THE LATE CHARLES DICKENS

Dunstan Times, Issue 441, 30 September 1870, Page 3

THE LATE CHARLES DICKENS

'(Gentlemen!) Magazine. J [The following extracts are taken from Mr. Blanchard Jerrold’s “In Memoriam” paper on our great novelist. ] When Ada, Lady Lovelace, was dying, and suffering the tortures of a slow internal disease, she expressed a craving to see Charles Dickens, and talk with him. He went to her, and found a mourning house. The lady was stretched upon a couch, heroically enduring her agony The appearance ofDicken’s earnest sympathetic face was immediate relief. She asked him whether the attendant had left a basin of ice, and a spoon. - he hud, “Then give me some now and then, and don’t notice me when I crush it between ray teeth : it soothes my pain, and we can talk.” The womanly tenderness—the wholeness—with which Dickens would enter into the delicacies of such a situation—will rise instantly to the mind ot all who knew him. That he was at the same moment the most careful of nurses, and the most sympathetic and sustaining of comforters, who can do bt 1 “ Do you over pray I” the poor ladyasked. “ Every morning and every eaening’ was Dickens’s answer, in that rich sonorous voice which crowds happily can remember : but of which they can best understand all the eloquence, who knew how simple and devout he was when he spoke of sacred tilings : of suffering, of wrong, or of misfortune, His engaging manner, when he came suddenly in contact with a sick friend defies description ; but from his own narrative of his walk with my father, Jerrold) which he told me made his heart heavy, and was a gloomy task, it is easy for friends to understand the patience, solicitude, and kindly counsel, and designed humour he went through with it. My father was very ill, but under Dickens thoughtful care he had rallied before they reached the Temple. “ We strolled through the. Temple,” Dickens wrote me, on our way to a boat, and I have a lively recollection of him stamping about Elm Tree Court, with his hat in one hand, and the other pushing his hair back, laughing in his heartiest manner at a ridiculous remembrance we had in common, which I had presented in some exaggerated light, to divert him. Then again—of the same daj—“ The dinner party was a large one, and I did not sit near him at (able. But he and I arranged before we went in to dinner that ho was only to eat some little dish that we agreed upon, and was only to drink sherry and water.” Then, “ we exchanged, ‘ Coil bless you,’ and shook hands.” And they never met again. But how full of wise consideration is all this day spent with the invalid | friend, in the midst of mo rinient ;! even to the ridiculous remembrance pra euted in some exaggerated light, to divert him.” Another friend records how he met Dickens a few days ago, and was observed, at a glance, by that most masterly and piercing observer to be in low spirits and feeble. Whereupon, Dickens, who had ample, and momentous business of his own on hand, put it acjde, skeiched a pleasant day together a tele a-lete dinner and a walk. In short, to watch the many sides of his usefulness, and the fund of resources for the good of other people he had at his command was to be astonished at his extraordinary vitality. How good he was to all who had the slightest claim on him who shall tell 1 But that which Hepworlh Dixon said over my father’s dust, may be assm’edly repeated by the narrow bed near Macaulay, Sheridan, and Handel. If exery one who has received a favor at the hands of Charles Dickens should cast a flower upon bis grave, a mountain of roses will lie upon the great man’s breast. Another occasion thrusts itself through a crowd of recollections. A very dear friend of mine, and of many others to whom literature is a staff, had died. To say that his family had claims on Charles Dickens, is to say that they were promptly acknowledged, and satisfied with the grace and heartiness which double the gift, sweeten the bread, and warm the wine. I asked a connexion of our dead friend wheiher he had seen the poor wife and children. “ Seen them !” he answered, “ I was there to day. They are removed into a charming cottage ; they have everything about them ; and, just think of this, when I bu”st into one of the parlors, in my eager survey of the now home, I saw a man in his shirt sleeves, up some steps, hammering away lus:ily. He turned : it was Charles Dickens, and he was Banging the pictures for the widow.” ****** I had met him about the middle ol May, at Charing Cross, and had remarked that he had aged very much in appearance. The thought lines of his face had deepened, and the hair had whitened Indeed, as he approached me I thought for a moment I was mistaken, and that it could not be Dickens; for that was not the vigorous, rapid walk, with the stick lightly heid ih the alert hand, which had always belonged to him. It was he, however, but with a certain solemnity of expression in the face, and a deeper earnestness in the dark oyea Hows vein when be srv tan and shook

my hand, the delightful brightness and sunshine swept over the gloom and, sadness ; and he spoke cheerily, in the old kind way—not in the least about himself—but about my doings, about Dor 6, about London as a subject (and who ever knew it half so well as he, in all its highways and byways 1) about all that could interest me, that occurred to him at the moment. And he wrung my hand again, as ws parted, and the cast of serious thought settled again upon the handsome face, as he turned, wearily I thought for him, towards the abbey.

That within a month lie would he resting there for ever, buried under flowers cast by loving hands, and that the whole civilised world would be lamenting the loss of the great and good Englishman, 1 never for one moment dreamed. But I thought sadly of him, I remember, after we had parted Nor was I alone in this. He was walking with a dear friend of his a lew weeks ago, when this one said, speaking of Edwin Drood—“Well, you, or we, are approaching the mystery--”

Dickens, who had been, and was at the moment .all vivacity—extinguished his gaiety, and fell into a long and silent reverie, from which he never bioke during the remainder of the walk. Was he pondering another and a deeper mystery than any his brain could unra/el, facile as its mastery was over the hearts and brains of his brethren 1 We can never know.

A Canadian clergyman not long since was celled upon by an Irish girl, who asked how much he charged for marrying anybody. He replied , „A dollar and a half,” and Biddy departed. A few evenings later, on being summoned to thedoor,hewas accosted by the same person with the remark that she wanted to get marrial. “Very well,” said the minister; but perceiving with astonishment that she was alone, he continued, “ Where is the man?” An expression of disappointment passed ove Bid ! y’s features as she ejaculated, “And don’t you find the man for a dollar and a half?” 1 was told an anecdote illustrative of Hungarian pride. The incident occurred at a ball at Preshurg last winter. A young lady, who imagined herself demeaned by having for a vis-a-vis a young officer who was not a noble, hardly allowed him to touch the tip of her little finger when she passed him in the quadrille. The second time, thinking this slight favor too great a condescension, she hell him the corner i f her pocket-handkerchief. He coolly took it, use i it, and returned it to her- Not a gentlemanly thing to do, but it served her quite right,—“ My Holiday in Austria."

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