The Canton mail. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 18??-1882, 1876-02-12
BELLS.


marry none of his characters without Il
great deal of ringing. Mark how he in
sists on the bells being excellent company.
Mr. Pickwick's excited revcries on the
night of the discovery of the famous
Bill-Stumpian sculpture are dissipated
by the church bell sounding solcmnity
on his ear; but when the bell ceased, the
silence WAS insupportable fell almost
As if he had lost 4 companion" They
were company to Toby Week: many
kind things they said To him To the
best of my belief, he has only made fun
of the moral effect of bells and their as
sociations once, viz, in Nicholas Nick
leby 5 explanation of the part To he per
formed i'll a new play by Mr. Lcnville.
the heavy tragedian oI Crum.nie's com
pany: But Just as you are raising the
pistol to your head, a bell strikes ten:
you pause, you reccollect, TO have heard
a bell strike ten in your infancy; the
pistol falls from YOUR hand, YOU are over
come, burst into tears, and become vir-
tuous character ever afterward."
In his travels abroad he still displays
his bell worship. At Marsciles he no.
tices the Jail bell and the bells on the
draught horses; at Venice .. tie softened
ringing OF the church bells :" at Genoa.
g the long strings of patient mules that
go iingling their little bells through the
narrow Streets 1.-The CAV vetturino
Jingling through every village" the
fiesta days, ''whcn the bells of churches
ring necessarily, not in peals, but in
horrible, irregular, jerking dinglc, dngle,
dingle. with sudden stop at every fif-
teenth dingle or so, which is madden
ing" Rome seems to him "a vast will
derness of tinkling bells. from the bell
hat announces the elevation of the Host
in st. Peters, and the bell that gives the
signal on DISCRETIONARY for the simulta
neous illumination of the great cathe-
dral, to the bell which puts the carnival
out like breath" At Florence he re-
marks the bell of the beautiful Campa-
nile, that summons the Compagnia
della Misericordia to their charitable
labors;" and as he returns homeward he
hears the bells of Calais, and describes
the night steamer which restores him to
his native land as screech a bell: and
two red eyes" Arriving in London. like
Arthur Clsnnam Gin Little Do7riO,
I" maddcning church bells of all degrees
of dissonance, sharp and fat, cracked and
and clear, fast and slow, made the brick
and mortar hideous. In every thorough
fare, up almost every alley and down
almost every turning, some doleful bell
was throbbing, jerking, tolling, as if the
plague was in the city and the dead-carts
were going round. Mr.. Arthur Clennam
sat in the window of the coffee-house on
Ludgate Hill, counting one of the neigh
boring bells, making sentences and bur
dens OF songs out of it, N spite of HIM
self, and wondering how MANY sick people
it mi ht be the death of in the course of
the year. AS the hour approached, its
changes of measure made it more and
more eNasperating. At the quarter, it
went off into a condition of deadly-lively
importantly, urging the populace in a
volublc manner to Come to church,
come to church " At the ten minutes it
became aware" 0ike the " disappointed
bell !" tolled by the sexton in Dombey
and Som "that the congregation would
be scanty, and slowly hammered out, in
low spirits, They won't come, they won't
come, they won't Gomez At the five
minutes it abandoned hope, and shook
every house in the neighborhood for three
! hundred seconds, with one dismal swing
per second, as a groan of despair In
| short, London represented to Dickens
not SO much the metropolis of the world
as the capital of chimes, inhabited not
by SO many million human creatures,
| but by innumerable bells He takes an
interest even in bell-ringers-mysterio
| mouldy men, of somewhat ghoulish
character from their association with
church-yards, and always shabby, like
g the whity-brown man whose clothes
were once black, man with f1ue on him
and cobweb," and "the shabby little
sexton who rang the church bel, Alike
the bull in Cock Robin with his foot
in the stirrup." He lovingly fingers in
musty old belfries, " where the rules and
fines of the ringers are painted in rhyme
upon the walls" He is great on beadles,
like him of Eatanswill, bringing an
enormous bell, performing concertos on
it, and fantasies by way of commanding
silence among the uproarious electors of
that immaculate borough ;" on the town
crier sent round with a bell to announce
the opening of Crummles theatre; on
the Golden Dustman" Tin Our Mutual
Friend), "clad in red plush velveteens,
fan-tail hat, and hand-bell;" on "the
scarlet postman and his bell - on the
chimney-sweeps bell; on the muffin
boys bells Ito abolish which the public
meeting i called in Nicholas Nickleby);
on the bells on lips Chinese pagoda-
many of which bells, alas are obsolete
peripatetic bells, which have been swept
away by ruthless police acts, or have
died natural death, like those of which
Charles Lamb ask, ''What is gone with
the cages with the climbing squirrel and
bclls to them. which were formerly the
indispensable appendages to the outside of
tinmans shop" Gone, like the pass
ing-bell, the pancake bell, the thief and
riever's bell, morris bells, All-hallowtide, |
Good-Friday, st. GATHERINGS Eve bells, /
bell corn, bell courses, and bell prizes
According to the Louisville Commer-
cal, the goose-bone predictions are more
closely watched in Kentucky than any