The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1912-02-06
BY ESTHER GRIFFIN WHITE.

6Y eSJHeH GHtettN "HuIe.
January Seventh is the centenary OF
Charles Dickens.
Wherever English literature is read
in the original there will this day be
celebrated.
1t is the fashion among certain of
the literati nowadays to decry those
two great masters of English fiction,
Dickens and Thackeray, who, on &C.
count of their contemporaneity, are al
most invariably bracketed. although
geniuses Of different magnitude.
Arnold Bennett, in instance, who re-
Gently visited this country and freely
expressed his "views"abOut everything
from votes for women to poetry, is one
of that class of supercilious littera-
teurs who delicately sneer and shrug
the shoulder at his two famous CON-
patriots.
Why. Is this?
Nobody knows.
For both these great novelists de-
picted life as it is. Human nature is
the same in 1912 as in 1850.
What more ruthless realism than
that in vanity Fair" "Pendennis,"
and The Newcomes,'- realism as
existent now in the same phases of so
ciety as at the time Thackeray wrote.
What more brutal expose of the hid
eousness of certain English schools of
the period than that of "Dotheboy's
Hail." in Nicholas Nickelby"-which
resulted in an investigation of, and re-
form in. alleged educational institu-
tons of this character.
And yet these modern "realists" rate
both Dickens and Thackeray as senti-
mentalists.
Dickens was, at times, sentimental.
None deny this.
Nor that he INDUCED in pathos. Nor
that he grew lachrymose over the woes
of his heroines and his heroes.
But what of that?
Consider, for one thing, how most
of his novels were produced. They ap-
peared serially and frequently the
presses waited while he penned off the
next installment.
CompactnesA, under these circum-
stances, was not possible. But COM
pactness of literary construction is not
always desirable.
Discursiveness Ditch holds the at
tention when concentrated statement
wearies.
However, this >is, of course, neither
here nor there.
Despite the aspersions cast upon
these two novelists it still holds that
they are the most widely read of any
of the English fictionists.
Recurring editions of Dickens, in the
cheap and the de luxe, mark the pages
of the publishers catalogue.
Thousands upon thousands of vol
umes with his name on the title page
are yearly thrown of the presses.
Millions of readers still devour,s with
more or less avidity, the printed rec
ord of his inimitable creations.
He who has not read this superlative
story writer has not completed his ed
ucation.
Children, as we'll as adults, delight
in those characters which, as types,
are known wherever life is lived.
Who does not know Sairy Camp, q
Uriah Heep. .Iicawaber?
They are found in every civilized ma
ton.
In the apogee of localism, they
achieve universally.
Dickens symbolzed human traits,
human qualities.
Uriah Heep is not Uriah Heep but
the sublimation of hypocrisy.
Hes a regular Uriah Heep," you
hear it said.
Who other than Micawber-ever
waiting for something to turn up
so typifies the domestic vagabond?
And do We not see the pathos of all
waits and strays in Oliver Twist?
ct is said, by the way, that there is
soon to be a revival of the dramatiza-
ton of this novel, in New York. with
Nat Goodwin as "Fagan.D
Every Dickens impersonator will tell
you that his characterizations are at