21 10 361 https://www.dickenssearch.com/files/original/12/A_Poor_Man_s_Tale_of_a_Patent/1850-10-19-A_Poor_Mans_Tale_of_a_Patent.pdf 76e0e48996c0bba88664ba5b63edaef0 Journalism Ngram Date Hidden from users and search. All items in a collection need to have the same data in the same format in order to show up in Ngram (either YYYY, YYYYMMDD, or YYYYMMDD). No combinations will work. For journalism, letters and poetry, if there is no month or day, default to the first of the month or January. So a poem with a date of March 1843 would be 18430301. A poem published in 1856 with no month or date information would be 18560101. 18501019 Publication The title of the newspaper/serial (if applicable) Household Words Publication Type E.g. newspaper/serial Weekly newspaper Ngram Text Hidden from users and search. Copy and paste from the Scripto transcription. Then check and uncheck HTML to strip out all formatting. Finally, search and remove any   (which is the HTML for spaces). This will prevent the Ngram picking up on irrelevant HTML. I am not used to writing for print. What working-man that never labours less (some Mondays, and Christmas Time and Easter Time, excepted) than twelve or fourteen hour a day, is? But I have been asked to put down, plain, what I have got to say; and so I take pen-and-ink, and do it to the best of my power, hoping defects will find excuse. I was born, nigh London, but have worked in a shop at Birmingham (what you would call Manufactories, we call Shops), almost ever since I was out of my time. I served my apprenticeship at Deptford, nigh where I was born, and I am a smith by trade. My name is John. I have been called “Old John” ever since I was nineteen year of age, on account of not having much hair. I am fifty-six year of age at the present time, and I don’t find myself with more hair, nor yet with less, to signify, than at nineteen year of age aforesaid. I have been married five and thirty year, come next April. I was married on All Fools’ Day. Let them laugh that win. I won a good wife that day, and it was as sensible a day to me, as ever I had. We have had a matter of ten children, six whereof are living. My eldest son is engineer in the Italian steam-packet “Mezzo Giorno, plying between Marseilles and Naples, and calling at Genoa, Leghorn, and Civita Vecchia.” He was a good workman. He invented a many useful little things that brought him in – nothing. I have two sons doing well at Sydney, New South Wales – single, when last heard from. One of my sons (James) went wild and for a soldier, where he was shot in India, living six weeks in hospital with a musket ball lodged in his shoulder-blade, which he wrote with his own hand. He was the best looking. One of my two daughters (Mary) is comfortable in her circumstances, but water on the chest. The other (Charlotte), her husband run away from her in the basest manner, and she and her three children live with us. The youngest, six year old, has a turn for mechanics. I am not a Chartist, and I never was. I don’t mean to say but what I see a good many public points to complain of, still I don’t think that's the way to set them right. If I did think so, I should be a Chartist. But I don’t think so, and I am not a Chartist. I read the paper, and hear discussion, at what we call “a parlor” in Birmingham, and I know many good men and workmen who are Chartists. Note. Not Physical force. It won’t be took as boastful in me, if I make the remark (for I can’t put down what I have got to say, without putting that down before going any further), that I have always been of an ingenious turn. I once got twenty pound by a screw, and it’s in use now. I have been twenty year, off and on, completing an Invention and perfecting it. I perfected of it, last Christmas Eve at ten o'clock at night. Me and my wife stood and let some tears fall over the Model, when it was done and I brought her in to take a look at it. A friend of mine, by the name of William Butcher, is a Chartist. Moderate. He is a good speaker. He is very animated. I have often heard him deliver that what is, at every turn, in the way of us working-men, is, that too many places have been made, in the course of time, to provide for people that never ought to have been provided for; and that we have to obey forms and to pay fees to support those places when we shouldn't ought. “True,” (delivers William Butcher), “all the public has to do this, but it falls heaviest on the working man, because he has least to spare; and likewise because impediments shouldn’t be put in his way, when he wants redress of wrong, or furtherance of right.” Note. I have wrote down those words from William Butcher’s own mouth. W. B. delivering them fresh for the aforesaid purpose. Now, to my Model again. There it was, perfected of, on Christmas Eve, gone nigh a year, at ten o’clock at night. All the money I could spare I had laid out upon the Model; and when times was bad, or my daughter Charlotte’s children sickly, or both, it had stood still, months at a spell. I had pulled it to pieces, and made it over again with improvements, I don’t know how often. There it stood, at last, a perfected Model as aforesaid. William Butcher and me had a long talk, Christmas Day, respecting of the Model. William is very sensible. But sometimes cranky. William said, “What will you do with it, John?” I said, “Patent it.” William said, “How Patent it, John?” I said, “By taking out a Patent.” William then delivered that the law of Patent was a cruel wrong. William said, “John, if you make your invention public, before you get a Patent, anyone may rob you of the fruits of your hard work. You are put in a cleft stick, John. Either you must drive a bargain very much against yourself, by getting a party to come forward beforehand with the great expenses of the Patent; or, you must be put about, from post to pillar, among so many parties, trying to make a better bargain for yourself, and showing your invention, that your invention will be took from you over your head.” I said, “William Butcher, are you cranky? You are sometimes cranky.” William said, “No John, I tell you the truth;” which he then delivered more at length. I said to W. B. I would Patent the invention myself. My wife’s brother, George Bury of West Bromwich (his wife unfortunately took to drinking, made away with everything, and seventeen times committed to Birmingham Jail before happy release in every point of view), left my wife, his sister, when he died, a legacy of one hundred and twenty-eight pound ten, Bank of England Stocks. Me and my wife had never broke into that money yet. Note. We might come to be old, and past our work. We now agreed to Patent the invention. We said we would make a hole in it – I mean in the aforesaid money – and Patent the invention. William Butcher wrote me a letter to Thomas Joy, in London. T. J. is a carpenter, six foot four in height, and plays quoits well. He lives in Chelsea, London, by the church. I got leave from the shop, to be took on again when I come back. I am a good workman. Not a Teetotaller; but never drunk. When the Christmas holidays were over, I went up to London by the Parliamentary Train, and hired a lodging for a week with Thomas Joy. He is married. He has one son gone to sea. Thomas Joy delivered (from a book he had) that the first step to be took, in Patenting the invention, was to prepare a petition unto Queen Victoria. William Butcher had delivered similar, and drawn it up. Note, William is a ready writer. A declaration before a Master in Chancery was to be added to it. That, we likewise drew up. After a deal of trouble I found out a Master, in Southampton Buildings, Chancery Lane, nigh Temple Bar, where I made the declaration, and paid eighteenpence. I was told to take the declaration and petition to the Home Office, in Whitehall, where I left it to be signed by the Home Secretary (after I had found the office out) and where I paid two pound, two, and sixpence. In six days he signed it, and I was told to take it to the Attorney-General’s chambers, and leave it there for a report. I did so, and paid four pound, four. Note. Nobody, all through, ever thankful for their money, but all uncivil. My lodging at Thomas Joy’s was now hired for another week, whereof five days were gone. The Attorney-General made what they called a Report-of-course (my invention being, as William Butcher had delivered before starting, unopposed), and I was sent back with it to the Home Office. They made a Copy of it, which was called a Warrant. For this warrant, I paid seven pound, thirteen, and six. It was sent to the Queen, to sign. The Queen sent it back, signed. The Home Secretary signed it again. The gentleman throwed it at me when I called, and said, “Now take it to the Patent Office in Lincoln’s Inn.” I was then in my third week at Thomas Joy’s, living very sparing, on account of fees. I found myself losing heart. At the Patent Office in Lincoln’s Inn, they made “a draft of the Queen’s bill,” of my invention, and a “docket of the bill.” I paid five pound, ten, and six, for this. They “engrossed two copies of the bill; one for the Signet Office, and one for the Privy-Seal Office.” I paid one pound, seven, and six, for this. Stamp duty over and above, three pound. The Engrossing Clerk of the same office engrossed the Queen's bill for signature. I paid him one pound, one. Stamp-duty, again, one pound, ten. I was next to take the Queen’s bill to the Attorney-General again, and get it signed again. I took it, and paid five pound more. I fetched it away, and took it to the Home Secretary again. He sent it to the Queen again. She signed it again. I paid seven pound, thirteen, and six, more, for this. I had been over a month at Thomas Joy’s. I was quite wore out, patience and pocket. Thomas Joy delivered all this, as it went on, to William Butcher. William Butcher delivered it again to three Birmingham Parlors, from which it got to all the other Parlors, and was took, as I have been told since, right through all the shops in the North of England. Note. William Butcher delivered, at his Parlor, in a speech, that it was a Patent way of making Chartists. But I hadn’t nigh done yet. The Queen’s bill was to be took to the Signet Office in Somerset House, Strand – where the stamp shop is. The Clerk of the Signet made “a Signet bill for the Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal.” I paid him four pound, seven. The Clerk of the Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal made “a Privy-Seal bill for the Lord Chancellor.” I paid him, four pound, two. The Privy-Seal bill was handed over to the Clerk of the Patents, who engrossed the aforesaid. I paid him five pound, seventeen, and eight; at the same time, I paid Stamp-duty for the Patent, in one lump, thirty pound. I next paid for “boxes for the Patent,” nine and sixpence. Note. Thomas Joy would have made the same at a profit, for eighteen-pence. I next paid “fees to the Deputy, the Lord Chancellor’s Purse-bearer,” two pound, two. I next paid “fees to the Clerk of the Hanaper,” seven pound, thirteen. I next paid "fees to the Deputy Clerk of the Hanaper,” ten shillings. I next paid, to the Lord Chancellor again, one pound, eleven, and six. Last of all, I paid “fees to the Deputy Sealer, and Deputy Chaff-Wax,” ten shillings and sixpence. I had lodged at Thomas Joy’s over six weeks, and the unopposed Patent for my invention, for England only, had cost me ninety-six pound, seven, and eightpence. If I had taken it out for the United Kingdom, it would have cost me more than three hundred pound. Now, teaching had not come up but very limited when I was young. So much the worse for me you’ll say. I say the same. William Butcher is twenty year younger than me. He knows a hundred year more. If William Butcher had wanted to Patent an invention, he might have been sharper than myself when hustled backwards and forwards among all those offices, though I doubt if so patient. Note. William being sometimes cranky, and considers Porters, Messengers, and Clerks. Thereby I say nothing of my being tired of my life, while I was Patenting my invention. But I put this: Is it reasonable to make a man feel as if, in inventing an ingenious improvement meant to do good, he had done something wrong? How else can a man feel, when he is met by such difficulties at every turn? All inventors taking out a Patent MUST feel so. And look at the expense. How hard on me, and how hard on the country if there’s any merit in me (and my invention is took up now, I am thankful to say, and doing well), to put me to all that expense before I can move a finger! Make the addition yourself, and it’ll come to ninety-six pound, seven, and eightpence. No more, and no less. What can I say against William Butcher, about places? Look at the Home Secretary, the Attorney-General, the Patent Office, the Engrossing Clerk, the Lord Chancellor, the Privy Seal, the Clerk of the Patents, the Lord Chancellor’s Purse-bearer, the Clerk of the Hanaper, the Deputy Clerk of the Hanaper, the Deputy Sealer, and the Deputy Chaff-wax. No man in England could get a Patent for an India-rubber band, or an iron hoop, without feeing all of them. Some of them, over and over again. I went through thirty-five stages. I began with the Queen upon the Throne. I ended with the Deputy Chaff-wax. Note. I should like to see the Deputy Chaff-wax. Is it a man, or what is it? What I had to tell, I have told. I have wrote it down. I hope it’s plain. Not so much in the handwriting (though nothing to boast of there), as in the sense of it. I will now conclude with Thomas Joy. Thomas said to me, when we parted, “John, if the laws of this country were as honest as they ought to be, you would have come to London – registered an exact description and drawing of your invention – paid half-a-crown or so for doing of it – and therein and thereby have got your Patent.” My opinion is the same as Thomas Joy. Further. In William Butcher’s delivering “that the whole gang of Hanapers and Chaff-waxes must be done away with, and that England has been chaffed and waxed sufficient,” I agree. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 'A Poor Man's Tale of a Patent' Description An account of the resource Published in Household Words (19 October 1850) Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dickens, Charles Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1850-10-19 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Dickens Journals Online, used by permission. Type The nature or genre of the resource Journalism article Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1850-10-19-A_Poor_Mans_Tale_of_a_Patent Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Household Words, vol. 2, no. 30, 19 October 1850, pp. 73-75. Dickens Journals Online, <a href="https://www.djo.org.uk/household-words/volume-ii/page-73.html">https://www.djo.org.uk/household-words/volume-ii/page-73.html</a>. Bibliographic Citation A bibliographic reference for the resource. Recommended practice is to include sufficient bibliographic detail to identify the resource as unambiguously as possible. Dickens, Charles. 'A Poor Man's Tale of a Patent'. Dickens Search. Eds. Emily Middleton and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/journalism/1850-10-19-A_Poor_Mans_Tale_of_a_Patent">https://dickenssearch.com/journalism/1850-10-19-A_Poor_Mans_Tale_of_a_Patent</a>. Scripto Transcription A written representation of a document. I am not used to writing for print. What working-man that never labours less (some Mondays, and Christmas Time and Easter Time, excepted) than twelve or fourteen hour a day, is? But I have been asked to put down, plain, what I have got to say; and so I take pen-and-ink, and do it to the best of my power, hoping defects will find excuse. I was born, nigh London, but have worked in a shop at Birmingham (what you would call Manufactories, we call Shops), almost ever since I was out of my time. I served my apprenticeship at Deptford, nigh where I was born, and I am a smith by trade. My name is John. I have been called “Old John” ever since I was nineteen year of age, on account of not having much hair. I am fifty-six year of age at the present time, and I don’t find myself with more hair, nor yet with less, to signify, than at nineteen year of age aforesaid. I have been married five and thirty year, come next April. I was married on All Fools’ Day. Let them laugh that win. I won a good wife that day, and it was as sensible a day to me, as ever I had. We have had a matter of ten children, six whereof are living. My eldest son is engineer in the Italian steam-packet “Mezzo Giorno, plying between Marseilles and Naples, and calling at Genoa, Leghorn, and Civita Vecchia.” He was a good workman. He invented a many useful little things that brought him in – nothing. I have two sons doing well at Sydney, New South Wales – single, when last heard from. One of my sons (James) went wild and for a soldier, where he was shot in India, living six weeks in hospital with a musket ball lodged in his shoulder-blade, which he wrote with his own hand. He was the best looking. One of my two daughters (Mary) is comfortable in her circumstances, but water on the chest. The other (Charlotte), her husband run away from her in the basest manner, and she and her three children live with us. The youngest, six year old, has a turn for mechanics. I am not a Chartist, and I never was. I don’t mean to say but what I see a good many public points to complain of, still I don’t think that's the way to set them right. If I did think so, I should be a Chartist. But I don’t think so, and I am not a Chartist. I read the paper, and hear discussion, at what we call “a parlor” in Birmingham, and I know many good men and workmen who are Chartists. Note. Not Physical force. It won’t be took as boastful in me, if I make the remark (for I can’t put down what I have got to say, without putting that down before going any further), that I have always been of an ingenious turn. I once got twenty pound by a screw, and it’s in use now. I have been twenty year, off and on, completing an Invention and perfecting it. I perfected of it, last Christmas Eve at ten o'clock at night. Me and my wife stood and let some tears fall over the Model, when it was done and I brought her in to take a look at it. A friend of mine, by the name of William Butcher, is a Chartist. Moderate. He is a good speaker. He is very animated. I have often heard him deliver that what is, at every turn, in the way of us working-men, is, that too many places have been made, in the course of time, to provide for people that never ought to have been provided for; and that we have to obey forms and to pay fees to support those places when we shouldn't ought. “True,” (delivers William Butcher), “all the public has to do this, but it falls heaviest on the working man, because he has least to spare; and likewise because impediments shouldn’t be put in his way, when he wants redress of wrong, or furtherance of right.” Note. I have wrote down those words from William Butcher’s own mouth. W. B. delivering them fresh for the aforesaid purpose. Now, to my Model again. There it was, perfected of, on Christmas Eve, gone nigh a year, at ten o’clock at night. All the money I could spare I had laid out upon the Model; and when times was bad, or my daughter Charlotte’s children sickly, or both, it had stood still, months at a spell. I had pulled it to pieces, and made it over again with improvements, I don’t know how often. There it stood, at last, a perfected Model as aforesaid. William Butcher and me had a long talk, Christmas Day, respecting of the Model. William is very sensible. But sometimes cranky. William said, “What will you do with it, John?” I said, “Patent it.” William said, “How Patent it, John?” I said, “By taking out a Patent.” William then delivered that the law of Patent was a cruel wrong. William said, “John, if you make your invention public, before you get a Patent, anyone may rob you of the fruits of your hard work. You are put in a cleft stick, John. Either you must drive a bargain very much against yourself, by getting a party to come forward beforehand with the great expenses of the Patent; or, you must be put about, from post to pillar, among so many parties, trying to make a better bargain for yourself, and showing your invention, that your invention will be took from you over your head.” I said, “William Butcher, are you cranky? You are sometimes cranky.” William said, “No John, I tell you the truth;” which he then delivered more at length. I said to W. B. I would Patent the invention myself. My wife’s brother, George Bury of West Bromwich (his wife unfortunately took to drinking, made away with everything, and seventeen times committed to Birmingham Jail before happy release in every point of view), left my wife, his sister, when he died, a legacy of one hundred and twenty-eight pound ten, Bank of England Stocks. Me and my wife had never broke into that money yet. Note. We might come to be old, and past our work. We now agreed to Patent the invention. We said we would make a hole in it – I mean in the aforesaid money – and Patent the invention. William Butcher wrote me a letter to Thomas Joy, in London. T. J. is a carpenter, six foot four in height, and plays quoits well. He lives in Chelsea, London, by the church. I got leave from the shop, to be took on again when I come back. I am a good workman. Not a Teetotaller; but never drunk. When the Christmas holidays were over, I went up to London by the Parliamentary Train, and hired a lodging for a week with Thomas Joy. He is married. He has one son gone to sea. Thomas Joy delivered (from a book he had) that the first step to be took, in Patenting the invention, was to prepare a petition unto Queen Victoria. William Butcher had delivered similar, and drawn it up. Note, William is a ready writer. A declaration before a Master in Chancery was to be added to it. That, we likewise drew up. After a deal of trouble I found out a Master, in Southampton Buildings, Chancery Lane, nigh Temple Bar, where I made the declaration, and paid eighteenpence. I was told to take the declaration and petition to the Home Office, in Whitehall, where I left it to be signed by the Home Secretary (after I had found the office out) and where I paid two pound, two, and sixpence. In six days he signed it, and I was told to take it to the Attorney-General’s chambers, and leave it there for a report. I did so, and paid four pound, four. Note. Nobody, all through, ever thankful for their money, but all uncivil. My lodging at Thomas Joy’s was now hired for another week, whereof five days were gone. The Attorney-General made what they called a Report-of-course (my invention being, as William Butcher had delivered before starting, unopposed), and I was sent back with it to the Home Office. They made a Copy of it, which was called a Warrant. For this warrant, I paid seven pound, thirteen, and six. It was sent to the Queen, to sign. The Queen sent it back, signed. The Home Secretary signed it again. The gentleman throwed it at me when I called, and said, “Now take it to the Patent Office in Lincoln’s Inn.” I was then in my third week at Thomas Joy’s, living very sparing, on account of fees. I found myself losing heart. At the Patent Office in Lincoln’s Inn, they made “a draft of the Queen’s bill,” of my invention, and a “docket of the bill.” I paid five pound, ten, and six, for this. They “engrossed two copies of the bill; one for the Signet Office, and one for the Privy-Seal Office.” I paid one pound, seven, and six, for this. Stamp duty over and above, three pound. The Engrossing Clerk of the same office engrossed the Queen's bill for signature. I paid him one pound, one. Stamp-duty, again, one pound, ten. I was next to take the Queen’s bill to the Attorney-General again, and get it signed again. I took it, and paid five pound more. I fetched it away, and took it to the Home Secretary again. He sent it to the Queen again. She signed it again. I paid seven pound, thirteen, and six, more, for this. I had been over a month at Thomas Joy’s. I was quite wore out, patience and pocket. Thomas Joy delivered all this, as it went on, to William Butcher. William Butcher delivered it again to three Birmingham Parlors, from which it got to all the other Parlors, and was took, as I have been told since, right through all the shops in the North of England. Note. William Butcher delivered, at his Parlor, in a speech, that it was a Patent way of making Chartists. But I hadn’t nigh done yet. The Queen’s bill was to be took to the Signet Office in Somerset House, Strand – where the stamp shop is. The Clerk of the Signet made “a Signet bill for the Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal.” I paid him four pound, seven. The Clerk of the Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal made “a Privy-Seal bill for the Lord Chancellor.” I paid him, four pound, two. The Privy-Seal bill was handed over to the Clerk of the Patents, who engrossed the aforesaid. I paid him five pound, seventeen, and eight; at the same time, I paid Stamp-duty for the Patent, in one lump, thirty pound. I next paid for “boxes for the Patent,” nine and sixpence. Note. Thomas Joy would have made the same at a profit, for eighteen-pence. I next paid “fees to the Deputy, the Lord Chancellor’s Purse-bearer,” two pound, two. I next paid “fees to the Clerk of the Hanaper,” seven pound, thirteen. I next paid "fees to the Deputy Clerk of the Hanaper,” ten shillings. I next paid, to the Lord Chancellor again, one pound, eleven, and six. Last of all, I paid “fees to the Deputy Sealer, and Deputy Chaff-Wax,” ten shillings and sixpence. I had lodged at Thomas Joy’s over six weeks, and the unopposed Patent for my invention, for England only, had cost me ninety-six pound, seven, and eightpence. If I had taken it out for the United Kingdom, it would have cost me more than three hundred pound. Now, teaching had not come up but very limited when I was young. So much the worse for me you’ll say. I say the same. William Butcher is twenty year younger than me. He knows a hundred year more. If William Butcher had wanted to Patent an invention, he might have been sharper than myself when hustled backwards and forwards among all those offices, though I doubt if so patient. Note. William being sometimes cranky, and considers Porters, Messengers, and Clerks. Thereby I say nothing of my being tired of my life, while I was Patenting my invention. But I put this: Is it reasonable to make a man feel as if, in inventing an ingenious improvement meant to do good, he had done something wrong? How else can a man feel, when he is met by such difficulties at every turn? All inventors taking out a Patent MUST feel so. And look at the expense. How hard on me, and how hard on the country if there’s any merit in me (and my invention is took up now, I am thankful to say, and doing well), to put me to all that expense before I can move a finger! Make the addition yourself, and it’ll come to ninety-six pound, seven, and eightpence. No more, and no less. What can I say against William Butcher, about places? Look at the Home Secretary, the Attorney-General, the Patent Office, the Engrossing Clerk, the Lord Chancellor, the Privy Seal, the Clerk of the Patents, the Lord Chancellor’s Purse-bearer, the Clerk of the Hanaper, the Deputy Clerk of the Hanaper, the Deputy Sealer, and the Deputy Chaff-wax. No man in England could get a Patent for an India-rubber band, or an iron hoop, without feeing all of them. Some of them, over and over again. I went through thirty-five stages. I began with the Queen upon the Throne. I ended with the Deputy Chaff-wax. Note. I should like to see the Deputy Chaff-wax. Is it a man, or what is it? What I had to tell, I have told. I have wrote it down. I hope it’s plain. Not so much in the handwriting (though nothing to boast of there), as in the sense of it. I will now conclude with Thomas Joy. Thomas said to me, when we parted, “John, if the laws of this country were as honest as they ought to be, you would have come to London – registered an exact description and drawing of your invention – paid half-a-crown or so for doing of it – and therein and thereby have got your Patent.” My opinion is the same as Thomas Joy. Further. In William Butcher’s delivering “that the whole gang of Hanapers and Chaff-waxes must be done away with, and that England has been chaffed and waxed sufficient,” I agree. https://www.dickenssearch.com/files/original/12/Lively_Turtle/1850-10-26-Lively_Turtle.pdf 9f424b5d9e32375959e52beb420498a0 Journalism Ngram Date Hidden from users and search. All items in a collection need to have the same data in the same format in order to show up in Ngram (either YYYY, YYYYMMDD, or YYYYMMDD). No combinations will work. For journalism, letters and poetry, if there is no month or day, default to the first of the month or January. So a poem with a date of March 1843 would be 18430301. A poem published in 1856 with no month or date information would be 18560101. 18501026 Publication The title of the newspaper/serial (if applicable) Household Words Publication Type E.g. newspaper/serial Weekly newspaper Ngram Text Hidden from users and search. Copy and paste from the Scripto transcription. Then check and uncheck HTML to strip out all formatting. Finally, search and remove any   (which is the HTML for spaces). This will prevent the Ngram picking up on irrelevant HTML. I have a comfortable property. What I spend, I spend upon myself; and what I don’t spend I save. Those are my principles. I am warmly attached to my principles, and stick to them on all occasions. I am not, as some people have represented, a mean man. I never denied myself anything that I thought I should like to have. I may have said to myself “SNOADY” - that is my name - “you will get those peaches cheaper if you wait till next week;” or, I may have said to myself, “Snoady, you will get that wine for nothing, if you wait till you are asked out to dine;” but I never deny myself anything. If I can’t get what I want without buying it, and paying its price for it, I do buy it and pay its price for it. I have an appetite bestowed upon me; and, if I baulked it, I should consider that I was flying in the face of Providence. I have no near relation but a brother. If he wants anything of me, he don’t get it. All men are my brothers; and I see no reason why I should make his, an exceptional case. I live at a cathedral town where there is an old corporation. I am not in the Church, but it may be that I hold a little place of some sort. Never mind. It may be pro table. Perhaps yes, perhaps no. It may, or it may not, be a sinecure. I don’t choose to say. I never enlightened my brother on these subjects, and I consider all men my brothers. The Negro is a man and a brother - should I hold myself accountable for my position in life, to him? Certainly not. I often run up to London. I like London. The way I look at it, is this. London is not a cheap place, but, on the whole, you can get more of the real thing for your money there - I mean the best thing, whatever it is - than you can get in most places. Therefore, I say to the man who has got the money, and wants the thing, “Go to London for it, and treat yourself.” When I go, I do it in this manner. I go to Mrs. Skim’s Private Hotel and Commercial Lodging House, near Aldersgate Street, City, (it is advertised in “Bradshaw’s Railway Guide,” where I first found it), and there I pay, “for bed and breakfast, with meat, two and ninepence per day, including servants.” Now, I have made a calculation, and I am satisfied that Mrs. Skim cannot possibly make much profit out of me. In fact, if all her patrons were like me, my opinion is, the woman would be in the Gazette next month. Why do I go to Mrs. Skim’s when I could go to the Clarendon, you may ask? Let us argue that point. If I went to the Clarendon I could get nothing in bed but sleep; could I? No. Now, sleep at the Clarendon is an expensive article; whereas sleep, at Mrs. Skim’s, is decidedly cheap. I have made a calculation, and I don’t hesitate to say, all things considered, that it’s cheap. Is it an inferior article, as compared with the Clarendon sleep, or is it of the same quality? I am a heavy sleeper, and it is of the same quality. Then why should I go to the Clarendon? But as to breakfast? you may say. Very well. As to breakfast. I could get a variety of delicacies for breakfast at the Clarendon, that are out of the question at Mrs. Skim’s. Granted. But I don’t want to have them! My opinion is, that we are not entirely animal and sensual. Man has an intellect bestowed upon him. If he clogs that intellect by too good a breakfast, how can he properly exert that intellect in meditation, during the day, upon his dinner? That’s the point. We are not to enchain the soul. We are to let it soar. It is expected of us. At Mrs. Skim’s, I get enough for breakfast (there is no limitation to the bread and butter, though there is to the meat) and not too much. I have all my faculties about me, to concentrate upon the object I have mentioned, and I can say to myself besides, “Snoady, you have saved six, eight, ten, fifteen, shillings, already to-day. If there is anything you fancy for your dinner, have it. Snoady, you have earned your reward.” My objection to London, is, that it is the head-quarters of the worst radical sentiments that are broached in England. I consider that it has a great many dangerous people in it. I consider the present publication (if it ’s “Household Words”) very dangerous, and I write this with the view of neutralising some of its bad effects. My political creed is, let us be comfortable. We are all very comfortable as we are - I am very comfortable as I am - leave us alone! All mankind are my brothers, and I don’t think it Christian - if you come to that - to tell my brother that he is ignorant, or degraded, or dirty, or anything of the kind. I think it’s abusive, and low: You meet me with the observation that I am required to love my brother. I reply, “I do.” I am sure I am always willing to say to my brother, “My good fellow, I love you very much; go along with you; keep to your own road; leave me to mine; whatever is, is right; whatever isn’t, is wrong; don’t make a disturbance!” It seems to me, that this is at once the whole duty of man, and the only temper to go to dinner in. Going to dinner in this temper in the City of London, one day not long ago, after a bed at Mrs. Skim’s, with meat-breakfast and servants included, I was reminded of the observation which, if my memory does not deceive me, was formerly made by somebody on some occasion, that man may learn wisdom from the lower animals. It is a beautiful fact, in my opinion, that great wisdom is to be learnt from that noble animal the Turtle, I had made up my mind, in the course of the day I speak of, to have a Turtle dinner. I mean a dinner mainly composed of Turtle. Just a comfortable tureen of soup, with a pint of punch; and nothing solid to follow, but a tender juicy steak. I like a tender juicy steak. I generally say to myself when I order one, “Snoady, you have done right.” When I make up my mind to have a delicacy, expense is no consideration. The question resolves itself, then, into a question of the very best. I went to a friend of mine who is a Member of the Common Council, and with that friend I held the following conversation. Said I to him, “Mr. Groggles, the best Turtle is where?”  