The Sun.
London, England, 1868-03-03 00:00:00

CHARLES DICKENS I.N PHILADELPHIA.

(Front the Morning Star.)

Mr. Dickens has just finished a course of readings
in this goad city of Penn, beginning with "The
Christmas Carol," and ending with " Boots at the
Hollow Tree Inn."

We were early in our seats on that memorable
first night, and waited long with such patience as
we could command, and yet he we looked for
seemed to come before us suddenly at last, with the
still swifness of a meteor. His business-like man-
ner nipped in the bud the surprised salutation of an
audience somewhat slow and cool, for he went at
the work in hand with brief pause or preliminary,
and put directly at us the fact that " Marley was
dead." And he went through with that work with
no dallying or coquetting with the subject or
audience—taking his " points" at a flying leap ;
and when all was done going as he came, rather
hurriedly and unceremoniously, our hearty farewell
burst of applause scarcely overtaking him, such
good time did he make in his retreat.
Mr. Dickens's style of reading is new to us. We
are glad to find it so refreshingly unprofessional and
unhackneyed--to see in it no attempt at stale elocu-
tionary effects and stage " business." About him
is no odour of the footlights—no musty stage tradi-
tions smother his genius. His English is simply
that of an English gentleman. The descriptive
portions of his readings are given precisely, it seems
to us, as he would read or talk to a little group of
friends in his own pleasant library at home. Yet
his voice has less to do with his personations than
we expected. His face, his action, more distinctly
mark his characters—in short, we find him more of
an actor than a reader. Yet it seemed that the
" Chrismas Carol" bad never before made music so
merry, so solemn, or so tender as when it came from
his lips, as once it came from his heart.
The coming of a great author before the people,
to read from his own works, is an event peculiar to
the age we live is—it shows, begging the pardon
of our distinguished English visitor—the progress
of liberal, not to say democratic, ideas. It could
scarcely have occurred during the last century,
when literary genius was both more subservient
and more arrogant than now ; when it was hedged
awful reverence and wonder.
in, like royalty, by
Think of Richardson reading his " Clarissa liar.:
lowe" to a tearful audience of our great, great
grandummas, or of Johnson rolling on to the
platform to read his ti Rasselas," or even of
Scott reciting " Marmion." Olympus is being
graded down to us, or we are getting a lift up
on to Olympus. The last proposition has certainly
seemed the true one during these more than it Ara-
bian Nights' Entertainments," when, with hearts
thrilled with pleasure that was almost pain, or
touched with pain that was sweeter than pleasure,
we have looked and listened, and laughed, and
wept, and grown young again under the spell of a
great master.
And say what you will over there of " American
furors," the return to us of this great novelist, who
has satirised and delighted us, whom we have with-
stood on the copyright—bad lugk to us—whom we
have reproached and loved, read and robbed for
more than a quarter of a century, is a profoundly
interesting event, coming as does, not as the terrible
note-taking " chiel," but as the interpreter of his
own marvellous conceptions—the personator of his
own quaint, or tender, or terrible creations. The
fact that it is Dickens who reads, his eye through
which sparkles the drollery, his voice through
which trembles the pathos, is doubtless that which
sets this apart from an other entertainments of the
kind. This, it is aline I • d
c by some, is the chief
power that attracts, the peculiar charm that en-
thrals us ; and "if so, why not ?" It is enough.
It is possible that there were better actors in the old
Globe Theatre that, Will Shakspere ; but could
they all live again for us, some bright, wondrous
mid-winter night, who but Will Shakspere should
interpret for us Lear, Othello, Hamlet, or Falstaff ?
Ah, if he stood thus before us, we should find small
fault with his " zising inflections," should be trou-
bled by no uncomfortable fancy that rare Ben Jon-
son could do the thing better, or doubts if it would
pay at two dollars a ticket ? Our severe eyes would
scarcely be offended by a rosebud in his button-hole,
or a diamond ou his finger. We would hardly turn
to remark to our neighbour that he was not as
young as when he was engaged in that discreditable
little affair at Charlecote. No ! he might rise in
his inflections to any vocal altitude—he might bud
out at every button-hole, and wear the Kohinoor
on his index finger ; he might be balder than the
Stratford bust—but he would be our glo-
rious Will Shakspere, and we would bless every
furrow and shadow on the dear face, every trace of
that thought and toil that had lightened the care
and labour of the world.

