The weekly Republican. (Plymouth, Ind.) 1911-1922, 1912-02-08

she held him there, that his life
would one day affect some of those
passengers on the coach, the people
who walked or rode in the street
and the thousands going, about In
Portsmouth, and the tens of thous-
ands upon thousands all over the
country. Who ever made so many
men laugh and weep as did Dickens
What pen has opened the doors into
so many lives7 No heart has ever
been closer to the facts Of human
life than that of Charles Dickens
This great English novelist was one
that would generally be described as
a self-educated man, and yet, if by
a man. s education we understand
preparation for the work he has to
do in life, he was indebted to cir
cumstances for an education on
which it would have been difficult
to improve. His father, a conscien-
tious man, industrious and punctual
in his occupation, but too easy tenn
pered and impractical to expend his
income so as to keep pace with the
wants of rapidly increasing family.
With all their united efforts they
could not keep out distress, and when
Charles was nine years old the fam
lily was living in poverty in Bayhan
street, Camdentown, then one of the
poorest London suburbs, and their
difficulties were increasing upon
them.
Charles was sent to earn six
shillings a week In a blacking ware
house, tying blue covers on pots of
paste blacking. For two years the
child led very hard, uncared for
life at this uncongenial work. He
bitterly felt that it was uncongenial,
for he was a very precocious boy.
He had read several books which his
father had collected, before this
experience in the blacking warehouse.
Among these books were Arabian
Nights, Roderick Random, Tom
Jones, Robson Cruso, and the Vicar
of Wakefield. This literature did not
glide over the boys mind like water
over marble. 1t found congenial
soil, and fell into it as seed. He liv-
ed the life Of his favorite characters,
and had formed an ambition to be
a learned and distinguished man
Perhaps he was right in after life
to wonder at the thoughtlessness of
his parents in subjecting him to such
humiliation.
His sufferings were SO acute and
made such an impression on him,
that years afterwards he could not
think of them without crying, and
there were certain quarters of the
town through which he used to pass
to his daily work, and where he
used to loiter, with less than enough
to eat, that he habitually Stunned
for their painful memories at is
wonderful to me-" he wrote when In
the height of his fame, chow
could have been so easily cast away
at such an age" and that after my
descent into the poor little drudge
| had been since we came to London
no one had compassion enough on
me-a child of singular abilities
quick, eager, delicate, and soor
hurt, bodily and mentally, to suggest
that something might have beer
spared, as certainly it might have
been, to place me at any common
school. Our friends, take it, were
tired out. No one made any sign
My father and mother were quite
satisfied. The chances were that a
delicate boy like him would succumt
to his wretchedness, and that a
clever boy like him would become
a rogue and vagabond. But he sur
vived these dangers, and became a
great novelist Instead of sinking
into the depths of the throngine
atoms, he rose above them, or kept
apart from them, observed them, and
became their describer.
From all descriptions we learn thai
he had good features, eyes thai
Illuminated his whole countenance
and luxuriant brown hair So we
picture Dickens emerging from the
dark days of his youth into a smart
young reporter. During the time
Of his repOrtership, he thought otter
of going on the stage. Then came
the offer of work from the Morning
Chronicle. In December, 1888, hi:
first published short story appeared
in the old Monthly Magazine
Dinner at Poplar Walk" was its
title. In the succeeding year many
others appeared in the same magazine
They were signed "Boz. This was
a household word, a pet name ht
had bestowed upon his youngest
brother Augustus. Soon all England
was to know it, and slender you'll
with waving brown hair, was pointed
out as a coming somebody.
When sketches by "Boz" appear
ed In covers, the Posthumous Pap
ers of the Pickwick club were dawn
ing upon the town in monthly mum