Says he, “If you want a basin for lunch, my opinion is, you can’t do better than drop into Birch’s.” Said I, “Mr. Groggles, I thought you had known me better, than to suppose me capable of a basin. My intention is to dine. A tureen.” Says Mr. Groggles, without a moment’s consideration, and in a determined voice. “Right opposite the India House, Leadenhall Street.” We parted. My mind was not inactive during the day, and at six in the afternoon I repaired to the house of Mr. Groggles’s recommendation. At the end of the passage, leading from the street into the coffee room, I observed a vast and solid chest, in which I then supposed that a Turtle of unusual size might be deposited. But, the correspondence between its bulk and that of the charge made for my dinner, afterwards satisfied me that it must be the till of the establishment. I stated to the waiter what had brought me there, and I mentioned Mr. Groggles’s name. He feelingly repeated after me, “A tureen of Turtle, and a tender juicy steak.” His manner, added to the manner of Mr. Groggles in the morning, satisfied me that all was well. The atmosphere of the coffee room was odoriferous with Turtle, and the steams of thousands of gallons, consumed within its walls, hung, in savoury grease, upon their surface. I could have inscribed my name with a pen-knife, if I had been so disposed, in the essence of innumerable Turtles. I preferred to fall into a hungry reverie, brought on by the warm breath of the place, and to think of the West Indies and the Island of Ascension. My dinner came - and went. I will draw a veil over the meal, I will put the cover on the empty tureen, and merely say that it was wonderful - and that I paid for it. I sat meditating, when all was over, on the imperfect nature of our present existence, in which we can eat only for a limited time, when the waiter roused me with these words. Said he to me, as he brushed the crumbs off the table, “Would you like to see the Turtle, Sir?” “To see what Turtle, waiter?” said I (calmly) to him. “The tanks of Turtle below, Sir,” said he to me. Tanks of Turtle! Good Gracious! “Yes!” The waiter lighted a candle, and conducted me down stairs to a range of vaulted apartments, cleanly whitewashed and illuminated with gas, where I saw a sight of the most astonishing and gratifying description, illustrative of the greatness of my native country. “Snoady,” was my first observation to myself, “Rule Britannia, Britannia rules the waves!” There were two or three hundred Turtle in the vaulted apartments - all alive. Some in tanks, and some taking the air in long dry walks; littered down with straw. They were of all sizes; many of them enormous. Some of the enormous ones had entangled themselves with the smaller ones, and pushed and squeezed themselves into corners, with their fins over waterpipes, and their heads downwards, where they were apoplectically struggling and splashing, apparently in the last extremity. Others were calm at the bottom of the tanks; others languidly rising to the surface. The Turtle in the walks littered down with straw, were calm and motionless. It was a thrilling sight. I admire such a sight. It rouses my imagination. If you wish to try its effect on yours, make a call right opposite the India House any day you please - dine - pay - and ask to be taken below. Two athletic young men, without coats, and with the sleeves of their shirts tucked up to the shoulders, were in attendance on these noble animals. One of them, wrestling with the most enormous Turtle in company, and dragging him up to the edge of the tank, for me to look at, presented an idea to me which I never had before. I ought to observe that I like an. idea. I say, when I get a new one, “Snoady, book that!” My idea, on the present occasion, was, - Mr. Groggles! It was not a Turtle that I saw but Mr. Groggles. It was the dead image of Mr. Groggles. He was dragged up to confront me, with his waistcoat - if I may be allowed the expression - towards me; and it was identically the waistcoat, of Mr. Groggles. It was the same shape, very nearly the same colour, only wanted a gold watch-chain, and a bunch of seals, to BE the waistcoat of Mr. Groggles. There was what I should call a bursting expression about, him in general, which was accurately the expression of Mr. Groggles. I had never closely observed a Turtle’s throat before. The folds of his loose cravat, I found to be precisely those of Mr. Groggles’s cravat. Even the intelligent eye - I mean, to say, intelligent enough for a person of correct principles, and. not dangerously so - was the eye of Mr. Groggles. When the athletic young man let him go, and, with a roll of his head, he flopped heavily down into the tank, it was exactly the manner of Mr. Groggles as I have seen him ooze away into his seat, after opposing a sanitary motion in the Court of Common Council! “Snoady,” I couldn’t help saying to myself, “you have done it. You have got an idea, Snoady, in which a great principle is involved. I congratulate you!” I followed the young man, who dragged up several Turtle to the brinks of the various tanks. I found them all the same - all varieties of Mr. Groggles - all extraordinarily like the gentlemen who usually, eat them. “Now, Snoady,” was my next remark, “what do you deduce from this?" “Sir,” said, I, “what I deduce from this, is, confusion to those Radicals and other Revolutionists who talk about improvement. Sir,” said I, “what I deduce from this, is, that there isn’t this resemblance between the Turtles and the Groggleses for nothing. It’s meant to show mankind, that the proper model for a Groggles, is a Turtle; and that the liveliness we want in a Groggles, is the liveliness of a Turtle, and no more.” “Snoady,” was my reply to this, “You have hit it. You are right!” I admired the idea very much, because, if I hate anything in the world, it’s change. Change has evidently no business in the world, has nothing to do with it, and isn’t intended. What we want is (as I think I have mentioned) to be comfortable. I look at it that way. Let us be comfortable, and leave us alone. Now, when the young man dragged a Groggles - mean a Turtle - out of his tank, this was exactly what the noble animal expressed as he floundered back again. I have several friends besides Mr. Groggles in the Common Council, and it might be a week after this, when I said, “Snoady, if I was you, I would go to that court, and hear the debate to-day.” I went. A good deal of it was what I call a sound, old English discussion. One eloquent speaker objected to the French as wearing wooden shoes; and a friend of his reminded him of another objection to that foreign people, namely, that they eat frogs. I had feared, for many years, I am sorry, to say, that these wholesome principles were gone out. How delightful to find them still remaining among the great men of the City of London, in the year one thousand eight hundred and fifty! It made me think of the Lively Turtle. But, I soon thought more of the Lively Turtle. Some Radicals and Revolutionists have penetrated even to the Common Council - which otherwise I regard as one of the last strongholds of our afflicted constitution; and speeches were made, about removing Smithfield Market - which I consider to be a part of that Constitution and about appointing a Medical Officer for the City, and about preserving the public health; and other treasonable practices, opposed to Church and State. These proposals Mr. Groggles, as might have been expected of such a man, resisted; so warmly, that, as I afterwards understood from Mrs. Groggles, he had rather a sharp attack of blood to the head that night. All the Groggles party resisted them too, and it was a fine constitutional sight to see waistcoat after waistcoat rise up in resistance of them and subside. But what struck me in the sight was this, “Snoady,” said I, “here is your idea carried out, Sir! These Radicals and Revolutionists are the athletic young men in shirt sleeves, dragging the Lively Turtle to the edges of the tank. The Groggleses are the Turtle, looking, out for a moment, and flopping down again. Honour to the Groggleses! Honour to the Court of Lively Turtle! The wisdom of the Turtle is the hope of England!” There are three heads in the moral of what I had to say. First, Turtle and Groggles are identical; wonderfully alike externally, wonderfully alike mentally. Secondly, Turtle is a good thing every way, and the liveliness of the Turtle is intended as an example for the liveliness of man; you are not to go beyond that. Thirdly, we are all quite comfortable. Leave us alone! Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 'Lively Turtle' Description An account of the resource Published in Household Words (26 October 1850) Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dickens, Charles Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Household Words, vol. 2, no. 31, 26 October 1850, pp. 97-99. Dickens Journals Online, <a href="https://www.djo.org.uk/household-words/volume-ii/page-97.html">https://www.djo.org.uk/household-words/volume-ii/page-97.html</a>. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1850-10-26 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Lydia Craig Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Dickens Journals Online, used by permission. Type The nature or genre of the resource Journalism article Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1850-10-26-Lively_Turtle Bibliographic Citation A bibliographic reference for the resource. Recommended practice is to include sufficient bibliographic detail to identify the resource as unambiguously as possible. Dickens, Charles. 'Lively Turtle'. Dickens Search. Eds. Emily Middleton and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/journalism/1850-10-26-Lively_Turtle">https://dickenssearch.com/journalism/1850-10-26-Lively_Turtle</a>. Scripto Transcription A written representation of a document. I have a comfortable property. What I spend, I spend upon myself; and what I don’t spend I save. Those are my principles. I am warmly attached to my principles, and stick to them on all occasions.  I am not, as some people have represented, a mean man. I never denied myself anything that I thought I should like to have. I may have said to myself “SNOADY” - that is my name - “you will get those peaches cheaper if you wait till next week;” or, I may have said to myself, “Snoady, you will get that wine for nothing, if you wait till you are asked out to dine;” but I never deny myself anything. If I can’t get what I want without buying it, and paying its price for it, I do buy it and pay its price for it. I have an appetite bestowed upon me; and, if I baulked it, I should consider that I was flying in the face of Providence.  I have no near relation but a brother. If he wants anything of me, he don’t get it. All men are my brothers; and I see no reason why I should make his, an exceptional case.  I live at a cathedral town where there is an old corporation. I am not in the Church, but it may be that I hold a little place of some sort. Never mind. It may be pro table. Perhaps yes, perhaps no. It may, or it may not, be a sinecure. I don’t choose to say. I never enlightened my brother on these subjects, and I consider all men my brothers. The Negro is a man and a brother - should I hold myself accountable for my position in life, to him? Certainly not.  I often run up to London. I like London. The way I look at it, is this. London is not a cheap place, but, on the whole, you can get more of the real thing for your money there - I mean the best thing, whatever it is - than you can get in most places. Therefore, I say to the man who has got the money, and wants the thing, “Go to London for it, and treat yourself.”  When I go, I do it in this manner. I go to Mrs. Skim’s Private Hotel and Commercial Lodging House, near Aldersgate Street, City, (it is advertised in “Bradshaw’s Railway Guide,” where I first found it), and there I pay, “for bed and breakfast, with meat, two and ninepence per day, including servants.” Now, I have made a calculation, and I am satisfied that Mrs. Skim cannot possibly make much profit out of me. In fact, if all her patrons were like me, my opinion is, the woman would be in the Gazette next month.  Why do I go to Mrs. Skim’s when I could go to the Clarendon, you may ask? Let us argue that point. If I went to the Clarendon I could get nothing in bed but sleep; could I? No. Now, sleep at the Clarendon is an expensive article; whereas sleep, at Mrs. Skim’s, is decidedly cheap. I have made a calculation, and I don’t hesitate to say, all things considered, that it’s cheap. Is it an inferior article, as compared with the Clarendon sleep, or is it of the same quality? I am a heavy sleeper, and it is of the same quality. Then why should I go to the Clarendon?  But as to breakfast? you may say. Very well. As to breakfast. I could get a variety of delicacies for breakfast at the Clarendon, that are out of the question at Mrs. Skim’s. Granted. But I don’t want to have them! My opinion is, that we are not entirely animal and sensual. Man has an intellect bestowed upon him. If he clogs that intellect by too good a breakfast, how can he properly exert that intellect in meditation, during the day, upon his dinner? That’s the point. We are not to enchain the soul. We are to let it soar. It is expected of us.  At Mrs. Skim’s, I get enough for breakfast (there is no limitation to the bread and butter, though there is to the meat) and not too much. I have all my faculties about me, to concentrate upon the object I have mentioned, and I can say to myself besides, “Snoady, you have saved six, eight, ten, fifteen, shillings, already to-day. If there is anything you fancy for your dinner, have it. Snoady, you have earned your reward.”  My objection to London, is, that it is the head-quarters of the worst radical sentiments that are broached in England. I consider that it has a great many dangerous people in it. I consider the present publication (if it ’s “Household Words”) very dangerous, and I write this with the view of neutralising some of its bad effects. My political creed is, let us be comfortable. We are all very comfortable as we are - I am very comfortable as I am - leave us alone!  All mankind are my brothers, and I don’t think it Christian - if you come to that - to tell my brother that he is ignorant, or degraded, or dirty, or anything of the kind. I think it’s abusive, and low: You meet me with the observation that I am required to love my brother. I reply, “I do.” I am sure I am always willing to say to my brother, “My good fellow, I love you very much; go along with you; keep to your own road; leave me to mine; whatever is, is right; whatever isn’t, is wrong; don’t make a disturbance!” It seems to me, that this is at once the whole duty of man, and the only temper to go to dinner in.  Going to dinner in this temper in the City of London, one day not long ago, after a bed at Mrs. Skim’s, with meat-breakfast and servants included, I was reminded of the observation which, if my memory does not deceive me, was formerly made by somebody on some occasion, that man may learn wisdom from the lower animals. It is a beautiful fact, in my opinion, that great wisdom is to be learnt from that noble animal the Turtle,  I had made up my mind, in the course of the day I speak of, to have a Turtle dinner. I mean a dinner mainly composed of Turtle. Just a comfortable tureen of soup, with a pint of punch; and nothing solid to follow, but a tender juicy steak. I like a tender juicy steak. I generally say to myself when I order one, “Snoady, you have done right.”  When I make up my mind to have a delicacy, expense is no consideration. The question resolves itself, then, into a question of the very best. I went to a friend of mine who is a Member of the Common Council, and with that friend I held the following conversation.  Said I to him, “Mr. Groggles, the best Turtle is where?”  Says he, “If you want a basin for lunch, my opinion is, you can’t do better than drop into Birch’s.”  Said I, “Mr. Groggles, I thought you had known me better, than to suppose me capable of a basin. My intention is to dine. A tureen.”  Says Mr. Groggles, without a moment’s consideration, and in a determined voice. “Right opposite the India House, Leadenhall Street.”  We parted. My mind was not inactive during the day, and at six in the afternoon I repaired to the house of Mr. Groggles’s recommendation. At the end of the passage, leading from the street into the coffee room, I observed a vast and solid chest, in which I then supposed that a Turtle of unusual size might be deposited. But, the correspondence between its bulk and that of the charge made for my dinner, afterwards satisfied me that it must be the till of the establishment.  I stated to the waiter what had brought me there, and I mentioned Mr. Groggles’s name. He feelingly repeated after me, “A tureen of Turtle, and a tender juicy steak.” His manner, added to the manner of Mr. Groggles in the morning, satisfied me that all was well. The atmosphere of the coffee room was odoriferous with Turtle, and the steams of thousands of gallons, consumed within its walls, hung, in savoury grease, upon their surface. I could have inscribed my name with a pen-knife, if I had been so disposed, in the essence of innumerable Turtles. I preferred to fall into a hungry reverie, brought on by the warm breath of the place, and to think of the West Indies and the Island of Ascension.  My dinner came - and went. I will draw a veil over the meal, I will put the cover on the empty tureen, and merely say that it was wonderful - and that I paid for it.  I sat meditating, when all was over, on the imperfect nature of our present existence, in which we can eat only for a limited time, when the waiter roused me with these words.  Said he to me, as he brushed the crumbs off the table, “Would you like to see the Turtle, Sir?”  “To see what Turtle, waiter?” said I (calmly) to him.  “The tanks of Turtle below, Sir,” said he to me.  Tanks of Turtle! Good Gracious! “Yes!”  The waiter lighted a candle, and conducted me down stairs to a range of vaulted apartments, cleanly whitewashed and illuminated with gas, where I saw a sight of the most astonishing and gratifying description, illustrative of the greatness of my native country. “Snoady,” was my first observation to myself, “Rule Britannia, Britannia rules the waves!”  There were two or three hundred Turtle in the vaulted apartments - all alive. Some in tanks, and some taking the air in long dry walks; littered down with straw. They were of all sizes; many of them enormous. Some of the enormous ones had entangled themselves with the smaller ones, and pushed and squeezed themselves into corners, with their fins over waterpipes, and their heads downwards, where they were apoplectically struggling and splashing, apparently in the last extremity. Others were calm at the bottom of the tanks; others languidly rising to the surface. The Turtle in the walks littered down with straw, were calm and motionless. It was a thrilling sight. I admire such a sight. It rouses my imagination. If you wish to try its effect on yours, make a call right opposite the India House any day you please - dine - pay - and ask to be taken below.  Two athletic young men, without coats, and with the sleeves of their shirts tucked up to the shoulders, were in attendance on these noble animals. One of them, wrestling with the most enormous Turtle in company, and dragging him up to the edge of the tank, for me to look at, presented an idea to me which I never had before. I ought to observe that I like an. idea. I say, when I get a new one, “Snoady, book that!”  My idea, on the present occasion, was, - Mr. Groggles! It was not a Turtle that I saw but Mr. Groggles. It was the dead image of Mr. Groggles. He was dragged up to confront me, with his waistcoat - if I may be allowed the expression - towards me; and it was identically the waistcoat, of Mr. Groggles. It was the same shape, very nearly the same colour, only wanted a gold watch-chain, and a bunch of seals, to BE the waistcoat of Mr. Groggles. There was what I should call a bursting expression about, him in general, which was accurately the expression of Mr. Groggles. I had never closely observed a Turtle’s throat before. The folds of his loose cravat, I found to be precisely those of Mr. Groggles’s cravat. Even the intelligent eye - I mean, to say, intelligent enough for a person of correct principles, and. not dangerously so - was the eye of Mr. Groggles. When the athletic young man let him go, and, with a roll of his head, he flopped heavily down into the tank, it was exactly the manner of Mr. Groggles as I have seen him ooze away into his seat, after opposing a sanitary motion in the Court of Common Council!  “Snoady,” I couldn’t help saying to myself, “you have done it. You have got an idea, Snoady, in which a great principle is involved. I congratulate you!” I followed the young man, who dragged up several Turtle to the brinks of the various tanks. I found them all the same - all varieties of Mr. Groggles - all extraordinarily like the gentlemen who usually, eat them. “Now, Snoady,” was my next remark, “what do you deduce from this?”  “Sir,” said, I, “what I deduce from this, is, confusion to those Radicals and other Revolutionists who talk about improvement. Sir,” said I, “what I deduce from this, is, that there isn’t this resemblance between the Turtles and the Groggleses for nothing. It’s meant to show mankind, that the proper model for a Groggles, is a Turtle; and that the liveliness we want in a Groggles, is the liveliness of a Turtle, and no more.” “Snoady,” was my reply to this, “You have hit it. You are right!”  I admired the idea very much, because, if I hate anything in the world, it’s change. Change has evidently no business in the world, has nothing to do with it, and isn’t intended. What we want is (as I think I have mentioned) to be comfortable. I look at it that way. Let us be comfortable, and leave us alone. Now, when the young man dragged a Groggles - mean a Turtle - out of his tank, this was exactly what the noble animal expressed as he floundered back again.  I have several friends besides Mr. Groggles in the Common Council, and it might be a week after this, when I said, “Snoady, if I was you, I would go to that court, and hear the debate to-day.” I went. A good deal of it was what I call a sound, old English discussion. One eloquent speaker objected to the French as wearing wooden shoes; and a friend of his reminded him of another objection to that foreign people, namely, that they eat frogs. I had feared, for many years, I am sorry, to say, that these wholesome principles were gone out. How delightful to find them still remaining among the great men of the City of London, in the year one thousand eight hundred and fifty! It made me think of the Lively Turtle.  But, I soon thought more of the Lively Turtle. Some Radicals and Revolutionists have penetrated even to the Common Council - which otherwise I regard as one of the last strongholds of our afflicted constitution; and speeches were made, about removing Smithfield Market - which I consider to be a part of that Constitution and about appointing a Medical Officer for the City, and about preserving the public health; and other treasonable practices, opposed to Church and State. These proposals Mr. Groggles, as might have been expected of such a man, resisted; so warmly, that, as I afterwards understood from Mrs. Groggles, he had rather a sharp attack of blood to the head that night. All the Groggles party resisted them too, and it was a fine constitutional sight to see waistcoat after waistcoat rise up in resistance of them and subside. But what struck me in the sight was this, “Snoady,” said I, “here is your idea carried out, Sir! These Radicals and Revolutionists are the athletic young men in shirt sleeves, dragging the Lively Turtle to the edges of the tank. The Groggleses are the Turtle, looking, out for a moment, and flopping down again. Honour to the Groggleses! Honour to the Court of Lively Turtle! The wisdom of the Turtle is the hope of England!”  There are three heads in the moral of what I had to say. First, Turtle and Groggles are identical; wonderfully alike externally, wonderfully alike mentally. Secondly, Turtle is a good thing every way, and the liveliness of the Turtle is intended as an example for the liveliness of man; you are not to go beyond that. Thirdly, we are all quite comfortable. Leave us alone! https://www.dickenssearch.com/files/original/8/The_1850_Christmas_Number/1850-12-21-The_1850_Christmas_Number.pdf 5bd11edf4b353e64df1bb015f854aa14 https://www.dickenssearch.com/files/original/8/The_1850_Christmas_Number/1850-12-21-A_Christmas_Tree.pdf 73f2f9fcf12f6e20d751f9db02a337bd Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Christmas Numbers Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Lydia Craig Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context christmas-numbers Scripto Transcription A written representation of a document. This collection (still in development) unites the eighteen Christmas numbers that Dickens orchestrated between 1850 and 1867 in conjunction with multiple Victorian authors, notably Wilkie Collins, and published in his periodicals Household Words and All the Year Round. After writing five Christmas books and multiple sketches on Yuletide cheer - notably 'Scenes and Characters, No. 10, Christmas Festivities', published as 'A Christmas Dinner' in Sketches by Boz (1836) - not to mention the holiday merry-making described in Pickwick Papers (1836-1837), Charles Dickens might reasonably be supposed to have had his fill of seasonal writing. However, he published a Christmas number in 1850 in HW that contained a series of sketches about Christmas, contributing 'A Christmas Tree' (1850). In the next year's Christmas number, he included the short piece 'What Christmas is, as we Grow Older' (1851). Holiday fiction, though, was what Dickens's readership seemed to crave, and the author, editor, and entrepreneur in Dickens all recognised the opportunity. In 1852, Dickens decided to develop an extra Christmas number for HW which would harness the creative talents of other writers for a series of unrelated stories told within a frame narrative of his own composition. Each year he himself would write several of these parts, generally two to three. Soon, the Christmas number became as much of an expected holiday tradition among Victorian subscribers as had been the Christmas books. All in all, eighteen Christmas numbers of this kind resulted (1850-1867); nine published in HW and nine in ATYR.  <div style="text-align: center;">Extra Christmas Numbers - Household Words</div> On 24 December 1852, Dickens published A Round of Stories by the Christmas Fire. Personally, he had written 'The Poor Relation's Story' (No.1) and 'The Child's Story' (No.2) with successive stories authored by other contributors, though no names appeared. What would have been the 1853 extra number was late, published instead on 18 February 1854, a circumstance that would not occur again until the 1864 Christmas number. This time, Dickens published more short stories by himself and others, contributing 'The Schoolboy's Story' and 'Nobody's Story', but the Christmas number, for once, lacked a frame narrative or overarching title, though it would come to be known as Another Round of Stories by the Christmas Fire. 25 December 1854 saw The Seven Poor Travellers, with Dickens penning 'The First' (No.1) and 'The Road' (No.7). By writing the first and last stories in the collection, he, as editor, might steer the entire composition towards a cohesive conclusion.  Next, Dickens wrote 'The Guest' (No.1), 'The Boots' (No.3), and 'The Bill' (No.7) as part of The Holly-Tree Inn (15 December 1855). The Wreck of the 'Golden Mary' followed on 25 December 1856, with Dickens composing only 'The Wreck' (No.1), a lengthy description of a shipwreck which sets up the framing narrative. Next, Dickens collaborated with Wilkie Collins on The Perils of Certain English Prisoners, and their Treasure in Women, Children, Silver, and Jewels (7 December 1857), Dickens writing 'The Island of Silver-Store' (No.1) and 'The Rafts on the River' (No.3) with Collins contributing the second chapter. Rounding out the extra Christmas numbers for HW, A House to Let appeared on 7 December 1858, with Dickens authoring 'Going into Society' (No.3). The last issue of HW appeared on 28 May 1859, with the journal virtually concluded, due to disagreements with Dickens's publishers Bradbury and Evans, though it was symbolically folded into ATYR. <div style="text-align: center;">Extra Christmas Numbers - All the Year Round</div> After Dickens launched his new journal ATYR on 30 April 1859, Christmas remained house-themed with the extra Christmas number The Haunted House (13 December 1859). It featured three offerings from him, 'The Mortals in the House' (No.1), 'The Ghost in Master B's Room' (No.6), and 'The Ghost in the Corner Room' (No.8). Yet Dickens continued to experiment with his holiday themes. He would write 'The Village' (No.1), 'The Money' (No.2), and 'The Restitution' (No.5) for A Message from the Sea, published on 25 December 1860, a story about a New England mariner, Captain Jorgan, who seeks to discover the truth about the origin of a Welsh family's mysterious nest-egg.  For Tom Tiddler's Ground, published 25 December 1861, Dickens produced 'Picking up Soot and Cinders' (No.1), 'Picking up Miss Kimmeens' (No.6), and 'Picking up the Tinker' (No. 7). An impressive four parts of Somebody's Luggage (4 December 1862), 'His Leaving it Till Called For' (No.1), 'His Boots' (No.2), 'His Brown-Paper Parcel' (No.7), and 'His Wonderful End' (No. 10) were produced by Dickens, who notably portrays himself in the story as a character, in his capacity as AYTR editor, to amusing effect. Two subsequent Christmas numbers, Mrs. Lirriper's Lodgings (25 December 1863) and Mrs. Lirriper's Legacy' (12 January 1864), concern the life and activities of a generous landlady who adopts a young boy and raises him with the help of her gallant lodger, Major Jackman. The former contained Dickens's two introductory and conclusion chapters, 'How Mrs. Lirriper carried on the Business' (No.1) and 'How the Parlours added a few words' (No.6), while the latter featured 'Mrs. Lirriper relates how she went on, and went over' (No.1) and 'Mrs. Lirriper relates how Jimmy topped up' (No.7), a story including a jaunt to France, with identical placement at the beginning and end of the number. Doctor Marigold's Prescriptions appeared in 1865, with Mugby Junction following in 1866; both frame narratives deal with themes of disability and poverty. For the first, Dickens contributed 'To be Taken Immediately' (No.1), 'To be Taken with a Grain of Salt' (No.6), and 'To be Taken for Life' (No.8); for the latter, he wrote 'Barbox Brothers' (No.1), 'Barbox Brothers and Co.' (No.2), 'Main Line. The Boy at Mugby' (No.3), and 'No.1 Branch Line. The Signal-man' (No.4). For the final Christmas number, No Thoroughfare (12 December 1867), Dickens collaborated with Collins on an imaginative European thriller that ranges from orphanages and offices in London to hotels and precipices in the Swiss Alps. Dickens is known to have primarily written most of The Overture, Act I, Act III, with Collins taking Act 2. Both collaborated on Acts IV and V. However, they deliberately interspersed passages into each other's parts to confuse readers as to which author had written which 'Acts' (Slater, Charles Dickens, pp. 569-573). Consequently, we have merely transcribed the Christmas number in its entirety, as a collaboration. Though Dickens considered beginning a Christmas number in 1868, his other activities, coupled with failing health, led him to gratefully relinquish the idea. Instead, he would eventually go on to attempt another novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood (1870), evidently sensing the public's interest in the detective genre, one which he and Collins had, more or less, pioneered with their respective novels Bleak House (1853) (Inspector Bucket) and The Moonstone (1868) (Sergeant Cuff). His mind may also have been running on the mysterious plot of No Thoroughfare, with its malevolent villain, though he did not live to see the plot through to its conclusion. While building this collection, we have consulted, and transcribed scans from Dickens Journals Online; all items are linked to their original location on the internet. With the exception of No Thoroughfare, transcripts have been made only of parts of numbers Dickens is known to have authored. Lists of writers known to have authored chapters or portions of these extra Christmas numbers have been added to the metadata of each item (Klimaszewski, Appendix A).  