Lamb has said, “I have seen him diffuse a glow of sentiment which has
made the pulse of a crowded house beat like that of one man; when he has
come in aid of the pulpit, doing good to the moral heart of a people.”
The words, applied thus emphatically to the humorous and often grotesque
comedian, are exactly applicable to Dickens as a Reader. And, as Elia
remarks of Munden at another moment, “he is not one, but legion; not so
much a comedian as a company”--any one might say identically the same
of Dickens, who bears in remembrance the wonderful variety of his
impersonations.
Attending his Readings, character after character appeared before
us, living and breathing, in the flesh, as we looked and listened. It
mattered nothing, just simply nothing, that the great author was there
all the while before his audience in his own identity. His evening
costume was a matter of no consideration--the flower in his button-hole,
the paper-knife in his hand, the book before him, that earnest,
animated, mobile, delightful face, that we all knew by heart through his
ubiquitous photographs--all were equally of no account whatever. We knew
that he alone was there all the time before us, reading, or, to speak
more accurately, re-creating for us, one and all--while his lips were
articulating the familiar words his hand had written so many years
previously--the most renowned of the imaginary creatures peopling
his books. Watching him, hearkening to him, while he stood there
unmistakably before his audience, on the raised platform, in the glare
of the gas-burners shining down upon him from behind the pendant
screen immediately above his head, his individuality, so to express it,
altogether disappeared, and we saw before us instead, just as the case
might happen to be, Mr. Pickwick, or Mrs. Gamp, or Dr. Marigold, or
little Paul Dombey, or Mr. Squeers, or Sam Weller, or Mr. Peggotty, or
some other of those immortal personages. We were as conscious, as though
we saw them, of the bald head, the spectacles, and the little gaiters
of Mr. Pickwick--of the snuffy tones, the immense umbrella, and the
voluminous bonnet and gown of Mrs. Gamp--of the belcher necktie, the
mother-of-pearl buttons and the coloured waistcoat of the voluble Cheap
Jack--of little Paul's sweet face and gentle accents--of the one eye and
the well-known pair of Wellingtons, adorning the head and legs of
Mr. Wackford Squeers--of Sam's imperturbable nonchalance--and of Mr.
Peggotty's hearty, briny, sou'-wester of a voice and general demeanour!
Even the lesser characters--those which are introduced into the original
works quite incidentally, occupying there a wholly subordinate
position, filling up a space in the crowded tableaux, always in the
background--were then at last brought to the fore in the course of these
Readings, and suddenly and for the first time assumed to themselves a
distinct importance and individuality. Take, for instance, the nameless
lodging-housekeeper's slavey, who assists at Bob Sawyer's party, and
who is described in the original work as “a dirty, slipshod girl, in
black cotton stockings, who might have passed for the neglected daughter
of a superannuated dustman in very reduced circumstances.” No one had
ever realised the crass stupidity of that remarkable young person--dense
and impenetrable as a London fog--until her first introduction in these
Readings, with “Please, Mister Sawyer, Missis Raddle wants to speak
to _you!_”--the dull, dead-level of her voice ending in the last
monosyllable with a series of inflections almost amounting to a
chromatic passage. Mr. Justice Stareleigh, again!--nobody had ever
conceived the world of humorous suggestiveness underlying all the words
put into his mouth until the author's utterance of them came to the
readers of Pickwick with the surprise of a revelation. Jack Hopkins
in like manner--nobody, one might say, had ever dreamt of as he was in
Dickens's inimitably droll impersonation of him, until the lights and
shades of the finished picture were first of all brought out by the
Reading. Jack Hopkins!--with the short, sharp, quick articulation,
rather stiff in the neck, with a dryly comic look just under the
eyelids, with a scarcely expressible relish of his own for every detail
of that wonderful story of his about the “neckluss,” an absolute and
implicit reliance upon Mr. Pickwick's gullibility, and an inborn and
ineradicable passion for chorusing.
As with the characters, so with the descriptions. One was life itself,
the other was not simply word-painting, but realisation. There was the
Great Storm at Yarmouth, for example, at the close of David Copperfield.
