Produced by David Widger
CHARLES DICKENS
AS A READER.
By Charles Kent.
[Illustration: Titlepage.jpg]
Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co. London: Chapman & Hall, 193,
Piccadilly.
1872.
LONDON: BRADBURY, EVANS, AND CO., PRINTERS, WHITEFRTARS,
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TO
JOHN FORSTER,
THE BIOGRAPHER OF CHARLES DICKENS,
PREFACE.
As the title-page of this volume indicates, no more is here attempted
than a memorial of Charles Dickens in association with his Readings.
It appeared desirable that something in the shape of an accurate record
should be made of an episode in many respects so remarkable in the
career of the most popular author of his generation. A commemorative
volume, precisely of this character, was projected by the writer in the
spring of 1870. Immediately after the Farewell Reading in St James's
Hall, on the 15th of March, Charles Dickens wrote, in hearty approval
of the suggestion, “Everything that I can let you have in aid of the
proposed record (which, _of course_, would be far more agreeable to me
if done by you than by any other hand) shall be at your service.”
All the statistics, he added, should be placed freely at the writer's
command; all the marked books from which he himself read should be
confided to him for reference. In now realising his long-postponed
intention, the writer's endeavour has been throughout to restrict the
purpose of his book as much as possible to matters either directly or
indirectly affecting these famous Readings.
The Biography of Charles Dickens having been undertaken by the oldest
and dearest of his friends, all that is here attempted is to portray, as
accurately as may be, a single phase in the career and character of one
of the greatest of all our English Humorists. What is thus set forth
has the advantage, at any rate, of being penned from the writer's own
intimate knowledge. With the Novelist's career as a Reader he has been
familiar throughout. From its beginning to its close he has regarded
it observantly. He has viewed it both from before and from behind the
scenes, from the front of the house as well as from within the shelter
of the screen upon the platform. When contrasted with the writings of
the Master-Humorist, these readings of his, though so remarkable in
themselves, shrink, no doubt, to comparative insignificance. But simply
considering them as supplementary, and, certainly, as very exceptional,
evidences of genius on the part of a great author, they may surely be
regarded as having been worthy of the keenest scrutiny at the time, and
entitled afterwards to some honest commemoration.
CONTENTS.
CHARLES DICKENS AS A READER 1
THE READINGS IN ENGLAND AND AMERICA 36
THE CHRISTMAS CAROL 92
THE TRIAL FROM PICKWICK 109
DAVID COPPERFIELD 120
THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH 131
NICHOLAS NICKLEBY 140
MR. BOB SAWYER'S PARTY 152
THE CHIMES 162
THE STORY OF LITTLE DOMBEY 176
MR. CHOPS, THE DWARF 189
THE POOR TRAVELLER 195
MRS. GAMP 207
BOOTS AT THE HOLLY TREE INN 220
BARBOX BROTHERS 231
THE BOY AT MUGBY 237
DOCTOR MARIGOLD 243
SIKES AND NANCY 253
THE FAREWELL READING 263
CHARLES DICKENS AS A READER.
A celebeated writer is hardly ever capable as a Reader of doing justice
to his own imaginings. Dr. Johnson's whimsical anecdote of the author
of The Seasons admits, in point of fact, of a very general application.
According to the grimly humorous old Doctor, “He [Thomson] was once
reading to Doddington, who, being himself a reader eminently elegant,
was so much provoked by his odd utterance, that he snatched the paper
from his hand, and told him that he did not understand his own verses!”
Dryden, again, when reading his Amphytrion in the green-room, “though,”
says Cibber, who was present upon the occasion, “he delivered the plain
meaning of every period, yet the whole was in so cold, so flat, and
unaffecting a manner, that I am afraid of not being believed when I
affirm it.” Elsewhere, in his Apology, when contrasting the creator with
the interpreter, the original delineator with the actual impersonator
of character, the same old stage gossip remarks, how men would read
Shakspere with higher rapture could they but conceive how he was played
by Betterton! “Then might they know,” he exclaims, with a delightful
extravagance of emphasis and quaint-ness of phraseology, “the one was
born alone to speak what the other only knew to write!” The simple truth
of the matter being that for the making of a consummate actor, reader,
or impersonator, not only is there required, to begin with, a certain
histrionic instinct or dramatic aptitude, but a combination--very rarely
to be met with, indeed--of personal gifts, of physical peculiarities,
of vocal and facial, nay, of subtly and yet instantly appreciable
characteristics. Referring merely to those who are skilled as
conversationalists, Sir Richard Steele remarks, very justly, in the
_Spectator_ (No. 521), that, “In relations, the force of the expression
lies very often more in the look, the tone of voice, or the gesture,
than in the words themselves, which, being repeated in any other manner
by the undiscerning, bear a very different interpretation from their
original meaning.” Whatever is said as to all that is requisite in the
delivery of an oration by the master of all oratory, applies with equal
distinctness to those who are readers or actors professionally. All
depends on the countenance, is the _dictum_ of Cicero,{*} and even in
that, he says, the eyes bear sovereign sway.
