Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1903-01-24
WHY CHARLES DICKENS DIED.
Incidents of the Wear and Tear of
Genius,

Uen1uS,
John Hollingshead in the Pail Mall Gazette.
The attempt to diagnose the causes OF
Charles Dickens comparatively early death
at the age of ffty-eight, mostly made by
friends and lntimates, has led to little more
than one opinion-oyerwork, overwork, and
always overwork, mental and physical No
one who looks at the vast gallery of liv-
ing portraits which he has given to the
world can require to be Stold that these
pictures were created by long, intense and
corroding labor-labor that never ceased,
night or day, labor that concealed much
OF its effort, and showed the least in the
mere surface process Of transmission to
PAPER Many of these creations were
worse than nightmares, as all strong char
acters in fiction must necessarily be. They
Were daymares. They were with him in
his long, and what seemed to me to be
dull, mechanical walks, governed by mile
stones and timed by stop watch. He was
glad of congenial companion to exercise
these spirits. They came back to him in
the evening, and in the dead of night they
often m3yed him to rise and walk that
long tramp's tramp of twenty-seven miles
from Tavistock Square to Gadshill, through
the mists of early morning. Those who can
see no wear and tear in all this must be
singularly ignorant of nervous organiza-
lions such as Dickens POSSESSED and which
probably killed Shakespeare at fifty-two,
setting aside the legend of the carouse I'M
der the mulberry tree with Ben Jonson.
IN writing his strongest characters Chas.
Dickens always acted them. He could
hardly 90 otherwise with his dramatic tenn
permanent and the dramatic nature of his
works. Why more dramas have never
been manufactured out of these works is
found in the fact that they contained too
much dramatic and collective" material
than too little. From this creation of dra-
matte fiction the step to dramatic recita-
ton was easy and simple. 1t was always
mistake to Gail these efforts readings"
They were the most dramatic of Rotations
stage Plays" within the minutest tech
nical meaning of the act. The christmas
Carol was mere diversion-pleasant, ge-
NAL and not too taxing, like the book it
self-a poem N prose. If he could only
have stopped at that, but he hankered after
aovice of small body of friends he Sc
lected the episode of Bill Skies, from
"Oliver Twist" This according to my
OPINION and J. was present at the private
performance was his death warrant. L
was probably one of the few persons pres
ent who knew this drama on the stage, and
this eXacting character. 1 saw it repeated
ly at the Victoria Theater before it was
repressed by the Lord Chamberlain's de-
partment. The murder of Nancy, with
powerful actor like E. F. Saville. a
brother of Lady Martin Miss E. FauciD,
as Bill Skies, provoked the gallery and
upper parts of the house every night to
such an extent that the 1900 rabid and
ragged playgoerS rose as one man and
nearly destroyed the theater with tor
nadO of blaSphemy.
have strong and perhaps peculiar opin-
ions about Bill Skies in this connection. l
may possibly be wrong; but regard Bill
Skies as Dickens Frankenstein monster"
I could say much more, but it is not for
an old disciple to say too much about his
acknowledged master.