Please contact us with any errors, corrections, and suggestions. 1. See Melisa Klimaszewski. Collaborative Dickens: Authorship and Victorian Christmas Periodicals (Ohio University Press, 2019); Jude Piesse. 'Dreaming Across Oceans: Emigration and Nation in the Mid-Victorian Christmas Issue'. Victorian Periodicals Review 46.1 (Spring 2013): 37-60; Robert Tracy. '"A Whimsical Kind of Masque": The Christmas Books and Victorian Spectacle'. Dickens Studies Annual 27 (1998): 113-30; Deborah A. Thomas. 'The Chord of the Christmas Season'. In Dickens and the Short Story (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1982): pp. 62-93; Sarah A. Solberg. '"Text Dropped into the Woodcuts": Dickens's Christmas Books'. Dickens Studies Annual 8 (1980): pp. 103-18; Ruth Glancy. 'Dickens and Christmas: His Framed-Tale Themes'. Nineteenth-Century Fiction 35.1 (June 1980): pp. 53-72; Thomas. 'Contributors to the Christmas Numbers of Household Words and All the Year Round, 1850-1867.' Part I. The Dickensian 70.372 (1973): pp. 163-72. and Part II. TD 70 (1974): pp. 21-29; 'Messages in Bottles and Collins's Seafaring Man'. Anthea Trodd. SEL: Studies in English Literature 41.4 (Autumn 2002), pp. 751-64; Susan Shatto. 'Miss Havisham and Mr. Mopes the Hermit: Dickens and the Mentally Ill'. (Part One) Dickens Quarterly 2.2 (June 1985): pp. 43-50 and (Part Two) DQ 2.3 (September 1985): pp. 79-84; Molly Boggs. '"Given to you by nature for an enemy": The landlady in mid-century London'. Journal of Victorian Culture 23.3 (2018): pp. 310-331; Thomas. 'Dickens' Mrs. Lirriper and the Evolution of a Feminine Stereotype'. Dickens Studies Annual 6 (1977): 154-169; Martha Stoddard Holmes. '"Happy and Yet Pitying Tears": Deafness and Affective Disjuncture in Dickens's Doctor Marigold'. Victorian Review 35.2 (Fall 2009): 53-64; Diana C. Archibald. 'Dickens's Visit to the Perkins School and Doctor Marigold'. Dickens and Massachusetts: The Lasting Legacy of the Commonwealth Visits. Eds. Archibald and Joel J. Brattin (University of Massachusetts, 2015): pp. 123-33; Anne Chapman. '"I am not going on": Negotiating Christmas Publishing Rhythms with Dickens's Mugby Junction'. Victorian Periodicals Review 51.1 (2018): 70-85; Samia Ounoughi. 'The Swiss Alps and Character Framing in No Thoroughfare'. Ed. Maxime Leroy. In Charles Dickens and Europe. Cambridge Scholars Publishing; 2013. pp. 114-25; Lillian Nayder. Unequal Partners: Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins, and Victorian Authorship (Cornell University Press, 2002). Michael Hollington. '"To the Droodstone": Or, From The Moonstone to Edwin Drood via No Thoroughfare'. Q/W/E/R/T/Y: Arts, Littératures & Civilisations du Monde Anglophone 5 (1995): 141-9.  Short Story Publication Type E.g. newspaper/serial Periodical Publication The title of the newspaper/serial (if applicable) Household Words Ngram Date Hidden from users and search. All items in a collection need to have the same data in the same format in order to show up in Ngram (either YYYY, YYYYMMDD, or YYYYMMDD). No combinations will work. For journalism, letters and poetry, if there is no month or day, default to the first of the month or January. So a poem with a date of March 1843 would be 18430301. A poem published in 1856 with no month or date information would be 18560101. 18501221 Ngram Text Hidden from users and search. Copy and paste from the Scripto transcription. Then check and uncheck HTML to strip out all formatting. Finally, search and remove any   (which is the HTML for spaces). This will prevent the Ngram picking up on irrelevant HTML. I have been looking on, this evening, at a merry company of children assembled round that pretty German toy, a Christmas Tree. The tree was planted in the middle of a great round table, and towered high above their heads. It was brilliantly lighted by a multitude of little tapers; and everywhere sparkled and glittered with bright objects. There were rosy-cheeked dolls, hiding behind the green leaves; there were real watches (with movable hands, at least, and an endless capacity of being wound up) dangling from innumerable twigs; there were French-polished tables, chairs, bedsteads, wardrobes, eight-day clocks, and various other articles of domestic furniture (wonderfully made, in tin, at Wolverhampton), perched among the boughs, as if in preparation for some fairy housekeeping; there were jolly, broad-faced little men, much more agreeable in appearance than many real men—and no wonder, for their heads took off, and showed them to be full of sugar-plums; there were fiddles and drums; there were tambourines, books, work-boxes, paint-boxes, sweetmeat-boxes, peep-show boxes, all kinds of boxes; there were trinkets for the elder girls, far brighter than any grown-up gold and jewels; there were baskets and pincushions in all devices; there were guns, swords, and banners; there were witches standing in enchanted rings of pasteboard, to tell fortunes; there were teetotums, humming-tops, needle-cases, pen-wipers, smelling-bottles, conversation cards, bouquet-holders; real fruit, made artificially dazzling with gold leaf; imitation apples, pears, and walnuts, crammed with surprises; in short, as a pretty child, before me, delightedly whispered to another pretty child, her bosom friend, "There was everything, and more." This motley collection of odd objects, clustering on the tree like magic fruit, and flashing back the bright looks directed towards it from every side—some of the diamond-eyes admiring it were hardly on a level with the table, and a few were languishing in timid wonder on the bosoms of pretty mothers, aunts, and nurses—made a lively realisation of the fancies of childhood; and set me thinking how all the trees that grow and all the things that come into existence on the earth, have their wild adornments at that well-remembered time. Being now at home again, and alone, the only person in the house awake, my thoughts are drawn back, by a fascination which I do not care to resist, to my own childhood. I begin to consider, what do we all remember best upon the branches of the Christmas Tree of our own young Christmas days, by which we climbed to real life. Straight, in the middle of the room, cramped in the freedom of its growth by no encircling walls or soon-reached ceiling, a shadowy tree arises; and, looking up into the dreamy brightness of its top—for I observe, in this tree, the singular property that it appears to grow downward towards the earth—I look into my youngest Christmas recollections! All toys at first, I find. Up yonder, among the green holly and red berries, is the Tumbler with his hands in his pockets, who wouldn't lie down, but whenever he was put upon the floor, persisted in rolling his fat body about, until he rolled himself still, and brought those lobster eyes of his to bear upon me—when I affected to laugh very much, but in my heart of hearts was extremely doubtful of him. Close beside him is that infernal snuff-box, out of which there sprang a demoniacal Counsellor in a black gown, with an obnoxious head of hair, and a red cloth mouth, wide open, who was not to be endured on any terms, but could not be put away either; for he used suddenly, in a highly magnified state, to fly out of Mammoth Snuff-boxes in dreams, when least expected. Nor is the frog with cobbler's wax on his tail, far off; for there was no knowing where he wouldn't jump; and when he flew over the candle, and came upon one's hand with that spotted back—red on a green ground—he was horrible. The cardboard lady in a blue-silk skirt, who was stood up against the candlestick to dance, and whom I see on the same branch, was milder, and was beautiful; but I can't say as much for the larger cardboard man, who used to be hung against the wall and pulled by a string; there was a sinister expression in that nose of his; and when he got his legs round his neck (which he very often did), he was ghastly, and not a creature to be alone with. When did that dreadful Mask first look at me? Who put it on, and why was I so frightened that the sight of it is an era in my life? It is not a hideous visage in itself; it is even meant to be droll; why then were its stolid features so intolerable? Surely not because it hid the wearer's face. An apron would have done as much; and though I should have preferred even the apron away, it would not have been absolutely insupportable, like the mask? Was it the immovability of the mask? The doll's face was immovable, but I was not afraid of her. Perhaps that fixed and set change coming over a real face, infused into my quickened heart some remote suggestion and dread of the universal change that is to come on every face, and make it still? Nothing reconciled me to it. No drummers, from whom proceeded a melancholy chirping on the turning of a handle; no regiment of soldiers, with a mute band, taken out of a box, and fitted, one by one, upon a stiff and lazy little set of lazy-tongs; no old woman, made of wires and a brown-paper composition, cutting up a pie for two small children; could give me permanent comfort, for a long time. Nor was it any satisfaction to be shown the Mask, and see that it was made of paper, or to have it locked up and be assured that no one wore it. The mere recollection of that fixed face, the mere knowledge of its existence anywhere, was sufficient to awake me in the night all perspiration and horror, with " O I know it's coming! O the mask!" I never wondered what the dear old donkey with the panniers—there he is!—was made of, then! His hide was real to the touch, I recollect. And the great black horse with round red spots all over him—the horse that I could even get upon—I never wondered what had brought him to that strange condition, or thought that such a horse was not commonly seen at Newmarket. The four horses of no colour, next to him, that went into the waggon of cheeses, and could be taken out and stabled under the piano, appear to have bits of fur-tippet for their tails, and other bits for their manes, and to stand on pegs instead of legs, but it was not so when they were brought home for a Christmas present. They were all right, then; neither was their harness unceremoniously nailed into their chests, as appears to be the case now. The tinkling works of the music-cart, I did find out, to be made of quill tooth-picks and wire; and I always thought that little tumbler in his shirt sleeves, perpetually swarming up one side of a wooden frame, and coming down, head foremost, on the other, rather a weak-minded person—though good-natured; but the Jacob's Ladder, next him, made of little squares of red wood, that went flapping and clattering over one another, each developing a different picture, and the whole enlivened by small bells, was a mighty marvel and a great delight. Ah! The Doll's house!—of which I was not proprietor, but where I visited. I don't admire the Houses of Parliament half so much as that stone-fronted mansion with real glass windows, and door-steps, and a real balcony—greener than I ever see now, except at watering-places; and even they afford but a poor imitation. And though it did open all at once, the entire house-front (which was a blow, I admit, as cancelling the fiction of a staircase), it was but to shut it up again, and I could believe. Even open, there were three distinct rooms in it: a sitting-room and bedroom, elegantly furnished, and, best of all, a kitchen, with uncommonly soft fire-irons, a plentiful assortment of diminutive utensils— oh, the warming-pan!—and a tin man-cook in profile, who was always going to fry two fish. What Barmecide justice have I done to the noble feasts wherein the set of wooden platters figured, each with its own peculiar delicacy, as a ham or turkey, glued tight on to it, and garnished with something green, which I recollect as moss! Could all the Temperance Societies of these later days, united, give me such a tea-drinking as I have had through the means of yonder little set of blue crockery, which really would hold liquid (it ran out of the small wooden cask, I recollect, and tasted of matches), and which made tea, nectar. And if the two legs of the ineffectual little sugar-tongs did tumble over one another, and want purpose, like Punch's hands, what does it matter? And if I did once shriek out, as a poisoned child, and strike the fashionable company with consternation, by reason of having drunk a little teaspoon, inadvertently dissolved in too hot tea, I was never the worse for it, except by a powder! Upon the next branches of the tree, lower down, hard by the green roller and miniature gardening-tools, how thick the books begin to hang. Thin books, in themselves, at first, but many of them, and with deliciously smooth covers of bright red or green. What fat black letters to begin with! " A was an archer, and shot at a frog." Of course he was. He was an apple-pie also, and there he is! He was a good many things in his time, was A, and so were most of his friends, except X, who had so little versatility, that I never knew him to get beyond Xerxes or Xantippe—like Y, who was always confined to a Yacht or a Yew Tree; and Z condemned for ever to be a Zebra or a Zany. But, now, the very tree itself changes, and becomes a bean-stalk—the marvellous bean-stalk up which Jack climbed to the Giant's house! And now, those dreadfully interesting, double-headed giants, with their clubs over their shoulders, begin to stride along the boughs in a perfect throng, dragging knights and ladies home for dinner by the hair of their heads. And Jack—how noble, with his sword of sharpness, and his shoes of swiftness! Again those old meditations come upon me as I gaze up at him; and I debate within myself whether there was more than one Jack (which I am loth to believe possible), or only one genuine original admirable Jack, who achieved all the recorded exploits. Good for Christmas time is the ruddy color of the cloak, in which—the tree making a forest of itself for her to trip through, with her basket—Little Red Riding-Hood comes to me one Christmas Eve, to give me information of the cruelty and treachery of that dissembling Wolf who ate her grandmother, without making any impression on his appetite, and then ate her, after making that ferocious joke about his teeth. She was my first love. I felt that if I could have married Little Red Riding-Hood, I should have known perfect bliss. But, it was not to be; and there was nothing for it but to look out the Wolf in the Noah's Ark there, and put him late in the procession on the table, as a monster who was to be degraded. O the wonderful Noah's Ark! It was not found seaworthy when put in a washing-tub, and the animals were crammed in at the roof, and needed to have their legs well shaken down before they could be got in, even there—and then, ten to one but they began to tumble out at the door, which was but imperfectly fastened with a wire latch—but what was that against it! Consider the noble fly, a size or two smaller than the elephant: the lady-bird, the butterfly—all triumphs of art! Consider the goose, whose feet were so small, and whose balance was so indifferent, that he usually tumbled forward, and knocked down all the animal creation. Consider Noah and his family, like idiotic tobacco-stoppers; and how the leopard stuck to warm little fingers; and how the tails of the larger animals used gradually to resolve themselves into frayed bits of string! Hush! Again a forest, and somebody up in a tree—not Robin Hood, not Valentine, not the Yellow Dwarf (I have passed him and all Mother Bunch's wonders, without mention), but an Eastern King with a glittering scimitar and turban. By Allah! two Eastern Kings, for I see another, looking over his shoulder! Down upon the grass, at the tree's foot, lies the full length of a coal-black Giant, stretched asleep, with his head in a lady's lap; and near them is a glass box, fastened with four locks of shining steel, in which he keeps the lady prisoner when he is awake. I see the four keys at his girdle now. The lady makes signs to the two kings in the tree, who softly descend. It is the setting-in of the bright Arabian Nights. Oh, now all common things become uncommon and enchanted to me! All lamps are wonderful; all rings are talismans. Common flower-pots are full of treasure, with a little earth scattered on the top; trees are for Ali Baba to hide in; beef-steaks are to throw down into the Valley of Diamonds, that the precious stones may stick to them, and be carried by the eagles to their nests, whence the traders, with loud cries, will scare them. Tarts are made, according to the recipe of the Vizier's son of Bussorah, who turned pastrycook after he was set down in his drawers at the gate of Damascus; cobblers are all Mustaphas, and in the habit of sewing up people cut into four pieces, to whom they are taken blindfold. Any iron ring let into stone is the entrance to a cave, which only waits for the magician, and the little fire, and the necromancy, that will make the earth shake. All the dates imported come from the same tree as that unlucky date, with whose shell the merchant knocked out the eye of the genie's invisible son. All olives are of the stock of that fresh fruit, concerning which the Commander of the Faithful overheard the boy conduct the fictitious trial of the fraudulent olive merchant; all apples are akin to the apple purchased (with two others) from the Sultan's gardener, for three sequins, and which the tall black slave stole from the child. All dogs are associated with the dog, really a transformed man, who jumped upon the baker's counter, and put his paw on the piece of bad money. All rice recals the rice which the awful lady, who was a ghoule, could only peck by grains, because of her nightly feasts in the burial-place. My very rocking-horse,—there he is, with his nostrils turned completely inside-out, indicative of Blood!—should have a peg in his neck, by virtue thereof to fly away with me, as the wooden horse did with the Prince of Persia, in the sight of all his father's Court. Yes, on every object that I recognise among those upper branches of my Christmas Tree, I see this fairy light! When I wake in bed, at daybreak, on the cold dark winter mornings, the white snow dimly beheld, outside, through the frost on the window-pane, I hear Dinarzade. " Sister, sister, if you are yet awake, I pray you finish the history of the Young King of the Black Islands." Scheherazade replies, "If my lord the Sultan will suffer me to live another day, sister, I will not only finish that, but tell you a more wonderful story yet." Then, the gracious Sultan goes out, giving no orders for the execution, and we all three breathe again. At this height of my tree I begin to see, cowering among the leaves—it may be born of turkey, or of pudding, or mince pie, or of these many fancies, jumbled with Robinson Crusoe on his desert island, Philip Quarll among the monkeys, Sandford and Merton with Mr. Barlow, Mother Bunch, and the Mask—or it may be the result of indigestion, assisted by imagination and over-doctoring—a prodigious nightmare. It is so exceedingly indistinct, that I don't know why it's frightful but I know it is. I can only make out that it is an immense array of shapeless things, which appear to be planted on a vast exaggeration of the lazy- tongs that used to bear the toy soldiers, and to be slowly coming close to my eyes, and receding to an immeasurable distance. When it comes closest, it is worst. In connection with it, I descry remembrances of winter nights incredibly long; of being sent early to bed, as a punishment for some small offence, and waking in two hours, with a sensation of having been asleep two nights; of the leaden hopelessness of morning ever dawning; and the oppression of a weight of remorse. And now, I see a wonderful row of little lights rise smoothly out of the ground, before a vast green curtain. Now, a bell rings—a magic bell, which still sounds in my ears unlike all other bells—and music plays, amidst a buzz of voices, and a fragrant smell of orange-peel and oil. Anon, the magic bell commands the music to cease, and the great green curtain rolls itself up majestically, and The Play begins! The devoted dog of Montargis avenges the death of his master, foully murdered in the Forest of Bondy; and a humorous Peasant with a red nose and a very little hat, whom I take from this hour forth to my bosom as a friend (I think he was a Waiter or an Hostler at a village Inn, but many years have passed since he and I have met), remarks that the sassigassity of that dog is indeed surprising; and evermore this jocular conceit will live in my remembrance fresh and unfading, overtopping all possible jokes, unto the end of time. Or now, I learn with bitter tears how poor Jane Shore, dressed all in white, and with her brown hair hanging down, went starving through the streets; or how George Barnwell killed the worthiest uncle that ever man had, and was afterwards so sorry for it that he ought to have been let off. Comes swift to comfort me, the Pantomime—stupendous Phenomenon!—when Clowns are shot from loaded mortars into the great chandelier, bright constellation that it is; when Harlequins, covered all over with scales of pure gold, twist and sparkle, like amazing fish; when Pantaloon (whom I deem it no irreverence to compare in my own mind to my grandfather) puts red-hot pokers in his pocket, and cries "Here's somebody coming!" or taxes the Clown with petty larceny, by saying "Now, I sawed you do it!" when Everything is capable, with the greatest ease, of being changed into Anything; and "Nothing is, but thinking makes it so." Now, too, I perceive my first experience of the dreary sensation—often to return in after-life—of being unable, next day, to get back to the dull, settled world; of wanting to live for ever in the bright atmosphere I have quitted; of doting on the little Fairy, with the wand like a celestial Barber's Pole, and pining for a Fairy immortality along with her. Ah she comes back, in many shapes, as my eye wanders down the branches of my Christmas Tree, and goes as often, and has never yet stayed by me! Out of this delight springs the toy-theatre,—there it is, with its familiar proscenium, and ladies in feathers, in the boxes!—and all its attendant occupation with paste and glue, and gum, and water colors, in the getting-up of The Miller and his Men, and Elizabeth, or the Exile of Siberia. In spite of a few besetting accidents and failures (particularly an unreasonable disposition in the respectable Kelmar, and some others, to become faint in the legs, and double up, at exciting points of the drama), a teeming world of fancies so suggestive and all-embracing, that, far below it on my Christmas Tree, I see dark, dirty, real Theatres in the day-time, adorned with these associations as with the freshest garlands of the rarest flowers, and charming me yet. But hark! The Waits are playing, and they break my childish sleep! What images do I associate with the Christmas music as I see them set forth on the Christmas Tree? Known before all the others, keeping far apart from all the others, they gather round my little bed. An angel, speaking to a group of shepherds in a field; some travellers, with eyes uplifted, following a star; a baby in a manger; a child in a spacious temple, talking with grave men; a solemn figure, with a mild and beautiful face, raising a dead girl by the hand; again, near a city-gate, calling back the son of a widow, on his bier, to life; a crowd of people looking through the opened roof of a chamber where he sits, and letting down a sick person on a bed, with ropes; the same, in a tempest, walking on the water to a ship; again, on a sea-shore, teaching a great multitude; again, with a child upon his knee, and other children round; again, restoring sight to the blind, speech to the dumb, hearing to the deaf, health to the sick, strength to the lame, knowledge to the ignorant; again, dying upon a Cross, watched by armed soldiers, a thick darkness coming on, the earth beginning to shake, and only one voice heard. " Forgive them, for they know not what they do!" Still, on the lower and maturer branches of the Tree, Christmas associations cluster thick. School-books shut up; Ovid and Virgil silenced; the Rule of Three, with its cool impertinent enquiries, long disposed of; Terence and Plautus acted no more, in an arena of huddled desks and forms, all chipped, and notched, and inked; cricket-bats, stumps, and balls, left higher up, with the smell of trodden grass and the softened noise of shouts in the evening air; the tree is still fresh, still gay. If I no more come home at Christmas time, there will be girls and boys (thank Heaven!) while the World lasts; and they do! Yonder they dance and play upon the branches of my Tree, God bless them, merrily, and my heart dances and plays too! And I do come home at Christmas. We all do, or we all should. We all come home, or ought to come home, for a short holiday—the longer, the better—from the great boarding-school, where we are for ever working at our arithmetical slates, to take, and give a rest. As to going a visiting, where can we not go, if we will; where have we not been, when we would; starting our fancy from our Christmas Tree! Away into the winter prospect. There are many such upon the tree! On, by low-lying misty grounds, through fens and fogs, up long hills, winding dark as caverns between thick plantations, almost shutting out the sparkling stars; so, out on broad heights, until we stop at last, with sudden silence, at an avenue. The gate-bell has a deep, half-awful sound in the frosty air; the gate swings open on its hinges; and, as we drive up to a great house, the glancing lights grow larger in the windows, and the opposing rows of trees seem to fall solemnly back on either side, to give us place. At intervals, all day, a frightened hare has shot across this whitened turf; or the distant clatter of a herd of deer trampling the hard frost, has, for the minute, crushed the silence too. Their watchful eyes beneath the fern may be shining now, if we could see them, like the icy dewdrops on the leaves; but they are still, and all is still. And so, the lights growing larger, and the trees falling back before us, and closing up again behind us, as if to forbid retreat, we come to the house. There is probably a smell of roasted chestnuts and other good comfortable things all the time, for we are telling Winter Stories—Ghost Stories, or more shame for us—round the Christmas fire; and we have never stirred, except to draw a little nearer to it. But, no matter for that. We came to the house, and it is an old house, full of great chimneys where wood is burnt on ancient dogs upon the hearth, and grim Portraits (some of them with grim Legends, too) lower distrustfully from the oaken panels of the walls. We are a middle-aged nobleman, and we make a generous supper with our host and hostess and their guests—it being Christmas-time, and the old house full of company—and then we go to bed. Our room is a very old room. It is hung with tapestry. We don't like the portrait of a cavalier in green, over the fireplace. There are great black beams in the ceiling, and there is a great black bedstead, supported at the foot by two great black figures, who seem to have come off a couple of tombs in the old Baronial Church in the Park, for our particular accommodation. But, we are not a superstitious nobleman, and we don't mind. Well! we dismiss our servant, lock the door, and sit before the fire in our dressing-gown, musing about a great many things. At length we go to bed. Well! we can't sleep. We toss and tumble, and can't sleep. The embers on the hearth burn fitfully and make the room look ghostly. We can't help peeping out over the counterpane, at the two black figures and the cavalier— that wicked-looking cavalier—in green. In the flickering light, they seem to advance and retire: which, though we are not by any means a superstitious nobleman, is not agreeable. Well! we get nervous—more and more nervous. We say "This is very foolish, but we can't stand this; we'll pretend to be ill, and knock up somebody." Well! we are just going to do it, when the locked door opens, and there comes in a young woman, deadly pale, and with long fair hair, who glides to the fire, and sits down in the chair we have left there, wringing her hands. Then, we notice that her clothes are wet. Our tongue cleaves to the roof of our mouth, and we can't speak; but, we observe her accurately. Her clothes are wet; her long hair is dabbled with moist mud; she is dressed in the fashion of two hundred years ago; and she has at her girdle a bunch of rusty keys. Well! there she sits, and we can't even faint, we are in such a state about it. Presently she gets up, and tries all the locks in the room with the rusty keys, which won't fit one of them; then, she fixes her eyes on the Portrait of the Cavalier in green, and says, in a low, terrible voice, "The stags know it!" After that, she wrings her hands again, passes the bedside, and goes out at the door. We hurry on our dressing-gown, seize our pistols (we always travel with pistols), and are following, when we find the door locked. We turn the key, look out into the dark gallery; no one there. We wander away, and try to find our servant. Can't be done. We pace the gallery till daybreak; then return to our deserted room, fall asleep, and are awakened by our servant (nothing ever haunts him) and the shining sun. Well! we make a wretched breakfast, and all the company say we look queer. After breakfast, we go over the house with our host, and then we take him to the Portrait of the Cavalier in green, and then it all comes out. He was false to a young housekeeper once attached to that family, and famous for her beauty, who drowned herself in a pond, and whose body was discovered, after a long time, because the stags refused to drink of the water. Since which, it has been whispered that she traverses the house at midnight (but goes especially to that room where the Cavalier in green was wont to sleep), trying the old locks with her rusty keys. Well! we tell our host of what we have seen, and a shade comes over his features, and he begs it may be hushed up; and so it is. But, it's all true; and we said so, before we died (we are dead now) to many responsible people. There is no end to the old houses, with resounding galleries, and dismal state-bed-chambers, and haunted wings shut up for many years, through which we may ramble, with an agreeable creeping up our back, and encounter any number of Ghosts, but, (it is worthy of remark perhaps) reducible to a very few general types and classes; for, Ghosts have little originality, and "walk" in a beaten track. Thus, it comes to pass, that a certain room in a certain old hall, where a certain bad Lord, Baronet, Knight, or Gentleman, shot himself, has certain planks in the floor from which the blood will not be taken out. You may scrape and scrape, as the present owner has done, or plane and plane, as his father did, or scrub and scrub, as his grandfather did, or burn and burn with strong acids, as his great-grandfather did, but, there the blood will still be—no redder and no paler—no more and no less—always just the same. Thus, in such another house there is a haunted door, that never will keep open; or another door that never will keep shut; or a haunted sound of a spinning-wheel, or a hammer, or a footstep, or a cry, or a sigh, or a horse's tramp, or the rattling of a chain. Or else, there is a turret-clock, which, at the midnight hour, strikes thirteen when the head of the family is going to die; or a shadowy, immovable black carriage which at such a time is always seen by somebody, waiting near the great gates in the stable- yard. Or thus, it came to pass how Lady Mary went to pay a visit at a large wild house in the Scottish Highlands, and, being fatigued with her long journey, retired to bed early, and innocently said, next morning, at the breakfast-table, "How odd, to have so late a party last night, in this remote place, and not to tell