The Cecil Whig., 1885-10-17
S'"ai's- /" Ii'''''"', and B'o,''p'e.
With Brief Selections from Standard Authors.
An Original WING Feature.
The English Apostle; An Estimate.

There have been few British authors
whom American critics have been more
prone to compliment than Charles Dickens.
The personalities of the English authors are
never Sc purely and wildly revealed to
their American readers as On the possibly
exceptional case of Dickens. A "student"
of "Oliver Twist" David Copperfeld,"
"Great Expectations or "The Pickwick
Papers," would be an odd title to apply In
an age like this when the socallel true
scholar" ignores anything less in the scale
and range of thought than metaphysical
dissertation, philosophical research and
scientific explorations; yet, to the writings
of Charles Dickens, i'll view of a perfect
enjoyment and appreciation of them, must
be given the same mental worshipy re-
quired for the s-lution of P;lntheistic Scy
biology and the creeds and articles associ-
ated with it and its opposing doctrines. of
a man who has received so much honest
homage from all people, upon whom has
fallen in showers of both smiles and tears,
the Jealous love of more than one race of
hearts, it would be halfway dangerous to
state, it being guessed at and known so uni
versaliy, that as a novelist he did not seek
the mere cunningness of conception which
creates dramatic and romantic plots about
a few figures he makes glad or sorrowful
wicked or virtuous at the will of his pen.
Though possessed of the story-teller's re-
quirements to degree surprising art ever
in accordance with nature, true to the
depths q an exalted genius, and, in meas
no plot, he related the panoramic history of
no life, lead through scenes and incidents
no character that at one time or another
would fail to supply him with deluctive
SMILES for those morals which, from his
pen, touched with the earnt stness of the
soul that wrote them down, have made of
natures like that of Uriah Heaps, such
trusting, confiding, innocent beings as little
Paul Dombey. 1t is not from those thirty
two Volumes Dickens immortal life work,
that we alone derive fullest pleasure. Con-
temptation of the man himself, of each
noble impulse that moved him to 90 where
he could drop pitiful tear in the lap of
misery and place crust, or something bet
ter, in the hand of starvation, of the re
markable sympathy he felt for and ex-
tended to suffering everywhere, and
his maniness, that rose so far through
all the nice exactions and limitations
of those social forms which attempt to
distinguish a gentleman from loafer by
the pattern of his coat, as to reach the at
mosphere of human tenderness. 1t is from
a contemplation of him in these lights or
otherwise, Il pers"al of the man himself as
of book that our appetites are fully salts
fed. We see in Dickens the universal
brother of brothers. Not the spasmodic
relationship of friend, but the dear, kind,
forgiving love of the sweetsmiled and
many-numbered masses. His smile fell
with an equal sp:endor upon each upturned
face that plead for its sympathy in tears or
beamed thankfulness upon it with the re-
tiected countenance of the Master. Oh.
how this nature in him has drawn the
deep heart and soul from men. His tears
for the sunken spirits of the London alley
ways, his tender yearnings for the atiii cted
everywhere, have struck the eternal basso
in the universal anthem of the race till its
tears, its smiles, its passionate woe has
rolledover mountain, meadow, and sea;
rising, ebulant, lark-like reaching into the
infinite heavens with it's melody of sorrow;
tossed and tempestuous, in full rapport of
grief on rolling to the door of the Prophet
till it bears him away on the leaping crest
| of its mightiest wave. And he, the sa,ldeSt
of all, with the most reason to be sad, turns
the full flood stream of his majestic sym
pathy upon them in torrent of humor,
that dries their tears equally as the sun
dries up the dew. He knew no restriction
for the copious outI0urings of his mercy,
Ills COlll pttSSlOL, LIS ftullllulStItttlOD, anu
was above all untiring, unseltish, noble in
charity, hiding his own great need for
appreciation and sympathy and love.
Thank God! we scribes of his sister soil,
without the jealous consideration of con-
tending nationalities, come daily with our
epics and essays, our tributes and enlogies.
building ever upward the immortal struc
ture of his name. that must endure through
time, and beyond; that must live on eter-
nally despite the new fame born of the new
days, despite the brother poets and philoso-
pliers who are here today while he is gone
and who will come in distant years to win
title and renown. No past, no present, no
future contemporaneous genius will ever
shadow with his high honors the dear Boz
They b. hold his na:ne as an emblem of
human pity: Christ himself is not greater
or more everlasting than human pity.
FoLGER MCKINSEY.