" Oh, it is because it is Dickens ! Yes, thank
Heaven, it is he I—our genial teacher, our strong
helper, our consoler under a thousand sorrows
and cares, oure merry ancient, our wise, cheery,
safe friend, who has made everyday life brighter,
and nobler, and easier for us all ; whose
beneficent genius has transfigured its homely du-
ties, turned its waterinto Wine.
He is this, and he
is still more. Who, after listening to the reading
of "Nicholas Nickleby" and " Dombey," can deny
that Mr. Dickens has dramatic genius of the rarest
order ; that he has given to human nature the most
careful, minute, and reverent study, and that his
personations are true as life itself ; that in short he
is a great artist? Occasionally, in the midst of our
sadness or our mirth, there surges in upon us the
full realisation of who this man is, and of the great
debt we owe him—the long, long score—a debt we
can neither liquidate by our tears nor repudiate by
our laughter. But soon we become only vaguely
conscious of his presence, while beholding vividly
his exquisite creations—we seem to see them
through him, as he had grown diaplionous, like the
ghost of Marley.
In "Nicholas Nickleby" seems to us best dis-
played Mr. Dickens's versatility as an actor.
He carries the whole dramatis persons in
his face. They who watch that carefully, mark
every delicate shade of expression, every light-
ning-like transition, aro satisfied ; they who
look for some miraculous transformation of the
entire man, who would ask to see Pickwick in
his spectacles and gaiters, Sam Weller in his
striped waistcoast, Old Marley in his tights and
pigtail, as he walked the earth, are slightly disap-
pointed in Mr. Dickens. In this reading his eyes—
wonderful eyes they are—now glare ; that is, one of
tbeu glares, with the cruel greed of &peers now

It is well for Mr. Dickens that he did not
" locate" Dotheboy's hall, with its unspeakable
brutalities and cruelties, in Massachusetts. Not
Ticknor and Fields could have saved him from
the wrath of an outraged commonwealth, and
the doors of Tremont Temple would have been
closed against him for ever. Yet great England
has forgiven -the faithful painter, and set herself
to correct the abuses which made his picture so
hideously life-like. He may even visit York-
shire without danger of discourteous treatment.
Thick-skinned Christians those Yorkshire men !

The readings of Mr. Dickens wins upon us night
by night, because, doubtless, it is so peculiarly his
own—bears no marks of the tutoring and training
of professors" of elocution. He has evilently kept
no vocal " chicken." His voice has not the mea-
sured mournfulness of Booth's, nor the melodious
rumble of Forrest's, nor the steady bugle-like clear-
ness of Fanny Kemble's ; but it is au organ through
which breathes every human passion, froril the
savage greed of a Squeerg to the joyous hearth4s
of a John Browdie—from the icy pride of a
Dombey to the tender lovingness of little Florence.
There are in that voice, searching, surprising
tones that no stage tutoring ever gives—tones
that transcend art. how heart-breaking is the
cry of a Florence Dombey over her dead mother ;
and how terrible the desolate wail of poor Snaike !
That is not alone the wild plaint of misery and
penury, cold and hunger ; it is the cry of a lost life,
of a famished heart, of a forsaken soul.
In the " Dombey " reading, what variety,
what masterly management of character ! Dom-
bey the Pompous, Pipchin the grim, Blimber
the portly, Toots the delicious, darling Floy,
and dear " old-fashioned " little Paul. If the
simple story of the pretty " blighted child " has
melted our hearts countless times, with its sur-
passing pathos and tenderness, what is it to have
the author himself show us the little lad, just
as he arose from his own heart, sweet, quaint,
patient, and thoughtful. He seems to bring him in
his arms to us, loving and reverently, as Bob
Cratchet carried Tiny Tim. He deals with him
very tenderly, as seeing about his head a light of
divine purity, solemn and ineffable. We have
heard that when "Little Dombey" is read in Eng-
land, the hall is sombre with the mourning dress of
bereaved mothers, who seem to find a melancholy
sort of comfort in listening to this story, so " won-
drous pitiful," and who, amid their tears, bless the
gracious heart that could so feel and reveal what
love, what hope, what dear joy coull be buried in
a little grave, with a " little, little child."
After the pathos of this story, the trial from Pick-
wick is needed to lighten the heart. It is deli-
ciously absurd, though some of the best points in
the original are omitted in the reading. We miss,
especially, Sam Weller's last Parthian arrow—
" Would any other genTman like to ask me
anythin' ?"
Mr. Justice Stareleigh and Old Weller are here the
great successes in this reading. Sam Weller—well,
perhaps, people are a little unreasonable as regards
Samuel, who is an immense favourite in America,
having a sort of Yankee drollery and " cuteness,"
and—yes, impudence—about him, very plea-
sant and endearing. He is native to us—so
each devout lover of " Pickwick" brings to
the hall his own private Sam, invisible,
but individual and quite satisfactory, and pits
him against the new Sam, which after all is the old
Sam, the true Sam, the original article, none
genuine, unless bearing this signature—C.D., with
the flourish. The truth is, we have never seen S
'Weller, and we probably never shall see him, not
because " there ain't no such a person ;" he still
lives, of course he does, but in our fallen condition
we are unworthy to behold him. Should he come
among us bodily, jostle us in the streets, write his
name on our hotel books, and spell it with a " We,"
yet should we not recognise him. But if the true
magician fails to show him to us in the magic
mirror of his genius, we will have no other conjur-
ing, but resign all hope of seeing our dear old
friend till we meet him " some summer morning,"
if we are good Pickwickians, at that hospitable
house at Dulwich, where he will open the door to
us, and show us in to " the governor," and help to
make us delightfully at home. Then we shall see
him as he is.

