The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1873-02-27
Dickens in Boston.

Dickens in Boston
Dickens WIS to read on that last night,
Dr.. Marigoiis Prescription with that
inimitab.e tri,I Of Bardell against Pick.
wick
The brilliantly-Eghted hall was just FILL
ing as | entered it with my friend, who,
having heard the great author several times,
had found her appetite grow by what it
fed on.
Hhw well l remember the first impress
sion, the lovely toilets, the soft hum and
rustic and huiter, as the audience took
tier seats-an audience that comprised
whatever was finest in the intellect and
culture of Boston.
Ii was a pleasure to be there simply,
and TO sit and wait With the others in
quiet, pleased expectancy fer the moment
when the great necromancer should appear
There were faces in that audience, too,
whom reople all over the civilized world
would 90 far 20 see. There was Emerson,
with his thin, scholarly, thoughtful face,
that looked as if he had suddenly lifted it
from the old book cases among which he
has browsed all mis- life, and, seeing him
sitting there in quiet waiting among the
others, come Of his wonderful sentences
would leap and throb across ones thoughts,
clear and pure as rays from diamonds
There was LongfeIlow. with some gra-
cious dignity which seemed the fitting at
mosphere ofhis own perfect poems-the
fine massive head. the ripping, glittering
silver Of the beard, the face so remarkable
in its strength, and calm, and goodness.
There, too, was Fields, the publisher of
Dickens, the friend also IN that deep, ten
der Sense which we all know. now We
have read his book; and the beautiful
woman By his side, Of whose face it seems
kind Of sacgiiege to write, because an
other Chaucer or Shakespeare could alone
Go it worthIly, was the wife of the pub
Usher.
! was thinking Of all this, VIXEN a stir in
audience drew my eyes suddenly to the
platform, which man was crossing in a
rapid, rather business-like way.
Dickens, his first appearance, his whole
manner, and the character Of his readings,
were SC thoroughly written up when he
was amongst US, that shall only touch
lightly here.
The first impression was 50 calm and
business-like, that it might have been
slightly Disseminating to those who had
greatly idealized him.
uero-worship is always dangerous in
diligence, but any slight chill Of disappoint,
ment soon vanished under the spell of his
reading. For, despite its simplicity, it was
a spell. The dear old Christmas story
could never afterwarl be the same to
those who heard the author read it that
night
BY some subtle trick Of voice and ex-
preston, he indiyidualized every character
in the story. There was DR.. Ma:igold,
tae itincraut auctioneer, with his white hat
and a shawl worn loosely around his shout
dcrs, telling the story of the Suffolk young,
woman whom he had courted from the foot
board Of his cart. There was Mrs. Mari
gol with her frightful tempers: and there,
shining between the quaint, tender father,
and TIE mother, so fierce and cruel in her
outbreaks of passion, was the face of that
dear, little, seraphic sophy. The spell of
that voice passing so easily from the de
scriptive to the dramatic, striking out every
character clear as a chisel, with its chang
ing keys, eutrauced the whole audience.
You might have heard tie ticking Of
clock, So still was it. Now it was the
humor, now it was tie tenderness, new the
deem na.ho5 Of the story which lifted every
body into common sympathy. Dickens
was such master Of his art, too There
was Iothing sensational er cx'ravagant in
the whole rcadug. lie lifted one to mis-
own height, and fred the imagination and
possessed the heart apparently without
effort, as the soft winds blow, and birds
MARBLE, OF, better than either, as the num-
bcrs sing their divine sweetness through
some delicious poem Viryia,a +. Tora-
sead in -frtilrs Home -Nugo3iae.