me of it, before I went to bed!" Then, every one asked Lady Mary what she meant? Then, Lady Mary replied, "Why, all night long, the carriages were driving round and round the terrace, underneath my window!" Then, the owner of the house turned pale, and so did his Lady, and Charles Macdoodle of Macdoodle signed to Lady Mary to say no more, and every one was silent. After breakfast, Charles Macdoodle told Lady Mary that it was a tradition in the family that those rumbling carriages on the terrace betokened death. And so it proved, for, two months afterwards, the Lady of the mansion died. And Lady Mary, who was a Maid of Honour at Court, often told this story to the old Queen Charlotte; by this token that the old King always said, "Eh, eh? What, what? Ghosts, Ghosts? No such thing, no such thing!" And never left off saying so, until he went to bed. Or, a friend of somebody's, whom most of us know, when he was a young man at college, had a particular friend, with whom he made the compact that, if it were possible for the Spirit to return to this earth after its separation from the body, he of the twain who first died, should reappear to the other. In course of time, this compact was forgotten by our friend; the two young men having progressed in life, and taken diverging paths that were wide asunder. But, one night, many years afterwards, our friend, being in the North of England, and staying for the night in an Inn, on the Yorkshire Moors, happened to look out of bed; and there, in the moonlight, leaning on a Bureau near the window, stedfastly regarding him, saw his old College friend! The appearance being solemnly addressed, replied, in a kind of whisper, but very audibly, "Do not come near me. I am dead. I am here to redeem my promise. I come from another world, but may not disclose its secrets!" Then, the whole form becoming paler, melted, as it were, into the moonlight, and faded away. Or, there was the daughter of the first occupier of the picturesque Elizabethan house, so famous in our neighbourhood. You have heard about her? No! Why, She went out one summer evening, at twilight, when she was a beautiful girl, just seventeen years of age, to gather flowers in the garden; and presently came running, terrified, into the hall to her father, saying, "Oh, dear father, I have met myself!" He took her in his arms, and told her it was fancy, but she said "Oh no! I met myself in the broad walk, and I was pale and gathering withered flowers, and I turned my head, and held them up!" And, that night, she died; and a picture of her story was begun, though never finished, and they say it is somewhere in the house to this day, with its face to the wall. Or, the uncle of my brother's wife was riding home on horseback, one mellow evening at sunset, when, in a green lane close to his own house, he saw a man, standing before him, in the very centre of the narrow way. "Why does that man in the cloak stand there!" he thought. "Does he want me to ride over him?" But the figure never moved. He felt a strange sensation at seeing it so still, but slackened his trot and rode forward. When he was so close to it, as almost to touch it with his stirrup, his horse shied, and the figure glided up the bank, in a curious, unearthly manner—backward, and without seeming to use its feet—and was gone. The uncle of my brother's wife, exclaiming, "Good Heaven! It's my cousin Harry, from Bombay!" put spurs to his horse, which was suddenly in a profuse sweat, and, wondering at such strange behaviour, dashed round to the front of his house. There, he saw the same figure, just passing in at the long french window of the drawing-room, opening on the ground. He threw his bridle to a servant, and hastened in after it. His sister was sitting there, alone. "Alice, where's my cousin Harry?" "Your cousin Harry, John?" "Yes. From Bombay. I met him in the lane just now, and saw him enter here, this instant." Not a creature had been seen by any one; and in that hour and minute, as it afterwards appeared, this cousin died in India. Or, it was a certain sensible old maiden lady, who died at ninety-nine, and retained her faculties to the last, who really did see the Orphan Boy; a story which has often been incorrectly told, but, of which the real truth is this—because it is, in fact, a story belonging to our family—and she was a connexion of our family. When she was about forty years of age, and still an uncommonly fine woman (her lover died young, which was the reason why she never married, though she had many offers), she went to stay at a place in Kent, which her brother, an India-Merchant, had newly bought. There was a story that this place had once been held in trust, by the guardian of a young boy: who was himself the next heir, and who killed the young boy by harsh and cruel treatment. She knew nothing of that. It has been said that there was a Cage in her bed-room in which the guardian used to put the boy. There was no such thing. There was only a closet. She went to bed, made no alarm whatever in the night, and in the morning said composedly to her maid when she came in, "Who is the pretty forlorn-looking child who has been peeping out of that closet all night? " The maid replied by giving a loud scream, and instantly decamping. She was surprised; but, she was a woman of remarkable strength of mind, and she dressed herself and went down stairs, and closeted herself with her brother. "Now, Walter," she said, "I have been disturbed all night by a pretty, forlorn-looking boy, who has been constantly peeping out of that closet in my room, which I can't open. This is some trick." "I am afraid not, Charlotte," said he, "for it is the legend of the house. It is the Orphan Boy. What did he do?" "He opened the door softly," said she, "and peeped out. Sometimes, he came a step or two into the room. Then, I called to him, to encourage him, and he shrunk, and shuddered, and crept in again, and shut the door." "The closet has no communication, Charlotte," said her brother, "with any other part of the house, and it's nailed up." This was undeniably true, and it took two carpenters a whole fore-noon to get it open, for examination. Then, she was satisfied that she had seen the Orphan Boy. But, the wild and terrible part of the story is, that he was also seen by three of her brother's sons, in succession, who all died young. On the occasion of each child being taken ill, he came home in a heat, twelve hours before, and said, Oh, Mamma, he had been playing under a particular oak-tree, in a certain meadow, with a strange boy—a pretty, forlorn-looking boy, who was very timid, and made signs! From fatal experience, the parents came to know that this was the Orphan Boy, and that the course of that child whom he chose for his little playmate was surely run. Legion is the name of the German castles, where we sit up alone to wait for the Spectre—where we are shown into a room, made comparatively cheerful for our reception—where we glance round at the shadows, thrown on the blank walls by the crackling fire—where we feel very lonely when the village innkeeper and his pretty daughter have retired, after laying down a fresh store of wood upon the hearth, and setting forth on the small table such supper-cheer as a cold roast capon, bread, grapes, and a flask of old Rhine wine— where the reverberating doors close on their retreat, one after another, like so many peals of sullen thunder—and where, about the small hours of the night, we come into the knowledge of divers supernatural mysteries. Legion is the name of the haunted German students, in whose society we draw yet nearer to the fire, while the schoolboy in the corner opens his eyes wide and round, and flies off the foot-stool he has chosen for his seat, when the door accidentally blows open. Vast is the crop of such fruit, shining on our Christmas Tree; in blossom, almost at the very top; ripening all down the boughs! Among the later toys and fancies hanging there—as idle often and less pure—be the images once associated with the sweet old Waits, the softened music in the night, ever unalterable! Encircled by the social thoughts of Christmas time, still let the benignant figure of my childhood stand unchanged! In every cheerful image and suggestion that the season brings, may the bright star that rested above the poor roof, be the star of all the Christian world! A moment's pause, O vanishing tree, of which the lower boughs are dark to me as yet, and let me look once more! I know there are blank spaces on thy branches, where eyes that I have loved, have shone and smiled; from which they are departed. But, far above, I see the raiser of the dead girl, and the Widow's Son; and God is good! If Age be hiding for me in the unseen portion of thy downward growth, O may I, with a grey head, turn a child's heart to that figure yet, and a child's trustfulness and confidence! Now, the tree is decorated with bright merriment, and song, and dance, and cheerfulness. And they are welcome. Innocent and welcome be they ever held, beneath the branches of the Christmas Tree, which cast no gloomy shadow! But, as it sinks into the ground, I hear a whisper going through the leaves. "This, in commemoration of the law of love and kindness, mercy and compassion. This, in remembrance of Me!" Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The 1850 Christmas Number Description An account of the resource Published in Household Words, Vol. II, No. 39, 21 December 1850, pp. 289-312. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dickens, Charles Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Dickens Journals Online, <a href="https://www.djo.org.uk/household-words/volume-ii/page-289.html">https://www.djo.org.uk/household-words/volume-ii/page-289.html</a>. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1850-12-21 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Scanned material from Dickens Journals Online, <a href="http://www.djo.org.uk/" id="LPNoLPOWALinkPreview" contenteditable="false" title="http://www.djo.org.uk">www.djo.org.uk</a>. Available under CC BY licence. Type The nature or genre of the resource Christmas Number Bibliographic Citation A bibliographic reference for the resource. Recommended practice is to include sufficient bibliographic detail to identify the resource as unambiguously as possible. Dickens, Charles et. al. 1850 Christmas Number (21 December 1850). Dickens Search. Edited by Emily Middleton and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/christmas-numbers/%201850-12-21-The_1850_Christmas_Number">https://www.dickenssearch.com/christmas-numbers/</a> <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/christmas-numbers/%201850-12-21-The_1850_Christmas_Number">1850-12-21-The_1850_Christmas_Number</a>. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1850-12-21-The_1850_Christmas_Number Table Of Contents A list of subunits of the resource. <ul> <li>Charles Dickens. 'A Christmas Tree' (No.1), pp. 289-295.</li> <li>William Blanchard Jerrold and William Henry (W.H.) Wills. 'Christmas in Lodgings' (No.2), pp. 295-298.</li> <li>James Hannay. 'Christmas in the Navy' (No.3), pp. 298-300.</li> <li>Charles Knight. 'A Christmas Pudding' (No.4), pp. 300-304.</li> <li>Frederick Knight Hunt. 'Christmas Among the London Poor and Sick' (No.5), pp. 304-305.</li> <li>Joachim Heyward Siddons ('J. Stocqueler'). 'Christmas in India' (No.6), pp. 305-306.</li> <li>Dr. Robert McCormick and Charles Dickens. 'Christmas in the Frozen Regions' (No.7), pp. 306-309.</li> <li>Samuel Sidney. 'Christmas Day in the Bush' (No.8), pp. 309-310.</li> <li>Richard H. Horne. 'Household Christmas Carols' (No.9), pp. 310-312.</li> </ul> Scripto Transcription A written representation of a document. I have been looking on, this evening, at a merry company of children assembled round that pretty German toy, a Christmas Tree. The tree was planted in the middle of a great round table, and towered high above their heads. It was brilliantly lighted by a multitude of little tapers; and everywhere sparkled and glittered with bright objects. There were rosy-cheeked dolls, hiding behind the green leaves; there were real watches (with movable hands, at least, and an endless capacity of being wound up) dangling from innumerable twigs; there were French-polished tables, chairs, bedsteads, wardrobes, eight-day clocks, and various other articles of domestic furniture (wonderfully made, in tin, at Wolverhampton), perched among the boughs, as if in preparation for some fairy housekeeping; there were jolly, broad-faced little men, much more agreeable in appearance than many real men—and no wonder, for their heads took off, and showed them to be full of sugar-plums; there were fiddles and drums; there were tambourines, books, work-boxes, paint-boxes, sweetmeat-boxes, peep-show boxes, all kinds of boxes; there were trinkets for the elder girls, far brighter than any grown-up gold and jewels; there were baskets and pincushions in all devices; there were guns, swords, and banners; there were witches standing in enchanted rings of pasteboard, to tell fortunes; there were teetotums, humming-tops, needle-cases, pen-wipers, smelling-bottles, conversation cards, bouquet-holders; real fruit, made artificially dazzling with gold leaf; imitation apples, pears, and walnuts, crammed with surprises; in short, as a pretty child, before me, delightedly whispered to another pretty child, her bosom friend, "There was everything, and more." This motley collection of odd objects, clustering on the tree like magic fruit, and flashing back the bright looks directed towards it from every side—some of the diamond-eyes admiring it were hardly on a level with the table, and a few were languishing in timid wonder on the bosoms of pretty mothers, aunts, and nurses—made a lively realisation of the fancies of childhood; and set me thinking how all the trees that grow and all the things that come into existence on the earth, have their wild adornments at that well-remembered time. Being now at home again, and alone, the only person in the house awake, my thoughts are drawn back, by a fascination which I do not care to resist, to my own childhood. I begin to consider, what do we all remember best upon the branches of the Christmas Tree of our own young Christmas days, by which we climbed to real life. Straight, in the middle of the room, cramped in the freedom of its growth by no encircling walls or soon-reached ceiling, a shadowy tree arises; and, looking up into the dreamy brightness of its top—for I observe, in this tree, the singular property that it appears to grow downward towards the earth—I look into my youngest Christmas recollections! All toys at first, I find. Up yonder, among the green holly and red berries, is the Tumbler with his hands in his pockets, who wouldn't lie down, but whenever he was put upon the floor, persisted in rolling his fat body about, until he rolled himself still, and brought those lobster eyes of his to bear upon me—when I affected to laugh very much, but in my heart of hearts was extremely doubtful of him. Close beside him is that infernal snuff-box, out of which there sprang a demoniacal Counsellor in a black gown, with an obnoxious head of hair, and a red cloth mouth, wide open, who was not to be endured on any terms, but could not be put away either; for he used suddenly, in a highly magnified state, to fly out of Mammoth Snuff-boxes in dreams, when least expected. Nor is the frog with cobbler's wax on his tail, far off; for there was no knowing where he wouldn't jump; and when he flew over the candle, and came upon one's hand with that spotted back—red on a green ground—he was horrible. The cardboard lady in a blue-silk skirt, who was stood up against the candlestick to dance, and whom I see on the same branch, was milder, and was beautiful; but I can't say as much for the larger cardboard man, who used to be hung against the wall and pulled by a string; there was a sinister expression in that nose of his; and when he got his legs round his neck (which he very often did), he was ghastly, and not a creature to be alone with. When did that dreadful Mask first look at me? Who put it on, and why was I so frightened that the sight of it is an era in my life? It is not a hideous visage in itself; it is even meant to be droll; why then were its stolid features so intolerable? Surely not because it hid the wearer's face. An apron would have done as much; and though I should have preferred even the apron away, it would not have been absolutely insupportable, like the mask? Was it the immovability of the mask? The doll's face was immovable, but I was not afraid of her. Perhaps that fixed and set change coming over a real face, infused into my quickened heart some remote suggestion and dread of the universal change that is to come on every face, and make it still? Nothing reconciled me to it. No drummers, from whom proceeded a melancholy chirping on the turning of a handle; no regiment of soldiers, with a mute band, taken out of a box, and fitted, one by one, upon a stiff and lazy little set of lazy-tongs; no old woman, made of wires and a brown-paper composition, cutting up a pie for two small children; could give me permanent comfort, for a long time. Nor was it any satisfaction to be shown the Mask, and see that it was made of paper, or to have it locked up and be assured that no one wore it. The mere recollection of that fixed face, the mere knowledge of its existence anywhere, was sufficient to awake me in the night all perspiration and horror, with " O I know it's coming! O the mask!" I never wondered what the dear old donkey with the panniers—there he is!—was made of, then! His hide was real to the touch, I recollect. And the great black horse with round red spots all over him—the horse that I could even get upon—I never wondered what had brought him to that strange condition, or thought that such a horse was not commonly seen at Newmarket. The four horses of no colour, next to him, that went into the waggon of cheeses, and could be taken out and stabled under the piano, appear to have bits of fur-tippet for their tails, and other bits for their manes, and to stand on pegs instead of legs, but it was not so when they were brought home for a Christmas present. They were all right, then; neither was their harness unceremoniously nailed into their chests, as appears to be the case now. The tinkling works of the music-cart, I did find out, to be made of quill tooth-picks and wire; and I always thought that little tumbler in his shirt sleeves, perpetually swarming up one side of a wooden frame, and coming down, head foremost, on the other, rather a weak-minded person—though good-natured; but the Jacob's Ladder, next him, made of little squares of red wood, that went flapping and clattering over one another, each developing a different picture, and the whole enlivened by small bells, was a mighty marvel and a great delight. Ah! The Doll's house!—of which I was not proprietor, but where I visited. I don't admire the Houses of Parliament half so much as that stone-fronted mansion with real glass windows, and door-steps, and a real balcony—greener than I ever see now, except at watering-places; and even they afford but a poor imitation. And though it did open all at once, the entire house-front (which was a blow, I admit, as cancelling the fiction of a staircase), it was but to shut it up again, and I could believe. Even open, there were three distinct rooms in it: a sitting-room and bedroom, elegantly furnished, and, best of all, a kitchen, with uncommonly soft fire-irons, a plentiful assortment of diminutive utensils— oh, the warming-pan!—and a tin man-cook in profile, who was always going to fry two fish. What Barmecide justice have I done to the noble feasts wherein the set of wooden platters figured, each with its own peculiar delicacy, as a ham or turkey, glued tight on to it, and garnished with something green, which I recollect as moss! Could all the Temperance Societies of these later days, united, give me such a tea-drinking as I have had through the means of yonder little set of blue crockery, which really would hold liquid (it ran out of the small wooden cask, I recollect, and tasted of matches), and which made tea, nectar. And if the two legs of the ineffectual little sugar-tongs did tumble over one another, and want purpose, like Punch's hands, what does it matter? And if I did once shriek out, as a poisoned child, and strike the fashionable company with consternation, by reason of having drunk a little teaspoon, inadvertently dissolved in too hot tea, I was never the worse for it, except by a powder! Upon the next branches of the tree, lower down, hard by the green roller and miniature gardening-tools, how thick the books begin to hang. Thin books, in themselves, at first, but many of them, and with deliciously smooth covers of bright red or green. What fat black letters to begin with! " A was an archer, and shot at a frog." Of course he was. He was an apple-pie also, and there he is! He was a good many things in his time, was A, and so were most of his friends, except X, who had so little versatility, that I never knew him to get beyond Xerxes or Xantippe—like Y, who was always confined to a Yacht or a Yew Tree; and Z condemned for ever to be a Zebra or a Zany. But, now, the very tree itself changes, and becomes a bean-stalk—the marvellous bean-stalk up which Jack climbed to the Giant's house! And now, those dreadfully interesting, double-headed giants, with their clubs over their shoulders, begin to stride along the boughs in a perfect throng, dragging knights and ladies home for dinner by the hair of their heads. And Jack—how noble, with his sword of sharpness, and his shoes of swiftness! Again those old meditations come upon me as I gaze up at him; and I debate within myself whether there was more than one Jack (which I am loth to believe possible), or only one genuine original admirable Jack, who achieved all the recorded exploits. Good for Christmas time is the ruddy color of the cloak, in which—the tree making a forest of itself for her to trip through, with her basket—Little Red Riding-Hood comes to me one Christmas Eve, to give me information of the cruelty and treachery of that dissembling Wolf who ate her grandmother, without making any impression on his appetite, and then ate her, after making that ferocious joke about his teeth. She was my first love. I felt that if I could have married Little Red Riding-Hood, I should have known perfect bliss. But, it was not to be; and there was nothing for it but to look out the Wolf in the Noah's Ark there, and put him late in the procession on the table, as a monster who was to be degraded. O the wonderful Noah's Ark! It was not found seaworthy when put in a washing-tub, and the animals were crammed in at the roof, and needed to have their legs well shaken down before they could be got in, even there—and then, ten to one but they began to tumble out at the door, which was but imperfectly fastened with a wire latch—but what was that against it! Consider the noble fly, a size or two smaller than the elephant: the lady-bird, the butterfly—all triumphs of art! Consider the goose, whose feet were so small, and whose balance was so indifferent, that he usually tumbled forward, and knocked down all the animal creation. Consider Noah and his family, like idiotic tobacco-stoppers; and how the leopard stuck to warm little fingers; and how the tails of the larger animals used gradually to resolve themselves into frayed bits of string! Hush! Again a forest, and somebody up in a tree—not Robin Hood, not Valentine, not the Yellow Dwarf (I have passed him and all Mother Bunch's wonders, without mention), but an Eastern King with a glittering scimitar and turban. By Allah! two Eastern Kings, for I see another, looking over his shoulder! Down upon the grass, at the tree's foot, lies the full length of a coal-black Giant, stretched asleep, with his head in a lady's lap; and near them is a glass box, fastened with four locks of shining steel, in which he keeps the lady prisoner when he is awake. I see the four keys at his girdle now. The lady makes signs to the two kings in the tree, who softly descend. It is the setting-in of the bright Arabian Nights. Oh, now all common things become uncommon and enchanted to me! All lamps are wonderful; all rings are talismans. Common flower-pots are full of treasure, with a little earth scattered on the top; trees are for Ali Baba to hide in; beef-steaks are to throw down into the Valley of Diamonds, that the precious stones may stick to them, and be carried by the eagles to their nests, whence the traders, with loud cries, will scare them. Tarts are made, according to the recipe of the Vizier's son of Bussorah, who turned pastrycook after he was set down in his drawers at the gate of Damascus; cobblers are all Mustaphas, and in the habit of sewing up people cut into four pieces, to whom they are taken blindfold. Any iron ring let into stone is the entrance to a cave, which only waits for the magician, and the little fire, and the necromancy, that will make the earth shake. All the dates imported come from the same tree as that unlucky date, with whose shell the merchant knocked out the eye of the genie's invisible son. All olives are of the stock of that fresh fruit, concerning which the Commander of the Faithful overheard the boy conduct the fictitious trial of the fraudulent olive merchant; all apples are akin to the apple purchased (with two others) from the Sultan's gardener, for three sequins, and which the tall black slave stole from the child. All dogs are associated with the dog, really a transformed man, who jumped upon the baker's counter, and put his paw on the piece of bad money. All rice recals the rice which the awful lady, who was a ghoule, could only peck by grains, because of her nightly feasts in the burial-place. My very rocking-horse,—there he is, with his nostrils turned completely inside-out, indicative of Blood!—should have a peg in his neck, by virtue thereof to fly away with me, as the wooden horse did with the Prince of Persia, in the sight of all his father's Court. Yes, on every object that I recognise among those upper branches of my Christmas Tree, I see this fairy light! When I wake in bed, at daybreak, on the cold dark winter mornings, the white snow dimly beheld, outside, through the frost on the window-pane, I hear Dinarzade. " Sister, sister, if you are yet awake, I pray you finish the history of the Young King of the Black Islands." Scheherazade replies, "If my lord the Sultan will suffer me to live another day, sister, I will not only finish that, but tell you a more wonderful story yet." Then, the gracious Sultan goes out, giving no orders for the execution, and we all three breathe again. At this height of my tree I begin to see, cowering among the leaves—it may be born of turkey, or of pudding, or mince pie, or of these many fancies, jumbled with Robinson Crusoe on his desert island, Philip Quarll among the monkeys, Sandford and Merton with Mr. Barlow, Mother Bunch, and the Mask—or it may be the result of indigestion, assisted by imagination and over-doctoring—a prodigious nightmare. It is so exceedingly indistinct, that I don't know why it's frightful but I know it is. I can only make out that it is an immense array of shapeless things, which appear to be planted on a vast exaggeration of the lazy- tongs that used to bear the toy soldiers, and to be slowly coming close to my eyes, and receding to an immeasurable distance. When it comes closest, it is worst. In connection with it, I descry remembrances of winter nights incredibly long; of being sent early to bed, as a punishment for some small offence, and waking in two hours, with a sensation of having been asleep two nights; of the leaden hopelessness of morning ever dawning; and the oppression of a weight of remorse. And now, I see a wonderful row of little lights rise smoothly out of the ground, before a vast green curtain. Now, a bell rings—a magic bell, which still sounds in my ears unlike all other bells—and music plays, amidst a buzz of voices, and a fragrant smell of orange-peel and oil. Anon, the magic bell commands the music to cease, and the great green curtain rolls itself up majestically, and The Play begins! The devoted dog of Montargis avenges the death of his master, foully murdered in the Forest of Bondy; and a humorous Peasant with a red nose and a very little hat, whom I take from this hour forth to my bosom as a friend (I think he was a Waiter or an Hostler at a village Inn, but many years have passed since he and I have met), remarks that the sassigassity of that dog is indeed surprising; and evermore this jocular conceit will live in my remembrance fresh and unfading, overtopping all possible jokes, unto the end of time. Or now, I learn with bitter tears how poor Jane Shore, dressed all in white, and with her brown hair hanging down, went starving through the streets; or how George Barnwell killed the worthiest uncle that ever man had, and was afterwards so sorry for it that he ought to have been let off. Comes swift to comfort me, the Pantomime—stupendous Phenomenon!—when Clowns are shot from loaded mortars into the great chandelier, bright constellation that it is; when Harlequins, covered all over with scales of pure gold, twist and sparkle, like amazing fish; when Pantaloon (whom I deem it no irreverence to compare in my own mind to my grandfather) puts red-hot pokers in his pocket, and cries "Here's somebody coming!" or taxes the Clown with petty larceny, by saying "Now, I sawed you do it!" when Everything is capable, with the greatest ease, of being changed into Anything; and "Nothing is, but thinking makes it so." Now, too, I perceive my first experience of the dreary sensation—often to return in after-life—of being unable, next day, to get back to the dull, settled world; of wanting to live for ever in the bright atmosphere I have quitted; of doting on the little Fairy, with the wand like a celestial Barber's Pole, and pining for a Fairy immortality along with her. Ah she comes back, in many shapes, as my eye wanders down the branches of my Christmas Tree, and goes as often, and has never yet stayed by me! Out of this delight springs the toy-theatre,—there it is, with its familiar proscenium, and ladies in feathers, in the boxes!