Year: 1867

Charles Dickens is coming to the United
States, To give series of Readings III the
principal cities of the Republic. The announce
mcnt will be received with plca-urc through
ont the country. II is not necessary to dcpre-
cate as some of our cotempararics incline To
do. possible hostility toward Mr.. Dickens on
the part of the American public. No such
feeling exists. Our people do, indeed, remem-
Der the American Notes and the satirical
chapters in Martin Chuzzlcwit,' and are, no
doubt, of opinion that, as matter OF taste,
Mr. Dickens might well have been more gra-
cious. But, on the other hand our people like
free speech, and appreciate franl0iess-not for
getting that Truth should be the North Star
of authorship and that there is good deal of
truth in what Mr.. Dickens said about us, on re-
turning from his first visit 10 this country.
From the first until now the great novelist has
been true to his duty. At home rs well as
abroad he has attacked every form of social
abuse, and rcbukcd injustice. and laughed at
folly, and inculcatcd sound principles, and
faithfully labored TO refine the character and
extend the scope of human happiness and in
pursuing that work, he has necessarily struck
hard blows, and offended arrogant injustice,
and wounded sclf-lOvc and aroused enmity.
But he has not aroused enmity here OF
all people on earth the Americans are
necessarily foremost TO recognize spirit
that has purely and powerfully labOred for the
advancement OF the human race and they re-
cognize such spirit in Charles Dickens. To
remind them that he once satirized some of
their folies and eccentrcites, or that he some-
Int ehara


is not TO blind their eyes to his genius or
deaden their sense OF his great achievements.
Our people would be poor spirited indeed were
it true that they cannot honor great intellect
unless it first feed them with the honey of
hattery. The Republic is sensitive, but it is
also strong. Even Carlyle, with all his con-
tempt for democratic institutions aud all his
scorn for the people, is, we believe,
better understood, and for his real
worth, better priced to-day in America
than he is at home; nor, should he come among
us, would the welcome extended to him be
other than great people might suitably tender
to a man of great gifts. In the case of Mr..
Dickens, however, VIC shall welcome friend
one whose heart is in sympathy with every
upward and onward tendency of human pro-
gIe5s ana, Whatever flDaluTy may De spaWneu
in the Satanic press, he will find nothing but


friendship in the United States. For the rest,
there is two-fold Importance in his coming.
The greatest novelist of the age, and by all


accounts a superb reader, he will, in reading
from his own works, afford high form of
pleasure and improvement to the art-loving
public. The keenest observer of the age, he


will see, for all readers of the English


tongue, the newborn civilization of this


Republic, precisely as it is Years have


passed since last he trod these shores
years so fraught with development that it al


most seems as if the natural growth of a cen


tury had been attained in a single decade.


Freedom has been vindicated. Education has


made great strides. Art, science, and literature


have prospered. PLANNERS have taken finer