* De Oratore iii., 59.
Elsewhere, in his great treatise, referring to what was all-essential
in oratorical delivery, according to Demosthenes, Tully, by a bold and
luminous phrase, declares Action to be, as it were, the speech of
the body,--“quasi sermo corporis.” Voice, eyes, bearing, gesture,
countenance, each in turn, all of them together, are to the spoken
words, or, rather than that, it should be said, to the thoughts and
emotions of which those articulate sounds are but the winged symbols,
as to the barbed and feathered arrows are the bowstring. How
essential every external of this kind is, as affording some medium of
communication between a speaker and his auditors, may be illustrated
upon the instant by the rough and ready argument of the _reductio ad
absurdum_. Without insisting, for example, upon the impossibility of
having a speech delivered by one who is actually blind, and deaf,
and dumb, we need only imagine here its utterance, by some wall-eyed
stammerer, who has a visage about as wooden and inexpressive as the
figure-head of a merchantman. Occasionally, it is true, physical defects
have been actually conquered, individual peculiarities have been in a
great measure counteracted, by rhetorical artifice, or by the arts of
oratorical delivery: instance the lisp of Demosthenes, the stutter of
Fox, the brogue of Burke, and the burr of Brougham.
Sometimes, but very rarely, it has so happened that an actor of nearly
peerless excellence, that a reader of all but matchless power, has
achieved his triumphs, has acquired his reputation, in very despite of
almost every conceivable personal disadvantage. Than the renowned actor
already mentioned, for example, Thomas Betterton, a more radiant name
has hardly ever been inscribed upon the roll of English players,
from Burbage to Garrick. Yet what is the picture of this incomparable
tragedian, drawn by one who knew him and who has described his person
for us minutely, meaning Antony Aston, in his theatrical pamphlet,
called the Brief Supplement? Why it is absolutely this,--“Mr.
Betterton,” says his truthful panegyrist, “although a superlative good
actor, laboured under an ill figure, being clumsily made, having a great
head, a short, thick neck, stooped in the shoulders, and had fat, short
arms, which he rarely lifted higher than his stomach. He had little eyes
and a broad face, a little pock-fretten, a corpulent body, and thick
legs, with large feet. His voice was low and grumbling. He was incapable
of dancing, even in a country dance.” And so forth! Yet this was the
consummate actor who was regarded by the more discerning among
his contemporaries, but most of all by the brother actors who were
immediately around him, as simply inimitable and unapproachable.
There was John Henderson, again, great in his time, both as a tragic and
a comic actor, greatest of all as a reader or an impersonator. Hear
him described by one who has most carefully and laboriously written his
encomium, that is to say, by John Ireland, his biographer. What do we
read of him? That in height he was below the common standard, that his
frame was uncompacted, that his limbs were short and ill-proportioned,
that his countenance had little of that flexibility which anticipates
the tongue, that his eye had scarcely anything of that language which,
by preparing the spectator for the coming sentence, enchains the
attention, that his voice was neither silvery nor mellifluous.
Nevertheless, by a subtlety of discrimination, that seemed almost
intuitive, by a force of judgment and a fervency of mind, that were
simply exquisite and irresistible, this was the very man who could
at any moment, by an inflection of his voice or by the syncope of a
chuckle, move his audience at pleasure to tears or to laughter. He could
haunt their memories for years afterwards with the infinite tenderness
of his ejaculation as Hamlet, of “The fair Ophelia!” He could convulse
them with merriment by his hesitating utterance as Falstaff of “A
shirt--and a half!” Incidentally it is remarked by the biographer of
Henderson that the qualifications requisite to constitute a reader of
especial excellence seem to be these, “a good ear, a voice capable
of inflexion, an understanding of, and taste for, the beauties of the
author.” Added to this, there must be, of course, a feeling, an ardour,
an enthusiasm sufficient at all times to ensure their rapid and vivid
manifestation. Richly endowed in this way, however, though Henderson
was, his gifts were weighted, as we have seen were those also of
Betterton, by a variety of physical defects, some of which were almost
painfully conspicuous. Insomuch was this the case, in the latter
instance, that Tony Aston has oddly observed, in regard to the all
but peerless tragedian, “He was better to meet than to follow; for
his aspect [the writer evidently means, here, when met] was serious,
venerable, and majestic; in his latter time a little paralytic.”
Accepting at once as reasonable and as accurate what has thus been
asserted by those who have made the art of elocution their especial and
chosen study for analysis, it is surely impossible not to recognise at
a glance how enormously a reader must, by necessity, be advantaged, who,
in addition to the intellectual and emotional gifts already enumerated,
possesses those personal attributes and physical endowments in which
a reader, otherwise of surpassing excellence, like Henderson, and an
actor, in other respects of incomparable ability, like Betterton, was
each in turn so glaringly deficient.
