The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1911-06-06
A FOLLOWER OF DICKENS.


A FOLLOWER OF DICKENS.
Civilian De Morgan in the London
Daily Mail.)
My earliest literary recollection is
the alphabet: my next, I should say.
Charles Dickens. For the coming to
my fathers house of each new month
ly instalment Of the joy that was to
last till the adven of it's successor was
such an event that in my memory
Mother Hubbard and Ton Thumb are
nowhere by comparison.
An accumulation OF evidence fixes
my leadership Of Boz at Z years old.
Others might reject this evidence. Still
ever the most ~incredulOus of my
friends grants me yer 60 years of
acquaintance with the works of the
great writer whom I never saw in the
f1esh-a1as! / did not once see Shelley
plain; and I might have done SO. I
read his own works, and 1 missed 1t.
Think Of it!
I am sure I was saturated with
them at II years old, and have CONT
nued so till now. His works remain
for me at least-as fresh and profit
able, pregnant with humor and good
humor. pathos and wit, as on the day
when I first read them; the 1000
characters. no single one the REPETITION
Of another, Wove themselves into my
heart almost as living friends, the
errant shuttle of whose lives had shot
a weft across the warp of mine. How
their words hang in ones
almost the tone of voice in which they
spOkei
Picture to yourself assume that
I am writing for a Dickens lover
what a gap there would a been in
our life if none of these words had
ever been happy hours of perusal and
,reperusal-the latter the happier of
the two, as in all books worth the
reading. Think only of the treasures
trove that memory refused to reiin-
quish, the humor fraught with laugh
sleepless night, that king OF laughter
slayers; the tragic power asserting it.
self through what seems the simplest
of u~nvarnished tales; the pathos stole
ism itself cannot read aloud unmoved.
Can you dispute 1t? Can Q re-
story Of how David Copperfield met
bod Spenlow in the conservatory
and nOt-suppOse we say-feel proud
of having kept your eyes dry; of hav-
ing successfully suppressed something
like a Sob. Fiction, as known
~taneously pathetic than this. And, yet,
there is surely none more simple in
its treatment. more easily familiar in
detail Of daily life.
Can you recall, without a shudder,
that hideOuS scene at the pothouse.
where Bill Skies snatches his cap from
vendor Of the Eradicator who has
captured it to test his nostrum on the
strain Of Nancy's blood-or another
that a stain suggests. where
the two lawyers clerks in "BIeak
House, who have opened the window
for air, are disconnected by the black
grease upon their hands that is due to
the old rag dealers holocaust below?
yet. another pothouse scene. in
"Our Mutual Friend'-a work it is
the fashion to undervalue NOWADAYS:
indeed, / myself overestimate
it-where Rogue Riderhood and the
heart are each trying to best the
Says the schoolmaster with
all the chatting of his murderous soul
in his evil face "Listen-these are nv
holidays" Says Riderhood to him
self. with his eyes upon it: Your
working lays must be stiff 'uns then
if these are your holidays" Did ever
human pen write anything more gr;s-
ly?
I should nave a heavy miss of s,cb
thing as these had they never haan
But would those have heen
much better off who easur Dickens
by MS humOr only. and cor him |
a giant for What is but a part-how-
ever large a one-of orr Inheritance |
from his pen? Conceive the Fnrlisb
speaking world. his 40 years past
without Sam Weller's legend of the
crumpet-lover. who shot himself on |
principle, that he might not die OF in
olsestlon n confirm the medical
to the usefulness OF death. what.
become of the undartaLar. ,-;kho,,. -