English Literature for Boys and Girls Part 81

"'Now, Winkle,' cried Mr. Pickwick, quite unconscious that here was anything the matter. 'Come, the ladies are all anxiety.'

"'Yes, yes,' replied Mr. Winkle, with a ghastly smile. 'I'm coming.'

"'Just a-goin' to begin,' said Sam, endeavouring to disengage himself. 'Now, Sir, start off!'

"'Stop an instant, Sam,' gasped Mr. Winkle, clinging most affectionately to Mr. Weller. 'I find I've got a couple of coats at home, that I don't want, Sam. You may have them, Sam.'

"'Thank'ee, Sir,' replied Mr. Weller.

"'Never mind touching your hat, Sam,' said Mr. Winkle, hastily.

'You needn't take your hand away to do that. I meant to have given you five s.h.i.+llings this morning for a Christmas-box, Sam.

I'll give it you this afternoon, Sam.'

"'You're wery good, Sir,' replied Mr. Weller.

"'Just hold me at first, Sam; will you?' said Mr. Winkle.

'There--that's right. I shall soon get in the way of it, Sam.

Not too fast, Sam; not too fast.'

"Mr. Winkle, stooping forward with his body half doubled up, was being a.s.sisted over the ice by Mr. Weller, in a very singular and un-swanlike manner, when Mr. Pickwick most innocently shouted from the opposite bank,--

"'Sam!'

"'Sir?' said Mr. Weller.

"'Here, I want you.'

"'Let go, Sir,' said Sam. 'Don't you hear the governor a- callin'? Let go, Sir.'

"With a violent effort Mr. Weller disengaged himself from the grasp of the agonised Pickwickian; and, in so doing, administered a considerable impetus to the unhappy Mr. Winkle. With an accuracy which no degree of dexterity or practice could have insured, that unfortunate gentleman bore swiftly down into the centre of the reel, at the very moment when Mr. Bob Sawyer was performing a flourish of unparalleled beauty. Mr. Winkle struck wildly against him, and with a loud crash they both fell heavily down.

"Mr. Pickwick ran to the spot. Bob Sawyer had risen to his feet, but Mr. Winkle was far too wise to do anything of the kind, in skates. He was seated on the ice, making spasmodic efforts to smile, but anguish was depicted on every lineament of his countenance.

"'Are you hurt?' inquired Mr. Benjamin Allen, with great anxiety.

"'Not much,' said Mr. Winkle, rubbing his back very hard.

"'I wish you'd let me bleed you,' said Mr. Benjamin, with great eagerness.

"'No, thank you,' replied Mr. Winkle hurriedly.

"'What do you think, Mr. Pickwick?' enquired Bob Sawyer.

"Mr. Pickwick was excited and indignant. He beckoned to Mr.

Weller, and said in a stern voice, 'Take his skates off.'

"'No; but really I had scarcely begun,' remonstrated Mr. Winkle.

"'Take his skates off,' repeated Mr. Pickwick firmly.

"The command was not to be resisted. Mr. Winkle allowed Sam to obey it, in silence.

"'Lift him up,' said Mr. Pickwick. Sam a.s.sisted him to rise.

"Mr. Pickwick retired a few paces apart from the bystanders; and beckoning his friend to approach, fixed a searching look upon him, and uttering in a low, but distinct and emphatic tone, these remarkable words,--

"'You're a humbug, Sir.'

"'A what!' said Mr. Winkle starting.

"'A humbug, Sir. I will speak plainer, if you wish it. An impostor, Sir.'

"With these words Mr. Pickwick turned slowly on his heel, and rejoined his friends."

There is much life and fun and jollity and some vulgarity in Pickwick. There is a good deal of eating and far too much drinking. But when the fun is rather rough, we must remember that d.i.c.kens wrote of the England of seventy years ago and more, when life was rougher than it is now, and when people did not see that drinking was the sordid sin we know it to be now.

To many people Pickwick remains d.i.c.kens's best book. "The glory of Charles d.i.c.kens," it has been said, "will always be in his Pickwick, his first, his best, his inimitable triumph."*

*Fred Harrison.

Just when d.i.c.kens began to write Pickwick he married, and soon we find him comfortably settled in a London house, while the other great writers of his day gathered round him as his friends.