Whatever is here said in regard to Charles Dickens, it should be
borne in mind, is written and published during the lifetime of his own
immediate contemporaries. He himself, his readings, the sound of his
voice, the ring of his footstep, the glance of his eye, are all still
vividly within the recollection of the majority of those who will
examine the pages of this memorial. Everything, consequently, which is
set forth in them is penned with a knowledge of its inevitable revision
or endorsement by the reader's own personal remembrance. It is in the
full glare of that public remembrance that the present writer refers to
the great novelist as an impersonator of his more remarkable creations.
Everybody who has seen him, who has heard him, who has carefully watched
him, though it may be but at a single one of these memorable readings,
will recognise at a glance the accuracy or the inaccuracy of the
delineation.
It is observable, in the first instance, in regard to Charles Dickens,
that he had in an extraordinary degree the dramatic element in his
character. It was an integral part of his individuality. It coloured his
whole temperament or idiosyncracy. Unconsciously he described himself,
to a T, in Nicholas Nickleby. “There's genteel comedy in your walk and
manner, juvenile tragedy in your eye, and touch-and-go farce in your
la'ugh,” might have been applied to himself in his buoyant youth quite
as readily and directly as to Nicholas. The author, rather than the hero
of Nickleby, seems, in that happy utterance of the theatrical manager,
to have been photographed. It cannot but now be apparent that, as an
unpremeditated preliminary to Dickens's then undreamt-of career as
a reader of his own works in public and professionally, the Private
Theatricals over which he presided during several years in his own home
circle as manager, prepared the way no less directly than his occasional
Readings, later on, at some expense to himself (in travelling and
otherwise) for purely charitable purposes. His proclivity stagewards,
in effect, the natural trending of his line of life, so to speak, in
the histrionic or theatrical direction, was, in another way, indicated
at a yet earlier date, and not one jot less pointedly. It was so, we
mean, at the very opening of his career in authorship, when having just
sprung into precocious celebrity as the writer of the Sketches and of
the earlier numbers of Pickwick, he contributed an opera and a couple of
farces with brilliant success to the boards of the St. James's Theatre.
Braham and Parry and Hullah winged with melody the words of “The Village
Coquettes;” while the quaint humour of Harley excited roars of laughter
through the whimsicalities of “Is She His Wife?” and “The Strange
Gentleman.” Trifles light as air though these effusions might be, the
radiant bubbles showed even then, as by a casual freak which way with
him the breeze in his leisure hours was drifting. A dozen years or more
after this came the private theatricals at Tavistock House. Beginning
simply, first of all, with his direction of his children's frolics in
the enacting of a burletta, of a Cracker Bonbon for Christmas, and of
one of Planché's charming fairy extravaganzas, these led up in the
end through what must be called circuitously Dickens's emendations
of O'Hara's version of Fielding's burlesque of “Tom Thumb,” to
the manifestation of the novelist's remarkable genius for dramatic
impersonation: first of all, as Aaron Gurnock in Wilkie Collins's
“Lighthouse,” and afterwards as Richard War dour in the same author's
“Frozen Deep.” Already he had achieved success, some years earlier,
as an amateur performer in characters not essentially his own, as,
for example, in the representation of the senile blandness of Justice
Shallow, or of the gasconading humours of Captain Bobadil. Just, as
afterwards, in furtherance of the interests of the Guild of Literature
and Art, he impersonated Lord Wilmot in Lytton's comedy of “Not so
Bad as we Seem,” and represented in a series of wonderfully rapid
transformations the protean person of Mr. Gabblewig, through the
medium of a delightful farce called “Mr. Nightingale's Diary.” Whoever
witnessed Dickens's impersonation of Mr. Gabblewig, will remember that
it included a whole cluster of grotesque creations of his own. Among
these there was a stone-deaf old man, who, whenever he was shouted at,
used to sigh out resignedly, “Ah, it's no use your whispering!” Besides
whom there was a garrulous old lady, in herself the worthy double of
Mrs. Gamp; a sort of half-brother to Sam Weller; and an alternately
shrieking and apologetic valetudinarian, who was, perhaps, the most
whimsical of them all. Nothing more, however, need here be said in
regard to Charles Dickens's share, either in these performances for the
Guild or in the other strictly private theatricals. They are simply here
referred to, as having prepared the way by practice, for the Readings,
still so called, though, in all save costume and general _mis en
scene_, they were from first to last essentially and intensely dramatic
representations.
Readings of this character, it is curious to reflect for a moment,
resemble somewhat in the simplicity of their surroundings the habitual
stage arrangements of the days of Shakspere. The arena, in each
instance, might be described accurately enough as a platform, draped
with screens and hangings of cloth or of green baize. The principal
difference, in point of fact, between the two would be apparent in this,
that whereas, in the one case any reasonable number of performers might
be grouped together simultaneously, in the other there would remain
from first to last before the audience but one solitary performer.
He, however, as a mere matter of course, by the very necessity of his
position, would have to be regarded throughout as though he were a noun
of multitude signifying many. Slashed doublets and trunk hose, might
just possibly be deemed by some more picturesque, if not in outline, at
least in colour and material, than the evening costume of now-a-days.