—and all its attendant occupation with paste and glue, and gum, and water colors, in the getting-up of The Miller and his Men, and Elizabeth, or the Exile of Siberia. In spite of a few besetting accidents and failures (particularly an unreasonable disposition in the respectable Kelmar, and some others, to become faint in the legs, and double up, at exciting points of the drama), a teeming world of fancies so suggestive and all-embracing, that, far below it on my Christmas Tree, I see dark, dirty, real Theatres in the day-time, adorned with these associations as with the freshest garlands of the rarest flowers, and charming me yet. But hark! The Waits are playing, and they break my childish sleep! What images do I associate with the Christmas music as I see them set forth on the Christmas Tree? Known before all the others, keeping far apart from all the others, they gather round my little bed. An angel, speaking to a group of shepherds in a field; some travellers, with eyes uplifted, following a star; a baby in a manger; a child in a spacious temple, talking with grave men; a solemn figure, with a mild and beautiful face, raising a dead girl by the hand; again, near a city-gate, calling back the son of a widow, on his bier, to life; a crowd of people looking through the opened roof of a chamber where he sits, and letting down a sick person on a bed, with ropes; the same, in a tempest, walking on the water to a ship; again, on a sea-shore, teaching a great multitude; again, with a child upon his knee, and other children round; again, restoring sight to the blind, speech to the dumb, hearing to the deaf, health to the sick, strength to the lame, knowledge to the ignorant; again, dying upon a Cross, watched by armed soldiers, a thick darkness coming on, the earth beginning to shake, and only one voice heard. " Forgive them, for they know not what they do!" Still, on the lower and maturer branches of the Tree, Christmas associations cluster thick. School-books shut up; Ovid and Virgil silenced; the Rule of Three, with its cool impertinent enquiries, long disposed of; Terence and Plautus acted no more, in an arena of huddled desks and forms, all chipped, and notched, and inked; cricket-bats, stumps, and balls, left higher up, with the smell of trodden grass and the softened noise of shouts in the evening air; the tree is still fresh, still gay. If I no more come home at Christmas time, there will be girls and boys (thank Heaven!) while the World lasts; and they do! Yonder they dance and play upon the branches of my Tree, God bless them, merrily, and my heart dances and plays too! And I do come home at Christmas. We all do, or we all should. We all come home, or ought to come home, for a short holiday—the longer, the better—from the great boarding-school, where we are for ever working at our arithmetical slates, to take, and give a rest. As to going a visiting, where can we not go, if we will; where have we not been, when we would; starting our fancy from our Christmas Tree! Away into the winter prospect. There are many such upon the tree! On, by low-lying misty grounds, through fens and fogs, up long hills, winding dark as caverns between thick plantations, almost shutting out the sparkling stars; so, out on broad heights, until we stop at last, with sudden silence, at an avenue. The gate-bell has a deep, half-awful sound in the frosty air; the gate swings open on its hinges; and, as we drive up to a great house, the glancing lights grow larger in the windows, and the opposing rows of trees seem to fall solemnly back on either side, to give us place. At intervals, all day, a frightened hare has shot across this whitened turf; or the distant clatter of a herd of deer trampling the hard frost, has, for the minute, crushed the silence too. Their watchful eyes beneath the fern may be shining now, if we could see them, like the icy dewdrops on the leaves; but they are still, and all is still. And so, the lights growing larger, and the trees falling back before us, and closing up again behind us, as if to forbid retreat, we come to the house. There is probably a smell of roasted chestnuts and other good comfortable things all the time, for we are telling Winter Stories—Ghost Stories, or more shame for us—round the Christmas fire; and we have never stirred, except to draw a little nearer to it. But, no matter for that. We came to the house, and it is an old house, full of great chimneys where wood is burnt on ancient dogs upon the hearth, and grim Portraits (some of them with grim Legends, too) lower distrustfully from the oaken panels of the walls. We are a middle-aged nobleman, and we make a generous supper with our host and hostess and their guests—it being Christmas-time, and the old house full of company—and then we go to bed. Our room is a very old room. It is hung with tapestry. We don't like the portrait of a cavalier in green, over the fireplace. There are great black beams in the ceiling, and there is a great black bedstead, supported at the foot by two great black figures, who seem to have come off a couple of tombs in the old Baronial Church in the Park, for our particular accommodation. But, we are not a superstitious nobleman, and we don't mind. Well! we dismiss our servant, lock the door, and sit before the fire in our dressing-gown, musing about a great many things. At length we go to bed. Well! we can't sleep. We toss and tumble, and can't sleep. The embers on the hearth burn fitfully and make the room look ghostly. We can't help peeping out over the counterpane, at the two black figures and the cavalier— that wicked-looking cavalier—in green. In the flickering light, they seem to advance and retire: which, though we are not by any means a superstitious nobleman, is not agreeable. Well! we get nervous—more and more nervous. We say "This is very foolish, but we can't stand this; we'll pretend to be ill, and knock up somebody." Well! we are just going to do it, when the locked door opens, and there comes in a young woman, deadly pale, and with long fair hair, who glides to the fire, and sits down in the chair we have left there, wringing her hands. Then, we notice that her clothes are wet. Our tongue cleaves to the roof of our mouth, and we can't speak; but, we observe her accurately. Her clothes are wet; her long hair is dabbled with moist mud; she is dressed in the fashion of two hundred years ago; and she has at her girdle a bunch of rusty keys. Well! there she sits, and we can't even faint, we are in such a state about it. Presently she gets up, and tries all the locks in the room with the rusty keys, which won't fit one of them; then, she fixes her eyes on the Portrait of the Cavalier in green, and says, in a low, terrible voice, "The stags know it!" After that, she wrings her hands again, passes the bedside, and goes out at the door. We hurry on our dressing-gown, seize our pistols (we always travel with pistols), and are following, when we find the door locked. We turn the key, look out into the dark gallery; no one there. We wander away, and try to find our servant. Can't be done. We pace the gallery till daybreak; then return to our deserted room, fall asleep, and are awakened by our servant (nothing ever haunts him) and the shining sun. Well! we make a wretched breakfast, and all the company say we look queer. After breakfast, we go over the house with our host, and then we take him to the Portrait of the Cavalier in green, and then it all comes out. He was false to a young housekeeper once attached to that family, and famous for her beauty, who drowned herself in a pond, and whose body was discovered, after a long time, because the stags refused to drink of the water. Since which, it has been whispered that she traverses the house at midnight (but goes especially to that room where the Cavalier in green was wont to sleep), trying the old locks with her rusty keys. Well! we tell our host of what we have seen, and a shade comes over his features, and he begs it may be hushed up; and so it is. But, it's all true; and we said so, before we died (we are dead now) to many responsible people. There is no end to the old houses, with resounding galleries, and dismal state-bed-chambers, and haunted wings shut up for many years, through which we may ramble, with an agreeable creeping up our back, and encounter any number of Ghosts, but, (it is worthy of remark perhaps) reducible to a very few general types and classes; for, Ghosts have little originality, and "walk" in a beaten track. Thus, it comes to pass, that a certain room in a certain old hall, where a certain bad Lord, Baronet, Knight, or Gentleman, shot himself, has certain planks in the floor from which the blood will not be taken out. You may scrape and scrape, as the present owner has done, or plane and plane, as his father did, or scrub and scrub, as his grandfather did, or burn and burn with strong acids, as his great-grandfather did, but, there the blood will still be—no redder and no paler—no more and no less—always just the same. Thus, in such another house there is a haunted door, that never will keep open; or another door that never will keep shut; or a haunted sound of a spinning-wheel, or a hammer, or a footstep, or a cry, or a sigh, or a horse's tramp, or the rattling of a chain. Or else, there is a turret-clock, which, at the midnight hour, strikes thirteen when the head of the family is going to die; or a shadowy, immovable black carriage which at such a time is always seen by somebody, waiting near the great gates in the stable- yard. Or thus, it came to pass how Lady Mary went to pay a visit at a large wild house in the Scottish Highlands, and, being fatigued with her long journey, retired to bed early, and innocently said, next morning, at the breakfast-table, "How odd, to have so late a party last night, in this remote place, and not to tell me of it, before I went to bed!" Then, every one asked Lady Mary what she meant? Then, Lady Mary replied, "Why, all night long, the carriages were driving round and round the terrace, underneath my window!" Then, the owner of the house turned pale, and so did his Lady, and Charles Macdoodle of Macdoodle signed to Lady Mary to say no more, and every one was silent. After breakfast, Charles Macdoodle told Lady Mary that it was a tradition in the family that those rumbling carriages on the terrace betokened death. And so it proved, for, two months afterwards, the Lady of the mansion died. And Lady Mary, who was a Maid of Honour at Court, often told this story to the old Queen Charlotte; by this token that the old King always said, "Eh, eh? What, what? Ghosts, Ghosts? No such thing, no such thing!" And never left off saying so, until he went to bed. Or, a friend of somebody's, whom most of us know, when he was a young man at college, had a particular friend, with whom he made the compact that, if it were possible for the Spirit to return to this earth after its separation from the body, he of the twain who first died, should reappear to the other. In course of time, this compact was forgotten by our friend; the two young men having progressed in life, and taken diverging paths that were wide asunder. But, one night, many years afterwards, our friend, being in the North of England, and staying for the night in an Inn, on the Yorkshire Moors, happened to look out of bed; and there, in the moonlight, leaning on a Bureau near the window, stedfastly regarding him, saw his old College friend! The appearance being solemnly addressed, replied, in a kind of whisper, but very audibly, "Do not come near me. I am dead. I am here to redeem my promise. I come from another world, but may not disclose its secrets!" Then, the whole form becoming paler, melted, as it were, into the moonlight, and faded away. Or, there was the daughter of the first occupier of the picturesque Elizabethan house, so famous in our neighbourhood. You have heard about her? No! Why, She went out one summer evening, at twilight, when she was a beautiful girl, just seventeen years of age, to gather flowers in the garden; and presently came running, terrified, into the hall to her father, saying, "Oh, dear father, I have met myself!" He took her in his arms, and told her it was fancy, but she said "Oh no! I met myself in the broad walk, and I was pale and gathering withered flowers, and I turned my head, and held them up!" And, that night, she died; and a picture of her story was begun, though never finished, and they say it is somewhere in the house to this day, with its face to the wall. Or, the uncle of my brother's wife was riding home on horseback, one mellow evening at sunset, when, in a green lane close to his own house, he saw a man, standing before him, in the very centre of the narrow way. "Why does that man in the cloak stand there!" he thought. "Does he want me to ride over him?" But the figure never moved. He felt a strange sensation at seeing it so still, but slackened his trot and rode forward. When he was so close to it, as almost to touch it with his stirrup, his horse shied, and the figure glided up the bank, in a curious, unearthly manner—backward, and without seeming to use its feet—and was gone. The uncle of my brother's wife, exclaiming, "Good Heaven! It's my cousin Harry, from Bombay!" put spurs to his horse, which was suddenly in a profuse sweat, and, wondering at such strange behaviour, dashed round to the front of his house. There, he saw the same figure, just passing in at the long french window of the drawing-room, opening on the ground. He threw his bridle to a servant, and hastened in after it. His sister was sitting there, alone. "Alice, where's my cousin Harry?" "Your cousin Harry, John?" "Yes. From Bombay. I met him in the lane just now, and saw him enter here, this instant." Not a creature had been seen by any one; and in that hour and minute, as it afterwards appeared, this cousin died in India. Or, it was a certain sensible old maiden lady, who died at ninety-nine, and retained her faculties to the last, who really did see the Orphan Boy; a story which has often been incorrectly told, but, of which the real truth is this—because it is, in fact, a story belonging to our family—and she was a connexion of our family. When she was about forty years of age, and still an uncommonly fine woman (her lover died young, which was the reason why she never married, though she had many offers), she went to stay at a place in Kent, which her brother, an India-Merchant, had newly bought. There was a story that this place had once been held in trust, by the guardian of a young boy: who was himself the next heir, and who killed the young boy by harsh and cruel treatment. She knew nothing of that. It has been said that there was a Cage in her bed-room in which the guardian used to put the boy. There was no such thing. There was only a closet. She went to bed, made no alarm whatever in the night, and in the morning said composedly to her maid when she came in, "Who is the pretty forlorn-looking child who has been peeping out of that closet all night? " The maid replied by giving a loud scream, and instantly decamping. She was surprised; but, she was a woman of remarkable strength of mind, and she dressed herself and went down stairs, and closeted herself with her brother. "Now, Walter," she said, "I have been disturbed all night by a pretty, forlorn-looking boy, who has been constantly peeping out of that closet in my room, which I can't open. This is some trick." "I am afraid not, Charlotte," said he, "for it is the legend of the house. It is the Orphan Boy. What did he do?" "He opened the door softly," said she, "and peeped out. Sometimes, he came a step or two into the room. Then, I called to him, to encourage him, and he shrunk, and shuddered, and crept in again, and shut the door." "The closet has no communication, Charlotte," said her brother, "with any other part of the house, and it's nailed up." This was undeniably true, and it took two carpenters a whole fore-noon to get it open, for examination. Then, she was satisfied that she had seen the Orphan Boy. But, the wild and terrible part of the story is, that he was also seen by three of her brother's sons, in succession, who all died young. On the occasion of each child being taken ill, he came home in a heat, twelve hours before, and said, Oh, Mamma, he had been playing under a particular oak-tree, in a certain meadow, with a strange boy—a pretty, forlorn-looking boy, who was very timid, and made signs! From fatal experience, the parents came to know that this was the Orphan Boy, and that the course of that child whom he chose for his little playmate was surely run. Legion is the name of the German castles, where we sit up alone to wait for the Spectre—where we are shown into a room, made comparatively cheerful for our reception—where we glance round at the shadows, thrown on the blank walls by the crackling fire—where we feel very lonely when the village innkeeper and his pretty daughter have retired, after laying down a fresh store of wood upon the hearth, and setting forth on the small table such supper-cheer as a cold roast capon, bread, grapes, and a flask of old Rhine wine— where the reverberating doors close on their retreat, one after another, like so many peals of sullen thunder—and where, about the small hours of the night, we come into the knowledge of divers supernatural mysteries. Legion is the name of the haunted German students, in whose society we draw yet nearer to the fire, while the schoolboy in the corner opens his eyes wide and round, and flies off the foot-stool he has chosen for his seat, when the door accidentally blows open. Vast is the crop of such fruit, shining on our Christmas Tree; in blossom, almost at the very top; ripening all down the boughs! Among the later toys and fancies hanging there—as idle often and less pure—be the images once associated with the sweet old Waits, the softened music in the night, ever unalterable! Encircled by the social thoughts of Christmas time, still let the benignant figure of my childhood stand unchanged! In every cheerful image and suggestion that the season brings, may the bright star that rested above the poor roof, be the star of all the Christian world! A moment's pause, O vanishing tree, of which the lower boughs are dark to me as yet, and let me look once more! I know there are blank spaces on thy branches, where eyes that I have loved, have shone and smiled; from which they are departed. But, far above, I see the raiser of the dead girl, and the Widow's Son; and God is good! If Age be hiding for me in the unseen portion of thy downward growth, O may I, with a grey head, turn a child's heart to that figure yet, and a child's trustfulness and confidence! Now, the tree is decorated with bright merriment, and song, and dance, and cheerfulness. And they are welcome. Innocent and welcome be they ever held, beneath the branches of the Christmas Tree, which cast no gloomy shadow! But, as it sinks into the ground, I hear a whisper going through the leaves. "This, in commemoration of the law of love and kindness, mercy and compassion. This, in remembrance of Me!" https://www.dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/The_Lamplighter_s_Story/1851-The_Lamplighters_Story_The_Picnic_Papers.pdf e9184a5c75bf123663b167542207f8ef Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Short Fiction Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context short-stories Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Lydia Craig Scripto Transcription A written representation of a document. This collection (still in development) unites various short stories that Dickens wrote throughout his career for various publications, including newspapers and periodicals, and for inclusion in short story collections. Between 1833, when he tentatively submitted “A Dinner at Poplar Walk” for publication in The Monthly Magazine, and his death in 1870, Dickens as ‘BOZ,’ briefly, as ‘TIBBS,’ and as “Charles Dickens” wrote dozens of short stories and ‘sketches,’ which often moved easily between journalism and story. It was as Boz, the late Georgian literary persona, that he first endeared himself to the British reading public in the pages of such newspapers and periodicals as The Evening Chronicle, Bell’s Life in London, and Bentley's Miscellany with a unique blend of comedy and pathos. By turns scathing of observed social and personal injustices, and appreciative of London’s colourful, vibrant culture and the oddities of human nature, Boz followed in the literary footsteps of other recent metropolitan commentators like Charles Lamb (‘ELIA’), Leigh Hunt, Theodore Hook, Robert Surtees, Thomas Hood, and John Poole, and eighteenth-century Picaresque novelists, Tobias Smollett and Henry Fielding. Soon, Dickens established his own unique voice. Prior to and following the ascension of the young Queen Victoria in 1837, Boz became a prescient spectator of both the rising empire’s rapidly developing culture in public spaces and of the domestic dramas enacted in British homes. Global fame arrived with the serial publication of The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club (1837), marking Dickens’s shift to writing novels. In tone, this rambling comedic travelogue owed much to Boz’s voice and incidentally featured several tales unrelated to the main narrative. Dickens would sporadically publish the Mudfog stories in 1836 and 1837, enlarging on them in Sketches by Boz, a collection of many of the sketches and stories first published by John Macrone in two volumes in 1836 and 1837 and illustrated by George Cruikshank. According to Robert L. Patten, ‘When Dickens gathered up previously published writing, anonymous and pseudonymous, for republication, he identified authorship with a particular subset of his journalistic pieces, the ‘sketches’ rather than the tales or portraits of characters, and with his pseudonym. Hence, after mooting several other titles, Dickens settled on Sketches by Boz’ (44). Sketches of Young Gentlemen (1838), a joking response to Rev. Edward Caswell, or “QUIZ’s” recent effort Sketches of Young Ladies (1838), and Sketches of Couples (1840) were published by Chapman and Hall and illustrated by Hablot Knight Browne, better known as ‘PHIZ’. After this point, Dickens’s short stories were published in his periodicals Household Words and All the Year Round, though after 1837 he never published them with any regularity, preferring instead to focus on writing and serialising novels. Occasionally, he contributed several chapters to a jointly authored short story, collection, or series; Christmas numbers of his periodicals provided the opportunity to feature multiple famous writers uniting to weave a Yule-tide yarn, such as The Haunted House (1859). Notably, his collaboration with Wilkie Collins resulted in such works as The Perils of Certain English Prisoners (1857) and No Thoroughfare (1867). Towards the end of his life, Dickens began to publish short stories again in American publications such as The New York Ledger, The Atlantic Monthly, and Our Young Folks. Until now, first printings of Dickens’s earliest short stories published between 1833 and 1836 have been difficult to find for those unable to visit the periodicals and newspaper holdings at eminent institutions such as The British Library. Similarly, the last ones written by Dickens have remained understudied due in part to their obscurity. Twentieth-century editions of the Sketches are generally based on the text of Chapman and Hall’s later 1839 single volume edition, which relies on the reissue serialised between 1837 and 1839, or the 1868 Charles Dickens Edition, which is based on the 1850 cheap (and further revised) edition. Other anthologies, for instance Selected Short Fiction (Penguin, 2005), edited by Deborah A. Thomas, choose excerpts from Dickens’s entire oeuvre in the short fiction genre. Several scholars have explored the drafting, publication, and impact of the early sketches and short stories, with notable studies including Dickens and the Short Story. (University of Philadelphia Press, 1982) by Deborah A. Thomas and Charles Dickens and ‘Boz’: The Birth of the Industrial-Age Author (Cambridge, 2012) by Patten.1 To date, the most comprehensive overview of the sketches is provided by The Oxford Edition of Charles Dickens’s Sketches by Boz (2021) edited by Paul Schlicke with David Hewitt. Others include Dickens's Uncollected Magazine and Newspaper Sketches as Originally Composed and Published 1833–1836 (2012), edited by Robert C. Hanna, and Sketches by Boz and Other Early Papers (1994), edited by Michael Slater. Because Dickens made many alterations, whether significant or incidental, between the first printing of a sketch and successive editions, these changes open up a window into his editorial process and developing intentions for the ‘Boz’ legacy. Now, with this Dickens Search collection, these emendations can be studied with greater ease than ever before. Our transcription field contains text Dickens is believed to have solely authored, though our pdfs of the short story collaborations will be provided in their entirety to facilitate easier engagement and comprehension of how his narrative might interact with those constructed by other writers. Ngram search and other text analysis tools will be applied to Dickens’s words only, to avoid skewing the results. While building this collection, we have consulted, and transcribed scans found on databases such as British Newspaper Archive (BNA), digital archives, and such open-access sites as Hathi Trust, Internet Archive, and Google Books; all items are linked to their original location on the internet. Please contact us with any errors, corrections, and suggestions, or to mention other short stories by Dickens that might have been overlooked. 1. See Dominic Rainsford. ‘“Luller-li-e-te”! Language, Personhood, and Sympathy in Sketches by Boz.’ In Some Keywords in Dickens. Edited by Michael Hollington, Francesca Orestano, and Nathalie Vanfasse. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2021, pp. 117-130; William F. Long. ‘“Our Space is Limited”: Fitting Sketches by Boz into the Morning Chronicle”. Dickens Quarterly 4 (December 2020): pp. 325-348; William F. Long. 'Dickens before Sketches by Boz: Earliest Reactions to his Earliest Works'. Dickensian (2018), 114.505, pp.170-176; Christina Jen. '"Drop the Curtain": Astonishment and the Anxieties of Authorship in Charles Dickens's Sketches by Boz. Dickens Studies Annual 49.2 (2018): pp. 249-278; Dianne F. Sadoff. ‘Boz and Beyond: “Oliver Twist” and the Dickens Legacy’. Dickens Studies Annual 45 (2014): pp. 23-44; Dickens's Uncollected Magazine and Newspaper Sketches, as Originally Composed and Published, 1833–1836, No. 46. Ed. Robert C. Hanna (2012): New York, AMS Press; Danielle Coriale. ‘Sketches by Boz, “So Frail a Machine”. SEL: Studies in English Literature 48.4 (2008): pp. 801-812; Paul Schlicke. ‘“Risen Like a Rocket”: The Impact of Sketches by Boz’. Dickens Quarterly 22.1 (2005): pp. 3-18; Ellen Miller Casey. ‘“Boz has got the Town by the ear”: Dickens and the “Athenæum Critics”’. Dickens Studies Annual 33 (2003): pp. 159-190; Richard Maxwell. ‘Dickens, the Two “Chronicles”, and the Publication of “Sketches by Boz”’. Dickens Studies Annual 9 (1981): pp. 21–32; Angus Easson. “Who is Boz? Dickens and His Sketches”. The Dickensian 18.1.405 (Spring 1985): pp. 13-22; Julian W. Breslow. 'The Narrator in Sketches by Boz.' ELH 44.1 (1977): pp. 127–49. Short Story Publication Type E.g. newspaper/serial Book Publication The title of the newspaper/serial (if applicable) The Pic-nic Papers Ngram Date Hidden from users and search. All items in a collection need to have the same data in the same format in order to show up in Ngram (either YYYY, YYYYMMDD, or YYYYMMDD). No combinations will work. For journalism, letters and poetry, if there is no month or day, default to the first of the month or January. So a poem with a date of March 1843 would be 18430301. A poem published in 1856 with no month or date information would be 18560101. 18510101 Ngram Text Hidden from users and search. Copy and paste from the Scripto transcription. Then check and uncheck HTML to strip out all formatting. Finally, search and remove any   (which is the HTML for spaces). This will prevent the Ngram picking up on irrelevant HTML. "If you talk of Murphy and Francis Moore, gentlemen," said the lamplighter who was in the chair, "I mean to say that neither of 'em ever had any more to do with the stars than Tom Grig had." "And what had he to do with 'em?" asked the lamplighter who officiated as vice. "Nothing at all," replied the other; "just exactly nothing at all." "Do you mean to say you don't believe in Murphy, then?" demanded the lamplighter who had opened the discussion. "I mean to say I believe in Tom Grig," replied the chairman. "Whether I believe in Murphy, or not, is a matter between me and my conscience; and whether Murphy believes in himself or not, is a matter between him and his conscience. Gentlemen, I drink your healths." The lamplighter who did the company this honour, was seated in the chimney corner of a certain tavern, which has been, time out of mind, the Lamplighters' House of Call. He sat in the midst of a circle of lamplighters, and was the cacique, or chief of the tribe. If any of our readers have had the good fortune to behold a lamplighter's funeral, they will not be surprised to learn that lamplighters are a strange and primitive people; that they rigidly adhere to old ceremonies and customs which have been handed down among them from father to son since the first public lamp was lighted out of doors; that they intermarry, and betroth their children in infancy; that they enter into no plots or conspiracies (for who ever heard of a traitorous lamplighter?); that they commit no crimes against the laws of their country (there being no instance of a murderous or burglarious lamplighter); that they are, in short, notwithstanding their apparently volatile and restless character, a highly moral and reflective people: having among themselves as many traditional observances as the Jews, and being, as a body, if not as old as the hills, at least as old as the streets. It is an article of their creed that the first faint glimmering of true civilisation shone in the first street-light maintained at the public expense. They trace their existence and high position in the public esteem, in a direct line to the heathen mythology; and hold that the history of Prometheus himself is but a pleasant fable, whereof the true hero is a lamplighter. "Gentlemen," said the lamplighter in the chair, "I drink your healths." "And perhaps, sir," said the vice, holding up his glass, and rising a little way off his seat and sitting down again, in token that he recognised and returned the compliment, "perhaps you will add to that condescension by telling us who Tom Grig was, and how he came to be connected in your mind with Francis Moore, Physician." "Hear, hear, hear!" cried the lamplighters generally. "Tom Grig, gentlemen," said the chairman, "was one of us; and it happened to him as it don't often happen to a public character in our line, that he had his what-you-may-call-it cast." "His head?" said the vice. "No," replied the chairman, "not his head." "His face, perhaps?" said the vice. "No, not his face." "His legs?" "No, not his legs." Nor yet his arms, nor his hands, nor his feet, nor his chest—all of which were severally suggested. "His nativity, perhaps?" "That's it," said the chairman, awakening from his thoughtful attitude at the suggestion. "His nativity. That's what Tom had cast, gentlemen." "In plaster?" asked the vice. "I don't rightly know how it's done," returned the chairman. "But I suppose it was." And there he stopped as if that were all he had to say; whereupon there arose a murmur among the company, which at length resolved itself into a request, conveyed through the vice, that he would go on. This being exactly what the chairman wanted, he mused for a little time, performed that agreeable ceremony which is popularly termed wetting one's whistle, and went on thus: "Tom Grig, gentlemen, was, as I have said, one of us; and I may go further, and say he was an ornament to us, and such a one as only the good old times of oil and cotton could have produced. Tom's family, gentlemen, were all lamplighters." "Not the ladies, I hope?" asked the vice. "They had talent enough for it, sir," rejoined the chairman, "and would have been, but for the prejudices of society. Let women have their rights, sir, and the females of Tom's family would have been every one of 'em in office. But that emancipation hasn't come yet, and hadn't then, and consequently they confined themselves to the bosoms of their families, cooked the dinners, mended the clothes, minded the children, comforted their husbands, and attended to the housekeeping generally. It's a hard thing upon the women, gentlemen, that they are limited to such a sphere of action as this; very hard." "I happen to know all about Tom, gentlemen, from the circumstance of his uncle by his mother's side having been my particular friend. His (that's Tom's uncle's) fate was a melancholy one. Gas was the death of him. When it was first talked of, he laughed. He wasn't angry; he laughed at the credulity of human nature. 'They might as well talk,' he says, 'of laying on an everlasting succession of glow-worms;' and then he laughed again, partly at his joke, and partly at poor humanity. "In course of time, however, the thing got ground, the experiment was made, and they lighted up Pall Mall. Tom's uncle went to see it. I've heard that he fell off his ladder fourteen times that night, from weakness, and that he would certainly have gone on falling till he killed himself, if his last tumble hadn't been into a wheelbarrow which was going his way, and humanely took him home. 'I foresee in this,' says Tom's uncle faintly, and taking to his bed as he spoke—'I foresee in this,' he says, 'the breaking up of our profession. There's no more going the rounds to trim by daylight, no more dribbling down of the oil on the hats and bonnets of ladies and gentlemen when one feels in spirits. Any low fellow can light a gas-lamp. And it's all up.' In this state of mind, he petitioned the government for—I want a word again, gentlemen—what do you call that which they give to people when it's found out, at last, that they've never been of any use, and have been paid too much for doing nothing?" "Compensation?" suggested the vice. "That's it," said the chairman. "Compensation. They didn't give it him though, and then he got very fond of his country all at once, and went about saying that gas was a death-blow to his native land, and that it was a plot of the radicals to ruin the country and destroy the oil and cotton trade for ever, and that the whales would go and kill themselves privately, out of sheer spite and vexation at not being caught. At last he got right down cracked; called his tobacco-pipe a gas-pipe; thought his tears were lamp-oil; and went on with all manner of nonsense of that sort, till one night he hung himself on a lamp-iron in Saint Martin's Lane, and there was an end of him. "Tom loved him, gentlemen, but he survived it. He shed a tear over his grave, got very drunk, spoke a funeral oration that night in the watch-house, and was fined five shillings for it, in the morning. Some men are none the worse for this sort of thing. Tom was one of 'em. He went that very afternoon on a new beat: as clear in his head, and as free from fever as Father Mathew himself. "Tom's new beat, gentlemen, was—I can't exactly say where, for that he'd never tell; but I know it was in a quiet part of town, where there were some queer old houses. I have always had it in my head that it must have been somewhere near Canonbury Tower in Islington, but that's a matter of opinion. Wherever it was, he went upon it, with a bran new ladder, a white hat, a brown holland jacket and trowsers, a blue neck-kerchief, and a sprig of full-blown double wall-flower in his button-hole. Tom was always genteel in his appearance, and I have heard from the best judges, that if he had left his ladder at home that afternoon, you might have took him for a lord. "He was always merry, was Tom, and such a singer, that if there was any encouragement for native talent, he'd have been at the opera. He was on his ladder, lighting his first lamp, and singing to himself in a manner more easily to be conceived than described, when he hears the clock strike five, and suddenly sees an old gentleman with a telescope in his hand, throw up a window and look at him very hard. "Tom didn't know what could be passing in this old gentleman's mind. He thought it likely enough that he might be saying within himself, 'Here's a new lamplighter—a good-looking young fellow—shall I stand something to drink?' Thinking this possible, he keeps quite still, pretending to be very particular about the wick, and looks at the old gentleman sideways, seeming to take no notice of him. "Gentlemen, he was one of the strangest and most mysterious-looking files that ever Tom clapped his eyes on. He was dressed all slovenly and untidy, in a great gown of a kind of bed-furniture pattern, with a cap of the same on his head; and a long old flapped waistcoat; with no braces, no strings, very few buttons—in short, with hardly any of those artificial contrivances that hold society together. Tom knew by these signs, and by his not being shaved, and by his not being over-clean, and by a sort of wisdom not quite awake, in his face, that he was a scientific old gentleman. He often told me that if he could have conceived the possibility of the whole Royal Society being boiled down into one man, he should have said the old gentleman's body was that Body. "The old gentleman claps the telescope to his eye, looks all round, sees nobody else in sight, stares at Tom again, and cries out very loud: "'Hal-loa!' "'Halloa, Sir,' says Tom from the ladder; 'and halloa again, if you come to that.' "'Here's an extraordinary fulfilment,' says the old gentleman, 'of a prediction of the planets.' "'Is there?' says Tom. 