The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-08-06
Eg "Reminiscences OcyVaIter Savage
EIHndOr.
BY CHARLES DICKENS.

The last number of AU tile Year R0UB6
contains most interesting paper on Forster's
Life of Walter Savage Landor" evidently
from the pen of Charles Dickens, the friend
of both the subject and the author of the
biography. Landor, it is we'll known, was
the original of Lawrence Boythorn in
''Bleak House" We select from the article
the following graceful and characteristic
passages:-
The impression was strong upon the pre-
sent writer's mind, as on Mr. Forster's, during
years of close friendship with the subject of
this biography, that his animosities were
chiefly referable to the singular inability in
him to dissociate other peoples ways of
thinking from his own. He had, to the last
a ludicrous grievance (both Mr.. Forster and
the writer have often amused themselves with
it) against good-natured nobleman, doubt
less perfectly unconscious of having ever
given him otfense. The otfense was that, on
the occasion Of some dinner party in another
nobleman house, many years before, this in
nocent lord (then eommoner) had passed in
to dinner, through some door, before him, as he
himself was about to pass in through that
same door with a lady on his arm. Now, Ian
dor was gentleman of most scrupulous po-
liteness, and in his carriage of himself to-
"dIuS ldlllSS IuGI6 WIS IL certain mixture oil
stateliness and Difference belonging to quite
another time, and, as Mr. Pepys would OBJ
serve, ''Mighty pretty to see." If he could
by any effort imagine himself committing
such high crime and misdemeanor as that in
question, he could only imagine himself as
doing it of a set purpose, under the sting of
some vast injury, to infict great affront A
deliberately designed affront on the part of an
other man it therefore remained to the end of
his days. The manner in which, as time
went on, he permeated the unfortunate lords
ancestry with this Otfense, was whimscally
Characteristic of Landor The writer remem-
bers very well when only the individual HIM
self was held responsible in the story for the
breach of good breeding; but in another ten
years or so it began to appear that his father
had always been remarkable for i'll manners,
and in yet another ten years or so his grand
father developed into quite a prodigy of
coarse behavior.
Mr.. Boythorn-if he may again be quoted
said of his adversary, Sir Leicester Ded-
lock:-'Ihat fellow is, and his father was,
and his grandfather was, the most stiff
necked, arrogant, imbecile pig-headed numb
skull ever, by some inexplicable mistake of
Nature, born in any station of life but a
walkingsticks!"
The strength of some of Mr.. Landors most
captivating kind qualities was traceable to the
same source, Knowing how keenly he him
self would feel the being at any small social
disadvantage, or the being unconsciously
placed in any ridiculous light, he was wonder
fully considerate of shy people, or of such as
might be below the level of his usual conver-
| sation. or otherwise out of their element
| The writer once observed him in the keenest
distress of mind in behalf of a modest Young
stranger who came into drawing-room with
a glove on his head An expressive commen-
tary on this sympathetic condition, and on
the delicacy with which he advanced to the
young strangers rescue, was afterwards fur
nished by himself at friendly dinner at Gore
House, when it was the most delightful of
houses. His dress-say, his cravat or shirt
collar-had become slightly disarranged on a
hoteYenipG and Count dOrsay laughingly