The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1870-08-06
Charles dickens Dead.

Charles Dickens was born in Portsmouth, Eng
in 1912. Why chronicle the history of a life
more familiar to the English speaking worlu tnal
that of any other living man. why repeat the
| details of a career SO luminous or describe a per
sonalitv which is a household fact to millions oil
people? It is a sad office that busy pens were
engaged upon on Friday, that of paying tribute 70
the fame and memory of a man who Is enShrined
in such a multitude of hearts. All over the
world, as the tidings come over land and under
sea, the busiest activity Will cease ior a momeht
while men utter a word of grief and an expression
of sympathy.
Mr.. Dickens was intended for the bar, but his
tastes led him to a literary life and he began as a
reporter on the Morning Chronicle. In tins paper
appeared the first sketches OF London lie signed
Sc Boz. and to these he was indebted Tor the
foundation and the promise OF his great fame.
His first work of fiction was the IS Pickwick Pa
pers,'' published in numbers, and before the work
was finished, England and America alike were
roaring with laughter over the eccentric creations
of this master men. The conclusion of the work
made him the most popular living writer IN the
English language, and made the characters In
s. Pickwick y familiar rs household words wherever
English civilization had a place or a name. Then
followed IS Oliver Twist" and then in succession
the long catalogue of his works, down to the last,
81 The Mystery of Edwin brood" which is now
going through the press. 1t was in 1872 that
Dickens first came to America, when he was re-
CGlNCu Will ElC GICdICOI AhS
Gle of his journey here gave at the time great
offence. But as time wore on, the business of his
structures and the fidelity of his descriptions,
began to be recognized, and when in 1867, he re-
turned to the United States, he had a welcome
gratifying in the highest degree, and such as no
other man has ever received. The genial nature
and humane spirit of Charles Dickens his hatred
of wrong and oppression his intolerance of can't
and of shams; his opposition to injustice; his
manly assertion of his own position and claims {;
his defiance of official condescension and his
warm and large-hearted sympathy compelled men
to love him, and exacted the admiration and hOm-
age of all who knew him in his books or in person.
To the reform of abuses and to the elevation of
his fellow-man his pen has always been devoted.
He has described the vicious and the bad, but he
has never gilded vice nor sought to make it toler-
able. And one may search his writings through,
and vainly attempt to find one word or suggestion
that could harm the most innocent or offend the
most fastidious. Mr.. Dickens created a new
school of fiction. He formed his own models and
fashioned himself thcreupon. He borrowed the
ideas of no other writer and never quoted their
words. So vast were his creative resources that he
never repeated himself. His imagery and illus
t%ration, his quaint, queer conceits, his subtle
pathos, his tender sentiment are all his own.
Hence it was that Mr.. Dickens so endeared him
self to the reading public that his death is felt as
a personal sorrow in the remotest hamlet as well
as in the proudest halls of royalty. Far away in
Australia, deep among the mining QlSIrlcLS OF the
Rocky Mountains, at the frozen pole, in the
tropics, wherever the flag of England or of the
United States has been borne, there is sorrow for
this dead writer. Never has the telegraph been
~freighted with q message of more vital interest
than this which the many-forked lightning bore
on Friday to whatever part of the globe the ocean
cable or the land line has reached. And as men
pause to mourn the departure of one to whom
they are indebted for SO much happiness, they
people their conversation and their memory
with the troops of characters to whom Charles
has given a vitality more real than that
of many of the most talked of heroes of history.
In the thought of half of the world, Little Nell,
and Tiny Tim, and Oliver Twist, and Micawber,
and Captain Cutie, and Old Dombey, and Sam
Weller, and the Fat Boy, and Dick Swiveller,
and Mantilini, are more than Alexander or Ma
poleon, than Socrates or Cicero. Everyday and
everywhere Dickens is quoted. His words and
images crowd our literature just as the Scriptures
pad out the writings of the fathers. The stage
las taken possession of his writings, and there
are brought before a people already familiar
With them, and never weary of them. But if
Dickens is a pleasure to our race he is somewhat
stumbling block and an offence to the people of
Continental Europe. They can comprehend his
humanity. They cannot altogether
appreciate the u%nctuous humor of his life-like
;haracters, whereby we are English. So he re-
mains the treasure of the English speaking world,
heir peculiar possession-more peculiarly theirs
han even Shakespeare or Walter Scott, and with
fame that is as broad and reaches as high as
he noblest men that have ever liyed.-N. Y.