AN AMERICAN OPINION OF CHARLES DICKENS.

Southland Times, Issue 905, 24 February 1868, Page 2

AN AMERICAN OPINION OF CHARLES DICKENS.

I Mrs Blimber never longed to behold ! Cicero in his classical retirement at Tusculum more fervently than I have for years desired to see Charles Dickens ; therefore my satisfaction was intense on the joyful evening when. I went, to hear him read Dr Marygold and the Pickwick Trial. St. James's Hall was crowded with what the papers call a " brilliant and fashionable audience." Every one being in full evening dress added to the effect, and gave me another opportunity of admiring what we seldom see in America — an assemblage of really beautiful women ; for health is the charm which makes them superior to our girls, who all look, with j their pale cheeks, hollow eyes, and bent shoulders, as if utterly exhausted by incessantly poring over endless ologies and isms. Blooming as they were, however, I found more interest in a crimson desk before a crimson curtain, than in any rosy face before me ; and when a stout gentleman walked in, with a business-like air, the great hall might have been empty for anything I saw of my neighbors. At the first glance I received a shock, and my idol tumbled off the pedestal whereon I placed him long ago, and when I wove his hair in a locket, and thought Shakespeare an idiot basides him. I did not expect to see. the handsome, foppish young man who once paid us a visit, and caricatured us so capitally afterwards ; i but I did think soms'signof genius would be visible — some glimpse of the genial creator of Little Nell, Tom Pinch, and the Cheeryble Brothers, would certainly' appear. Far from, it ; youth and comeliness were gone, but the foppishness remained; and the red fa^ed man, with false teeth and the voice of a worn out actor, had his scanty grey hair curled; a posy in his button hole ; a diamond ring, pin and studs ; a ruffled front, and wristbands a la- " Cousin Pelix." I had been told that he was " Clayner, you know, but a loose fish; won't associate with Browning, Tennyson and that set, but prefers actors and such low company you know." I had refused to believe the Englishman's^ account ; but when I saw Dickens I believed it,; and after the first dismay resigned myself to disappointment, hoping that Dr Marygold might revive my faith. He did partially ; but, being a new acquaintance, my attention was distracted by trying to follow the story, as well as. the actor of it — for Dickens used no book, but recited in the most natural and dramatic manner. In the midst of a droll passage he stopped abruptly, caught up the glass of water on his desk, hurried to the edge of the stage and handed it down, exclaiming to an usher, " Here, Peak, quick, a lady is fainting !" And as the pretty, pale girl was taken out he looked after her with an expression of fartherly solicitude, so different from his stage manner that we caught a glimpse of the real man, and' gave him a hearty round of applause, for that little bit of nature pleased every one, The minute he began to read the j famous Pickwick trial I found Dickens, and heartily enjoyed every word. Here he seemed at home, and his audience also ; for this, in spite of age still • has the inimitable drollery and spirit of his early works. How people laughed ! English merriment is as sonorous as English speech, and the roars that shook the walls spoke well for the health of aristocratic lungs. Old gentlemen mopped their faces ; stout dowagers leaned back exhausted ; dandies dropped their glasses to wipe tears of genuine laughter from their eyes ; belles, forgetting their flushed faces, laughed , like girls ; and every one looked about him with an expression of hilarious good-will, which it was impossible to resist, My companion grew hysterical in vain efforts to restrain his shouts; and I soon became entirely reckless of my personal appearance, bent only upon enjoying 1 myself tb ? the f utmost. Buzfiiz was, an exact copy of an English attorney, and Dickens has made it a study ; Justice Stareleigh was as much like an owl as a human . being could be. "Winkle, poor, bashful soul, got into a pet, and stuttered in a way that must have convulsed the Court, as it did us. Mrs Cluppins was not so well done as I have seen it on a private, stage in America: and Sam Weller was not spiritual enough. But old Weller's gruff, wheezy, " woice," spectrally roaring: " Spell it with a We, Sammy, spell it with; a We," was a thing to shout over long afterward. Dickens never laughed himself; and when a perfect gale of merriment blew through the hall he stood looking at his audience with a droll twinkle in his eye, and the benign expression of one who sincerely enjoyed seeing his fellow creatures happy. The moment he was done he made a hasty bow, put the book under his arm, and walked briskly away ; and I found myself wondering whether he would finish the evening "declining and polling" with Bofiin, or drop into a supper with that human Phoenix, Wilkins lilicawber. — Late paper.