The Black Hills union. [volume] (Rapid City, Pennington County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1889-1904, 1896-06-19
~oLD FULLkR..s
How He Came 70 Furnish On. :,
O~lckenas Character

low He Came 70 Furnish one 81
Dickens Characters.
Notwithstanding all that has been
written Of the source Of Dickens
characters, no one has told Of the
origin OF Mi ss Havisham. That weird
est, most uncanny 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
"Old Fuller was as fond Of ale as
any Englishman that aver lived, ao-
cording to the San Francisco Call,
n it occasioMsd no little surprise
when he stopped drinking and began
saving his money for a trip back to
''dear old Lunnon.n When he re-
turned from his native country after q
few months this story had fastened it.
self most fxedly 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 w 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 be 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
fellow he was a shrunken, shriveled
old frame, hair that for 20 years had
rot been cut, ana 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 q 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 comrnent--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
miautest detail. So he became known
by the lovers of the curious through
ont nr1np &c <.N;r+y, Dill -
Unlike the fitted Miss Havisham,
disappointment left him but q 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" vas too much af-
fected 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 even sends for the poor little
Pip, a blacksmith's apprentice, that
lle may loVe 0Jella n~OpeleSSlV. Inc
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.
1t was only after years of unhappi-
ness that both wandered back to the
house where 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 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 I
saw no shadow of another parting
from her"