Although not born in London, d.i.c.kens was a true Londoner, and when his work was done he loved nothing better than to roam the streets. He was a great walker, and thought nothing of going twenty or thirty miles a day, for though he was small and slight he had quite recovered from his childish sickliness and was full of wiry energy. The crowded streets of London were his books.

As he wandered through them his clear blue eyes took note of everything, and when he was far away, among the lovely sights of Italy or Switzerland, he was homesick for the grimy streets and hurrying crowds of London.

After Pickwick many other stories followed; in them d.i.c.kens showed his power not only of making people laugh, but of making them cry. For the source of laughter and the source of tears are not very far apart. There is scarcely another writer whose pathetic scenes are so famous as those of d.i.c.kens.

In life there is a great deal that is sad, and one of the things which touched d.i.c.kens most deeply was the misery of children.

The children of to-day are happy in knowing nothing of the miseries of childhood as it was in the days when d.i.c.kens wrote.

In those days tiny children had to work ten or twelve hours a day in factories, many schools were places of terror and misery, and few people cared. But d.i.c.kens saw and cared and wrote about these things. And now they are of a bygone day. So children may remember d.i.c.kens with thankful hearts. He is one of their great champions.

d.i.c.kens loved children and they loved him, for he had a most winning way with them and he understood their little joys and sorrows. "There are so many people," says his daughter writing about her father, "There are so many people good, kind, and affectionate, but who can not remember that they once were children themselves, and looked out upon the world with a child's eyes only." This d.i.c.kens did always remember, and it made him a tender and delightful father to whom his children looked up with something of adoration. "Ever since I can remember anything,"

says his daughter, "I remember him as the good genius of the house, or as its happy, bright and funny genius." As Thackeray had a special handwriting for each daughter, d.i.c.kens had a special voice for each child, so that without being named each knew when he or she was spoken to. He sang funny songs to them and told funny stories, did conjuring tricks and got up theatricals, shared their fun and comforted their sorrows. And this same power of understanding which made him enter into the joys and sorrows of his children, made him enter into the joys and sorrows of the big world around him. So that the people of that big world loved him as a friend, and adored him as a hero.

As the years went on d.i.c.kens wrote more and more books. He started a magazine too, first called Household Words and later All the Year Round. In this, some of his own works came out as well as the works of other writers. It added greatly to his popularity and not a little to his wealth. And as he became rich and famous, his boyish dream came true. He bought the house of Gad's Hill which had seemed so splendid and so far off in his childish eyes, and went to live there with his big family of growing boys and girls.

It was about this time, too, that d.i.c.kens found a new way of entertaining the world. He not only wrote books but he himself read them to great audiences. All his life d.i.c.kens had loved acting. Indeed he very nearly became an actor before he found out his great powers of writing. He many times took part in private theatricals, one of his favorite parts, you will like to know, being Captain Bobadil, in Jonson's Every Man in his Humor.

And now all the actor in him delighted in the reading of his own works, so although many of his friends were very much against these readings, he went on with them. And wherever he read in England, Scotland, Ireland, and America, crowds flocked to hear him. d.i.c.kens swayed his audiences at will. He made them laugh, and cry, and whether they cried they cheered and applauded him.

It was a triumph and an evidence of his power in which d.i.c.kens delighted and which he could not forego, although his friends thought it was beneath his dignity as an author.

But the strain and excitement were too much. These readings broke down d.i.c.kens's health and wore him out. He was at last forced to give them up, but it was already too late. A few months later he died suddenly one evening in June 1870 in his house at Gad's Hill. He was buried in Westminster, and although the funeral was very quiet and simple as he himself had wished, for two days after a constant stream of mourners came to place flowers upon his grave.

I have not given you a list of d.i.c.ken's books because they are to be found in nearly every household. You will soon be able to read them and learn to know the characters whose names have become household words.

d.i.c.kens was the novelist of the poor, the shabby genteel, and the lower middle cla.s.s. It has been said many times that in all his novels he never drew for us a single gentleman, and that is very nearly true. But we need little regret that, for he has left us a rich array of characters we might never otherwise have known, such as perhaps no other man could have pictured for us.

BOOKS TO READ

Stories from d.i.c.kens, by J. W. M'Spadden. The Children's d.i.c.kens.