Listening to that Reading, the very portents of the coming tempest came
before us!--the flying clouds in wild and murky confusion, the moon
apparently plunging headlong among them, “as if, in a dread disturbance
of the laws of nature, she had lost her way and were frightened,” the
wind rising “with an extraordinary great sound,” the sweeping gusts of
rain coming before it “like showers of steel,” and at last, down upon
the shore and by the surf among the turmoil of the blinding wind, the
flying stones and sand, “the tremendous sea itself,” that came rolling
in with an awful noise absolutely confounding to the beholder! In
all fiction there is no grander description than that of one of the
sublimest spectacles in nature. The merest fragments of it conjured up
the entire scene--aided as those fragments were by the look, the tones,
the whole manner of the Reader. The listener was there with him in
imagination upon the beach, beside David. He was there, lashed and
saturated with the salt spray, the briny taste of it on his lips, the
roar and tumult in his ears--the height to which the breakers rose,
and, looking over one another bore one another down and rolled in, in
interminable hosts, becoming at last, as it is written in that wonderful
chapter (55) of David Copperfield, “most appalling!” There, in truth,
the success achieved was more than an elocutionary triumph--it was the
realisation to his hearers, by one who had the soul of a poet, and the
gifts of an orator, and the genius of a great and vividly imaginative
author, of a convulsion of nature when nature bears an aspect the
grandest and the most astounding. However much a masterly description,
like that of the Great Storm at Yarmouth, may be admired henceforth by
those who never had the opportunity of attending these Readings, one
might surely say to them, as Æschines said to the Rhodians, when they
were applauding the speech of his victorious rival: “How much greater
would have been your admiration if only you could have heard him deliver
it!”
THE READINGS IN ENGLAND AND AMERICA.
How it happened that Charles Dickens came to give any readings at
all from his own writings has already, in the preceding pages, been
explained. What is here intended to be done is to put on record, as
simply and as accurately as possible, the facts relating to the labours
gone through by the Novelist in his professional character as a Public
Reader. It will be then seen, immediately those facts have come to
be examined in their chronological order, that they were sufficiently
remarkable in many respects, as an episode in the life of a great
author, to justify their being chronicled in some way or other, if only
as constituting in their aggregate a wholly unexampled incident in the
history of literature.
No writer, it may be confidently asserted, has ever enjoyed a wider
popularity during his own life-time than Charles Dickens; or rather it
might be said more accurately, no writer has ever enjoyed _so_ wide
a popularity among his own immediate contemporaries. And it was a
popularity in many ways exceptional.
It knew no fluctuation. It lasted without fading or faltering during
thirty-four years altogether, that is to say, throughout the whole of
Dickens's career as a novelist. It began with his very first book, when,
as Thackeray put it, “the young man came and took his place calmly at
the head of the whole tribe, as the master of all the English humorists
of his generation.” It showed no sign whatever of abatement, when, in
the middle of writing his last book, the pen fell from his hand on that
bright summer's day, and through his death a pang of grief was brought
home to millions of English-speaking people in both hemispheres. For
his popularity had, among other distinctive characteristics, certainly
this,--it was so peculiarly personal a popularity, his name being
endeared to the vast majority who read his books with nothing less than
affectionate admiration.
Besides all this, it was his privilege throughout the whole of his
literary career to address not one class, or two or three classes, but
all classes of the reading public indiscriminately--the most highly
educated and the least educated, young and old, rich and poor. His
writings obtained the widest circulation, of course, among those who
were the most numerous, such as among the middle classes and the better
portion of the artisan population, but they found at the same time the
keenest and cordialest appreciation among those who were necessarily the
best qualified to pronounce an opinion upon their merits, among critics
as gifted as Jeffrey and Sydney Smith, and among rivals as-illustrious
as Lytton and Thackeray. It seems appropriate, therefore, that we should
be enabled to add now, in regard to the possession of this exceptional
reputation, and of a popularity in itself so instant, sustained,
personal, and comprehensive, that, thanks entirely to these Readings,
he was brought into more intimate relations individually with a
considerable portion at least of the vast circle of his own readers,
than have ever been established between any other author who could be
named and _his_ readers, since literature became a profession.
Strictly speaking, the very first Reading given by Charles Dickens
anywhere, even privately, was that which took place in the midst of a
little home-group, assembled one evening in 1843, for the purpose of
hearing the “Christmas Carol,” prior to its publication, read by him
in the Lincoln's-Inn Square Chambers of the intimate friend to whom,
eighteen years afterwards, was inscribed, as “of right,” the Library
Edition of all the Novelist's works collectively. Thus unwittingly,
and as it seems to us not unbefittingly, was rehearsed on the hearth of
Dickens's future biographer, the first of the long series of Readings,
afterwards to be given very publicly indeed, and to vast multitudes of
people on both sides of the Atlantic.
