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P
H
DICKENS
WRITER RAKES UP MUCK
THE CHINA MAIL.
of Mr. Ralph Straus I suggest daughter. She wrote to him and that whoever reads "This Side her letter-which arrived when Idolatry" should, as he reads, the domestic affaire of Dickens collato the slanders of Mr. Bech-had almost reached breaking point hofer Roberts with Mr. Straus's-set the old affectionate flame He replied in fine "Portrait in Penell." In this, burning bravely. the character of Dickens is not almost passionato terms, for he "approached from the viewpoint of could only see Maria as he saw Pharisee, but from that of common, her at her Lombard Street house Mr. Straus's Dickens is not many years before. She wrote sense. the smug, self-seeking hypocrite who again and he replied with eager- is made in "This Side Idolatry" to ness and arranged to meet her secret because "he was a exploit his family and whose al-in lowances to them are contemptuous-dangerous man to be seen with."
y referred to, but a Dickens who was systematically exploited by his rapacious family.
In these decadent days black has become 籍 fashionable colour. Exotic women wear
black under clothing-at least I am told so and love to contrast the pinkiness of their flash against black silk bedclothes and black silk eiderdowns again I am speaking from hear- aay.. Intensely artistic people use
They met and he found himself black asia background for boudoirs and drawing rooms, patterning
facing a strange woman who bore not the slightest resemblance to flowers and hanging pictures there- on, while the same funereal hust Few men have been unluckier, in the girl he had loved, an unusually For plump and coquettish matron, the plays a prominent part in other their families than Dickens. modern decorative schemes. Elack all his genial temper and gracious sight of whom sent him away al- seems to be creeping into our litera- manners, his father was little more most, more hurriedly than he had a not very come. The young Maria erept ture also, for we have "Ephesian" than a wastrel, and
at that. is Mr. C. E. honest wastrel
His into "David Copperfield" as Dora, whose real name Bechhofer Roberts, a writer who brothers did little or nothing for the "child wife;" the middle-aged
and more than has given
candid themselves,
once Maria pointed a moral and adorned us two rather portraits of Mr. Winston Churchill there was serious trouble. Dickens the tale of "Little Dorrit" as never really free of Flora, of whom Dickens writes: and his friend Lord Birkenhead himself was painting
Charles these limpets, and time after time "Flora, always tall, had grown to a portrait of Dickens in this very depressing he was driven nearly wild by their be very abroad, too, and short of Nor. in later breath; but that was not much; monichrome and possibly using gall extravagant follies.
a lily, Flora, whom he had left had become a peony; but that was not much. Flora, who had seem- ed enchanting in all ahe and thought, was diffuse and silly, That was much. Flora, who had been spoiled and artless years ago was determined to be spoiled and That was a fatal Those who read "This' Side artless now. Idolatry" are bound, in duty bound. blow."
For the second time Dickens to read Mr. Strausbefore passing
and Maria went their divers judgment on the great novelist. it must not be thought that Mr. ways.. Straus flourishes white-wash Mr. Straus frequently refers to brush
energetically as "bachelor tours" which were un- flourishes his brush dertaken more often as the breach "Ephesian" dipped in tar. He makes no at- between Dickens and Kate widened. tempt to white-wash Dickens but, Dickens's companion, and his replying on material that was in-bachelor tours, was Wilkie Collins accessible to Forster, he shows us and those who are fond of reading a Dickens almost entirely different between the lines might be in- to the prevailing idea, a Dickens so terested in this extract:- difficult to deal with and so Incon- sistent in many things that one can admire the tolerance of
as
to
flow more
a medium, assisting his un-years, was he too fortunate in his pleasant pigment
own sons, who, with one marked freely.
exception, made little enough of "Ephesian's" "Dovel" this de- their lives,
It is not pleasant to scriptive term is his own has speak of these matters, but it is not to omit them as been inspired by one of two things only stupid -a hearty and overwhelming hatred Forster does; it is also unfair to of Charles Dickens or a desire for Dickens. best selling notoriety by emulating the man with the muckrake. And "Ephesian" has raked up his muck to some purpose. Instead of human painting a
portrait of Dickens he has provided his readers with a most inhuman distortion.
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cause of accuracy he has chosen to work in a reflection cast in a distorting mirror of prejudice and hatred, and making every allow ance for Dickens's uncertainty of temperament has evolved only a scurrilous and entirely unfaithful caricature.