'I'm very glad to hear it.' "'Young man,' says the old gentleman, 'you don't know me.' "'Sir,' says Tom, 'I have not that honour; but I shall be happy to drink your health, notwithstanding.' "'I read,' cries the old gentleman, without taking any notice of this politeness on Tom's part—'I read what's going to happen, in the stars.' "Tom thanked him for the information, and begged to know if anything particular was going to happen in the stars, in the course of a week or so; but the old gentleman, correcting him, explained that he read in the stars what was going to happen on dry land, and that he was acquainted with all the celestial bodies. "'I hope they're all well, sir,' says Tom,—'everybody.' "'Hush!' cries the old gentleman. 'I have consulted the book of Fate with rare and wonderful success. I am versed in the great sciences of astrology and astronomy. In my house here, I have every description of apparatus for observing the course and motion of the planets. Six months ago, I derived from this source the knowledge that precisely as the clock struck five this afternoon a stranger would present himself— the destined husband of my young and lovely niece—in reality of illustrious and high descent, but whose birth would be enveloped in uncertainty and mystery. Don't tell me yours isn't,' says the old gentleman, who was in such a hurry to speak that he couldn't get the words out fast enough, 'for I know better.' "Gentlemen, Tom was so astonished when he heard him say this, that he could hardly keep his footing on the ladder, and found it necessary to hold on by the lamp-post. There was a mystery about his birth. His mother had always admitted it. Tom had never known who was his father, and some people had gone so far as to say that even she was in doubt. "While he was in this state of amazement, the old gentleman leaves the window, bursts out of the house-door, shakes the ladder, and Tom, like a ripe pumpkin, comes sliding down into his arms. "'Let me embrace you,' he says, folding his arms about him, and nearly lighting up his old bed-furniture gown at Tom's link. 'You're a man of noble aspect. Everything combines to prove the accuracy of my observations. You have had mysterious promptings within you,' he says; 'I know you have had whisperings of greatness, eh?' he says. "'I think I have,' says Tom—Tom was one of those who can persuade themselves to anything they like—'I have often thought I wasn't the small beer I was taken for.' "'You were right,' cries the old gentleman, hugging him again. 'Come in. My niece awaits us.' "'Is the young lady tolerable good-looking, sir?' says Tom, hanging fire rather, as he thought of her playing the piano, and knowing French, and being up to all manner of accomplishments. "'She's beautiful!' cries the old gentleman, who was in such a terrible bustle that he was all in a perspiration. 'She has a graceful carriage, an exquisite shape, a sweet voice, a countenance beaming with animation and expression; and the eye,' he says, rubbing his hands, 'of a startled fawn.'" "Tom supposed this might mean, what was called among his circle of acquaintance, 'a game eye;' and, with a view to this defect, inquired whether the young lady had any cash. "'She has five thousand pounds,' cries the old gentleman. 'But what of that? what of that? A word in your ear. I'm in search of the philosopher's stone. I have very nearly found it —not quite. It turns everything to gold; that's its property.' 'Tom naturally thought it must have a deal of property; and said that when the old gentleman did get it, he hoped he'd be careful to keep it in the family. "'Certainly,' he says, 'of course. Five thousand pounds! What's five thousand pounds to us? What's five million?' he says. 'What's five thousand million? Money will be nothing to us. We shall never be able to spend it fast enough.' "'We'll try what we can do, sir,' says Tom. "'We will,' says the old gentleman. 'Your name?' "'Grig,' says Tom. 'The old gentleman embraced him again, very tight; and without speaking another word, dragged him into the house in such an excited manner, that it was as much as Tom could do to take his link and ladder with him, and put them down in the passage. "Gentlemen, if Tom hadn't been always remarkable for his love of truth, I think you would still have believed him when he said that all this was like a dream. There is no better way for a man to find out whether he is really asleep or awake, than calling for something to eat. If he's in a dream, gentlemen, he'll find something wanting in the flavour, depend upon it. "Tom explained his doubts to the old gentleman, and said that if there was any cold meat in the house, it would ease his mind very much to test himself at once. The old gentleman ordered up a venison pie, a small ham, and a bottle of very old Madeira. At the first mouthful of pie, and the first glass of wine, Tom smacks his lips and cries out, 'I'm awake—wide awake;' and to prove that he was so, gentlemen, he made an end of 'em both. "When Tom had finished his meal (which he never spoke of afterwards without tears in his eyes), the old gentleman hugs him again, and says, 'Noble stranger! let us visit my young and lovely niece.' Tom, who was a little elevated with the wine, replies, 'The noble stranger is agreeable!' At which words the old gentleman took him by the hand, and led him to the parlour; crying as he opened the door, 'Here is Mr. Grig, the favourite of the planets!' "I will not attempt a description of female beauty, gentlemen, for every one of us has a model of his own that suits his own taste best. In this parlour that I'm speaking of, there were two young ladies; and if every gentleman present, will imagine two models of his own in their places, and will be kind enough to polish 'em up to the very highest pitch of perfection, he will then have a faint conception of their uncommon radiance. "Besides these two young ladies, there was their waiting-woman, that under any other circumstances Tom would have looked upon as a Venus; and besides her, there was a tall, thin, dismal-faced young gentleman, half man and half boy, dressed in a childish suit of clothes very much too short in the legs and arms, and looking, according to Tom's comparison, like one of the wax juveniles from a tailor's door, grown up and run to seed. Now, this youngster stamped his foot upon the ground and looked very fierce at Tom, and Tom looked fierce at him—for to tell the truth, gentlemen, Tom more than half suspected that when they entered the room he was kissing one of the young ladies; and for anything Tom knew, you observe, it might be his young lady—which was not pleasant. "'Sir,' says Tom, 'before we proceed any further, will you have the goodness to inform me who this young Salamander'— Tom called him that for aggravation, you perceive, gentlemen—'who this young Salamander may be?' "'That, Mr. Grig,' says the old gentleman, 'is my little boy. He was christened Galileo Isaac Newton Flamstead. Don't mind him. He's a mere child.' "'And a very fine child too,' says Tom—still aggravating, you'll observe—'of his age, and as good as fine, I have no doubt. How do you do, my man?' with which kind and patronising expressions, Tom reached up to pat him on the head, and quoted two lines about little boys, from Doctor Watts's Hymns, which he had learnt at a Sunday School. "It was very easy to see, gentlemen, by this youngster's frowning and by the waiting-maid's tossing her head and turning up her nose, and by the young ladies turning their backs and talking together at the other end of the room, that nobody but the old gentleman took very kindly to the noble stranger. Indeed, Tom plainly heard the waiting-woman say of her master, that so far from being able to read the stars as he pretended, she didn't believe he knew his letters in 'em, or at best that he had got further than words in one syllable; but Tom, not minding this (for he was in spirits after the Madeira), looks with an agreeable air towards the young ladies, and, kissing his hand to both, says to the old gentleman, 'Which is which?' "'This,' says the old gentleman, leading out the handsomest, if one of 'em could possibly be said to be handsomer than the other—'this is my niece, Miss Fanny Barker.' "'If you'll permit me, miss,' says Tom, 'being a noble stranger and a favourite of the planets, I will conduct myself as such.' With these words, he kisses the young lady in a very affable way, turns to the old gentleman, slaps him on the back, and says, 'When's it to come off, my buck?' "The young lady coloured so deep, and her lip trembled so much, gentlemen, that Tom really thought she was going to cry. But she kept her feelings down, and turning to the old gentleman, says, 'Dear uncle, though you have the absolute disposal of my hand and fortune, and though you mean well in disposing of 'em thus, I ask you whether you don't think this is a mistake? Don't you think, dear uncle,' she says, 'that the stars must be in error? Is it not possible that the comet may have put 'em out?' "'The stars,' says the old gentleman, 'couldn't make a mistake if they tried. Emma,' he says to the other young lady. "'Yes, papa,' says she. "'The same day that makes your cousin Mrs. Grig will unite you to the gifted Mooney. No remonstrance—no tears. Now, Mr. Grig, let me conduct you to that hallowed ground, that philosophical retreat, where my friend and partner, the gifted Mooney of whom I have just now spoken, is even now pursuing those discoveries which shall enrich us with the precious metal, and make us masters of the world. Come, Mr. Grig,' he says. "'With all my heart, sir,' replies Tom; 'and luck to the gifted Mooney, say I—not so much on his account as for our worthy selves!' With this sentiment, Tom kissed his hand to the ladies again, and followed him out; having the gratification to perceive, as he looked back, that they were all hanging on by the arms and legs of Galileo Isaac Newton Flamstead, to prevent him from following the noble stranger, and tearing him to pieces. "Gentlemen, Tom's father-in-law that was to be, took him by the hand, and having lighted a little lamp, led him across a paved court-yard at the back of the house, into a very large, dark, gloomy room: filled with all manner of bottles, globes, books, telescopes, crocodiles, alligators, and other scientific instruments of every kind. In the centre of this room was a stove or furnace, with what Tom called a pot, but which in my opinion was a crucible, in full boil. In one corner was a sort of ladder leading through the roof; and up this ladder the old gentleman pointed, as he said in a whisper: "'The observatory. Mr. Mooney is even now watching for the precise time at which we are to come into all the riches of the earth. It will be necessary for he and I, alone in that silent place, to cast your nativity before the hour arrives. Put the day and minute of your birth on this piece of paper, and leave the rest to me.' "'You don't mean to say,' says Tom, doing as he was told and giving him back the paper, 'that I'm to wait here long, do you? It's a precious dismal place.' "'Hush!' says the old gentleman. 'it's hallowed ground. Farewell!' "'Stop a minute,' says Tom. 'What a hurry you're in! What's in that large bottle yonder?' "'It's a child with three heads,' says the old gentleman; 'and everything else in proportion.' "'Why don't you throw him away?' says Tom. 'What do you keep such unpleasant things here for?' "'Throw him away!' cries the old gentleman. 'We use him constantly in astrology. He's a charm.' "'I shouldn't have thought it,' says Tom, 'from his appearance. Must you go, I say?' "The old gentleman makes him no answer, but climbs up the ladder in a greater bustle than ever. Tom looked after his legs till there was nothing of him left, and then sat down to wait; feeling (so he used to say) as comfortable as if he was going to be made a freemason, and they were heating the pokers. "Tom waited so long, gentlemen, that he began to think it must be getting on for midnight at least, and felt more dismal and lonely than ever he had done in all his life. He tried every means of wiling away the time, but it never had seemed to move so slow. First, he took a nearer view of the child with three heads, and thought what a comfort it must have been to his parents. Then he looked up a long telescope which was pointed out of the window, but saw nothing particular, in consequence of the stopper being on at the other end. Then he came to a skeleton in a glass case, labelled, 'Skeleton of a Gentleman—prepared by Mr. Mooney,' —which made him hope that Mr. Mooney might not be in the habit of preparing gentlemen that way without their own consent. A hundred times at least, he looked into the pot where they were boiling the philosopher's stone down to the proper consistency, and wondered whether it was nearly done. 'When it is,' thinks Tom, 'I'll send out for sixpenn'orth of sprats, and turn 'em into gold fish for a first experiment.' Besides which, he made up his mind, gentlemen, to have a country-house and a park; and to plant a bit of it with a double row of gas-lamps a mile long, and go out every night with a French-polished mahogany ladder, and two servants in livery behind him, to light 'em for his own pleasure. "At length and at last, the old gentleman's legs appeared upon the steps leading through the roof, and he came slowly down: bringing along with him the gifted Mooney. This Mooney, gentlemen, was even more scientific in appearance than his friend; and had, as Tom often declared upon his word and honour, the dirtiest face we can possibly know of, in this imperfect state of existence. "Gentlemen, you are all aware that if a scientific man isn't absent in his mind, he's of no good at all. Mr. Mooney was so absent, that when the old gentleman said to him, 'Shake hands with Mr. Grig,' he put out his leg. 'Here's a mind, Mr. Grig!' cries the old gentleman in a rapture. 'Here's philosophy! Here's rumination! Don't disturb him,' he says, "'or this is amazing!' "Tom had no wish to disturb him, having nothing particular to say; but he was so uncommonly amazing, that the old gentleman got impatient, and determined to give him an electric shock to bring him to—'for you must know, Mr. Grig,' he says, 'that we always keep a strongly charged battery, ready for that purpose.' These means being resorted to, gentlemen, the gifted Mooney revived with a loud roar, and he no sooner came to himself than both he and the old gentleman looked at Tom with compassion, and shed tears abundantly. "'My dear friend,' says the old gentleman to the Gifted, 'prepare him.' "'I say,' cries Tom, falling back, 'none of that, you know. No preparing by Mr. Mooney if you please.' "'Alas!' replies the old gentleman, 'you don't understand us. My friend, inform him of his fate.—I can't.' "The Gifted mustered up his voice, after many efforts, and informed Tom that his nativity had been carefully cast, and he would expire at exactly thirty-five minutes, twenty-seven seconds, and five-sixths of a second past nine o'clock, A.M., on that day two months. "Gentlemen, I leave you to judge what were Tom's feelings at this announcement, on the eve of matrimony and endless riches. 'I think,' he says in a trembling voice, 'there must be a mistake in the working of that sum. Will you do me the favour to cast it up again?'—'There is no mistake,' replies the old gentleman, 'it is confirmed by Francis Moore, Physician. Here is the prediction for to-morrow two months.' And he showed him the page, where sure enough were these words—'The decease of a great person may be looked for, about this time.' "'Which,' says the old gentleman, 'is clearly you, Mr. Grig.' "'Too clearly,' cries Tom, sinking into a chair, and giving one hand to the old gentleman, and one to the Gifted. 'The orb of day has set on Thomas Grig for ever!' "At this affecting remark, the Gifted shed tears again, and the other two mingled their tears with his, in a kind—if I may use the expression—of Mooney and Co.'s entire. But the old gentleman recovering first, observed that this was only a reason for hastening the marriage, in order that Tom's distinguished race might be transmitted to posterity; and requesting the Gifted to console Mr. Grig during his temporary absence, he withdrew to settle the preliminaries with his niece immediately. "And now, gentlemen, a very extraordinary and remarkable occurrence took place; for as Tom sat in a melancholy way in one chair, and the Gifted sat in a melancholy way in another, a couple of doors were thrown violently open, the two young ladies rushed in, and one knelt down in a loving attitude at Tom's feet, and the other at the Gifted's. So far, perhaps, as Tom was concerned—as he used to say—you will say there was nothing strange in this; but you will be of a different opinion when you understand that Tom's young lady was kneeling to the Gifted, and the Gifted's young lady was kneeling to Tom. "'Halloa! stop a minute!' cries Tom; 'here's a mistake. I need condoling with by sympathising woman, under my afflicting circumstances; but we're out in the figure. Change partners, Mooney.' "'Monster!' cries Tom's young lady, clinging to the Gifted. "'Miss!' says Tom. 'Is that your manners?' "'I abjure thee!' cries Tom's young lady. 'I renounce thee. I never will be thine. Thou,' she says to the Gifted, 'art the object of my first and all-engrossing passion. Wrapt in thy sublime visions, thou hast not perceived my love; but, driven to despair, I now shake off the woman and avow it. Oh, cruel, cruel man!' With which reproach she laid her head upon the Gifted's breast, and put her arms about him in the tenderest manner possible, gentlemen. "'And I,' says the other young lady, in a sort of ecstasy, that made Tom start—'I hereby abjure my chosen husband too. Hear me, Goblin!'—this was to the Gifted—'Hear me! I hold thee in the deepest detestation. The maddening interview of this one night has filled my soul with love—but not for thee. It is for thee, for thee, young man,' she cries to Tom. 'As Monk Lewis finely observes, Thomas, Thomas, I am thine, Thomas, Thomas, thou art mine: thine for ever, mine for ever!' with which words, she became very tender likewise. "Tom and the Gifted, gentlemen, as you may believe, looked at each other in a very awkward manner, and with thoughts not at all complimentary to the two young ladies. As to the Gifted, I have heard Tom say often, that he was certain he was in a fit, and had it inwardly. "'Speak to me! Oh, speak to me!' cries Tom's young lady to the Gifted. "'I don't want to speak to anybody,' he says, finding his voice at last, and trying to push her away. 'I think I had better go. I'm—I'm frightened,' he says, looking about as if he had lost something. "'Not one look of love!' she cries. 'Hear me while I declare—' "'I don't know how to look a look of love,' he says, all in a maze. 'Don't declare anything. I don't want to hear anybody.' "'That's right!' cries the old gentleman (who it seems had been listening). 'That's right! Don't hear her. Emma shall marry you to-morrow, my friend, whether she likes it or not, and she shall marry Mr. Grig.' "Gentlemen, these words were no sooner out of his mouth than Galileo Isaac Newton Flamstead (who it seems had been listening too) darts in, and spinning round and round, like a young giant's top, cries,'"Let her. Let her. I'm fierce; I'm furious. I give her leave. I'll never marry anybody after this— never. It isn't safe. She is the falsest of the false,' he cries, tearing his hair and gnashing his teeth; 'and I'll live and die a bachelor!' "'The little boy,' observed the Gifted gravely, 'albeit of tender years, has spoken wisdom. I have been led to the contemplation of womankind, and will not adventure on the troubled waters of matrimony.' "'What!' says the old gentleman, 'not marry my daughter! Won't you, Mooney? Not if I make her? Won't you? Won't you?' "'No,' says Mooney, 'I won't. And if anybody asks me any more, I'll run away, and never come back again.' ""Mr. Grig,' says the old gentleman,'"the stars must be obeyed. You have not changed your mind because of a little girlish folly—eh, Mr. Grig?' "Tom, gentlemen, had had his eyes about him, and was pretty sure that all this was a device and trick of the waiting-maid, to put him off his inclination. He had seen her hiding and skipping about the two doors, and had observed that a very little whispering from her pacified the Salamander directly. 'So,' thinks Tom, 'this is a plot—but it won't fit.' "'Eh, Mr. Grig?' says the old gentleman. "'Why, sir,' says Tom, pointing to the crucible, 'if the soup's nearly ready—' "'Another hour beholds the consummation of our labours,' returned the old gentleman. "'Very good,' says Tom, with a mournful air. 'It's only for two months, but I may as well be the richest man in the world even for that time. I'm not particular, I'll take her, sir. I'll take her.' "The old gentleman was in a rapture to find Tom still in the same mind, and drawing the young lady towards him by little and little, was joining their hands by main force, when all of a sudden, gentlemen, the crucible blows up, with a great crash; everybody screams; the room is filled with smoke; and Tom, not knowing what may happen next, throws himself into a Fancy attitude, and says, 'Come on, if you're a man!' without addressing himself to anybody in particular. "'The labours of fifteen years!' says the old gentleman, clasping his hands and looking down upon the Gifted, who was saving the pieces, 'are destroyed in an instant!'—And I am told, gentlemen, by the by, that this same philosopher's stone would have been discovered a hundred times at least, to speak within bounds, if it wasn't for the one unfortunate circumstance that the apparatus always blows up, when it's on the very point of succeeding. "Tom turns pale when he hears the old gentleman expressing himself to this unpleasant effect, and stammers out that if it's quite agreeable to all parties, he would like to know exactly what has happened, and what change has really taken place in the prospects of that company. "'We have failed for the present, Mr. Grig,' says the old gentleman, wiping his forehead. 'And I regret it the more, because I have in fact invested my niece's five thousand pounds in this glorious speculation. But don't be cast down,' he says, anxiously—'in another fifteen years, Mr. Grig—' "'Oh!' cries Tom, letting the young lady's hand fall. 'Were the stars very positive about this union, sir?' "'They were,' says the old gentleman. "'I'm sorry to hear it,' Tom makes answer, 'for it's no go, sir.' "'No what!' cries the old gentleman. "'Go, sir,' says Tom, fiercely. 'I forbid the banns.' And with these words—which are the very words he used—he sat himself down in a chair, and, laying his head upon the table, thought with a secret grief of what was to come to pass on that day two months. "Tom always said, gentlemen, that that waiting-maid was the artfullest minx he had ever seen; and he left it in writing in this country when he went to colonise abroad, that he was certain in his own mind she and the Salamander had blown up the philosopher's stone on purpose, and to cut him out of his property. I believe Tom was in the right, gentlemen; but whether or no, she comes forward at this point, and says, 'May I speak, sir?' and the old gentleman answering, 'Yes, you may,' she goes on to say that 'the stars are no doubt quite right in every respect, but Tom is not the man.' And she says, 'Don't you remember, sir, that when the clock struck five this afternoon, you gave Master Galileo a rap on the head with your telescope, and told him to get out of the way?' 'Yes, I do,' says the old gentleman. 'Then,' says the waiting-maid, 'I say he's the man, and the prophecy is fulfilled.' The old gentleman staggers at this, as if somebody had hit him a blow on the chest, and cries, 'He! why, he's a boy!' Upon that, gentlemen, the Salamander cries out that he'll be twenty-one next Lady-day; and complains that his father has always been so busy with the sun round which the earth revolves, that he has never taken any notice of the son that revolves round him; and that he hasn't had a new suit of clothes since he was fourteen; and that he wasn't even taken out of nankeen frocks and trowsers till he was quite unpleasant in 'em; and touches on a good many more family matters to the same purpose. To make short of a long story, gentlemen, they all talk together, and cry together, and remind the old gentleman that as to the noble family, his own grandfather would have been Lord Mayor if he hadn't died at a dinner the year before; and they show him by all kinds of arguments that if the cousins are married, the prediction comes true every way. At last, the old gentleman being quite convinced, gives in; and joins their hands; and leaves his daughter to marry anybody she likes; and they are all well pleased; and the Gifted as well as any of them. "In the middle of this little family party, gentlemen, sits Tom all the while, as miserable as you like. But, when everything else is arranged, the old gentleman's daughter says, that their strange conduct was a little device of the waiting-maid's to disgust the lovers he had chosen for 'em, and will he forgive her? and if he will, perhaps he might even find her a husband—and when she says that, she looks uncommon hard at Tom. Then the waiting-maid says that, oh dear! she couldn't abear Mr. Grig should think she wanted him to marry her; and that she had even gone so far as to refuse the last lamp-lighter, who was now a literary character (having set up as a bill-sticker); and that she hoped Mr. Grig would not suppose she was on her last legs by any means, for the baker was very strong in his attentions at that moment, and as to the butcher, he was frantic. And I don't know how much more she might have said, gentlemen (for, as you know, this kind of young women are rare ones to talk), if the old gentleman hadn't cut in suddenly, and asked Tom if he'd have her, with ten pounds to recompense him for his loss of time and disappointment, and as a kind of bribe to keep the story secret. "'It don't much matter, sir,' says Tom, 'I ain't long for this world. Eight weeks of marriage, especially with this young woman, might reconcile me to my fate. I think,' he says, 'I could go off easy after that.' With which he embraces her with a very dismal face, and groans in a way that might move a heart of stone—even of philosopher's stone. "'Egad,' says the old gentleman, 'that reminds me—this bustle put it out of my head—there was a figure wrong. He'll live to a green old age—eighty-seven at least!' "'How much, sir?' cries Tom. "'Eighty-seven!' says the old gentleman. "'Without another word, Tom flings himself on the old gentleman's neck; throws up his hat; cuts a caper; defies the waiting-maid; and refers her to the butcher. "'You wont marry her!' says the old gentleman, angrily. "'And live after it!' says Tom. 'I'd sooner marry a mermaid with a small-tooth comb and looking-glass.' "'Then take the consequences,' says the other. "With those words—I beg your kind attention here, gentlemen, for it's worth your notice—the old gentleman wetted the forefinger of his right hand in some of the liquor from the crucible that was spilt on the floor, and drew a small triangle on Tom's forehead. The room swam before his eyes, and he found himself in the watch-house." "Found himself where?" cried the vice, on behalf of the company generally. "In the watch-house," said the chairman. "It was late at night, and he found himself in the very watch-house from which he had been let out that morning." "Did he go home?" asked the vice. "The watch-house people rather objected to that," said the chairman; "so he stopped there that night, and went before the magistrate in the morning. 'Why, you're here again, are you?' says the magistrate, adding insult to injury; 'we'll trouble you for five shillings more, if you can conveniently spare the money.' Tom told him he had been enchanted, but it was of no use. He told the contractors the same, but they wouldn't believe him. It was very hard upon him, gentlemen, as he often said, for was it likely he'd go and invent such a tale? They shook their heads and told him he'd say anything but his prayers—as indeed he would; there's no doubt about that. It was the only imputation on his moral character that ever I heard of." Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 'The Lamplighter's Story' Description An account of the resource Published in The Pic-nic Papers as 'By the Editor'. London: Chapman and Hall, 1851. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dickens, Charles Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived HathiTrust, <a href="https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/100142129">https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/100142129</a>. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1851 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Illustrated by George Cruikshank and Hablot Knight Browne ('PHIZ') Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Google-digitised. Digitised materials on Google Books published before 1922 are in the public domain. Relation A related resource Based on the 1838 farce by Dickens of the same name. Type The nature or genre of the resource Short story Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1851-The_Lamplighters_Story_The_Picnic_Papers Bibliographic Citation A bibliographic reference for the resource. Recommended practice is to include sufficient bibliographic detail to identify the resource as unambiguously as possible. Dickens, Charles. 