The Montgomery advertiser., 1908-03-08
M OARiLj DICKENS

and the part some of the characters Rh Rhs transformation n of rigs IS too great a change. Ruth and the heroine, Mary. are lay figures almost uninteresting. The story wahders about and ts in-
 But these faults. so easily pointed out, are lost and overpowered by the kenius Of the novelist h Martin Chuz- most famous characters--the immor- tai Betsy Prig and the immortal Sairey Camp, with his invisible friend. Mrs srsaaest of s ass ~s sscspt ssirs na Mr Pecksniff.
 Pecksnifr is 2 great mastsrpisce. So < 30 is Mark Taplsy. Az for the hero we'll, no one is much interested in him, except when he gets to America and
 ses country 1ntr and psscpis that stnss no As work of the nagfnatfon Dickens 2 description of the United States is to be admired. But most Americans of the day took it seriously and Dickens him. self afterward made Il full and formal apology for It.
 Tte Chuzzlewits were proud. hard. money getting race, selfish. obstinate and suspicious. Young Martin, how dger, who had been brought up by his Erandfather. lacked two of these fam ib qualitiss-he was not money setter and he was not suspicious. He a known, that his grandfather, old Mar tn. who had taken him as desolate 9phan to rear. was the most obstinate nan he had ever seen. As for himself le took pride sn the fact that he was Hbt obstinate. but merely possessed of treat firmness.
 Old Martin loved his grandson but tlled him, dominated him, doing 1t Fith much friction and with frequent {uarrels. it is true. but doing it until ene day a question came up which rem dbred the contest between irmness and 9stfnacy no longer to be borne.
 Obsessed with the idea that all his r1latives were after his money--and
 tost of them were--old Martin sepa- btsd himself from them with scorn &nd contempt, lastly driving forth sn he world penniless and without oc- gupation his grandson--which last act, bf course, greatly pleased the other relatives, and caused them to make re- doubled attempts to take charge of the pld man and his wealth.
 Poor Mary Graham cried her eyes out the day Martin was driven forth. The old man had taken her as a child land reared her to attend him. He took an oath before her that she should l have none of his money when he died. 1 but that so long as he lived she would | be provided for. She was to be his 1 companion and was to call him by his inst name. as he was to call her by hers.
 there was to be no protestation of afAction between them. This he want ed thoroughly understood. He ex- pllined all this to the girl when she bAame old enough to understand. He simply wanted somebody. he said, about hfn who would be benefited by his Hing and injured by his dying.
 g3So Mary and young Martin grew up A%agether she submissive, devoted and edting more beautiful everyday; he dkeioping into q good looking young un1n, kind to others in a eondescending lnilner when 1t cost him no effort to be so, proud and chip of that tough oil block, his grandfather. when it cane to having his own way.
 Tt was natural that the two young yAople should fall in love with each 4sdh CT. Even old Martin thought to himself that when the time came, 1t might please him to order his ward and his grandson to be married. That they would dare to fall in love without first asking his consent never entered his head. So one day. when Martin came to him and said that he and Mary were in love and would like to be married. the old man was furious. You VII be married when and to whom order" he stormed.
 \ Old Martin was full of suspicion at once. Had Mary secretly played up-- cn the susceptibilities of his gransdon with an idea of marrying the man who should inherit the Chuzzlewit prop city. Had Martin made love to Mary vhth an idea of getting a bride. who night. after all, be one of his grand fkther's legatees?
 JYoung Martins ''flrmness" was a hatch for old Martins obstinacy and 10 the two parted in anger and with bitter words Martin faced the world with an easy confidence assured of his own great ability, and merely a little doubtful as to the particular line to which he should devote his great talents. He would become rich and famous without delay, of course. and then go back and take Mary away from his cruel and unnatural grand. parent and marry her. If the old man was humble he would forgive him. It was really pity the old man Twas so obstinate.
 | Thus when Martin, instead of having to hunt about for means of liveli- hood, found himself established through paths made easy for him rath- CT mysteriously, as student and boarder in the household of Mir. Pecks- mfr. in a little Wiltshire village near Salisbury he took it quite as matter of course Mir. Pecksniff generally de- manded of his apprentices as large a premium as he thought he could screw out of doting parents or guardians; but Pecksnin was a cousin of old MT. ChuzzIewit and welcomed young Martin as his own son. Money with his own flesh and blood. Perish the base thought!
 Mir. Pecksniff gently exuded moral ideas while he slept, and poured them forth in a ceaseless stream when he was awake. There was nothing from the salt cellar to the tongs which Mir. Pecksniff could not make the subject of an instructive and edifying homily. He had two daughters christened by the edifying names of Charity and Mercy, which had in time become shortened into Cherry and Merry.
 Cherry was the elder and played the sedate. thoughtful, housewifery part while Merry wore her hair in curls sat on a stool before the fire and at times even wore a pinafore, though the ''teens" were rapidly slipping from her.
 It was Merry's cue to laugh and be gay, and Cherry's to be thoughtful and composed If in the back of MT. Peckniff's mind there lodged the con viction that after while old Martin would relent and that when his relent- ing took place 1t might be just as in-Iaw, if such a thought lodged never encouraged it. He took in his cousins grandson, but only from the purest and most hallowed motives.
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