The Princeton union. [volume] (Princeton, Minn.) 1876-1976, 1879-03-19
THE DICKENS SEPARATION. :,

THE DICKENS SEPARATION. j., ,r.
Probable Causes Of the Infelicity Of Dick
ems Marriage.
Buffalo Express.
The telegraph reports that the widow of
Charles Dickens is seriously ill. The mys-
terry which led to the separation of Mr.. and
Mrs. Dickens has never been satisfactorily
explained perhaps never will be. 10. It
is only known that the separation was one
of the most sensible affairs of that unfor-
tunate kind that ever occurred. There was
incompatibility, at least, and the lives of the
two could not be happy so long as they ran
on together. There was, therefore, a quiet
agreement to disagree. The wife as quietly
went to her fathers house, being doubtless
low her to live properly. There were
no public or private complaints. There
was no violent quarrel. Mr.. Dickens spoke
in the most complimentary terms of the
lady whenever he referred to her, and so far
as known she was equally generous in her
references to him. Both held, notwith-
standing the hundred rumors that were
afoat at the time and which have been more
or less prevalent ever since, that the cause of
the separation was not the business of the
public. They had separated and that was
all there was about it. There was bad blood,
but not so bad that Miss Hogarth, the wife's
sister, was not permitted, without scandal
and without objection on the part of Mrs.
Dickens, to remain in the family of the hus-
band. She evidently possessed warm sis
terly affection for the great novelist, and she
remained with him until he died.
An Auburn clergyman who recently visited
London processes to have learned all about
the cause of the separation, and in letter
to the Auburn Advertiser has given the pub
lie the entire information. The sole and
only trouble was, he says, that Mrs. Dickens
did not appreciate her husbands books.
Without having the ability to understand, or
at least the cast of mind necessary to appre-
ciate them, she was nevertheless free in her
criticisms, and these to the sensitive mind of
MIR. Dickens were excessively annoying. She
persisted in her criticisms until they and she
became hateful, and the separation, to two
persons peculiarly given to Judgment and to
action in opposition one to another, was
natural consequence. The story seems alb
surd, but it is the only reason
able explanation of the domestic diff
ferences of Mr.. and Mrs., Dick
ems that has yet been given; and that the
man who wrote such wonderful books, very
evidently putting his whole heart in the
work, should be sensitive regarding them,
and perhaps unreasonable so far as the judg-
ment of his family was concerned, is not at
all strange. There have indeed been too
many such cases to question the reasonable
ness of the story-too many cases of more
sadness, the free thinking and free talking
wife remaining with the man to whom her
presence was persecution, to the creation of
sualler but meaner scandal than that which
followed the wiser course of the Dickenses,
whose separation was, after all, a mere dec
aration of domestic peace.
In his first visit to the country Mr.. Dick
ems was accompanied by his wife.
In many instances, having perhaps been
prosecuted too much by the admiring
crowd, he was naughty and overbearing,
and thus made enemies. He became fret
veloped to far greater degree upon his first
visit than when he came last. We have read
somewhere that Mrs. Dickins on these occa-
sions was not slow to chide him, even before
his assembled admirers that she was glad
to catch him in inaccuracies in his uncon-
sidered remarks, and to correct them, with
the best intentions but with an air of i'm
portance; and that whenever she was thus
free her husband exhibited unmistakable
signs of Impotence and even anger. "Be-
hold how great a matter little fire kin
dlethv' From these slight differences
may arise the whole great
trouble. TO believe 80 is to be
in entire harmony with the reasonable story
of the Auburn clergyman and there are
thousands who will be glad of such an ex-
PLANTATION, preferring it to the superstition
that MIR. Dickens was unintentionally unjust
to his wife, even in the slightest degree, or
that his part of the blame was other than
might have been expected of man of his
peculiar temperament. IS
But it is strange reflection that man
who made SO many happy tiresides for others
should have had one so barren of love and
comfort for his own. It is told that John
Howard Payne, whose "Home, Sweet Home
will live as long as there are
homes and hearts, was mere wan
derer, and drew the inspira-
ton for his song from glimpses through
closed windows at domestic circles utterly
strange to him. Is it that which we cannot
possess which pleases us most? Is posses
sion necessarily disappointment? Mr.. Dick
ems fictitious households showed a fine
understanding OF the rule or dlsOrder That
prevails where slovenly woman manages.
His story of the child wife in "David Cop
perfeld'' is the very poetry of mismanage-
ment, at the same time that it is one of
the tenderest and most touching ever written.
With her accomplishments as critic, Mrs.
Dickens may have possessed all but the low
able attributes of "Dora;'' and We know that
there was visited upon the imaginary women
all the manliness and all the disposition to
bear and forbear which characterized the
great author, 80 far as the public knows, in
hls dealings with the real one.