File:Pen photographs of Charles Dickens's readings (1871) (14778773204).jpg

Identifier: penphotographsof01fiel (find matches)
Title: Pen photographs of Charles Dickens's readings
Year: 1871 (1870s)
Authors: Field, Kate, 1838-1896
Subjects: Dickens, Charles, 1812-1870 British Novelists, English Oral reading
Publisher: Boston, J. R. Osgood and company
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: Sloan Foundation

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Text Appearing Before Image:
imitable naivete. Bobspicture ought to be taken at this moment. Indeed, nowI think of it, I am astonished that artists who illustratesuch of Dickenss books as are read by him do notmake him their model. They can never approach hisconception, they can never equal his execution, and to thevirtue of truth would be added the charm of resemblingthe author. Admirable is Mrs. Cratchits ungracious drinking toScrooges health, and )\Iarthas teUing how she hadseen a lord, and how he was much about as tall asPeter! It is a charming cabinet picture, and so likewise isthe glimpse of Christmas at Scrooges nephews. Theplump sister is satisfactory, 0, perfectly satisfactory,and Topper is a magnificent fraud on the understand-ing, a side-splitting fraud. I see Fred get off the sofaand stamp at liis own fun, and I hear the plump sistersvoice when she guesses the wonderful riddle, It s youruncle Scro-o-o-o-oge! Altogether, Dickens is betterthan any comedy. What a change in Stave Four! There sit the gray-
Text Appearing After Image:
BOB CRATCIIIT AND TINY TIM. A CHRISTMAS CAROL. 8§ haired rascal, old Joe, with his crooning voice, Mrs.Dilber, and those robbers of dead mens shrouds. There is something positively and Shakespearianlyweird in the langh and tone of the charwoman. Let thecharwoman alone to be the first, she cries. Let thelaundress alone to be the second; and let the undertakersman alone to be the third. Look here, old Joe, here sa chance! If we have nt all three met here withoutmeaning it! Unconsciously the three witches of Mac-beth arise before the imagination, which perceives byDickenss treatment of this short but graphic scene howfine a sketch he would make did fate ever cast him forone of the sisters three. One turn of the kaleidoscope and we stand before thebody of the plundered unknown man; another, and theresit the Cratchits weeping over Tiny Tims death, ascene that would be beyond aU praise were Bobs cry, My little, little child ! a shade less dramatic. Here,and only here, Dickens forgets the n

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