But, apart from this, whatever would meet the gaze of the spectator
in either instance would bear the like aspect of familiarity or of
incongruity, in contrast to or in association with, the characters
represented at the moment before actual contemporaries. These later
performances partake, of course, in some sense of the nature of a
monologue. Besides which, they involve the display of a desk and a book
instead of the almost ludicrous exhibition of a board inscribed, as
the case might be, “Syracuse” or “Verona.” Apart from this, however,
a modern reading is, in the very nature of it, like a reverting to
the primitive simplicity of the stage, when the stage, in its social
influences, was at its highest and noblest, when, for the matter of
that, it was all but paramount. Given genius in the author and in the
impersonator, and that very simplicity has its enormous advantages.
The greatest of all the law-givers of art in this later civilisation
has more than merely hinted at what is here maintained. Goethe has said
emphatically, in Wilhelm Meister, that a really good actor makes us
soon enough forget the awkwardness, even the meanness, of trumpery
decorations; whereas, he continues, a magnificent theatre is precisely
the very thing that makes us feel the most keenly the want of actors of
real excellence. How wisely in this Goethe, according to his wont, has
spoken, we all of us, here in England, know by our own experience. Of
the truth of his opinion we have had in this country, of late years,
more than one startling illustration. Archaeological knowledge,
scenic illusion, gorgeous upholstery, sumptuous costumes, have, in the
remembrance of many, been squandered in profusion upon the boards of
one of our London theatres in the getting up of a drama by the
master-dramatist. All this has tended, however, only to realise the more
painfully the inadequacy of the powers, no less of the leading star than
of his whole company, to undertake the interpretation of the dramatic
masterpiece. The spectacle which we are viewing in such an instance is,
no doubt, resplendent; but it is so purely as a spectacle. Everything
witnessed is--
“So coldly sweet, so deadly fair,
We start, for soul is wanting there.”
The result naturally is, that the public is disillusioned and that the
management is bankrupt. Another strikingly-contrasted experience of
the present generation is this, that, without any decorations whatever,
enormous audiences have been assembled together, in the old world and
in the new, upon every occasion upon which they have been afforded the
opportunity, to hear a story related by the lips of the writer of it.
And they have been so assembled not simply because the story itself
(every word of it known perfectly well beforehand) was worth hearing
again, or because there was a very natural curiosity to behold the
famous author by whom it had been penned; but, above all, because his
voice, his glance, his features, his every movement, his whole person,
gave to his thoughts and his emotions, whether for tears or for
laughter, the most vivid interpretation.
How it happened, in this instance, that a writer of celebrity like
Charles Dickens became a reader of his own works before large public
audiences may be readily explained. Before his first appearance in
that character professionally--that is, as a public reader, on his own
account--he had enjoyed more than twenty years of unexampled popularity
as a novelist. During that period he had not only securely established
his reputation in authorship, but had evidenced repeatedly, at intervals
during the later portion of it, histrionic powers hardly less remarkable
in their way than those gifts which had previously won for him his
wholly exceptional fame as a writer of imagination.
Among his personal intimates, among all those who knew him best, it had
long come to be recognised that his skill as an impersonator was only
second to his genius as a creator of humorous and pathetic character.
His success in each capacity sprang from his intense sympathy and his
equally intense earnestness. Whatever with him was worth doing at all,
was worth doing thoroughly. Anything he undertook, no matter what, he
went in at, according to the good old sea phrase, with a will. He always
endeavoured to accomplish whatever had to be accomplished as well as it
could possibly be effected within the reach of his capabilities. Whether
it were pastime or whether it were serious business, having once taken
anything in hand, he applied to it the whole of his energies. Hence,
as an amateur actor, he was simply unapproachable. He passed, in fact,
beyond the range of mere amateurs, and was brought into contrast by
right, with the most gifted professionals among his contemporaries.
Hence, again, as an after-dinner speaker, he was nothing less than
incomparable. “He spoke so well,” Anthony Trollope has remarked, “that
a public dinner became a blessing instead of a curse if he were in the
chair--had its compensating twenty minutes of pleasure, even if he were
called upon to propose a toast or thank the company for drinking his
health.” He did nothing by halves, but everything completely. How
completely he gave himself up to the delivery of a speech or of a
reading, Mr. Arthur Helps has summed up in less than a dozen words of
singular emphasis. That keen observer has said, indeed quite truly, of
Dickens,--“When he read or spoke, the whole man read or spoke.” It
was thus with him repeatedly, and always delightfully, in mere chance
conversation. An incident related by him often became upon the instant a
little acted drama. His mimetic powers were in many respects marvellous.
In voice, in countenance, in carriage, almost, it might be said, at
moments, in stature, he seemed to be a Proteus.
According to a curious account which has been happily preserved for us
in the memoirs of the greatest reader of the last century, Henderson
first of all exhibited his elocutionary skill by reciting (it was
at Islington) an Ode on Shakspere. So exactly did he deliver this in
Garrick's manner, that the acutest ear failed to distinguish the one
from the other. One of those present declared, years afterwards, that he
was certain the speaker _must be_ either Garrick or Antichrist.