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said
Wilkie Collins liked to do him- self well: he enjoyed the little ad- ventures in which a mзn of tot
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It is a pity that, in the prepara-only tion of this amazing novel, Forster and others who retained his too scrupulous taste will sometimes "Ephesian" did not remember friendship for so many years, But indulge. I do not say that he led Othello's appeal!'
despite his infirmities, he was a Dickens astray, but after Forster's Speak of me as I am nothing very human Dickens, a good son, starchified and ultra-respectable extenuate. Nor set down aught in and, unless disgruntled by the unways it must have been a relief to malice.
just or the unexpected, a good have somebody about you at once Certainly he has extenuated friend. He was unduly precocious capable of holding his own in in- nching, hut malicious inspiration and at the age of twenty-six behaved tellectual argument and not un- has been the begin-all and end-all | like a veteran of fifty. His letters willing to be pleasantly vulgar on of his unworthy effort which he written at this time to the various occasions. There are passages in
letters Duke of Suther members of his family suggest that Dickens's
to Collins dedicates to the
deleted
the His Dickens is land.
in a Cockney they might have been written by a (invariably
versions) which you among Cockneys, who seems to be grandfather instead of by a young printed only happy when talking in the man but a few years out of his do not find in his other
respondence. And so, vernacular of Sam Weller. Most of teens.
in these his ideas, according to "Ephesian," Apparently he had an eye for a days of strain, when the little were stolen or adapted from others. pretty woman and loved the good bachelor jaunts were becoming so He takes an early opportunity of things of the table.
frequent, it was almost invariably! letting us know this. When dis- "Ephesian" seems to regard Collins who was invited to be his cussing the sketches destined to be Dickens as commercially immoral companion.
23 "Sketches by Boz," because he endeavoured to drive Macrone, the would-be publisher, the best bargain possible with his inaisted upon the necessity, for publishers, and Mr. Straus admits peed. "Your style is fresh now," that "he cannot be altogether ac- he is supposed to have said to quitted of the charge of.. treat- have been an ideal companion." Dickens. It strikes readers asing his publishers in too casual a There is more than a "chops and original. In six months you'll manner" after he was in a position tomato sauce" inference about be imitated as you've imitated to make his own terms. It seems this. Curiously enough "Ephesian" to me that Dickens had every right seems to have overlooked entirely to sell his wares in the best pos- the slanderous possibilities at sible market, and when one remem-tendant upon Wilkie Collins and bers how advantageous his early Charles Dickens shaking loose Had he contracts were to the publishers, one bachelor legs in Paris. entirely sympathises with him.
only thought of this how much more horrible might have been eye for a pretty face. The appeal his portrait of Dickens, which re- of womankind seems to have been calla the comic valentine of the much in potent throughout his life, from snake-in-the-grass so the days when he and a little girl evidence in the 'seventies.
"Charles Dickens" by Mr. Ralph. playmate, who lived near him at Chatham, Indulged la juvenile firta-Straus, which
may be tien beneath the kitchen table, to from the Central News Agency, is those when he saw much to attract a palatable
others."
I have said that Dickens had an
There is a pecalíar point about another reference to Collins. Says Straus: "He Was Mr.
In Paris he must
straitlaced.
not
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obtained THE BRAVEST DEED to Mossel Bay Hospital, but died the
same night. Mr. BOY RESCUED FROM SHARK'S
antidote to
him behind the scenes of the theatre, Bechofer Roberts's nasty draught, Mr. Straus records that he found J.LL. in the Johannesburg "Sun- the "young ladies of the stage-day Times." "little periwinkles,' he called them- mightily attractive."
JAWS
"The shark, which was after- wards caught and killed by local fishermen, 'was 14ft. 7in. long and weighed 1,575lb. Mr. Heyn's heroism was officially brought to The Royal Humane Society has the notice of the Society by the City awarded the Stanhope Gold Medal of Cape Town."
HUMANE SOCIETY'S MEDAL
Knowing Dickens's irritable temperament and his vanity in his work, one has little difficulty in imagining the response he might have made had Macrone been so indiscreet as to mark the beginning of the author's career by an un- justified ancer.
Next, when Pickwick was on the stocks, "Ephesian," in describing Dickens's enthusiasm over his creative or imitative, mood, says "Pickwick, the central figura, must perforce be like Surtees's Jorrocks a comic city merchant. To die tinguish him from his forerunner, however, he was to be retired from business." How foolish "Ephesian" appears when accrediting such childishness to Dickens; and more than foolish when he tells us that Mr. Snodgrass was only created "to be an excuse" for the appearance in differently. But Kent put on flesh "Pickwick" of "a gloomy ballad of and her ordinarily lacklustre dis- decay" called "The Ivy Green! He position was not improved by the is delighted, apparently, when he is almost constant strain of child- Mr. A. Ashworth, Mr. and Mrs shark. able to make Mr. Hall, of Chapman bearing a laudable occupation in P. Ange and family. and Hall, tell Dickens that they those, pre-birth-control days. She
Sunrise and Sunset in Hong "haven't sold a hundred copies of was the mother of ten children, each . Bastien, H. Brandel, L. A. 1927, Mr. Andres Heyns was bath- the first number of "Pickwick."" following the other with depressing Boers, Capt. Beck, Mr. and Mrs. ing in about five feet of water at Kong for April (Standard time of Little Brack Beach, Mossel Bay, the 120th Maridian, East of Green- According to him. "Pickwick hung rapidity and, as she invariably took E. V. Beyer.