'The Lamplighter's Story' (1851). Dickens Search. Eds. Emily Middleton and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1851-The_Lamplighters_Story_The_Picnic_Papers">https://www.dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1851-The_Lamplighters_Story_The_Picnic_Papers</a>. Scripto Transcription A written representation of a document. "If you talk of Murphy and Francis Moore, gentlemen," said the lamplighter who was in the chair, "I mean to say that neither of 'em ever had any more to do with the stars than Tom Grig had." "And what had he to do with 'em?" asked the lamplighter who officiated as vice. "Nothing at all," replied the other; "just exactly nothing at all." "Do you mean to say you don't believe in Murphy, then?" demanded the lamplighter who had opened the discussion. "I mean to say I believe in Tom Grig," replied the chairman. "Whether I believe in Murphy, or not, is a matter between me and my conscience; and whether Murphy believes in himself or not, is a matter between him and his conscience. Gentlemen, I drink your healths." The lamplighter who did the company this honour, was seated in the chimney corner of a certain tavern, which has been, time out of mind, the Lamplighters' House of Call. He sat in the midst of a circle of lamplighters, and was the cacique, or chief of the tribe. If any of our readers have had the good fortune to behold a lamplighter's funeral, they will not be surprised to learn that lamplighters are a strange and primitive people; that they rigidly adhere to old ceremonies and customs which have been handed down among them from father to son since the first public lamp was lighted out of doors; that they intermarry, and betroth their children in infancy; that they enter into no plots or conspiracies (for who ever heard of a traitorous lamplighter?); that they commit no crimes against the laws of their country (there being no instance of a murderous or burglarious lamplighter); that they are, in short, notwithstanding their apparently volatile and restless character, a highly moral and reflective people: having among themselves as many traditional observances as the Jews, and being, as a body, if not as old as the hills, at least as old as the streets. It is an article of their creed that the first faint glimmering of true civilisation shone in the first street-light maintained at the public expense. They trace their existence and high position in the public esteem, in a direct line to the heathen mythology; and hold that the history of Prometheus himself is but a pleasant fable, whereof the true hero is a lamplighter. "Gentlemen," said the lamplighter in the chair, "I drink your healths." "And perhaps, sir," said the vice, holding up his glass, and rising a little way off his seat and sitting down again, in token that he recognised and returned the compliment, "perhaps you will add to that condescension by telling us who Tom Grig was, and how he came to be connected in your mind with Francis Moore, Physician." "Hear, hear, hear!" cried the lamplighters generally. "Tom Grig, gentlemen," said the chairman, "was one of us; and it happened to him as it don't often happen to a public character in our line, that he had his what-you-may-call-it cast." "His head?" said the vice. "No," replied the chairman, "not his head." "His face, perhaps?" said the vice. "No, not his face." "His legs?" "No, not his legs." Nor yet his arms, nor his hands, nor his feet, nor his chest—all of which were severally suggested. "His nativity, perhaps?" "That's it," said the chairman, awakening from his thoughtful attitude at the suggestion. "His nativity. That's what Tom had cast, gentlemen." "In plaster?" asked the vice. "I don't rightly know how it's done," returned the chairman. "But I suppose it was." And there he stopped as if that were all he had to say; whereupon there arose a murmur among the company, which at length resolved itself into a request, conveyed through the vice, that he would go on. This being exactly what the chairman wanted, he mused for a little time, performed that agreeable ceremony which is popularly termed wetting one's whistle, and went on thus: "Tom Grig, gentlemen, was, as I have said, one of us; and I may go further, and say he was an ornament to us, and such a one as only the good old times of oil and cotton could have produced. Tom's family, gentlemen, were all lamplighters." "Not the ladies, I hope?" asked the vice. "They had talent enough for it, sir," rejoined the chairman, "and would have been, but for the prejudices of society. Let women have their rights, sir, and the females of Tom's family would have been every one of 'em in office. But that emancipation hasn't come yet, and hadn't then, and consequently they confined themselves to the bosoms of their families, cooked the dinners, mended the clothes, minded the children, comforted their husbands, and attended to the housekeeping generally. It's a hard thing upon the women, gentlemen, that they are limited to such a sphere of action as this; very hard." "I happen to know all about Tom, gentlemen, from the circumstance of his uncle by his mother's side having been my particular friend. His (that's Tom's uncle's) fate was a melancholy one. Gas was the death of him. When it was first talked of, he laughed. He wasn't angry; he laughed at the credulity of human nature. 'They might as well talk,' he says, 'of laying on an everlasting succession of glow-worms;' and then he laughed again, partly at his joke, and partly at poor humanity. "In course of time, however, the thing got ground, the experiment was made, and they lighted up Pall Mall. Tom's uncle went to see it. I've heard that he fell off his ladder fourteen times that night, from weakness, and that he would certainly have gone on falling till he killed himself, if his last tumble hadn't been into a wheelbarrow which was going his way, and humanely took him home. 'I foresee in this,' says Tom's uncle faintly, and taking to his bed as he spoke—'I foresee in this,' he says, 'the breaking up of our profession. There's no more going the rounds to trim by daylight, no more dribbling down of the oil on the hats and bonnets of ladies and gentlemen when one feels in spirits. Any low fellow can light a gas-lamp. And it's all up.' In this state of mind, he petitioned the government for—I want a word again, gentlemen—what do you call that which they give to people when it's found out, at last, that they've never been of any use, and have been paid too much for doing nothing?" "Compensation?" suggested the vice. "That's it," said the chairman. "Compensation. They didn't give it him though, and then he got very fond of his country all at once, and went about saying that gas was a death-blow to his native land, and that it was a plot of the radicals to ruin the country and destroy the oil and cotton trade for ever, and that the whales would go and kill themselves privately, out of sheer spite and vexation at not being caught. At last he got right down cracked; called his tobacco-pipe a gas-pipe; thought his tears were lamp-oil; and went on with all manner of nonsense of that sort, till one night he hung himself on a lamp-iron in Saint Martin's Lane, and there was an end of him. "Tom loved him, gentlemen, but he survived it. He shed a tear over his grave, got very drunk, spoke a funeral oration that night in the watch-house, and was fined five shillings for it, in the morning. Some men are none the worse for this sort of thing. Tom was one of 'em. He went that very afternoon on a new beat: as clear in his head, and as free from fever as Father Mathew himself. "Tom's new beat, gentlemen, was—I can't exactly say where, for that he'd never tell; but I know it was in a quiet part of town, where there were some queer old houses. I have always had it in my head that it must have been somewhere near Canonbury Tower in Islington, but that's a matter of opinion. Wherever it was, he went upon it, with a bran new ladder, a white hat, a brown holland jacket and trowsers, a blue neck-kerchief, and a sprig of full-blown double wall-flower in his button-hole. Tom was always genteel in his appearance, and I have heard from the best judges, that if he had left his ladder at home that afternoon, you might have took him for a lord. "He was always merry, was Tom, and such a singer, that if there was any encouragement for native talent, he'd have been at the opera. He was on his ladder, lighting his first lamp, and singing to himself in a manner more easily to be conceived than described, when he hears the clock strike five, and suddenly sees an old gentleman with a telescope in his hand, throw up a window and look at him very hard. "Tom didn't know what could be passing in this old gentleman's mind. He thought it likely enough that he might be saying within himself, 'Here's a new lamplighter—a good-looking young fellow—shall I stand something to drink?' Thinking this possible, he keeps quite still, pretending to be very particular about the wick, and looks at the old gentleman sideways, seeming to take no notice of him. "Gentlemen, he was one of the strangest and most mysterious-looking files that ever Tom clapped his eyes on. He was dressed all slovenly and untidy, in a great gown of a kind of bed-furniture pattern, with a cap of the same on his head; and a long old flapped waistcoat; with no braces, no strings, very few buttons—in short, with hardly any of those artificial contrivances that hold society together. Tom knew by these signs, and by his not being shaved, and by his not being over-clean, and by a sort of wisdom not quite awake, in his face, that he was a scientific old gentleman. He often told me that if he could have conceived the possibility of the whole Royal Society being boiled down into one man, he should have said the old gentleman's body was that Body. "The old gentleman claps the telescope to his eye, looks all round, sees nobody else in sight, stares at Tom again, and cries out very loud: "'Hal-loa!' "'Halloa, Sir,' says Tom from the ladder; 'and halloa again, if you come to that.' "'Here's an extraordinary fulfilment,' says the old gentleman, 'of a prediction of the planets.' "'Is there?' says Tom. 'I'm very glad to hear it.' "'Young man,' says the old gentleman, 'you don't know me.' "'Sir,' says Tom, 'I have not that honour; but I shall be happy to drink your health, notwithstanding.' "'I read,' cries the old gentleman, without taking any notice of this politeness on Tom's part—'I read what's going to happen, in the stars.' "Tom thanked him for the information, and begged to know if anything particular was going to happen in the stars, in the course of a week or so; but the old gentleman, correcting him, explained that he read in the stars what was going to happen on dry land, and that he was acquainted with all the celestial bodies. "'I hope they're all well, sir,' says Tom,—'everybody.' "'Hush!' cries the old gentleman. 'I have consulted the book of Fate with rare and wonderful success. I am versed in the great sciences of astrology and astronomy. In my house here, I have every description of apparatus for observing the course and motion of the planets. Six months ago, I derived from this source the knowledge that precisely as the clock struck five this afternoon a stranger would present himself— the destined husband of my young and lovely niece—in reality of illustrious and high descent, but whose birth would be enveloped in uncertainty and mystery. Don't tell me yours isn't,' says the old gentleman, who was in such a hurry to speak that he couldn't get the words out fast enough, 'for I know better.' "Gentlemen, Tom was so astonished when he heard him say this, that he could hardly keep his footing on the ladder, and found it necessary to hold on by the lamp-post. There was a mystery about his birth. His mother had always admitted it. Tom had never known who was his father, and some people had gone so far as to say that even she was in doubt. "While he was in this state of amazement, the old gentleman leaves the window, bursts out of the house-door, shakes the ladder, and Tom, like a ripe pumpkin, comes sliding down into his arms. "'Let me embrace you,' he says, folding his arms about him, and nearly lighting up his old bed-furniture gown at Tom's link. 'You're a man of noble aspect. Everything combines to prove the accuracy of my observations. You have had mysterious promptings within you,' he says; 'I know you have had whisperings of greatness, eh?' he says. "'I think I have,' says Tom—Tom was one of those who can persuade themselves to anything they like—'I have often thought I wasn't the small beer I was taken for.' "'You were right,' cries the old gentleman, hugging him again. 'Come in. My niece awaits us.' "'Is the young lady tolerable good-looking, sir?' says Tom, hanging fire rather, as he thought of her playing the piano, and knowing French, and being up to all manner of accomplishments. "'She's beautiful!' cries the old gentleman, who was in such a terrible bustle that he was all in a perspiration. 'She has a graceful carriage, an exquisite shape, a sweet voice, a countenance beaming with animation and expression; and the eye,' he says, rubbing his hands, 'of a startled fawn.'" "Tom supposed this might mean, what was called among his circle of acquaintance, 'a game eye;' and, with a view to this defect, inquired whether the young lady had any cash. "'She has five thousand pounds,' cries the old gentleman. 'But what of that? what of that? A word in your ear. I'm in search of the philosopher's stone. I have very nearly found it —not quite. It turns everything to gold; that's its property.' 'Tom naturally thought it must have a deal of property; and said that when the old gentleman did get it, he hoped he'd be careful to keep it in the family. "'Certainly,' he says, 'of course. Five thousand pounds! What's five thousand pounds to us? What's five million?' he says. 'What's five thousand million? Money will be nothing to us. We shall never be able to spend it fast enough.' "'We'll try what we can do, sir,' says Tom. "'We will,' says the old gentleman. 'Your name?' "'Grig,' says Tom. 'The old gentleman embraced him again, very tight; and without speaking another word, dragged him into the house in such an excited manner, that it was as much as Tom could do to take his link and ladder with him, and put them down in the passage. "Gentlemen, if Tom hadn't been always remarkable for his love of truth, I think you would still have believed him when he said that all this was like a dream. There is no better way for a man to find out whether he is really asleep or awake, than calling for something to eat. If he's in a dream, gentlemen, he'll find something wanting in the flavour, depend upon it. "Tom explained his doubts to the old gentleman, and said that if there was any cold meat in the house, it would ease his mind very much to test himself at once. The old gentleman ordered up a venison pie, a small ham, and a bottle of very old Madeira. At the first mouthful of pie, and the first glass of wine, Tom smacks his lips and cries out, 'I'm awake—wide awake;' and to prove that he was so, gentlemen, he made an end of 'em both. "When Tom had finished his meal (which he never spoke of afterwards without tears in his eyes), the old gentleman hugs him again, and says, 'Noble stranger! let us visit my young and lovely niece.' Tom, who was a little elevated with the wine, replies, 'The noble stranger is agreeable!' At which words the old gentleman took him by the hand, and led him to the parlour; crying as he opened the door, 'Here is Mr. Grig, the favourite of the planets!' "I will not attempt a description of female beauty, gentlemen, for every one of us has a model of his own that suits his own taste best. In this parlour that I'm speaking of, there were two young ladies; and if every gentleman present, will imagine two models of his own in their places, and will be kind enough to polish 'em up to the very highest pitch of perfection, he will then have a faint conception of their uncommon radiance. "Besides these two young ladies, there was their waiting-woman, that under any other circumstances Tom would have looked upon as a Venus; and besides her, there was a tall, thin, dismal-faced young gentleman, half man and half boy, dressed in a childish suit of clothes very much too short in the legs and arms, and looking, according to Tom's comparison, like one of the wax juveniles from a tailor's door, grown up and run to seed. Now, this youngster stamped his foot upon the ground and looked very fierce at Tom, and Tom looked fierce at him—for to tell the truth, gentlemen, Tom more than half suspected that when they entered the room he was kissing one of the young ladies; and for anything Tom knew, you observe, it might be his young lady—which was not pleasant. "'Sir,' says Tom, 'before we proceed any further, will you have the goodness to inform me who this young Salamander'— Tom called him that for aggravation, you perceive, gentlemen—'who this young Salamander may be?' "'That, Mr. Grig,' says the old gentleman, 'is my little boy. He was christened Galileo Isaac Newton Flamstead. Don't mind him. He's a mere child.' "'And a very fine child too,' says Tom—still aggravating, you'll observe—'of his age, and as good as fine, I have no doubt. How do you do, my man?' with which kind and patronising expressions, Tom reached up to pat him on the head, and quoted two lines about little boys, from Doctor Watts's Hymns, which he had learnt at a Sunday School. "It was very easy to see, gentlemen, by this youngster's frowning and by the waiting-maid's tossing her head and turning up her nose, and by the young ladies turning their backs and talking together at the other end of the room, that nobody but the old gentleman took very kindly to the noble stranger. Indeed, Tom plainly heard the waiting-woman say of her master, that so far from being able to read the stars as he pretended, she didn't believe he knew his letters in 'em, or at best that he had got further than words in one syllable; but Tom, not minding this (for he was in spirits after the Madeira), looks with an agreeable air towards the young ladies, and, kissing his hand to both, says to the old gentleman, 'Which is which?' "'This,' says the old gentleman, leading out the handsomest, if one of 'em could possibly be said to be handsomer than the other—'this is my niece, Miss Fanny Barker.' "'If you'll permit me, miss,' says Tom, 'being a noble stranger and a favourite of the planets, I will conduct myself as such.' With these words, he kisses the young lady in a very affable way, turns to the old gentleman, slaps him on the back, and says, 'When's it to come off, my buck?' "The young lady coloured so deep, and her lip trembled so much, gentlemen, that Tom really thought she was going to cry. But she kept her feelings down, and turning to the old gentleman, says, 'Dear uncle, though you have the absolute disposal of my hand and fortune, and though you mean well in disposing of 'em thus, I ask you whether you don't think this is a mistake? Don't you think, dear uncle,' she says, 'that the stars must be in error? Is it not possible that the comet may have put 'em out?' "'The stars,' says the old gentleman, 'couldn't make a mistake if they tried. Emma,' he says to the other young lady. "'Yes, papa,' says she. "'The same day that makes your cousin Mrs. Grig will unite you to the gifted Mooney. No remonstrance—no tears. Now, Mr. Grig, let me conduct you to that hallowed ground, that philosophical retreat, where my friend and partner, the gifted Mooney of whom I have just now spoken, is even now pursuing those discoveries which shall enrich us with the precious metal, and make us masters of the world. Come, Mr. Grig,' he says. "'With all my heart, sir,' replies Tom; 'and luck to the gifted Mooney, say I—not so much on his account as for our worthy selves!' With this sentiment, Tom kissed his hand to the ladies again, and followed him out; having the gratification to perceive, as he looked back, that they were all hanging on by the arms and legs of Galileo Isaac Newton Flamstead, to prevent him from following the noble stranger, and tearing him to pieces. "Gentlemen, Tom's father-in-law that was to be, took him by the hand, and having lighted a little lamp, led him across a paved court-yard at the back of the house, into a very large, dark, gloomy room: filled with all manner of bottles, globes, books, telescopes, crocodiles, alligators, and other scientific instruments of every kind. In the centre of this room was a stove or furnace, with what Tom called a pot, but which in my opinion was a crucible, in full boil. In one corner was a sort of ladder leading through the roof; and up this ladder the old gentleman pointed, as he said in a whisper: "'The observatory. Mr. Mooney is even now watching for the precise time at which we are to come into all the riches of the earth. It will be necessary for he and I, alone in that silent place, to cast your nativity before the hour arrives. Put the day and minute of your birth on this piece of paper, and leave the rest to me.' "'You don't mean to say,' says Tom, doing as he was told and giving him back the paper, 'that I'm to wait here long, do you? It's a precious dismal place.' "'Hush!' says the old gentleman. 'it's hallowed ground. Farewell!' "'Stop a minute,' says Tom. 'What a hurry you're in! What's in that large bottle yonder?' "'It's a child with three heads,' says the old gentleman; 'and everything else in proportion.' "'Why don't you throw him away?' says Tom. 'What do you keep such unpleasant things here for?' "'Throw him away!' cries the old gentleman. 'We use him constantly in astrology. He's a charm.' "'I shouldn't have thought it,' says Tom, 'from his appearance. Must you go, I say?' "The old gentleman makes him no answer, but climbs up the ladder in a greater bustle than ever. Tom looked after his legs till there was nothing of him left, and then sat down to wait; feeling (so he used to say) as comfortable as if he was going to be made a freemason, and they were heating the pokers. "Tom waited so long, gentlemen, that he began to think it must be getting on for midnight at least, and felt more dismal and lonely than ever he had done in all his life. He tried every means of wiling away the time, but it never had seemed to move so slow. First, he took a nearer view of the child with three heads, and thought what a comfort it must have been to his parents. Then he looked up a long telescope which was pointed out of the window, but saw nothing particular, in consequence of the stopper being on at the other end. Then he came to a skeleton in a glass case, labelled, 'Skeleton of a Gentleman—prepared by Mr. Mooney,' —which made him hope that Mr. Mooney might not be in the habit of preparing gentlemen that way without their own consent. A hundred times at least, he looked into the pot where they were boiling the philosopher's stone down to the proper consistency, and wondered whether it was nearly done. 'When it is,' thinks Tom, 'I'll send out for sixpenn'orth of sprats, and turn 'em into gold fish for a first experiment.' Besides which, he made up his mind, gentlemen, to have a country-house and a park; and to plant a bit of it with a double row of gas-lamps a mile long, and go out every night with a French-polished mahogany ladder, and two servants in livery behind him, to light 'em for his own pleasure. "At length and at last, the old gentleman's legs appeared upon the steps leading through the roof, and he came slowly down: bringing along with him the gifted Mooney. This Mooney, gentlemen, was even more scientific in appearance than his friend; and had, as Tom often declared upon his word and honour, the dirtiest face we can possibly know of, in this imperfect state of existence. "Gentlemen, you are all aware that if a scientific man isn't absent in his mind, he's of no good at all. Mr. Mooney was so absent, that when the old gentleman said to him, 'Shake hands with Mr. Grig,' he put out his leg. 'Here's a mind, Mr. Grig!' cries the old gentleman in a rapture. 'Here's philosophy! Here's rumination! Don't disturb him,' he says, "'or this is amazing!' "Tom had no wish to disturb him, having nothing particular to say; but he was so uncommonly amazing, that the old gentleman got impatient, and determined to give him an electric shock to bring him to—'for you must know, Mr. Grig,' he says, 'that we always keep a strongly charged battery, ready for that purpose.' These means being resorted to, gentlemen, the gifted Mooney revived with a loud roar, and he no sooner came to himself than both he and the old gentleman looked at Tom with compassion, and shed tears abundantly. "'My dear friend,' says the old gentleman to the Gifted, 'prepare him.' "'I say,' cries Tom, falling back, 'none of that, you know. No preparing by Mr. Mooney if you please.' "'Alas!' replies the old gentleman, 'you don't understand us. My friend, inform him of his fate.—I can't.' "The Gifted mustered up his voice, after many efforts, and informed Tom that his nativity had been carefully cast, and he would expire at exactly thirty-five minutes, twenty-seven seconds, and five-sixths of a second past nine o'clock, A.M., on that day two months. "Gentlemen, I leave you to judge what were Tom's feelings at this announcement, on the eve of matrimony and endless riches. 'I think,' he says in a trembling voice, 'there must be a mistake in the working of that sum. Will you do me the favour to cast it up again?'—'There is no mistake,' replies the old gentleman, 'it is confirmed by Francis Moore, Physician. Here is the prediction for to-morrow two months.' And he showed him the page, where sure enough were these words—'The decease of a great person may be looked for, about this time.' "'Which,' says the old gentleman, 'is clearly you, Mr. Grig.' "'Too clearly,' cries Tom, sinking into a chair, and giving one hand to the old gentleman, and one to the Gifted. 'The orb of day has set on Thomas Grig for ever!' "At this affecting remark, the Gifted shed tears again, and the other two mingled their tears with his, in a kind—if I may use the expression—of Mooney and Co.'s entire. But the old gentleman recovering first, observed that this was only a reason for hastening the marriage, in order that Tom's distinguished race might be transmitted to posterity; and requesting the Gifted to console Mr. Grig during his temporary absence, he withdrew to settle the preliminaries with his niece immediately. "And now, gentlemen, a very extraordinary and remarkable occurrence took place; for as Tom sat in a melancholy way in one chair, and the Gifted sat in a melancholy way in another, a couple of doors were thrown violently open, the two young ladies rushed in, and one knelt down in a loving attitude at Tom's feet, and the other at the Gifted's. So far, perhaps, as Tom was concerned—as he used to say—you will say there was nothing strange in this; but you will be of a different opinion when you understand that Tom's young lady was kneeling to the Gifted, and the Gifted's young lady was kneeling to Tom. "'Halloa! stop a minute!' cries Tom; 'here's a mistake. I need condoling with by sympathising woman, under my afflicting circumstances; but we're out in the figure. Change partners, Mooney.' "'Monster!' cries Tom's young lady, clinging to the Gifted. "'Miss!' says Tom. 'Is that your manners?' "'I abjure thee!' cries Tom's young lady. 'I renounce thee. I never will be thine. Thou,' she says to the Gifted, 'art the object of my first and all-engrossing passion. Wrapt in thy sublime visions, thou hast not perceived my love; but, driven to despair, I now shake off the woman and avow it. Oh, cruel, cruel man!' With which reproach she laid her head upon the Gifted's breast, and put her arms about him in the tenderest manner possible, gentlemen. "'And I,' says the other young lady, in a sort of ecstasy, that made Tom start—'I hereby abjure my chosen husband too. Hear me, Goblin!'—this was to the Gifted—'Hear me! I hold thee in the deepest detestation. The maddening interview of this one night has filled my soul with love—but not for thee. It is for thee, for thee, young man,' she cries to Tom. 'As Monk Lewis finely observes, Thomas, Thomas, I am thine, Thomas, Thomas, thou art mine: thine for ever, mine for ever!' with which words, she became very tender likewise. "Tom and the Gifted, gentlemen, as you may believe, looked at each other in a very awkward manner, and with thoughts not at all complimentary to the two young ladies. As to the Gifted, I have heard Tom say often, that he was certain he was in a fit, and had it inwardly. "'Speak to me! Oh, speak to me!' cries Tom's young lady to the Gifted. "'I don't want to speak to anybody,' he says, finding his voice at last, and trying to push her away. 'I think I had better go. I'm—I'm frightened,' he says, looking about as if he had lost something. "'Not one look of love!' she cries. 'Hear me while I declare—' "'I don't know how to look a look of love,' he says, all in a maze. 'Don't declare anything. I don't want to hear anybody.' "'That's right!' cries the old gentleman (who it seems had been listening). 'That's right! Don't hear her. Emma shall marry you to-morrow, my friend, whether she likes it or not, and she shall marry Mr. Grig.' "Gentlemen, these words were no sooner out of his mouth than Galileo Isaac Newton Flamstead (who it seems had been listening too) darts in, and spinning round and round, like a young giant's top, cries,'"Let her. Let her. I'm fierce; I'm furious. I give her leave. I'll never marry anybody after this— never. It isn't safe. She is the falsest of the false,' he cries, tearing his hair and gnashing his teeth; 'and I'll live and die a bachelor!' "'The little boy,' observed the Gifted gravely, 'albeit of tender years, has spoken wisdom. I have been led to the contemplation of womankind, and will not adventure on the troubled waters of matrimony.' "'What!' says the old gentleman, 'not marry my daughter! Won't you, Mooney? Not if I make her? Won't you? Won't you?' "'No,' says Mooney, 'I won't. And if anybody asks me any more, I'll run away, and never come back again.' ""Mr. Grig,' says the old gentleman,'"the stars must be obeyed. You have not changed your mind because of a little girlish folly—eh, Mr. Grig?' "Tom, gentlemen, had had his eyes about him, and was pretty sure that all this was a device and trick of the waiting-maid, to put him off his inclination. He had seen her hiding and skipping about the two doors, and had observed that a very little whispering from her pacified the Salamander directly. 'So,' thinks Tom, 'this is a plot—but it won't fit.' "'Eh, Mr. Grig?' says the old gentleman. "'Why, sir,' says Tom, pointing to the crucible, 'if the soup's nearly ready—' "'Another hour beholds the consummation of our labours,' returned the old gentleman. "'Very good,' says Tom, with a mournful air. 'It's only for two months, but I may as well be the richest man in the world even for that time. I'm not particular, I'll take her, sir. I'll take her.' "The old gentleman was in a rapture to find Tom still in the same mind, and drawing the young lady towards him by little and little, was joining their hands by main force, when all of a sudden, gentlemen, the crucible blows up, with a great crash; everybody screams; the room is filled with smoke; and Tom, not knowing what may happen next, throws himself into a Fancy attitude, and says, 'Come on, if you're a man!' without addressing himself to anybody in particular. "'The labours of fifteen years!' says the old gentleman, clasping his hands and looking down upon the Gifted, who was saving the pieces, 'are destroyed in an instant!'—And I am told, gentlemen, by the by, that this same philosopher's stone would have been discovered a hundred times at least, to speak within bounds, if it wasn't for the one unfortunate circumstance that the apparatus always blows up, when it's on the very point of succeeding. "Tom turns pale when he hears the old gentleman expressing himself to this unpleasant effect, and stammers out that if it's quite agreeable to all parties, he would like to know exactly what has happened, and what change has really taken place in the prospects of that company. "'We have failed for the present, Mr. Grig,' says the old gentleman, wiping his forehead. 'And I regret it the more, because I have in fact invested my niece's five thousand pounds in this glorious speculation. But don't be cast down,' he says, anxiously—'in another fifteen years, Mr. Grig—' "'Oh!' cries Tom, letting the young lady's hand fall. 'Were the stars very positive about this union, sir?' "'They were,' says the old gentleman. "'I'm sorry to hear it,' Tom makes answer, 'for it's no go, sir.' "'No what!' cries the old gentleman. "'Go, sir,' says Tom, fiercely. 'I forbid the banns.' And with these words—which are the very words he used—he sat himself down in a chair, and, laying his head upon the table, thought with a secret grief of what was to come to pass on that day two months. "Tom always said, gentlemen, that that waiting-maid was the artfullest minx he had ever seen; and he left it in writing in this country when he went to colonise abroad, that he was certain in his own mind she and the Salamander had blown up the philosopher's stone on purpose, and to cut him out of his property. I believe Tom was in the right, gentlemen; but whether or no, she comes forward at this point, and says, 'May I speak, sir?' and the old gentleman answering, 'Yes, you may,' she goes on to say that 'the stars are no doubt quite right in every respect, but Tom is not the man.' And she says, 'Don't you remember, sir, that when the clock struck five this afternoon, you gave Master Galileo a rap on the head with your telescope, and told him to get out of the way?' 'Yes, I do,' says the old gentleman. 'Then,' says the waiting-maid, 'I say he's the man, and the prophecy is fulfilled.' The old gentleman staggers at this, as if somebody had hit him a blow on the chest, and cries, 'He! why, he's a boy!' Upon that, gentlemen, the Salamander cries out that he'll be twenty-one next Lady-day; and complains that his father has always been so busy with the sun round which the earth revolves, that he has never taken any notice of the son that revolves round him; and that he hasn't had a new suit of clothes since he was fourteen; and that he wasn't even taken out of nankeen frocks and trowsers till he was quite unpleasant in 'em; and touches on a good many more family matters to the same purpose. To make short of a long story, gentlemen, they all talk together, and cry together, and remind the old gentleman that as to the noble family, his own grandfather would have been Lord Mayor if he hadn't died at a dinner the year before; and they show him by all kinds of arguments that if the cousins are married, the prediction comes true every way. At last, the old gentleman being quite convinced, gives in; and joins their hands; and leaves his daughter to marry anybody she likes; and they are all well pleased; and the Gifted as well as any of them. "In the middle of this little family party, gentlemen, sits Tom all the while, as miserable as you like. But, when everything else is arranged, the old gentleman's daughter says, that their strange conduct was a little device of the waiting-maid's to disgust the lovers he had chosen for 'em, and will he forgive her? and if he will, perhaps he might even find her a husband—and when she says that, she looks uncommon hard at Tom. Then the waiting-maid says that, oh dear! she couldn't abear Mr. Grig should think she wanted him to marry her; and that she had even gone so far as to refuse the last lamp-lighter, who was now a literary character (having set up as a bill-sticker); and that she hoped Mr. Grig would not suppose she was on her last legs by any means, for the baker was very strong in his attentions at that moment, and as to the butcher, he was frantic. And I don't know how much more she might have said, gentlemen (for, as you know, this kind of young women are rare ones to talk), if the old gentleman hadn't cut in suddenly, and asked Tom if he'd have her, with ten pounds to recompense him for his loss of time and disappointment, and as a kind of bribe to keep the story secret. "'It don't much matter, sir,' says Tom, 'I ain't long for this world. Eight weeks of marriage, especially with this young woman, might reconcile me to my fate. I think,' he says, 'I could go off easy after that.' With which he embraces her with a very dismal face, and groans in a way that might move a heart of stone—even of philosopher's stone. "'Egad,' says the old gentleman, 'that reminds me—this bustle put it out of my head—there was a figure wrong. He'll live to a green old age—eighty-seven at least!' "'How much, sir?' cries Tom. "'Eighty-seven!' says the old gentleman. "'Without another word, Tom flings himself on the old gentleman's neck; throws up his hat; cuts a caper; defies the waiting-maid; and refers her to the butcher. "'You wont marry her!' says the old gentleman, angrily. "'And live after it!' says Tom. 