Dodge City times. [volume] (Dodge City, Kan.) 1876-1892, 1879-02-15
The Influence Of Novels.--Dickens and
Thackeray.

Inc IollOW1n3 is from an arIcIe Dy
Anthony Trollope:
In widespread popularity the novels
of Charles Dickens have, l believe, ex-
ceeded those of any other British novel;
list, though they have not yet reached
that open market of unrestricted com
petition which book reaches only when
its copyright mas run out. Up to this
present time over $4,000 copies of
'sPickwick have been sold in this
country and the book is still copyright
property. In saying this make no in
vidious comparison between Scott and
Dickens. may indeed be in error in
supposing the circulation of "Waverley"
to have been less. As i: is open to any
bookseller to issue SCOTS novels, il
would be difficult To arrive al a correct
number. Our object is simply to show
what has been the circulation of a pop
ular novel in Great Britain. The circu-
1ation outside the home market has
probably been as great, perhaps greater,
as American readers are more numerous
than the English. Among the millions
of those into whose hands these hun
dreds of thousands Of volumes have fall
len there can hardly be one who has not
received some lesson from what he has
read. 1t may be that many dissent from
the mode of telling which Dickens
adopted in his stories, that they are in
different to the stories themselves, that
they question the taste and fail TO inter-
est themselves IN the melodramic incl
dents and unnatural characters which it
is his delight to portray. All that mas no
bearing on the issue which we now vt
tempt to raise. The teaching of which
we are speaking is not instruction as to
taste or arts not instruction rs to
style or literary excellence.
BY such lessons as Dickens taught
will the young man learn to be honest
or dishonest, noble OF ignoble? Will
the girl learn to be modest OF brazen-
faced? Will greed be engendered and
acknowledgement? Win taste for vicious
pleasures be created? viii the young
of either sex be taught TO think it a
grand thing 10 throw off the cOnven-
tionai rules which the wisdom of the
world has established for its guidance
or will they unconsci0usly learn from
the authors pages to recognize the fact
that happiness is TO be obtained by
obeying and not by running counter to
the principles Of morality? Let memo
~ run back for a few moments over
those stories and il viii fail to find an i'm
modest girl who has been made alluring
TO female readers OF an ill-conditioned
youth whose career lad would be
tempted TO envy. No ridicule is thrown
on marriage constancy; no gliding is
given 10 fictitious pleasure; no charm
is added 10 idleness; no alluring color
is lent to debauchery; Pickwick may be
softer and Ralph Nickleby harder than
the old men whom We know in the
world; but the lessons which they
teach are all in favor of soft heart, all
strongly opposed 10 hardness of heart.
Of all Dickens's novels" Oliver Twist :"
is perhaps artistically the best, As in it
the author adheres most tenaciously to
one story and interests Us most thor
oughly by his plot. But the CHAR
acters are less efiicacious for the
teaching of lessons than in his
other tales. Neither can Bill Sykes
nor Nancy, nor can even the
great Bundle, be credited with having
been of much service by deterring read
ers from vice. But then neither have
they allured readers rs has been done
by SO many writers of fiction who have
ventured to deal with the worlds repro
bates. 1t may be admitted in regard TO
Dickens's young ladies that they lack
nature. Dora, Nelly, Little Dorrit,
Florence Dombey and host of others
crowd upon our memory, not as shad-
ows of people we have really known, as
do Jennie Deans, for instance, and Jane
Eyre, but they have affected US as the
personitications of tenderness and gen.
tie feminine gifts. We have felt each
character to contain, not woman, but
something which will help TO make
many women. The Boythorns, Tulk- |
,pghorns Charr1-hlas spd ps,tu;ol l