Arizona republican., 1900-09-29

LIN Oa oLI l EMDIh AOs foreign author traveiing in America was something remarkable back in 1S42. He would spend hours writing at little stand which he moved out in front of his stateroom. He wrote with an overgrand flourish of head and hand. Had he set himself studiously to the sole end of attracting just as much at tention as possible, and tried hard to appear not less than downright ridicU- lous. he apparently could not have sue ceeded better As if to cap the whole matter he would talk out what he was writing. just as stage actor talks out letter he pretends to indite.
 When it is considered that Mr. Dickens went through with all this a large share of the time while on the boat it can hardly be believed but that it was his usual way of working. Had I not personally spent much time in observing him I am frank to say that I doubt whether I could ever have be- lieyed such disagreeable haughtiness and so much almost sickening ostenta- ton possible of the man who wrote the simple. heart touching stories that live to the credit of MT. Dickens. How h. ever managed to keep his pretentious bearing out of his stories will always remain a mystery to me.
 There were three young men who seemed to be somewhat of his travelling party. though I heard that they were with him only temporarily. With mo- body else save these young men would Mr Dickens have anything to do. How ever politely and cordially any one else on that boat might approach him, his air was repellant to a most unfortunate degree. His wife would have nothing to do with him, and apparently he had very little to do with her.
 The captain and steward of the boat showed the great writer the most marked attention. particularly at the table They would come forward per sonally and ask him if he would have so and so prepared, and he would cut them off with a short yes or no
 As an American I only smiled at what was extreme foolishness in the man. I could easily forgive it in him. One thing, however, as an American simply a lover of plain truth could not forgive him. I refer to a deliber- ate. gross misrepresentation of the fact which every first cabin passenger on that boat could with me bear wi.- ness to on the part of Charles Dickens.
 Tn his American Notes MT. Dickens mentions that sane trip on the Ohio and he casts all manner of reflections on the furnishings, accommodations, bill of fare. attentions received by the passengers at the hands of the officers and others of that same boat He stigmatizes them all as worse than poor. He goes so far as to affirm that there was little more than a long row of jugs of water on the table.
 
 was princely, the accommodations were luxurious and the attentions of the officers and employees of the boat were the very soul of thoughtfulness and reason for perpetrating so bold a pre- varication could have been but one He was writing a book of notes on America such as he thought would sell in England.
 From overhearing him talk to his three young men acquaintances I dis covered Mir. Dickens to be an excellent conversationalist. His power of vivid And he used little words, just as he does in most of his stories. Almost con- tinually, while on the boat, he carried in his left hand a little notebook and in his right hand a pencil. As often as every two or three minutes he would jot down something. He would make notes even at the table. On one occa- sion he was seen to drop the wet towel NIln NIhcn He Was pdlnlHS the dcHlllS head of his wife, and, pulling out his notebook, set down something therein. The amount of memoranda that he accumulated in this way must have been enormous.
 "A crying baby caused him to scowI and get as far away from it as possible. He had no smile or chuck under the chin for any one of the several bright, pretty little children running about the cabin and decks"
 Women as We'll as Men