Imitative powers not one iota less extraordinary in their way were, at
any moment, seemingly, at the command of the subject of this memorial.
In one or two instances that might be named the assumption was all
but identity. An aptitude of this particular kind, as everyone can
appreciate upon the instant, would by necessity come wonderfully in aid
of the illusive effect produced by readings that were in point of fact
the mere vehicle or medium for a whole crowd of vivid impersonations.
Anyone, moreover, possessing gifts like these, of a very peculiar
description, not only naturally but inevitably enjoys himself every
opportunity that may arise for displaying them to those about him,
to his friends and intimates. “Man is of a companionable, conversing
nature,” says Goethe in his novel of The Renunciants, “his delight is
great when he exercises faculties that have been given him, even though
nothing further came of it.” Seeing that something further readily did
come of it in the instance of Charles Dickens, it can hardly be matter
for surprise that the readings and impersonations which were first of
all a home delight, should at length quite naturally have opened up
before the popular author what was for him an entirely new, but at the
same time a perfectly legitimate, career professionally.
Recitations or readings of his own works in public by a great writer
are, in point of fact, as old as literature itself. They date back to
the very origin of polite letters, both prose and poetic. It matters
nothing whether there was one Homer, or whether there may have been a
score of Homers, so far as the fact of oral publication applies to
the Iliad and the Odyssey, nearly a thousand years (900) before the
foundation of Christianity. By the lips of a single bard, or of a series
of bards, otherwise of public declaimers or reciters, the world was
first familiarised with the many enthralling tales strung together in
those peerless masterpieces. Again, at a period of very nearly five
hundred years (484) before the epoch of the Redemption, the Father of
History came to lay the foundation, as it were, of the whole fabric
of prose literature in a precisely similar manner--that is to say, by
public readings or recitations. In point of fact, the instance there is
more directly akin to the present argument. A musical cadence, or even
possibly an instrumental accompaniment, may have marked the Homeric
chant about Achilles and Ulysses. Whereas, obviously, in regard to
Herodotus, the readings given by him at the Olympic games were readings
in the modern sense, pure and simple. Lucian has related the incident,
not only succinctly, but picturesquely.
Herodotus, then in his fiftieth year, reflected for a long while
seriously how he might, with the least trouble and in the shortest time,
win for himself and his writings a large amount of glory and reputation.
Shrinking from the fatigue involved in the labour of visiting
successively one after another the chief cities of the Athenians, the
Corinthians, and the Lacedæmonians, he ingeniously hit upon the notion
of appearing in person at the Olympian Games, and of there addressing
himself simultaneously to the very pick and flower of the whole Greek
population. Providing himself beforehand with the choicest portions or
select passages from his great narrative, he there read or declaimed
those fragments of his History to the assembled multitude from the stage
or platform of the theatre. And he did this, moreover, with such an
evident captivation about him, not only in the style of his composition,
but in the very manner of its delivery, that the applause of his hearers
interrupted him repeatedly--the close of these recitations by the great
author-reader being greeted with prolonged and resounding acclamations.
Nay, not only are these particulars related as to the First Reading
recorded as having been given by a Great Author, but, further than that,
there is the charming incident described of Thucydides, then a boy
of fifteen, listening entranced among the audience to the heroic
occurrences recounted by the sonorous and impassioned voice of the
annalist, and at the climax of it all bursting into tears. Lucian's
comment upon that earliest Reading might, with a change of names,
be applied almost word for word to the very latest of these kinds of
intellectual exhibitions. “None were ignorant,” he says, “of the name
of Herodotus; nor was there a single person in Greece who had not either
seen him at the Olympics, or heard those speak of him that came from
thence: so that in what place soever he came the inhabitants pointed
with their finger, saying 'This is that Herodotus who has written the
Persian Wars in the Ionic dialect, this is he who has celebrated our
victories.' Thus the harvest which he reaped from his histories was, the
receiving in one assembly the general applause of all Greece, and the
sounding his fame, not only in one place and by a single trumpet, but
by as many mouths as there had been spectators in that assembly.”
As recently as within these last two centuries, indeed, both in the
development of the career of Molière and in the writing of his biography
by Voltaire, the whole question as to the propriety of a great author
becoming the public interpreter of his own imaginings has been, not only
discussed, but defined with precision and in the end authoritatively
proclaimed. Voltaire, in truth, has significantly remarked, in his
“Vie de Molière,” when referring to Poquelin's determination to become
Comedian as well as Dramatist, that among the Athenians, as is perfectly
well known, authors not only frequently performed in their own dramatic
productions, but that none of them ever felt dishonoured by speaking
gracefully in the presence and hearing of their fellow-citizens.{*}
* “On sait que chez les Athéniens, les auteurs jouaient
souvent dans leurs pieces, et qu'ils n'etoient point
déshonorés pour parler avec grace devant leurs concitoyens.”
In arriving at this decision, however, it will be remarked that one
simple but important proviso or condition is indicated--not to be
dishonoured they must speak with grace, that is, effectively. Whenever
an author can do this, the fact is proclaimed by the public themselves.
