Nashville union and dispatch. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1866-1868, 1867-12-08
DICKENS AND HIS READINGS.

Inc AOgeAfst IN Nne h0te OF tAe
Artist = HIs First Appearance in
America. n2a 1a3 &E-s 81.
Monday night last was the occasion of
Mr.. Dickens frat reading in Boston be-
fore an immense crowd, at Fremont
Temple. The principal pieces were the
Christmas Carol" and "the Trial Scene
from the Pickwick papers" A Boston
letter-writer gives a glowing description of
the performance, from which the follow
ing will be found interesting:
His rooms are at the Parker House, and
there he has remained, busily engaged all
day in writing and study, excepting when
he is taking his daily eight mile "consti-
tutionaP' walk with his publisher Fields,
and steadily declining all the invitations to
breakfast, dinner tea, supper, parties, balls,
and drives, that hospitable Boston pours in
upon him in an unfaiiing stream. Much
of his time ia spent in the most Iaborious
pains.taking study of the parts he is TO
read. Indeed, the public has but little
idea Of the cost-in downright hard work
Of the mind, and body, and yoice-at which
these readings are produced. Although
Mr.. Dickens has read, now, nearly five
hundred times, / am assured, on the best
authority that he never attempts new
part in public until he has spent at least two
months itinstudy as faithful and search.
ing as Rachel or Cushman would give TO
new character. This study extends not
merely to the analysis Of the text, to the
discrimination of character, to the mi-
nutest' points of elocution; but decides
upon the facial expression, the tone of the
voice, the gesture, the attitude, and even
the material surroundings of the actor, for,
actiAga IS, not reading, in the ordinary
sense, at all. Mr.. Dickens isso essentially
an artist that he canSot neglect the slight
est thing that may serve to highten the
effect of what he has undertaken TO do.
And he is as conscientious, so strict in all
his dealings--a very martinez in business
and thorough man of afairs-that he will
leave nothing undone, that time and labor
can do, to give to the public that pays SO
much for the pleasure of hearing him, the
full worth of Its money. This is the rea~
son why he, man of the world, greatly
delighting in society, thoroughly fitted to
enjoy it himself, and to make others enjoy
it-deliberately cnts himself off from it,
until his task shall be dsne al am come
here" he says, "to read. The people ex-
pect me to do my best, and how can l do
it if / am all the time on the go? My
time is not my own, when am preparing
to read, any more than it is when l am
writing a novel, and | can as well do one
aa the other without concentrating all nv
powers on it until it is done"
In reading these works of his, Mr.. Dick
ems neither follows the original text, nor
adheres closely by any means to the text
of the pretty and convenient hand books
which he has himself condensed and pre-
pared. de leaves out a good deal, changes
words, mistakes words sometimes. and
really much of il seems impromptu I
thought, now and then, that he was think
ing of his present audience, and putting in
what he fancied would suit better here than
in London. His delivery has marked pc
culiarities, and is thoroughly original. He
deals much in the rising injection at the
en1 of sentences, is sometimes monotonous
and keeps up old pronunciations that we
seldom hear on this side of the water
"cldrP for clerk, wind with long
"i," "0jas" for odious are few. But,
on the whole, his accent and pronuncia
ton are not, what We call, English. The
great difference between his delivery,
and that Of our best Americans, is in its
slow, deliberate, clear-cut dissinctness.
| This is in the descriptive parts. Where
it suits the occason, his delivery takes
( every shape, and is good for all needs.
I Scrogg's growl-Bob Crdtckitss trembling
| appeal, the pompous bluster of Buzfuz-
Ars, CalIPpia's maundering whine, and Sam
Weller's manly yeoman's shout are all
! echoed by that magical voice, which will
be recognized wherever it is heard in Amer
ica as the voice of greai author, and of
the greatest, perhaps, Certainly in versa
I tility Of power the greatest, that has ever
charmed our western world.