The Black Hills union. [volume] (Rapid City, Pennington County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1889-1904, 1896-07-10
|||8 sE| aa|1||1|


54htES - ~ - & pIOOA4
written Of the source Of Dickens
characters, no one has told of the
origin Of M IS Havisham. That weird
est, most ullcanny 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 "Old
Fuller"
.sOld Fuller was as fond of ale as
any Engli,hman that ever lived, a Q
cording to, the San Francisco Call,
and it occasionad no little surprise
when he stopped drinking and began
saving his money for a trip back to
ssdear old Lunnon." When he re-
turned from his native country after a
few months this story had fastened it.
self most fixedly in his mind. Ono
reason why .sOld 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
ssOld 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
fellow he was a shrunken, shriveled
old frame, hair that for 20 years had
rot 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 %devouring.
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 seclusion unmindful Of
everything but that day. He never
removed his wedding suit, or allowed
his chambers to be changed in the
mi.lutest detail. So he became known
by the lovers of the curious through
out London as sDirty Bill"
Unlike the Tilted Miss Havisham,
disappointment left him but a dazed,
listless purposeless, 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 a
"woman scorned' was too. much af-
fectel for her to suffer silently in soil
tude, and so, in '.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 ever sends for the poor little
Pip, a blacksmith's apprentice, that
he may love Stella hopelessly. The
devil could not shout more gleefully
owe 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-
ness that both wandered back to the
house whore they first met, and Pip
was able to say, as he did at the close
of the book: II took her hand in
mine and we went out of the ruined
place; and as the morning mists had
risen long ago when | first left the
forge, so the evening mists were rising
now. and in all the broad expanse Of
tranquil light they showed to me
saw no shadow of another parting
from her"