As nearly as possible ten years after this, the public Readings
commenced, and during the five next years were continued, though they
were so but very intermittingly. Throughout that interval they were
invariably given for the benefit of others, the proceeds of each
Reading being applied to some generous purpose, the nature of which
was previously announced. It was in the Town Hall at Birmingham, that
immediately before the Christmas of 1853, the first of all these public
Readings took place in the presence of an audience numbering fully two
thousand. About a year before that, the Novelist had pledged himself to
give this reading, or rather a series of three readings, for the purpose
of increasing the funds of a new Literary and Scientific Institution
then projected in Birmingham. On Thursday, the 6th of January, 1853,
a silver-gilt salver and a diamond ring, accompanied by an address,
expressive of the admiration of the subscribers to the testimonial, had
been publicly presented in that town to the popular author, at the rooms
of the Society of Arts in Temple Row. The kind of feeling inspiring this
little incident may be recognised through the inscription on the salver,
which intimated that it, “together with a diamond ring, was presented to
Charles Dickens, Esq., by a number of his admirers in Birmingham, on the
occasion of the literary and artistic banquet in that town, on the 6th
of January, 1853, as a sincere testimony of their appreciation of his
varied literary acquirements, and of the genial philosophy and high
moral teaching which characterise his writings.” It was upon the morrow
of the banquet referred to in this inscription, a banquet which
took place at Dee's Hotel immediately after the presentation of the
testimonial to the Novelist, that the latter generously proposed to give
later on some public Readings from his own books, in furtherance of the
newly meditated Birmingham and Midland Institute.
The proposition, in fact, was thrown out, gracefully and almost
apologetically, in a letter, addressed by him to Mr. Arthur Ryland on
the following day, the 7th of January. In this singularly interesting
communication, which was read by its recipient on the ensuing Monday, at
a meeting convened in the theatre of the Philosophical Institution, not
only did Charles Dickens offer to read his “Christmas Carol” some time
during the course of the next Christmas, in the Town Hall at Birmingham,
but referring to the complete novelty of his proposal, he thus plainly
intimated that the occasion would constitute his very first appearance
upon any public platform as a Reader, while explaining, at the same
time, the precise nature of the suggested entertainment. “It would,”
he said, “take about two hours, with a pause of ten minutes half-way
through. There would be some novelty in the thing, as I have never done
it in public, though I have in private, and (if I may say so) with
a great effect on the hearers.” He further remarked, “I was so
inexpressibly gratified last night by the warmth and enthusiasm of my
Birmingham friends, that I feel half ashamed this morning of so poor
an offer: but as I decided on making it to you before I came down
yesterday, I propose it nevertheless.” As a matter of course the
proposition was gratefully accepted, the Novelist formally undertaking
to give the proffered Readings in the ensuing Christmas. This promise,
before the year was out, Dickens returned from abroad expressly to
fulfil--hastening homeward to that end, after a brief autumnal excursion
in Italy and Switzerland with two of his friends, the late Augustus Egg,
R. A., and Wilkie Collins, the novelist. On the arrival of the three
in Paris, they were there joined by Charles Dickens's eldest son, who,
having passed through his course at Eton, had just then been completing
his scholastic education at Leipsic. The party thus increased to a
_partie carrée_, hastened homewards more hurriedly than would otherwise
have been necessary, so as to enable the author punctually to fulfil his
long-standing engagement.
It was on Tuesday, the 27th of December, 1853, therefore, that the very
first of these famous Readings came off in the Town Hall at Birmingham.
The weather was wretched, but the hall was crowded, and the audience
enthusiastic. The Reading, which was the “Christmas Carol,” extended
over more than three hours altogether, showing how very little of
the original story the then unpractised hand of the Reader had as
yet eliminated. Notwithstanding the length of the entertainment, the
unflagging interest, more even than the hearty and reiterated applause
of those who were assembled, showed the lively sense the author's
first audience had of his newly-revealed powers as a narrator and
impersonator. On the next day but one, Thursday, the 29th of December,
he read there, to an equally large concourse, the “Cricket on the
Hearth.” Upon the following evening, Friday, the 30th of December, he
repeated the “Carol” to another densely packed throng of listeners,
mainly composed, this time, according to his own express stipulation, of
workpeople. So delighted were these unsophisticated hearers with their
entertainer--himself so long familiarly known to them, but then for the
first time seen and heard--that, at the end of the Reading, they greeted
him with repeated rounds of cheering.
Those three Readings at Birmingham added considerably to the funds of
the Institute, enhancing them at least to the extent of £400 sterling.
In recognition of the good service thus effectively and delightfully
rendered to a local institution, to the presidency of which Charles
Dickens himself was unanimously elected, an exquisitely designed silver
flower-basket was afterwards presented to the novelist's wife. This
graceful souvenir had engraved upon it the following inscription:
“Presented to Mrs. Charles Dickens by the Committee of the Birmingham
and Midland Institute, as a slight acknowledgment of the debt of
gratitude due to her husband, for his generous liberality in reading
the 'Christmas Carol,' and the 'Cricket on the Hearth,' to nearly
six thousand persons, in the Town Hall, Birmingham, on the nights-of
December 27, 29, and 30, 1853, in aid of the funds for the establishment
of the Institute.” The incident of these three highly successful
Readings entailed upon the Reader, as events proved, an enormous amount
of toil, none of which, however, did he ever grudge, in affording the
like good service to others, at uncertain intervals, in all parts,
sometimes the remotest parts, of the United Kingdom.
