The Black Hills union. [volume] (Rapid City, Pennington County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1889-1904, 1896-07-17

1S9 ~0kHr1SeSes.

characters, no one has told Of the
origin Of MI IS Havisham. That weird
est, most utlcanny creation Of Dickens
brain has been left to be unraveled by
an odd waterfront individual, now
dead, who for years was known in
this city by the sole title Of cold
Fuller
.sOld Fuller was as fond Of ale as
any Englishman that ever lived, ao-
cording to the San Francisco Call.
and it occasioAed no little surprise
when he stopped drinking and began
saving his money for a trip back to
..dear old Lunnon." When he re-
turned from his native country after .
few months this story had fastened it
self most ixedly in his mind. One
reason why "Old Fuller may be ac-
credited with the discovery of the
original model for Miss Haivsham is
that he had never heard of Charles
Dickens, and was totally ignorant as
to whether he was a novelist or car
penter.
.'Old Fuller's" story runs like this.
When he was a small boy in London
he knew with awe a smart, spruce
young liquor. dealer. Temperate,
bright and ambitious, he was on the
high road to wealth. AS he had been
sold Fuller's'' ideal of all that was
great when he visited London he took
particular care to hunt him up.
Instead of the gallant, manly young
Eo11orr, 1o uoo n ch1r11Y,1 1op oh ,oirn1nda
old frame, hair that for 20 years had
not been cut, and flesh sallow from
lack of bathing. The clothes that he
wore had never been removed in that
space, and his apartments during that
time had not been swept. In the din
ing room an extensive banquet had
been prepared, and a crumbling we'd
ding cake was there which the rats
were d~evouring.
The cause OF the change in the
hale, hearty Englishman is common
enough not to cause comment-his
betrothed deserted him at the altar,
as had Miss Havisham's lover twenty
five years before. For two decades he
had lived in s%eclusion unmindful of
everything but that day. He never
removed his wedding suit, o. allowed
his chambers to be changed in the
milutest detail. So he became known
by the lovers of the curious through
out London as s'Dirty Bill"
Unlike the Tilted Miss Havisham,
disappointment left him but a dazed,
~listless p%urposeless, aged man, waiting
calmly for the false woman to return
to him. Miss Havisham, on the con-
trary, being a woman, could not for
get the slight to her charms, and be-
came vindictive. The vanity of q
"woman scorned" was too much af-
fected for her to suffer silently in soil
tude, and so, in s.Great Expectations"
Miss Havisham rears the beautiful
Stella that. through her, she may be
able to rejoice in that deep, over
whelming intoxicant-revenge.
She even sends for the poor little
Pip, a blacksmith's apprentice, that
he may love Stella hopelessly. The
devil could not shout more gleefully
over a lost soul than did Miss Hav-
isham internally when she saw that by
separating Pip and Stella she had
wrecked his life.
It was only after years Of unhappi-
nes that both wandered back to the
house where they first met, and Pip
was able to say, as he did at che close
of the book: 81 took her hand in
mine and we went out of the ruined
place; and as the morning mists had
risen long ago when I first left the
forge, so the evening mists were rising
now, and in all the broad expanse OF
tranquil light they showed to me l
saw no shadow of another parting
from her."