Does he lack the dramatic faculty, is he wanting in elocutionary skill,
is his deliver dull, are his features inexpressive, is his manner
tedious, are his readings marked only by their general tameness and
mediocrity, be sure of this, he will speedily find himself talking only
to empty benches, his enterprise will cease and determine, his name will
no longer prove an attraction. Abortive adventures of this kind have in
our own time been witnessed.
With Charles Dickens's Readings it was entirely different. Attracting
to themselves at the outset, by the mere glamour of his name, enormous
audiences, they not only maintained their original _prestige_ during
a long series of years--during an interval of fifteen years
altogether--but the audiences brought together by them, instead of
showing any signs of diminution, very appreciably, on the contrary,
increased and multiplied. Crowds were turned away from the doors, who
were unable to obtain admittance. The last reading of all collected
together the largest audience that has ever been assembled, that ever
can by possibility be assembled for purely reading purposes, within
the walls of St. James's Hall, Piccadilly. Densely packed from floor
to ceiling, these audiences were habitually wont to hang in breathless
expectation upon every inflection of the author-reader's voice, upon
every glance of his eye,--the words he was about to speak being so
thoroughly well remembered by the majority before their utterance that,
often, the rippling of a smile over a thousand faces simultaneously
anticipated the laughter which an instant afterwards greeted the words
themselves when they were articulated.
Altogether, from first to last, there must have been considerably more
than Four Hundred--very nearly, indeed, Five Hundred--of these Readings,
each one among them in itself a memorable demonstration. Through their
delightful agency, at the very outset, largess was scattered broadcast,
abundantly, and with a wide open hand, among a great variety of
recipients, whose interests, turn by turn, were thus exclusively
subserved, at considerable labour to himself, during a period of several
years, by this large-hearted entertainer. Eventually the time
arrived when it became necessary to decide, whether an exhausting and
unremunerative task should be altogether abandoned, or whether readings
hitherto given solely for the benefit of others, should be thenceforth
adopted as a perfectly legitimate source of income for himself
professionally. The ball was at his feet: should it be rolled on, or
fastidiously turned aside by reason of certain fantastic notions as
to its derogating, in some inconceivable way, from the dignity of
authorship? That was the alternative in regard to which Dickens had to
decide, and upon which he at once, as became him, decided manfully. The
ball was rolled on, and, as it rolled, grew in bulk like a snowball. It
accumulated for him, as it advanced, and that too within a wonderfully
brief interval, a very considerable fortune. It strengthened and
extended his already widely-diffused and intensely personal popularity.
By making him, thus, distinctly a Reader himself, it brought him face to
face with vast multitudes of his own readers in the Old World and in the
New, in all parts of the United Kingdom, and at last, upon the occasion
of his second visit to America, an expedition adventured upon expressly
to that end, in all parts of the United States.
And these Readings were throughout so conspicuously and so radiantly a
success, that even in the recollection of them, now that they are
things of the past, it may be said that they have already beneficially
influenced, and are still perceptibly advancing, the wider and keener
appreciation of the writings themselves. In its gyrations the ball then
rolling at the Reader's foot imparted a momentum to one far nobler
and more lasting--that of the Novelist's reputation, one that in its
movement gives no sign of slackening--“labitur et labetur in omne
volubilis sevum.”
[Illustration: reading-page.jpg]
The long continuance of the remarkable success attendant upon the
Readings all through, is only to be explained by the extraordinary care
and earnestness the Reader lavished continuously upon his task when
once it had been undertaken. In this he was only in another phase of his
career, consistently true to the one simple rule adopted by him as an
artist throughout. What that rule was anyone might see at a glance on
turning over the leaves of one of his books, it matters not which, in
the original manuscript. There, the countless alterations, erasures,
interpolations, transpositions, interlineations, shew plainly enough the
minute and conscientious thought devoted to the perfecting, so far as
might be in any way possible, of the work of composition. What reads so
unaffectedly and so felicitously, it is then seen, is but the result of
exquisite consideration. It is Sheridan's whimsical line which declares
that,--
“Easy writing's cursed hard reading.”
And it is Pope who summarizes the method by which not “easy writing”
but “ease in writing” is arrived at, where it is said of those who have
acquired a mastery of the craft,--
“They polish all with so much life and ease, You think 'tis nature and
a knack to please: But ease in writing flows from art, not chance; As
those move easiest who have learn'd to dance.”
Precisely the same elaboration of care, which all through his career was
dedicated by Charles Dickens to the most delightful labour of his life,
that of writing, was accorded by him to the lesser but still eminently
intellectual toil of preparing his Readings for representation. It was
not by any means that, having written a story years previously, he had,
in his new capacity as a reciter, merely to select two or three chapters
from it, and read them off with an air of animation. Virtually, the
fragmentary portions thus taken from his larger works were re-written
by him, with countless elisions and eliminations after having been
selected. Reprinted in their new shape, each as “A Reading,” they were
then touched and retouched by their author, pen in hand, until, at the
end of a long succession of revisions, the pages came to be cobwebbed
over with a wonderfully intricate network of blots and lines in the way
of correction or of obliteration. Several of the leaves in this way,
what with the black letter-press on the white paper, being scored out or
interwoven with a tracery in red ink and blue ink alternately, present
to view a curiously parti-coloured or tesselated appearance. As a
specimen page, however, will afford a more vivid illustration upon
the instant of what is referred to, than could be conveyed by any mere
verbal description, a fac-simile is here introduced of a single page
taken from the “Reading of Little Dombey.”
