ANECDOTE OP CHARLES DICKENS.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VII, Issue 55, 4 March 1872, Page 4

ANECDOTE OP CHARLES DICKENS.

The following amusing incident was narrated by the late popular novelist himself : — " I chanced to be travelling some years ago," he said, "in a railroad carriage between Liverpool and London. Besides myself there were two ladies and a gentleman occupying the carriage. We happened to be all strangers to each other; but I noticed at once that a clergyman was of the party. I was occupied with a ponderous article in the Times when the sound of my own Dame drew my attention to the fact tbat a conversation was going forward among the three other persons in the carriage with reference to myself and my books. One of the ladies was perusing ' Bleak House,' then lately published, and the clergyman had commenced a conversation with the ladies by asking what book they were reading. On being told the author's name and the title of the book, he expressed himself greatly grieved that any lady in England should be willing to take up writings of so vile a character aB Charles Dickens. Both the ladies showed great surprise at the low estimate the clergyman put upon an author whom they were accustomed to read, to say the least, with a certain degree of pleasure. They were evidently much shocked at what the man said of the immortal tendency of these books, which they seem never before to have suspected, but when he attacked the author's private character, and told monstrous stories of his immoralities in every direction, the volume was shut up and consigned to the dark pockets of a travelling bag. I listened in wonder and astonishment, behind my newspaper, to storieß of myself, ' which, if they had been true, would have consigned any man to a prison for life. After my fictitious biographer hod occupied himself for nearly an hour

with the eloquent recital of my delinquencies and crimes, I very quietly joined in the conversation. Of course I began by modestly doubting some statement I had just heard touching 'Bleak House,' and other unimportant works of a similar character. The man stared ar me, and evidently considered my appearance on the conversational stage an intrusion and an impertinence. ' You seem to speak,' I said, 'from personal knowledge of Mr. Dickens. Are you acquainted with him ? ' He rather evaded the question, but following him up closely, I compelled him to say that he had been talking not from his own knowledge of the author in question, but he said he knew for a certainty that every statement he had made was a true one. I then became more earnest in my inquiries for proofs which he arrogantly declined giving. The ladies sat by in silence, listening intently to what was going forward. An author they had been accustomed to read for amusement had been traduced for the first time in their hearing, and they were waiting to learn what I had to say in refutation of the clergymen's charges. I was taking up his vile stories one by one, and stamping them as false in every particular, when the man grew furious, and asked me if I knew Dickens personally. I replied, * Perfectly well,- no man knows him better than I do,* and all your stories about him, from beginning tv end, to these ladies, are unmitigated lies.' The man became livid with rage, and asked for my card. ' You shall have it,' I said, and coolly taking out one, I presented it without bowing. We were just then nearing the station in London, so that I was spared a longer interview with my truthful companion ; but if I were to live a hundred years I should not forget the abject condition into which the narrator of my crimes was instantly plunged. His face turned white as his cravat, and his lips refused to utter words. He seemed like a wilted vegetable, and as if his legs belonged to somebody else. The ladies became aware of the situation at once, and bidding them 'Goodday,' I stepped smilingly out of the carriage. Before 1 could get away from the station the man had mustered up strength sufficient to follow me, and his apologies w. re so nauseous and craven that I pitied him from soul. I left him with this < aution : — ' Before you make charges agai st the character of any man again, about whom you know nothing, and of whose works you are utterly ignorant, study to be a seeker after truth, and avoid lying as you would eternal perdition.' "