It would be beside our present purpose to catalogue, one after another,
the various Readings given in this-way by the Novelist, before he was
driven to the necessity at last of either giving up reading altogether,
or coming to the determination to adopt it, as he then himself expressed
it, as one of his recognised occupations; that is, by becoming a Reader
professionally.. It is with his career in his professional capacity as
a Reader that we have here to do. Until he had formally and avowedly
assumed that position, his labours in this way were, as a matter of
course, in no respect whatever systematised. They were uncertain, and in
one sense, as the sequel shewed, purely tentative or preliminary. They
yielded a world of delight, however, and did a world of good at the
same time; while they were, unconsciously to himself, preparing the way
effectually--that is, by ripening his powers and perfecting his skill
through practice--for the opening up to himself, quite legitimately,
of a new phase in his career as a man of letters. Previously, again
and again, with the pen in his hand, he had proved himself to be the
master-humorist of his time. He was now vividly to attest that fact
by word of mouth, by the glance of his eye, by the application to the
reading of his own books, of his exceptional mimetic and histrionic
gifts as an elocutionist. Added to all this, by merely observing how
readily he could pour through the proceeds of these purely benevolent
Readings, princely largess into the coffers of charities or of
institutions in which he happened to be interested, he was to realise,
what must otherwise have remained for him wholly unsuspected, that he
had, so to speak, but to stretch forth his hand to grasp a fortune.
During the lapse of five years all this was at first very gradually, but
at last quite irresistibly, brought home to his conviction. A few of the
Readings thus given by him, out of motives of kindliness or generosity,
may here, in passing, be particularised.
A considerable time after the three Readings just mentioned, and which
were distinctly inaugurative of the whole of our author's reading
career, there was one, which came off in Peterborough, that has not
only been erroneously described as antecedent to those three Readings at
Birmingham, but has been depicted, at the same time, with details in
the account of it of the most preposterous character. The Reader, for
example, has been portrayed,--in this purely apocryphal description of
what throughout it is always referred to as though it were the first
Reading of all, which it certainly was not,--as in a highly nervous
state from the commencement of it to its conclusion! This bemg said of
one who, when asked if he ever felt nervous while speaking in public, is
known to have replied, “Not in the least “--adding, that “when first he
took the chair he felt as much confidence as though he had already done
the like a hundred times!” As corroborative of which remark, the present
writer recalls to recollection very clearly the fact of Dickens saying
to him one day,--saying it with a most whimsical air by-the-bye,
but very earnestly,--“Once, and but once only in my life, I
was--frightened!” The occasion he referred to was simply this, as he
immediately went on to explain, that somewhere about the middle of
the serial publication of David Copperfield, happening to be out of
writing-paper, he sallied forth one morning to get a fresh supply at the
stationer's. He was living then in his favourite haunt, at Fort House,
in Broadstairs. As he was about to enter the stationer's shop, with
the intention of buying the needful writing-paper, for the purpose
of returning home with it, and at once setting to work upon his next
number, not one word of which was yet written, he stood aside for a
moment at the threshold to allow a lady to pass in before him. He
then went on to relate--with a vivid sense still upon him of mingled
enjoyment and dismay in the mere recollection--how the next instant he
had overheard this strange lady asking the person behind the counter for
the new green number. When it was handed to her, “Oh, this,” said she,
“I have read. I want the next one.” The next one she was thereupon told
would be out by the end of the month. “Listening to this, unrecognised,”
he added, in conclusion, “knowing the purpose for which I was there, and
remembering that not one word of the number she was asking for was yet
written, for the first and only time in my life, I felt--frightened!”
So much for the circumstantial account put forth of this Reading at
Peterborough, and of the purely imaginary nervousness displayed by
the Reader, who, on the contrary, there, as elsewhere, was throughout
perfectly self-possessed.
On Saturday, the 22nd December, 1855, in the Mechanics' Hall at
Sheffield, another of these Readings was given, it being the “Carol,” as
usual, and the proceeds being in aid of the funds of that institution.
The Mayor of Sheffield, who presided upon the occasion, at the close of
the proceedings, presented to the author, as a suitable testimonial
from a number of his admirers in that locality, a complete set of table
cutlery.