The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1868-04-23

for the British ship OF State !
Dickens and His Dinner-The Gloriication
Of jefferson Brick.
Flattery is currency in which every man
has his price; but to properly apportion the
price to the man, and to man1uvre the money
into his wallet, never once awakening him to
the suspicion that he is taking bride, is
the finest of fine arts. How to please vanity
and not offend pride, which would be offended
if it thought you thought there was any
such weakness as that very vanity you are
trying to tickle-that is the delicate point,
the ultimate problem; and all the charm OF
manner, the gloss and sparkle of polite life,
depends upon success in this sort of play
upon the facile felicity of wit and word, the
nicely of perception and accuracy OF delivery
with which thought Is impelled across void
to make a double carrom as it shoots away
from the cushion Of some pet prejudice. All
this, of course, is where the real thought of man
toward man is never permitted to appear; where
strict disguise is kept up; where every indi-
vidual is for one reason or another standing
on conventional good behavior; where there
is an utter absence Of sincerity. Indeed, that
every one shall make believe he is ignorant in
awkward facts he knows but too well, that he
shall observe strict silence if he cannot speak
anything but the truth, is the first condition of
this good behavior; and the reason of this
silence as to the truth is simple. 1t is the re-
suit of compromise. One man is exchanging
polite phrases with another he pretends
admiration, though he feels contempt he
cannot give expression openly to such honesty
as he has; and this is the result of social
necessity that forces him into contact with men
he might avoid if he acted on his instincts and
could always help himself.
Such is the intellectual atmosphere in which
occurs the promiscuous contact of men more or
less public; such is inevitably the intellectual
atmosphere of ceremonious gatherings; and
such was especially and peculiarly the atmos
phere in which the Dickens dinner was eaten.
Mr. Dickens does not like America nor Ameri-
cans. No man of his class ever did, ever will
or ever can. Sentimentalists prattle nonsense
about an international cousinship, common
civilization, literature and language; but every
man in his senses knows that this is mere blather
and sham. Englishmen are bred in prejudice
against foreign countries deeper than even the
Chinese prejudice Of the same nature, and it Is
a prejudice from which education does not free
them. This general sentiment has, as against
us, been fostered by press abused to the pur
pose. Mr.. Dickens grew up in this sentiment,
and in his early manhood it received bitterness
from sense of wounded vanity. He came to
this country in the hope to secure the enact
ment of a certain law. He was discouraged
by others who had failed in the same attempt,
but he was sure that such a little and con-
temptible body as an American Congress would
not venture to deny any favor to such great
man as ''Boz." Congress did deny the favor,
and Dickens felt this to be an indignity that he
must resent, as any fishwoman would have re-
scented it, by blackguardism and vituperation.
He went home in this Cockney spirit and lent
to Cockney prejudice, purpose and venom
all the force of his genius. He wrote
about America and its people in pages that
lay bare his real thoughts-pages that were
socially he had done with us. What he wrote
was in one sense true, but in greater sense
false. He pictured scenes and persons that
existed here, as rascals and fools are every
where; but he put them before the world as
fair representatives of our social life and this
they were not and he put them forth not with
the legitimate corrective purpose of satire but
as pandering to his countrymen's hatred of us
and in the will to make them hate us more
deeply, as wounded vanity had taught him to
do: and this bad motive was the worst of his
offence.
Neither was this dinner the result of a spon-
taneous. irresistible ebullition of love for Mr..
Dickens on the part of those who got 1t up. 1t
was started in the first place by two or three
| small scribblers whose desperate ambition to
secure literary fame has hitherto been ex-
pressed in wearing long hair slouched hats
| and Byron colors-in the cultivation of a
generally eccentric exterior Literary fame
courted by such means comes slowly. These
worthless therefore, when Mr. Dickens visited
us for the second time, invited him to
! dinner. He would come or he would refuse
to come: and in either event they would pub
lish the correspondence; and this association
of their own dear names with the name Of this
| literary star of the first magnitude would set
them UP forever as distinguished literary
men" They said to Mr.. Dickens, I'VE are the
press of New York city; come and dine with us.
Hitherto our dinners have been strictly pri-
vate, but in your case we will consent to make
an exception, and it shall be published in all
the papers-if you desire it" Mr.. Dickens
said IL don't desire it, will dine with you !;
but pray don't make an exception to your usual
privacy in my case" So they dned and told
| al ahout n in tho paners To show how Mr.