Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1870-08-12

'The Pride which Apes Humanity Is the
heading to the London Saturday Rsvle,o article
which treats with some severity upon the word
ing Of Charles Dickens will. The Rerieuc holds
that the will is ga painful document" and that
the natural reluctance to say this is diminished
by the fact that IL was written to the world. II
Is not the first time, says the Rerie,C, that Mr..
Dickens has invited the whole world to survey
his domestic concerns.
" His will is the complement of that strancs
document which MIR. Dickens published-a6d
which Messrs- Bradbury & Evans would
not allow to he published in a periodical OF
which he was editor and they were proprie-
fors-when he separated from his wife, AS
10 the rights or wrongs of that separation
or rather Of what led to il, We pronounce no
forming Judgment Anyhow the incident
furnished remarkable absence or oooi
taste, and, as most people thought, OF
good feeling, and all on one side. Mr.
Dickens paraded his domestic life tn ths
world, Mrs. Dickens from that day 20 this has
kept modest and credltable silence. That Mr.
affirm; that Mrr. Dickens had none. II would ba
hard To believe. One wrong she Certainly had.
she was assailed by her husband in public Mr.
Dickens might have had justice all on his side,
we do not say that he had not; but generosity on
that occasion he did not display. And genero.-
ity he has not displayed in his dying testament
With the worst taste, Mr.. Dickens, when in the
vigor Of life, affronted his wife by making HIS
married life public property; and dying, he has
repeated the wrong and offence. Profnse and
unetuous and stilted in his expressions of graft
tude to his wifes sister. liberia, In the provision
that he has made for that lady, not for.etful of
another lady, he has reduced his wife's incoms
by One-hslf after his de ath, with something of a
self-IsudatOry announcement that he has already
been far too generous to her during his life,
he leaves TO his wife, - an annuity, the inter-
est of fl, oO0, coupled with the bosstful reminder
that he has since their separation allowed her
ttOo year. We hardly call this sbrave" or
"earnest.' If Mr.. Dickens had been ANNOYED
by his wife's temper, or lack of sympathy with
his noble nature, some lingering touch OF the
human kindness OF which we are told that he il
the evangelist might have warmed his heart or
his pen when he came TO speak of the mother of
his children with the words OF a diving man. His
heart might be all charity and all love TO the
whole human race, but It was chilly enough 10
one di>possessed lady, that lady his own wife
Who, whether she has wrongs or SORROWS,
at least kept them 10 herself. To Miss Ternan
and Miss Hosarth Mr.. Dickens very
likely has duties, and he has cheer
fully recognized them by word and deed
Are We to believe that all his duties to his wife
were summed up by giving her an annuity with
needed. of forgiveness and reconciliation? After
saying this, which only q sense OF duty stimu-
lated by the proyocatiOn offered by Mr.. Dickens
wOrshipers, has eItorted from Us, shall not
waste our time in exposing the bad taste of
What the iliustriOus teststor inserts in his will
about his funeral. The ostentatiOn of unosten-
tatiOuSDesS II As offensive the most exagger-
ated love OF posthumous honors and expensive
otsequies, and among the social vices which Mr..
Dickens works have exposed, the pride which
apes humility is rather curiously illustrated In
his DEATH"
The Rerier Is nothing II not critical, or Sc
we're, but there is q certain measure of Justice
in what il SAYS OF Mr.. Dickens publications
concerning his wife and his family affairs His
best friends must have felt that these publica-
tions were mistake, and that he would, even
If he were the injured party, have done better
to have maintained q dignified silence. Such
silence his brother author, Bulwer, has main
tanned for years under circumstances of singu-
lar domestic infelici;y and the greatest provo
cations to set himself right in print.
But such blemishes are but spots on the sun.
And perhaps we could Is badly spare them from
the character of the great novelist as we could
the cherished traditional escapades OF Shaks-
pesre, serving to show that he was fully allied
to the frail human nature he 80 we'll described.