
ed from boyhood became his in fact,
and there he died, on the 9th of June,
fust 38 years ago. leaving unfinished
"The Mystery of Edwin Drood" only
the other day dragged anew Into no
tion through Its alleged connections
with the Druce case) ever to remain
a mystery.
He left, too, th request that there
should be raised no monument to htm.
and that neither "Mr." nor "Esq."
should be carved upon his tombstone.
Wherefore the heavy slab, which .cov
ers his last resting-place In the "Poet's
Corner" of Westminster Abbey bears
only: "Charles Dickens; 1812-1870,"
an epitaph as straightforward and
modest as was the whole life of the
master.
The art of Dickens was close kin to
that, of Hogarth. Each was possessed
of m. remarkable power of observation;
each directed it to the study of hu
manity. Each, too, was constitution
ally . democratic, as It were; sprung
from the people, and drawing, for the
people, the very life they knew, and
with insistent sympathy. Miss Aus
ten's country canvasses are perfect;
Dickens' are worse than mediocre.
Thackeray's lords and ladles are con
vincingly true; Dickens was at his
worst when he left the masses for the
classes. He hal! much of 'George
Elliot's heart-deep skill in telling the
day-to-day, hand-to-mouth struggle of
the poor, and he cared Uttle as did
she for a sudden heroism; the heretic,
in Dickens' eyes, was the dally doing
of hard duties, cheerily and uncom
plainingly. Only Shakespeare has given the lan
guage more "name-words." Who
needs be told that a "Micawber" Is a
worthless fellow, waiting for some
thing to turn up, and never once
dreaming of doing any of the turning
himself? "Qullp" is as accurate a syn
onym for cruelty as "Othello" Is for
Jealousy. "Jonas Chuzzlewit" Is as cer
tain through all time to come to personify
avarice as "Shylock's" self. As we call
a man a "hypocrite" to his face as re
fer to him as a "Pecusnift" or a "Uriah
Heep." .
Caricatures some of these are, un
doubtedly, but the storymaker who could
raise our smiles so readily with these
convexed and concaved mirrors, could
with equal ease hold up the truest mirror
to mother nature. A score of instances
bear witness that Dickens' characters
lived. One reader, .n Invalid, told he
had only a few days more to live, de
clared he could die quite gladly if only
his hours could be drawn out somehow
till the last installment of "Pickwick"
had come to him he had only one more
to read! Another saddled his horse and
rode six miles at night to waken a friend
with the welcome news that "that
damned Carker's dead at last! Got run
over by the train!" And wli "Old
Curiosity Shop" was appearing liundreds
of letters came to the author begging
that "Little Nell" be not allowed to die.
Three Million Copies a Year.
' Among a certain class it has become
rather "the thing" to criticise the masters
of English letters. .Dickens, such as
these announce, lacked culture and breed
ing. He Is downright vulgar. London
as he drew it, moreover, is passing,, and
the dialect In which many of his cre
ations speak is fast becoming extinct.
Would such as these rather have blue
blood or a great, loving heart? Would
they prefer even the widest intellectual
attainments to the praise which came to
the memory of Dickens, at his death:
"Every inch of him was an honest man!"
For one who laughs at Dickens, ten
thousand laugh with him. For a single
critic to call him vuigar' their name is
legion who name him divine.
As to his being a 'novelist of yester
day's scenes and ways of speech, let It
be remembered that great books live
in spite of form, not because of it; oth
erwise what of the poems of Robert
Burns? Is a man's vogue Justly to be
considered as passing when London alnne
sold copies of his books in 1907?
All England. It is estimated, disposed
of quile 1.500.000. In the United States
probably as manymore were sold. If
this points to literary demise, well may
an author wonder where is death's sting.
The Self-Written Monody.
Charles Dickens was burled in the
Abbey on June 14, 1S70, and that morn
ing there appeared in the Ne'w York
Tribune a monody in his memory, com
piled from his own dearly-loved pages.
No better eulogy was pronounced over
those honored remains for It was as
though the voice of the man himself had
spoken:
Dead. Your Majesty. Ied. mv TjOrd
and Gentlemen. Dead, Right Keverend and
Wrong Reverends or every order. Dead,
men and 'women born with heavenly com
passion In your hearts.
Tlleak House,
"the spirit of the hlld rettirntnK. Inno
cent and radlent. tourhed tlte old man with
Its hand, and beckoned him away.
The Chime"
The Star had shown him the way to find
the god of the poor; and through humility
and sorrow and forgiveness lie had gone to
his Redeemer's reet.
Hard Times.
. .. died like a child that had gone
to sleep.
David Copperfield
.and began the world not this
world, oh, not this world. The world that
sels this right.
Bleak House,
gone before the Father; far be
yond the twilight Judgements of this world,
high above its mists and obscurities.
I Little Dorrit.
. . and lay at rvst.
tRvid Copperfield.
Too Much Tolling.
Chirago News.
There are times I have to hustle and get out
and use my muscle;
It's a cinch because a feller has to eat;
An' I've found few ways of gettin' what l
want except by swealin'.
For the game's a-growin' mighty hard to
beat;
But it seems a shame this spoilin' ail our
bright glad day- by toilin'
This exerin' through our life's allotted
span
As some people struggle through it. If I
have to. I will do It.
But 1 like to take ft eaay when I can.
cases I have got
somethin' for my
though 1 find
be no other
when I'm
When the boss Is keepin
to show my paces
Make a bluff at.doin'
pay :
I must keep the dirt a-flyln
It mighty tryin".
For there doesn't seem I
way.
But I adways feel Ilk ktckin1
shovelin' and plrkin'
And 1 wish that there waa somethin' I
could plan
That would keep my back trom stralnln',
and no cussln' nor compluinin'.
For 1 liksttto take it easy when I can.
It would be all right supposin' I could Jest
lie somewhere dozin'
And a-smokln' where a bit of sunshine
fell;
With no big-mouthed drivin' bosses and no
other oares nor crosses
I believe I'd like to try it for a spell.
If they'd bring the grub and feed It to a
feller when he'd need It
And stand by to keep the flies off with a
fan.
With no call for any motion, that would
be about my notion.
For 1 like to lake It easy when I can.
Marrying a girl against the wishes of her
parent is. next lo murder, the most severe
ly punishable crime -in Lapland.