Dr. Marigold, the garrulous Cheap Jack, is
surely one of the most• quaint and enjoyable of
the most eccentric characters of Dickens. We
laugh, at first, at his droll assumptions, and whim-
sical comparisons ; but he wins constantly on our
respect and sympathy until he becomes a very
dear Jack indeed. It is a character rich in manly
tenderness, in simple, patient, unselfish good-
ness—shaded, but scarcely marred, by touches
of vanity and boastfulness —an esprit (Fe
metier too honest to be quite absurd. 110
stands out on his " foot-board" distinct from all
other creations of the great master of English
fiction, yet as a sort of kinship with each of those
admirable and lovable characters taken from lowly
life, whose homely, unconscious virtues renew our
faith in, our reverence for, poor unregenerate, unen-
lightened, sorely-tempted, socially-ignored, ae3the-
tically contemned, religiously condemned human
nature.

In the conception and charming personation of
Dr. Marigold, Mr. Dickens exhibits that profound
sympathy with the joys and sorrows of humble life
which make him so peculiarly the novelist of the
people—their helper, their interpreter, their prophet
of better days to come for the saddest and lowliest
of them. Perhaps the most absurd charge ever
brought against Mr. Dickens in this country is that
of being in reality quite shockingly deficient in
sympathy for the common people, while cherishing
sentiments of peculiar tenderness and ecstatic ad-
miration for rank and fashion—that, in short, " he
loves a lord." Well, the same charge was brought
against Robert Burns, the people's poet for all
time, made in spite of the grand democracy of his
" A man's a man for a' that."

And Thackeray—great, sad, earnest, manly
heart !—Thackeray, who, all his life, lashed snob-
bery with a whip of scorpions, was himself called a
" snob." But who now dare repeat a charge so in-
sanely false, so ineffably silly ? Thank heaven
human spite and detraction are the rank weeds of a
day ; while human love and gratitude are the ivy
and the amaranth that make beautiful the grave,
and crown the memory of genius. _

The truth is, that the great, catholic nature of
the man Charles Dickens includes within the wide
circle of its kindly human sympathies a mixed and
motley multitude—perambulating Pickwickians,
small paupers, neglected schoolboys, mariners,
fishermen, factory hands, carriers, Fleet prisoners,
street-sweepers, dustmen, convicts, detectives, strol-
ling players, Cheap Jacks, and deserving noblemen.
That circle takes in St. Giles, all of Bohemia, and a
part of Belgravia. lla has not done much for the
class artistically; Sir Mulberry Hawk and Lord
Verisoplit are not happy strokes of sycophancy ;
yet socially he evidently does not hold that the taint
of hereditary nobility excludes au honest fellow from
the brotherhood of man.
But the voluble, soft-hearted Cheap Jack, his
termagant wife, his frightened, dark-haired little
Sophy, and her poor dumb double—the elongated
Pickleson—the hoarse Miw, the kind doctor, the
mute lovers—sighing and signing—and their child,
talking miraculously, all fade from our sight; and,
presto ! we are iu Pob Sawyer's lodgings, and here

* The telegram gives the name as Mr. KINGUAM, but
there can scarcely be v, doubt the member for Ohio is the
perSOU Mont.