The Corvallis gazette. [volume] (Corvallis, Or.) 1862-1899, 1880-06-04
Dickens and his Wife Again.

The manifest fact that everything neal
or remote about the late Charles
Dickens is yet source of interest in
America must be my excuse for quoting
in ente7aso from the Boalecard series OF
paragraphs INSIDE paragraphs sup
pose they call them-concerning poor
Mrs. Dickens. One has abundant rea-
son SO know that the writer is we'll in
formed. The BOulevdrd, may OBJ.
serve, is society paper printed in Eng
lish, and published in Paris for circula-
ton there, and also on this side of the
channel. It has large and steadily in.
creasing circulation. The proprietor is
lady named Burke. and the editor, con.
jointly with her, is Clifford Millage, q
Paris correspondent of considerable con.
tinental experience. Now for the para
graphs
The novelist, being of all men the
greatest admirer of the useful virtues in
women, of course chose wife for good
looks and good nature alone. She be.
longed to a generation in which hyster-
les and attacks of nerves were indulged
in by all women as matter of course
whenever the affairs of life seemed griev.
GUS to them /; they were dowdy, slow
strictly feminine, and laudably innocent
of aesthetics; but the love of excitement
inseparable from human nature, found
its vent in fits of screams and tears
Without any wish to speak unkindly Of
the gentlewoman who is just dead, it
must be owned that she was eminently de
SON steele. Dickens was not very tole-
rant of any form of sensibility, and his
wife's Mysteries gave on his nerves past
endurance. This alone, all scandal not
xr,,fh cfo 4ha ,f 41o
rupture and final parting.
The domestic discomforts of David
Copperfeld and Dora are no exaggera-
tions of the real miseries of the Dickens
household under the faccid management
of its mistress. Things happened there
which could never by any possibility
have occurred under any other roof
tree, as Dickens himself used to declare
in desperation of spirit. I have seen
their house barricaded and garrisoned
by drunken cook, who executed war
dance at the drawing windows,
hurting defiance therefrom at the exclud-
ed family and the assembled inhabitants
of the neighborhood. On one occasion a
somewhat numerous party was gathered
at the dinner table, when Maclise re-
marked to his neighbor in an innocent
voice, SsI'nt there something curious
about the table-cloth Itdoesn't shinep'
On examination, it struck the person adj
dressed that the dinner was served upon
sheet. Far more trying to the guests,
however, than any little eccentricity was
the strong language with which the
host received the conventional blunders
of the poor little hostess.
Miss Hogarth took her sisters place in
the household by reason of her order,
briskness and managing powers. The
worlds suspicious of her and her broth
er-in-law were absolutely without found
alton. She was happily exempt from
the weakness of her time, never had hys-
terics, and always kept brown paper par
GELS and pieces Of string out of view of
the ferociously orderly master Of the
house. Whether the course she took
was altogether sisterly may be question
ed, but its usefulness and self-sacrifce
can hardly be matter Of doubt.
The brothers Dickens were not fitted
for the holy estate. Nevertheless they
all rushed young into the bonds. Of
four, only one lived with his wife. Pri-
vate separation, the divorce court and
fight to America put an end to the mar
riages of the three others.