Whatever thought was lavished thus upon the composition of the Readings,
was lavished quite as unstintingly upon the manner of their delivery.
Thoroughly natural, impulsive, and seemingly artless, though that manner
always appeared at the moment, it is due to the Reader as an artist to
assert that it was throughout the result of a scarcely credible amount
of forethought and preparation. It is thus invariably indeed with every
great proficient in the histrionic art, even with those who are quite
erroneously supposed by the outer public to trust nearly everything
to the momentary impulses of genius, and who are therefore presumed to
disdain anything whatever in the way either of forethought or of actual
preparation by rehearsal.
According to what is, even down to this present day, very generally
conjectured, Edmund Kean, one of the greatest tragedians who ever trod
the stage, is popularly imagined to have always played simply, as might
be said, hap-hazard, trusting himself to the spur of the moment for
throwing himself into a part passionately;--the fact being exactly the
reverse in his regard, according to the earliest and most accurate
of his biographers. Erratic, fitful though the genius of Edmund Kean
unquestionably was--rendering him peerless as Othello, incomparable as
Overreach--we are told in Mr. Procter's life of him, that “he studied
long and anxiously,” frequently until many hours after midnight.{*} No
matter what his occupations previously might have been, or how profound
his exhaustion through rehearsing in the forenoon, and performing in
the evening, and sharing in convivialities afterwards, Barry Cornwall
relates of him that he would often begin to study when his family had
retired for the night, practising in solitude, after he had transformed
his drawing-room into a stage in miniature.
* Barry Cornwall's Life of Edmund Kean, Vol. II. p. 85
“Here,” says his biographer, “with a dozen candles, some on the
floor, some on the table, and some on the chimney-piece, and near the
pier-glass, he would act scene after scene: considering the emphasis,
the modulation of the verse, and the fluctuations of the character with
the greatest care.” And this, remember, has relation to one who was
presumably about the most spontaneous and impulsive actor who ever
flashed meteor-like across the boards of a theatre. Whoever has the soul
of an artist grudges no labour given to his art, be he reader or actor,
author or tragedian. Charles Dickens certainly spared none to his
Readings in his conscientious endeavour to give his own imaginings
visible and audible embodiment. The sincerity of his devotion to his
task, when once it had been taken in hand, was in its way something
remarkable.
Acting of all kinds has been pronounced by Mrs. Butler--herself in her
own good day a rarely accomplished reader and a fine tragic actress--“a
monstrous anomaly.”{*}
* Fanny Kemble's Journal, Vol. II. p. 130.
As illustrative of her meaning in which phrase, she then adds, “John
Kemble and Mrs. Siddons were always in earnest in what they were about;
Miss O'Neil used to cry bitterly in all her tragic parts; whilst Garrick
could be making faces and playing tricks in the middle of his finest
points, and Kean would talk gibberish while the people were in an uproar
of applause at his.” Fanny Kemble further remarks: “In my own individual
instance, I know that sometimes I could turn every word I am saying into
burlesque,”--immediately observing here, in a reverential parenthesis
“(never Shakspere, by-the-bye)--and at others my heart aches and I cry
real, bitter, warm tears as earnestly as if I was in earnest.” Reading
which last sentence, one might very safely predicate that in the one
instance, where she could turn her words into burlesque, she would be
certain to act but indifferently, whereas in the other, with the hot,
scalding tears running down her face, she could not by necessity do
otherwise than act to admiration.
So thorough and consistent throughout his reading career was the
sincerity of Dickens in his impersonations, that his words and looks,
his thoughts and emotions were never mere make-believes, but always, so
far as the most vigilant eye or the most sensitive ear could detect, had
their full and original significance.
With all respect for Miss O'Neil's emotion, and for that candidly
confessed to by Mrs. Butler, as having been occasionally evidenced by
herself, the true art, we should have said, subsists in the indication
and the repression, far rather than in the actual exhibition or
manifestation of the emotions that are to be represented. Better by far
than the familiar _si vis me flere_ axiom of Horace, who there tells
us, “If you would have me weep, you must first weep yourself,” is the
sagacious comment on it in the _Tatler_, where (No. 68) the essayist
remarks, with subtle discrimination: “The true art seems to be when you
would have the person you represent pitied, you must show him at
once, in the highest grief, and struggling to bear it with decency and
patience. In this case,” adds the writer, “we sigh for him, and give him
every groan he suppresses.” As for the extravagant idea of any artist,
however great, identifying himself for the time being with the part he
is enacting, who is there that can wonder at the snort of indignation
with which Doctor Johnson, talking one day about acting, asked Mr.