were Messrs. E. J. Carmichael, E. F. South Africa. There fire until Sam Weller was introduced, the line of least resistance, she re-
otherwich), are as follow:-
Sunrise. Suneet. and the idea of the humorous body presented just the wrong sort of Curtiss, P. Clayton, J. A. Cooper, bathers in the water, among them
children,
Mr. April Miss E. M. Cochrane and maid, being several
p.m. servant comes from Mary Hogarth, helpmest for the volatile author.
Ockardus H. Heyns, a student, Dickens's sister-in-law, who advised Dickens frequently joked at his Mr. and Mrs. S. Cullen. him to make the character like own expense upon his capacity for
aged 17, of the same name, but no relation of Mr. Andres Heynes, ́and. Sam Vale, in actor with whom fatherhood-"I expect to be pre. Dickens was once acquainted.
sently presented with a smock frock, Mr. L. C. Esger, Mrs. E. P. East Mr. W. A: Gericke, Vot a werry clever girl it is, a pair of leather breaches and
If Kate, his wife, had been able
to retain her good looks his domestic HONG KONG HOTEL VISITORS for the bravest deed of the year to history might have been written
as the risin' young author gald to pewter watch," he wrote to Wilkie his pretty stepsister when she Collins, his son-in-law, "for having gave him the notion. Splendid!" brought up the largest family' ever. Thus Dickens according to known with the smallest disposition "Ephesian."
to do anything for themselves."
March 30, 1929.
Mr. Andres Muller Heyns, aged 29,
a farmer, of Mounthope, South Africa, for going to the rescue of a youth who had been seized by a
In the official account of the deed Messra. D. G. Bruce, A. Bunch, it was stated that on December 28,
Mr. and Mra H. Dater, Dr. and Mrs. C. Si Dines.
man
Mrs. E Foster and daughter. Mr. J. P. Hallingdale, Messrs. J. E. Joseph, E. W. Jorgensen, Mra. J. Jackson.
Mr. and Mrs. J. Korting,
And so the author rattles on As Kate grew more lethargic and Messrs. C. M. King, J. J. Kino. : irresponsibly and viciously, making helpless her sister Georgina had to Dickens a mean, contemptible valgarian, an undutiful son, an untrue husband and an archpriest of that hypocrisy and sham he spent his life in fighting
Messrs. K. de Lalarte, Walser step in and take charge of house-Luthy, C. Lankamp, Miss H. Lillie. hold affairs -- Dickens's affection Mrs. G. R. Mitchell, Mr. grew colder until it finally disap. Abraham Meyer.
Mr C. Napper. peared. altogether.
Mr. E. Oehmichan, Mr. and Mrs. Olivécrona,
His attitude fo the case of Dickens was human, was foolish Marla Beadnell was very similar: ly generous. was by no means a Maria represented his first real love. demigod and possessed more than He was passionately attached to her his fair share of that temperament and when her banker father refus labelled "artistic."! He was a borned to countenance a marriage, he showman who had more interest almost offered himself up as a in the stage than in the library and human sacrifice on the altar of had the vain and irritable outlook celibacy. The memory of Maria of the successful actor.
haunted him for years.
The real Dickens is not the When he was famous, Marla at Dickens of Forster or the scurtempted to come again into his rilous lampoon of Ephesian," but life. She was a Mrs. Winter with is found most likely, in the pages her husband alive and a small
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"Suddenly," the report continued, "Mr. Gericke noticed a dark object approaching Ockardus Heyns. gave a shout of warning, and Ockardus, noticing the shadow as well, began swimming towards the shore. But it was too late.
5
6.13 6.40
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Dragged Out to Seas "To everybody's horror, the shark 13 16 was seen to seize Ockardus and drag him some distance out to sea, 15 16 where he was out of his depth. Mr.
17 Gericke saw the water turn red and hastened ashore do get a life-line. ) 18 "Mr. A. M. Hayne, however, went 19 |straight to the rescue and never hesitated, although the monster was still circling slowly round; the blood- stained patch of water. Although absolutely exhausted by his efforts, he dragged Ockardus into shallower water and carried him ashere, where it was found that the youth's 27 left leg had been bitten off above 28. the knee and his right foot com Betely crushed. He was hurziod
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