The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-06-30
DEPRECIATION OF DICKENS.

From the N. Y. World.
OF all disagreeable ways of saying disagree
able things, commend us to the way of saying
them as things that one would not say on any
account, and shifting the responsibility of
their utterance upon some imaginary and
scandalous third person, whom one avails
one self of the occasion mildly to rebuke. As
thus-"The late so-and-so was a person
whose estimable social qualities endeared him
to q large circle of friends. 1t may perhaps
be said by the censorious that the develop
ment of these very social qualities led to oc-
casional manifestations of dissolute conduct
abroad and domestic violence which estranged
the fond heart of once devoted and trusting
wife and blasted the prospects of his unfortu-
nate children, but far be it from us to revive
these unpleasant "reminiscences at such q
time. We prefer to remember only his bet
ter traits. The advantage of such course
is that it affords ready recourse to the excuse
of the street boy when collared for throwing
injurious ow-balls-"Please, sir, it wasn't
me; it was the other fellers as throwed it."
OF this sort, in q marked degree, is the
ogistico-depreciatory style very commonly
adopted by pulpit orators and by the reli-
gious press; and nowhere has it been more
prominently displayed than in the case of the
late Charles Dickens. We have had praises
of his morality sandwiched between limited
doubts of his Christianity; admiration of his
genius and the philanthropic use he made
of it in the alternate paragraphs with godly
innuendoes of his want of reverence to the
'cloth;" and now the secular side of his
character is attacked in an impersonally per-
sonal sort of way and even his literary abb
hty apologetically decried. ''The genius of
Dickens was not kingly; he was a kings
jester, says the INDEPENDENT, writing of him
who, more than any other author of our time,
guided his pen to right royal, earnest pur-
pose. Nor did he ''invent the characters
which he drew" AS matter of course, how
ever, ''this is not said to his disparagement" I"
But-alas that dreadful harbinger of fur
ther onslaught
But his pencil took wild freaks till its liberty be-
came license If he found character, he made
caricature of it, II he discovered situation, he
made travesty of it, Deficient in plot loose in
STYLE frivolous in details, Callylesh in expression
all these criticisms may be justly urged against
tain parts of his many books. But who cares to
PICK these flaws in Dickens at any time, and least of
all the near hour of his funeral?
Who, indeed? Surely not the Independent,
which would not for worlds emphasize the
fact" that he twas not q daring thinkers"
that ''his mind was not cast in an heroic
mould;" that she was never quickened by
that fine instinct for popular liberty which,
in a land of kingcraft, ought to have made
him democrat, a radical, an iconoclast. :"
No, the Independent would ''do him no in
justice" of that sort, but Contents" itself
with what he was-a lover of his kind; a
friend of the friendless; a champion of the
poor, the degraded, the outcast, the forlorn"
whose ''career was a prolonged benefcence
to his fellow-beings." Let you and us, dear
reader, thank our stupid stars that in our ap-
probation of the latter qualities we were not
profoundly critical enough to discover that
their possessor could be a mere jester and ca
ricaturist of unheroic mind, and devoid of
the fine instinct which inspires in conoclasm
and radicalism.