Kemble, “Are you, sir, one of those enthusiasts who believe yourself
transformed into the very character you represent?” Kemble answering,
according to Boswell, that he had never himself felt so strong
a persuasion--“To be sure not, sir,” says Johnson, “the thing is
impossible.” Adding, with one of his dryly comical extravagances: “And
if Garrick really believed himself to be that monster Richard the Third,
he deserved to be hanged every time he performed it.” What Dickens
himself really thought of these wilder affectations of intensity among
impersonators, is, with delicious humour, plainly enough indicated
through that preposterous reminiscence of Mr. Crummies, “We had a
first-tragedy man in our company once, who, when he played Othello, used
to black himself all over! But that's feeling a part, and going into it
as if you meant it; it isn't usual--more's the pity.” Thoroughly
giving himself up to the representation of whatever character he was
endeavouring at the moment to portray, or rather to impersonate, Charles
Dickens so completely held his judgment the while in equipoise,
as master of his twofold craft--that is, both as creator and as
elocutionist, as author and as reader--that, as an invariable rule,
he betrayed neither of those signs of insincerity, by the inadvertent
revelation of which all sense of illusion is utterly and instantly
dissipated.
Whatever scenes he described, those scenes his hearers appeared to be
actually witnessing themselves. He realised everything in his own mind
so intensely, that listening to him we realised what he spoke of by
sympathy. Insomuch that one might, in his own words, say of him,
as David Copperfield says of Mr. Peggotty, when the latter has been
recounting little Emily's wanderings: “He saw everything he related. It
passed before him, as he spoke, so vividly, that, in the intensity
of his earnestness, he presented what he described to me with greater
distinctness than I can express. I can hardly believe--writing now long
afterwards--but that I was actually present in those scenes; they are
impressed upon me with such an astonishing air of fidelity.” While,
on the one hand, he never repeated the words that had to be delivered
phlegmatically, or as by rote; on the other hand, he never permitted
voice, look, gesture, to pass the limits of discretion, even at moments
the most impassioned; as, for example, where Nancy, in the famous
murder-scene, shrieked forth her last gasping and despairing appeals to
her brutal paramour. The same thing may be remarked again in regard to
all the more tenderly pathetic of his delineations. His tones then were
often subdued almost to a whisper, every syllable, nevertheless, being
so distinctly articulated as to be audible in the remotest part of a
vast hall like that in Piccadilly.
Whatever may be insinuated in regard to those particular portions of the
writings of our great novelist by cynical depreciators, who have not
the heart to recognise--as did Lord Jeffrey, for instance, one of the
keenest and shrewdest critics of his age--the exquisite pathos of a
death-scene like that of little Nell or of little Paul Dombey, in the
utterance by himself of those familiar passages nothing but the manliest
emotion was visible and audible from first to last. Insomuch was this
the case, that the least impressionable of his hearers might readily
have echoed those noble words, written years ago, out of an overflowing
heart, in regard to Charles Dickens, by his great rival and his intense
admirer, W. M. Thackeray: “In those admirable touches of tender humour,
who ever equalled this great genius? There are little words and phrases
in his books which are like personal benefits to the reader. What a
place to hold in the affections of men! What an awful responsibility
hanging over a writer!” And so on, Thackeray saying all this! Thackeray
speaking thus in ejaculatory sentences indicative of his gratitude
and of his admiration! Passages that to men like William Thackeray and
Francis Jeffrey were expressive only of inimitable tenderness, might be
read dry-eyed by less keen appreciators, from the printed page, might
even be ludicrously depreciated by them as mere mawkish sentimentality.
But, even among these, there was hardly one who could hear those very
passages read by Dickens himself without recognising at last, what had
hitherto remained unperceived and unsuspected, the gracious and
pathetic beauty animating every thought and every word in the original
descriptions. Equally, it may be said, in the delineation of terror and
of pathos, in the murder-scene from Oliver Twist, and in the death-scene
of little Dombey, the novelist-reader attained success by the simple
fact of his never once exaggerating.
It has been well remarked by an eminent authority upon the art of
elocution, whose opinions have been already quoted in these pages, to
wit, John Ireland, that “There is a point to which the passions must
be raised to display that exhibition of them which scatters contagious
tenderness through the whole theatre, but carried, though but the
breadth of a hair, beyond that point, the picture becomes an overcharged
caricature, as likely to create laughter as diffuse distress.” Never,
perhaps, has that subtle boundary-line been hit with more admirable
dexterity, just within the hair's breadth here indicated, than it was,
for example, in Macready's impersonation of Virginius, where his scream
in the camp-scene betrayed his instantaneous appreciation of the
wrong meditated by Appius Claudius against the virginal purity of his
daughter. As adroitly, in his way, as that great master of his
craft, who was for so many years among his most cherished friends and
intimates, Dickens kept within the indicated lines of demarcation,
beyond which no impersonator, whether upon the stage or upon the
platform, can ever pass for a single instant with impunity.