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043 - A New Book on Dickens · Reviews

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  Speaker 1: Section forty two of reviews by Oscar Wilde. This is
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  Speaker 1: a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
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  Speaker 1: For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
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  Speaker 1: Recording by Kirsten Ferrari Reviews by Oscar Wilde, edited by
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  Speaker 1: Robert Ross, Section forty two. A new book on Dickens
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  Speaker 1: Paul Mall Gazette, March thirty first, eighteen eighty seven. Mister
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  Speaker 1: Marsial's Dickens is a great improvement on the Longfellow and
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  Speaker 1: Coleridge of his predecessors. It is certainly a little sad
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  Speaker 1: to find our old friend, the manager of the Theater
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  Speaker 1: Royal Portsmouth, appearing as mister Vincent Crumule's sick. But such
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  Speaker 1: misprints are not, by any means uncommon in mister Walter
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  Speaker 1: Scott's publications, and on the whole this is a very
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  Speaker 1: pleasant book. Indeed, it is brightly and cleverly written, admirably constructed,
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  Speaker 1: and gives a most vivid and graphic picture of that
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  Speaker 1: strange modern drama, the drama of Dickens's life. The earlier
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  Speaker 1: chapters are quite excellent, and though the story of the
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  Speaker 1: famous novelist's boyhood has been often told before, mister Marsial's
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  Speaker 1: shows that it can be told again without losing any
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  Speaker 1: of the charm of its interests. While the account of
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  Speaker 1: Dickens in the plenitude of his glory is most appreciative
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  Speaker 1: and general, we are really brought close to the man
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  Speaker 1: with his indomitable energy, his extraordinary capacity for work, his
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  Speaker 1: high spirits, his fascinating, tyrannous personality. The description of his
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  Speaker 1: method of reading is admirable, and the amazing stump campaign
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  Speaker 1: in America attains in mister Marzial's hands to the dignity
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  Speaker 1: of a mock heroic poem. One side of Dickens's character, however,
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  Speaker 1: is left almost entirely untouched, and yet it is one
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  Speaker 1: in every way deserving of close study. That Dickens should
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  Speaker 1: have felt bitterly toward his mother and father is quite explicable,
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  Speaker 1: But that while feeling so bitterly he should have caricatured
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  Speaker 1: them for the amusement of the public with an evident
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  Speaker 1: delight in his own humor has always seem to us
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  Speaker 1: a most curious psychological problem. We are far from complaining
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  Speaker 1: that he did so good. Novelists are much rarer that
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  Speaker 1: good sons, and none of us would readily part with
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  Speaker 1: Micawber and missus Nickleby. Still, the fact remains that a
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  Speaker 1: man who was affectionate and loving to his children, generous
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  Speaker 1: and warm hearted to his friends, and whose books are
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  Speaker 1: the very bacchanalia of benevolence, pilloried his parents to make
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  Speaker 1: the groundlings laugh. And this fact every biographer of Dickens
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  Speaker 1: should face and if possible explain. As for mister Marzial's
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  Speaker 1: critical estimate of Dickens as a writer, he tells us,
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  Speaker 1: quite frankly that he believes that Dickens, at his best
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  Speaker 1: was one of the greatest masters of pathos who ever lived,
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  Speaker 1: a remark that seems to us an excellent example of
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  Speaker 1: what novelists call the fine courage of despair. Of course,
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  Speaker 1: no biographer of Dickens could say anything else, just at present.
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  Speaker 1: A popular series is bound to express popular views, and
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  Speaker 1: cheap criticisms may be excused in cheap books. Besides, it
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  Speaker 1: is always open to everyone to accept g h loses
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  Speaker 1: unfortunate maxim that any author who makes one cry possesses
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  Speaker 1: the gift of pathos. And indeed, there is something very
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  Speaker 1: flattering in being told that one's own emotions are the
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  Speaker 1: ultimate test of literature. When mister Marsials discusses Dickens's power
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  Speaker 1: of drawing human nature, we are upon somewhat safer ground,
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  Speaker 1: and we cannot but admire the cleverness with which he
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  Speaker 1: passes over his hero's innumerable failures. For in some respects
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  Speaker 1: Dickens might be likened to those old sculptors of our
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  Speaker 1: Gothic cathedrals, who could give form to the most fantastic fancy,
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  Speaker 1: and crowd with grotesque monsters a curious world of dreams,
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  Speaker 1: but saw little of the grace and dignity of the
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  Speaker 1: men and women among whom they lived, and whose art,
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  Speaker 1: lacking sanity, was therefore incomplete. Yet they at least knew
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  Speaker 1: the limitations of their art, while Dickens never knew the
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  Speaker 1: limitations of his. When he tries to be serious, he
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  Speaker 1: succeeds only in being dull. When he aims at truth,
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  Speaker 1: he reaches merely platitude. Shakespeare could play place Ferdinand and
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  Speaker 1: Miranda by the side of Caliban, and Life recognizes them
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  Speaker 1: all as her own. But Dickens's Miranda's are the young
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  Speaker 1: ladies out of a fashion book, and his Ferdinand's the
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  Speaker 1: Walking Gentleman of an unsuccessful company of third rate players.
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  Speaker 1: So little sanity indeed had Dickens's art that he was
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  Speaker 1: never able even to satirize, He could only caricature. And
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  Speaker 1: so little does mister Marcials realize where Dickens's true strength
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  Speaker 1: and weakness lie. That he actually complains that Crookshanks's illustrations
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  Speaker 1: are too much exaggerated, and that he could never draw
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  Speaker 1: either a lady or a gentleman. The latter was hardly
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  Speaker 1: a disqualification for illustrating Dickens, as few such characters appear
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  Speaker 1: in his books, unless we are to regard Lord Frederick
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  Speaker 1: Verisoft and Sir Mulberry Hawk as valuable studies of high life.
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  Speaker 1: And for our own part, we have always considered that
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  Speaker 1: the greatest injustice ever done to Dickens has been done
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  Speaker 1: by those who have tried to illustrate him seriously. In conclusion,
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  Speaker 1: mister Marsial's expresses his belief that a century hence Dickens
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  Speaker 1: will be read as much as we now read Scott,
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  Speaker 1: and says rather prettily that as long as he is
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  Speaker 1: read quote, there will be one gentle and humanizing influence.
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  Speaker 1: The more at work among men. End quote, which is
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  Speaker 1: always a useful tag to append to the life of
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  Speaker 1: any popular author, remembering that of all forms of error,
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  Speaker 1: prophecy is the most gratuitous, we will not take upon
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  Speaker 1: ourselves to decide the question of Dickens's immortality. If our
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  Speaker 1: descendants do not read him, they will miss a great
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  Speaker 1: source of amusement. And if they do, we hope they
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  Speaker 1: will not model their style upon his. Of this, however,
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  Speaker 1: there is but little danger, for no age ever borrows
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  Speaker 1: the slaying of its predecessor. As for the gentle and
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  Speaker 1: humanizing influence, this is taking Dickens just a little too seriously.
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  Speaker 1: Life of Charles Dickens by Frank T. Marzial's Great Writer's
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  Speaker 1: Series Walter Scott end of section forty two, a new
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  Speaker 1: book on Dickens.