Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, Va. [W. Va.]) 1852-1859, 1858-10-12
DIckENs AS HE UsED TO BE, AND AS NE IS Now.

DICKENS AS HE USED TO BE, AND AS HEIs Now.
The readers of Charles Dickens works will ,
beinterested in this little sketch eff him, as he
used to be- and as he now is, taken from an ar.
ticle in the Philadelphia Press, by DR.. Shelton
Mckenzie. He commences with .'Bozr appear
ance in this counGy-some fourteen year ago:
Seldom did more highly dressed young gem
tleman glitterFon Broadway than Charles Dick
certainly are not-we might even say that he
was oVer-dresseds Addicted to chat description
of dashy vests, described by Young England as
very loud; stuck into coats and pants onwhich
tho genius of Stnltz had evidently been employ
ed; wearing the tallest and gossiest of chimney
pipe hats, the thinnest morocco boots, the gay
eStkidgo9eS and the tinicst of all delicate canes
Charles Dickens, as he emerged from Carlton
House, "a great hotel of the time, much affected
by English visiters to New York; was remark
able looking young man. He would have struck
a passing stranger as an actor, fully dressed to
represent the character of fop, in some comedy
or farce where the young dramatist desired to
have fling atyoung men who, aping at fashion,
ran into wild extraYaganceS Of attire-out-
Brummeling Brummel, and out.D'0rsaying
D'Orsay. AT that time, too, Dickens was as
closely "shaven and sh0rn" rs if he really were
an actor, and his face was deeply lined us the
faces of actors often are from the wear and tear
which the muscles are professionally subjected
1t is very different now. Seventeen years
have changed Dickens, and improved his per-
sonal appearance. He has become stonter,
without being too ful-robnst, but not bulky.
The Oreiltes have disappeared. Either Time,
or the barber, has "thinned his flowing hair"
His taste in dress has become mitigated, and
he exhibits limited supply of jewelry, ex-
hibiting only single ring. He wears Kos
snth, instead of a chimney pipe hat The fash,
loud vests of by-gone years may now be cat
alogued among Dickens abandoned habits
The face, once SO smooth, now is hirsute. He
reloices in full beard and moustache, though
he is whiskerless. The hair, which is very
sparsely sprinkled with gray, has retired little
off his forehead, so as to give full view of
that
"DOue of thought, that palace the mind"
His features, too, have greatly been improved,
as to their expression, by the advance of time.
He looks, what he is, a shrewd, clever, obser-
vantman. You might easily give him credit
for being an humoTiSt-witty himself, and the
cause of wit in Others; but few gazing upon
Dickens, the living likeness of man of the
world, would suspect what depths of imagina-
ton, poetry and pathos lie within his heart
Had you the opportunity of studying that face.
you might imagine that Charles Dickens was an
austute lawyer, a shrewd merchant, a keen
Speculation, a clever engineer nything in short,
but the tear.exciting author of Little Nell, the
mrth- making creator of Sam Weller. For his
expreSsionis what we may call keen. He looks
as il no one need try to overreach him. You
would readily take him for a hard, close, worldly
man, and you would greatly mistake him.