dual personalities

Tag: Charles Dickens

December 17, 2024

Christmas goals

by chuckofish

“He went to the church, and walked about the streets, and watched the people hurrying to and for, and patted the children on the head, and questioned beggars, and looked down into the kitchens of homes, and up to the windows, and found that everything could yield him pleasure. He had never dreamed of any walk, that anything, could give him so much happiness.”

–Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol, 1843

So much happiness!

The drawing is by Quentin Blake (b. 1932), illustrator, Quentin Blake’s A Christmas Carol, 1995

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February 7, 2017

“Every traveler has a home of his own, and he learns to appreciate it the more from his wandering.”

by chuckofish

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Today is the birthday of Charles Dickens (1812 –70) and we will toast the great author tonight. Perhaps when I finish my Shirley Hazzard novel, I will move on to a Dickens classic. I really should. Maybe I will.

You may recall that the great author made two trips to the U.S, touring in order to make some money while trying to deal with American publishers who continually pirated his works. During his first trip in 1842 he even visited my flyover town. Traveling from Cairo, Illinois by boat, he was unimpressed with the Mighty Mississippi, referring to it in his journals as a “foul stream.”

At length, upon the morning of the third day, we arrived at a spot so much more desolate than any we had yet beheld…At the junction of the two rivers lies a breeding place of fever, ague, and death—vaunted in England as a mine of golden hope and speculated in on the faith of monstrous representations, to many people’s ruin. A dismal swamp on which half-built houses rot away, teeming with rank, unwholesome vegetation in whose baleful shade the wretched wanderers who area tempted thither droop and die and lay their bones; the hateful Mississippi circling and eddying before it, …a slimy monster, hideous to behold, a hotbed of disease, an ugly sepulcher, a grave uncheered by any promise; a placer without a single quality in earth or air or water to commend it; such is the dismal Cairo.

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While visiting St. Louis, he voiced a desire to see the great American prairie, so he was taken by horse and carriage via ferry back to Illinois, by way of Belleville (“a small collection of wooden houses, huddled together in the very heart of the bush and swamp”) to Looking Glass Prairie (near modern day Lebanon). He was not impressed.

“The widely-famed Far West is not to be compared with even the tamest portions of Scotland or Wales. I am exceedingly fond of wild and lonely scenery, and believe that I have the faculty of being as much impressed by it as any man living. But the prairie fell, by far, short of my preconceived idea. I felt no such emotions as I do in crossing Salisbury plain. The excessive flatness of the scene makes it dreary, but tame.”

Well, sorry, we don’t have Stonehenge in southern Illinois. We do have mounds.

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Sorry you missed those, Charles.

He was probably just homesick.

There is a BBC documentary Dickens in America which follows Dickens’ travels across the United States in 1842, during which he penned a travel book, American Notes. This might be worth tracking down.

Quotes from American Notes for General Circulation.

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December 17, 2014

This and that: “Um Dasher, Dancer… Prancer… Nixon, Comet, Cupid… Donna Dixon?”*

by chuckofish

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A Christmas Carol  was published on December 19 in 1843.

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Have you read it recently? One year our headmaster read it in chapel and was much mocked for his efforts. He was new, following a genuine Englishman who could read anything he liked (although there may have been some eye-rolling when he hauled out A Child’s Christmas in Wales every year). Unfortunately the new guy set the tone badly for his tenure at our school with his oafish and over-dramatic reading of this classic (“God bless us every one!”). At least that’s the way I remember it.

I usually watch one of the many versions filmed over the years. Scrooge, made in England in 1951, stars Alistair Sim, and is I believe a very close rendition of the original.

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Indeed, much of the dialogue is taken word-for-word from the book (“An intelligent boy!” said Scrooge. “A remarkable boy!”).

I’ll admit I cheated yesterday and read the end of the book online. Dickens writes that the reformed Scrooge:

…went to church, and walked about the streets, and watched the people hurrying to and fro, and patted children on the head, and questioned beggars, and looked down into the kitchens of houses, and up to the windows: and found that everything could yield him pleasure. He had never dreamed that any walk — that anything — could give him so much happiness.

Dickens himself was a great walker in the city and this passage probably is a pretty good description of himself, don’t you think?

Anyway, I think a re-reading might be in order.

img_1224090636638_291In other news, here’s some interesting advice for my fellow introverts.

img_1224090636638_291I love the  “Humans of New York” blog, but I really liked this one. Is the world random or is there an unseen finger guiding us? Hello.

img_1224090636638_291The first episode of The Simpsons, “Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire,” aired on this day in 1989–25 years ago!

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You will recall that in this episode Homer gets a second job as a Santa Claus in a shopping mall in order to pay for Christmas presents. He doesn’t make enough, of course, so he goes to the dog track where Santa’s Little Helper enters into the story and Homer says, “Did you hear that, Boy? Santa’s Little Helper. It’s a sign. It’s an omen.” Bart replies, “It’s a coincidence, Dad.”

Again with the random/not-so-random question. Hmmm. Amazingly, it all ends well.

Have a good Wednesday–we’re over the hump! Daughter #2 arrives on Friday! Can daughter #1 be far behind?

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*”Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire” (1989)

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