'I'd sooner marry a mermaid with a small-tooth comb and looking-glass.' "'Then take the consequences,' says the other. "With those words—I beg your kind attention here, gentlemen, for it's worth your notice—the old gentleman wetted the forefinger of his right hand in some of the liquor from the crucible that was spilt on the floor, and drew a small triangle on Tom's forehead. The room swam before his eyes, and he found himself in the watch-house." "Found himself where?" cried the vice, on behalf of the company generally. "In the watch-house," said the chairman. "It was late at night, and he found himself in the very watch-house from which he had been let out that morning." "Did he go home?" asked the vice. "The watch-house people rather objected to that," said the chairman; "so he stopped there that night, and went before the magistrate in the morning. 'Why, you're here again, are you?' says the magistrate, adding insult to injury; 'we'll trouble you for five shillings more, if you can conveniently spare the money.' Tom told him he had been enchanted, but it was of no use. He told the contractors the same, but they wouldn't believe him. It was very hard upon him, gentlemen, as he often said, for was it likely he'd go and invent such a tale? They shook their heads and told him he'd say anything but his prayers—as indeed he would; there's no doubt about that. It was the only imputation on his moral character that ever I heard of." Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Speeches Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context speeches Description An account of the resource <h4>This collection brings together Dickens’s collected and uncollected speeches, making an under-explored body of work searchable for the first time. </h4> Dickens made more than a hundred speeches between 1837 and 1870 at events ranging from charitable dinners and award ceremonies to banquets in his honour or brief words of thanks before a public reading. In these speeches, the author touched on topics including his own life and professional development as well as other subjects such as politics, education, literature, public health and the development of the railway. Efforts to collect Dickens’s speeches prior to 1960 were incomplete at best, and misleading and fragmentary at worst. John Camden Hotten’s collection of speeches, begun without the author’s consent (although he never responded to Hotten’s letters, Dickens did begin efforts to block their publication) and published together with a hastily-compiled biography shortly after the author’s death, remained the primary collected version of the speeches until the Nonesuch Dickens of 1938-39 (a limited print run). Finally, K. J. Fielding brought all known speeches together in 1960, correcting shoddy transcriptions by Hotten using contemporary newspaper accounts, and nearly doubling the total number of speeches attributed to Dickens (The Speeches of Charles Dickens [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1960]): Hotten had only featured the text of 56 speeches, the Nonesuch edition of the speeches provided an additional nine, and Fielding presented more than a hundred. Since this monumental work, a handful have also appeared in The Dickensian;<a href="#fn1" id="ref1">1</a> there are certainly more to be found, as the volume of digitised newspapers and periodicals increases, and corrections to be made to existing transcriptions. No effort to collect the speeches has been made since Fielding; this collection thus represents the most complete body of Dickens's speeches ever assembled. Dickens did not write his speeches beforehand, nor did he speak from notes. George Dolby recounted his imaginative process in 1884: <blockquote>[S]upposing the speech was to be delivered in the evening, his habit was to take a long walk in the morning, during which he would decide on the various heads to be dealt with. These being arranged in their proper order, he would in his 'mind's eye,' liken the whole subject to the tire of a cart wheel – he being the hub. From the hub to the tire he would run as many spokes as there were subjects to be treated, and during the progress of the speech he would deal with each spoke separately, elaborating them as he went round the wheel; and when all the spokes dropped out one by one, and nothing but the tire and space remained […] his speech was at an end. (Charles Dickens as I Knew Him: The Story of the Reading Tours in Great Britain and America, pp. 273-74)</blockquote> However, on important occasions, Dickens might personally correct transcriptions of speeches for major London newspapers like The Times. As such, these newspaper accounts are as accurate a source as we can hope to have for what Dickens said (or meant to say). Our Transcription field will only include words attributed directly to Dickens rather than third-person reports or paraphrases of his speeches. Where only such reports exist, we will provide the text in the 'Summary' field. Ngram search and other text analysis tools will be applied to what are given as Dickens's words only, to avoid skewing the results, but of course we are reliant on the quality of the reporting: we recommend analysing topics, themes, quotations and concepts rather than granular detail such as prepositions, punctuation, capitalisation and the intricacies of grammar, as different newspaper accounts can vary on these points. Please <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/contact">contact us</a> with any errors, corrections, suggestions, or to contribute other uncollected speeches by Dickens. 1. These are Philip Collins, 'Some Uncollected Speeches by Dickens', The Dickensian 73.382 (1977): pp. 89-99; David A. Roos, 'Dickens at the Royal Academy of Arts: A New Speech and Two Eulogies', The Dickensian 73.382 (1977): pp. 100-107; and William F. Long, 'Dickens and the Coming of Rail to Deal: An Uncollected Speech and its Context', The Dickensian 85.418 (1989): pp. 66-80. <a href="#ref1" title="Jump back to footnote 1 in the text.">↩</a> Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Emily Middleton; Ellie-Louise Crampton; Maisie Howard; Adam Woods Speech Location The location London Venue Where the speech was given London Tavern Ngram Date Hidden from users and search. All items in a collection need to have the same data in the same format in order to show up in Ngram (either YYYY, YYYYMMDD, or YYYYMMDD). No combinations will work. For journalism, letters and poetry, if there is no month or day, default to the first of the month or January. So a poem with a date of March 1843 would be 18430301. A poem published in 1856 with no month or date information would be 18560101. 18510301 Ngram Text Hidden from users and search. Copy and paste from the Scripto transcription. Then check and uncheck HTML to strip out all formatting. Finally, search and remove any   (which is the HTML for spaces). This will prevent the Ngram picking up on irrelevant HTML. Gentlemen, After all you have already heard, and have so rapturously received, I assure you that not even the warmth of your kind welcome would embolden me to hope to interest you if I had not full confidence in the subject I have to offer to your notice. But my reliance on the strength of this appeal to you is so strong that I am rather encouraged than daunted by the brightness of the track on which I have to throw my little shadow. Gentlemen, as it seems to me, there are three great requisites essential to the perfect realization of a scene so unusual and so splendid as that in which we are now assembled. The first, and I may say most difficult requisite, is a man possessing that strong hold on the general remembrance, that indisputable claim on the general regard and esteem, which is possessed by my dear and much valued friend, our guest. The second requisite is the presence of a body of entertainers, a great multitude of hosts as cheerful and good humoured – under, I am sorry to say, some personal inconvenience – as warm-hearted and as nobly in earnest, as those whom I have the privilege of addressing. The third, and certainly not the least of these requisites, is a president who, less by his social position which he may claim by inheritance, or by his fortune which may have been adventitiously won, and may again be accidentally lost, than by his comprehensive genius, shall fitly represent the best part of him to whom honour is done, and the best part of those who unite in the doing of it. Such a president I think we have found in our chairman of tonight, and I need scarcely add that our chairman's health is the toast I have to propose to you. Many of those who now hear me were present, I dare say, at that memorable scene of Wednesday night last, when the great vision which had been a delight and a lesson, and, I dare say, very often to many of us – I know I can speak for myself – a support and a comfort, and which for many years has improved and charmed us, and to which we look back in elevated relief from the labours of our lives, faded from our sight for ever. I will not stop to inquire whether our guest may or may not have looked forward through rather too long a period for us, to some remote and distant time when he might possibly bear some far-off likeness to a certain Spanish archbishop whom our old friend Gil Blas once served. Nor will I stop to inquire whether it was a reasonable disposition in the audience of Wednesday night to seize upon the words: And I have bought Golden opinions from all sorts of people Which would be worn now in their newest gloss, Not cast aside so soon –  but I will venture to intimate what has, in my own mind, mainly connected that occasion with the present. When I looked round on the vast assemblage, and observed the huge pit hushed into stillness on the rising of the curtain, and that mighty surging gallery, where men in their shirt sleeves had been striking out their arms like strong swimmers, – when I saw that boisterous human flood become still water in a moment, and remain so from the opening to the end of the play, it suggested to me something besides the trustworthiness of the English crowd, and the delusion under which those labour who are apt to disparage and malign it: it suggested to me, that in meeting here tonight, we undertook to represent something of the all-pervading feeling of that crowd through all its intermediate degrees, from the full-dressed lady, with her diamonds sparkling upon her breast in the proscenium-box, to the half-undressed gentleman, who bides his time to take some refreshment in the back row of the gallery. And I consider, gentlemen, that no one who could possibly be placed in this Chair could so well head that comprehensive representation, and could so well give the crowning grace to our festivities as one whose comprehensive genius has in his various works embraced them all, and who has in his dramatic genius, enchanted and enthralled them all at once. Gentlemen, it is not for me here to recall, after what you have heard this night, what I have seen and known in bygone times of Mr. Macready's management, and of the strong friendship of Sir Bulwer Lytton for him, of the association of his pen with his earliest successes, or of Mr. Macready's zealous and untiring services; but it may be permitted to me to say what, in any public mention of him I can never repress, that in the path we both tread I have uniformly found him from the first the most generous of men; quick to encourage, slow to disparage, ever anxious to assert the order of which he is so great an ornament; never condescending to shuffle it off, and leave it outside state rooms, as a Mussulman might leave his slippers outside a mosque. There is a popular prejudice, a kind of superstition, to the effect that authors are not a particularly united body, that they are not invariably and inseparably attached to each other. I am afraid I must concede half a grain or so of truth to that superstition; but this I know, that there can hardly be, that there hardly can have been, among the followers of literature, a man of more high standing further above those little grudging jealousies, which do sometimes disparage its brightness, than Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton. And I have the strongest reason just at present to bear my testimony to his great consideration for those evils which are sometimes unfortunately attendant upon it, though not on him. For, in conjunction with some other gentlemen now present, I have just embarked in a design with Sir Bulwer Lytton, to smooth the rugged way of young labourers, both in literature and the fine arts, and to soften, but by no eleemosynary means, the declining years of meritorious age. And if that project prosper, as I hope it will, and as I know it ought, it will one day be an honour in England where it is now a reproach; originating in his sympathies, being brought into operation by his activity, and endowed from the very cradle by his generosity. There are many among you who will have each his own favourite reason for drinking our chairman’s health, resting his claim probably upon some of his diversified success. According to the nature of your reading, some of you will connect him with prose, others will connect him with poetry. One will connect him with comedy, and another with the romantic passions of the stage, and his assertion of worthy ambition and earnest struggles against those twin gaolers of the human heart Low birth and iron fortune. Again, another's taste will lead him to the contemplation of Rienzi, and the streets of Rome; another's to the rebuilt and repeopled streets of Pompeii; another's to the touching history of the fireside where the Caxton family learned how to discipline their natures and tame their wild hopes down. But however various their feelings and reasons may be, I am sure that with one accord each will help the other, and all will swell the greeting, with which I shall now propose to you ‘The Health of our Chairman, Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton’. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Banquet in Honour of William Macready's Farewell Performance Description An account of the resource Speech at the Banquet in Honour of William Macready's Farewell Performance (1 March 1851). Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dickens, Charles Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1851-03-01 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1851-03-01_Speech_Banquet-in-Honour-of-William-Macready Bibliographic Citation A bibliographic reference for the resource. Recommended practice is to include sufficient bibliographic detail to identify the resource as unambiguously as possible. Dickens, Charles. 'Speech at the Banquet in Honour of William Macready's Farewell Performance' (1 March 1851). Dickens Search. Eds. Emily Middleton and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1851-03-01_Speech_Banquet-in-Honour-of-William-Macready">https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1851-03-01_Speech_Banquet-in-Honour-of-William-Macready</a>. Scripto Transcription A written representation of a document. Gentlemen, After all you have already heard, and have so rapturously received, I assure you that not even the warmth of your kind welcome would embolden me to hope to interest you if I had not full confidence in the subject I have to offer to your notice. But my reliance on the strength of this appeal to you is so strong that I am rather encouraged than daunted by the brightness of the track on which I have to throw my little shadow.  Gentlemen, as it seems to me, there are three great requisites essential to the perfect realization of a scene so unusual and so splendid as that in which we are now assembled. The first, and I may say most difficult requisite, is a man possessing that strong hold on the general remembrance, that indisputable claim on the general regard and esteem, which is possessed by my dear and much valued friend, our guest. The second requisite is the presence of a body of entertainers, a great multitude of hosts as cheerful and good humoured – under, I am sorry to say, some personal inconvenience – as warm-hearted and as nobly in earnest, as those whom I have the privilege of addressing. The third, and certainly not the least of these requisites, is a president who, less by his social position which he may claim by inheritance, or by his fortune which may have been adventitiously won, and may again be accidentally lost, than by his comprehensive genius, shall fitly represent the best part of him to whom honour is done, and the best part of those who unite in the doing of it. Such a president I think we have found in our chairman of tonight, and I need scarcely add that our chairman's health is the toast I have to propose to you. Many of those who now hear me were present, I dare say, at that memorable scene of Wednesday night last, when the great vision which had been a delight and a lesson, and, I dare say, very often to many of us – I know I can speak for myself – a support and a comfort, and which for many years has improved and charmed us, and to which we look back in elevated relief from the labours of our lives, faded from our sight for ever. I will not stop to inquire whether our guest may or may not have looked forward through rather too long a period for us, to some remote and distant time when he might possibly bear some far-off likeness to a certain Spanish archbishop whom our old friend Gil Blas once served. Nor will I stop to inquire whether it was a reasonable disposition in the audience of Wednesday night to seize upon the words: And I have bought   Golden opinions from all sorts of people   Which would be worn now in their newest gloss,  Not cast aside so soon –   but I will venture to intimate what has, in my own mind, mainly connected that occasion with the present. When I looked round on the vast assemblage, and observed the huge pit hushed into stillness on the rising of the curtain, and that mighty surging gallery, where men in their shirt sleeves had been striking out their arms like strong swimmers, – when I saw that boisterous human flood become still water in a moment, and remain so from the opening to the end of the play, it suggested to me something besides the trustworthiness of the English crowd, and the delusion under which those labour who are apt to disparage and malign it: it suggested to me, that in meeting here tonight, we undertook to represent something of the all-pervading feeling of that crowd through all its intermediate degrees, from the full-dressed lady, with her diamonds sparkling upon her breast in the proscenium-box, to the half-undressed gentleman, who bides his time to take some refreshment in the back row of the gallery. And I consider, gentlemen, that no one who could possibly be placed in this Chair could so well head that comprehensive representation, and could so well give the crowning grace to our festivities as one whose comprehensive genius has in his various works embraced them all, and who has in his dramatic genius, enchanted and enthralled them all at once. Gentlemen, it is not for me here to recall, after what you have heard this night, what I have seen and known in bygone times of Mr. Macready's management, and of the strong friendship of Sir Bulwer Lytton for him, of the association of his pen with his earliest successes, or of Mr. Macready's zealous and untiring services; but it may be permitted to me to say what, in any public mention of him I can never repress, that in the path we both tread I have uniformly found him from the first the most generous of men; quick to encourage, slow to disparage, ever anxious to assert the order of which he is so great an ornament; never condescending to shuffle it off, and leave it outside state rooms, as a Mussulman might leave his slippers outside a mosque. There is a popular prejudice, a kind of superstition, to the effect that authors are not a particularly united body, that they are not invariably and inseparably attached to each other.  I am afraid I must concede half a grain or so of truth to that superstition; but this I know, that there can hardly be, that there hardly can have been, among the followers of literature, a man of more high standing further above those little grudging jealousies, which do sometimes disparage its brightness, than Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton. And I have the strongest reason just at present to bear my testimony to his great consideration for those evils which are sometimes unfortunately attendant upon it, though not on him. For, in conjunction with some other gentlemen now present, I have just embarked in a design with Sir Bulwer Lytton, to smooth the rugged way of young labourers, both in literature and the fine arts, and to soften, but by no eleemosynary means, the declining years of meritorious age. And if that project prosper, as I hope it will, and as I know it ought, it will one day be an honour in England where it is now a reproach; originating in his sympathies, being brought into operation by his activity, and endowed from the very cradle by his generosity. There are many among you who will have each his own favourite reason for drinking our chairman’s health, resting his claim probably upon some of his diversified success. According to the nature of your reading, some of you will connect him with prose, others will connect him with poetry. One will connect him with comedy, and another with the romantic passions of the stage, and his assertion of worthy ambition and earnest struggles against   those twin gaolers of the human heart   Low birth and iron fortune.  Again, another's taste will lead him to the contemplation of Rienzi, and the streets of Rome; another's to the rebuilt and repeopled streets of Pompeii; another's to the touching history of the fireside where the Caxton family learned how to discipline their natures and tame their wild hopes down. But however various their feelings and reasons may be, I am sure that with one accord each will help the other, and all will swell the greeting, with which I shall now propose to you ‘The Health of our Chairman, Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton’.  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Speeches Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context speeches Description An account of the resource <h4>This collection brings together Dickens’s collected and uncollected speeches, making an under-explored body of work searchable for the first time. </h4> Dickens made more than a hundred speeches between 1837 and 1870 at events ranging from charitable dinners and award ceremonies to banquets in his honour or brief words of thanks before a public reading. In these speeches, the author touched on topics including his own life and professional development as well as other subjects such as politics, education, literature, public health and the development of the railway. Efforts to collect Dickens’s speeches prior to 1960 were incomplete at best, and misleading and fragmentary at worst. John Camden Hotten’s collection of speeches, begun without the author’s consent (although he never responded to Hotten’s letters, Dickens did begin efforts to block their publication) and published together with a hastily-compiled biography shortly after the author’s death, remained the primary collected version of the speeches until the Nonesuch Dickens of 1938-39 (a limited print run). Finally, K. J. Fielding brought all known speeches together in 1960, correcting shoddy transcriptions by Hotten using contemporary newspaper accounts, and nearly doubling the total number of speeches attributed to Dickens (The Speeches of Charles Dickens [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1960]): Hotten had only featured the text of 56 speeches, the Nonesuch edition of the speeches provided an additional nine, and Fielding presented more than a hundred. Since this monumental work, a handful have also appeared in The Dickensian;<a href="#fn1" id="ref1">1</a> there are certainly more to be found, as the volume of digitised newspapers and periodicals increases, and corrections to be made to existing transcriptions. No effort to collect the speeches has been made since Fielding; this collection thus represents the most complete body of Dickens's speeches ever assembled. Dickens did not write his speeches beforehand, nor did he speak from notes. George Dolby recounted his imaginative process in 1884: <blockquote>[S]upposing the speech was to be delivered in the evening, his habit was to take a long walk in the morning, during which he would decide on the various heads to be dealt with. These being arranged in their proper order, he would in his 'mind's eye,' liken the whole subject to the tire of a cart wheel – he being the hub. From the hub to the tire he would run as many spokes as there were subjects to be treated, and during the progress of the speech he would deal with each spoke separately, elaborating them as he went round the wheel; and when all the spokes dropped out one by one, and nothing but the tire and space remained […] his speech was at an end. (Charles Dickens as I Knew Him: The Story of the Reading Tours in Great Britain and America, pp. 273-74)</blockquote> However, on important occasions, Dickens might personally correct transcriptions of speeches for major London newspapers like The Times. As such, these newspaper accounts are as accurate a source as we can hope to have for what Dickens said (or meant to say). Our Transcription field will only include words attributed directly to Dickens rather than third-person reports or paraphrases of his speeches. Where only such reports exist, we will provide the text in the 'Summary' field. Ngram search and other text analysis tools will be applied to what are given as Dickens's words only, to avoid skewing the results, but of course we are reliant on the quality of the reporting: we recommend analysing topics, themes, quotations and concepts rather than granular detail such as prepositions, punctuation, capitalisation and the intricacies of grammar, as different newspaper accounts can vary on these points. Please <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/contact">contact us</a> with any errors, corrections, suggestions, or to contribute other uncollected speeches by Dickens. 1. These are Philip Collins, 'Some Uncollected Speeches by Dickens', The Dickensian 73.382 (1977): pp. 89-99; David A. Roos, 'Dickens at the Royal Academy of Arts: A New Speech and Two Eulogies', The Dickensian 73.382 (1977): pp. 100-107; and William F. Long, 'Dickens and the Coming of Rail to Deal: An Uncollected Speech and its Context', The Dickensian 85.418 (1989): pp. 66-80. <a href="#ref1" title="Jump back to footnote 1 in the text.">↩</a> Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Emily Middleton; Ellie-Louise Crampton; Maisie Howard; Adam Woods Speech Summary Occasionally speeches are summarised in sources in third person. Include that here, so that everything in the text transcription is only Dickens's words. In reply the chairman begged to be allowed to offer them his deepest thanks for the manner in which the last toast had been responded to. He deeply felt the honour conferred upon him, having attended the meeting as a matter of duty, though placed from peculiar circumstances in a highly painful and difficult position. If his services were of any value to the institution, he said, he could assure its members that those services were always freely and heartily at their disposal. He would say no more upon the subject, but proceed to a toast which he doubted not would be warmly received and responded to. He had always taken the highest interest in the prosperity of the Drama, because he believed that a noble Drama tended to purify the human heart, and was the most important agent in the work of education and civilization. He would not dismiss the hope that the British Drama would ultimately ‘look up’, after a pretty long contemplation of its feet; because he could not believe that any art which so appealed to the various passions and affections of human nature could become extinct. A love of the Drama in some shape was implanted in the breast of all people. When the officers of Captain Cook’s ships, who had left their children enacting mimic plays in this country, arrived in the South Sea Uslands, they found the untutored natives doing the same beneath the shadow of their broad-leaved trees. It constituted one of the distinctions which separated man from the brute creation, and he should continue in that belief until he heard of the monkeys producing a play, or the elephants coming out in a good jog-trot, see-saw comedy. It had often been his misfortune to hear the Drama decried by people of the best intentions because of its abuses. Now doubt the Drama had its abuses like other institutions, but so far from that being a reason why they should decry it, it was a reason why they should endeavour to improve and elevate it. In some shape you would always have it; and, depend upon it, if you would not have it at its best, with your own help and consent, you would have it at its worst in your own despite. Perhaps the one reason why the Drama did not hold so good a position in this country as it ought to do, was to be found in the fact that, up to a comparatively recent period, English legislation had drearily discouraged it, and its professors had not been looked upon with respect to which they were justly entitled. But notwithstanding all discouragement, he hoped that it could, and believed that it would, be restored to its proper position among the Arts; and in no way could they better assist the endeavour to raise it, than by extending their support and assistance to those who had always shown their anxiety to maintain the respectability and honour of Dramatic Profession. The chairman then said that the next toast he had to give was the Professional Ladies and Gentlemen who delighted them with their exertions that evening. After what they had heard and witnessed he felt sure that he need do no more to recommend that toast to them, than to remind them that the whole of those Ladies and Gentlemen gave their assistance, not only gratuitously, but cheerfully, to aid the cause which they had met to promote, and he was sure that they wished for no greater reward than the knowledge that they had been instrumental in promoting the prosperity of the General Theatrical Fund. The Chairman said that he had now come to the last toast of the evening. There was a story told of an Eastern potentate, that when any intelligence of mischief having occurred was brought to him, he always used to exclaim, ‘Who is she?’ – invariably anticipating that it must be caused by a woman. In this country they had a somewhat better application of the same idea, for whenever there was a cause of benevolence to be served, they had only to say ‘Where is she?’ and the answer was sure to be ‘She is here'. The Drama was full of beautiful specimens of woman’s love and woman’s wit, but without stopping to draw comparisons between the characters of Desdemona, Juliet, or other interesting creatures of the poet's brain, he would conclude by giving them, ‘The Ladies’. Location The location London Venue Where the speech was given London Tavern Ngram Date Hidden from users and search. All items in a collection need to have the same data in the same format in order to show up in Ngram (either YYYY, YYYYMMDD, or YYYYMMDD). No combinations will work. For journalism, letters and poetry, if there is no month or day, default to the first of the month or January. So a poem with a date of March 1843 would be 18430301. A poem published in 1856 with no month or date information would be 18560101. 18510414 Ngram Text Hidden from users and search. Copy and paste from the Scripto transcription. Then check and uncheck HTML to strip out all formatting. Finally, search and remove any   (which is the HTML for spaces). This will prevent the Ngram picking up on irrelevant HTML. Gentlemen, in offering to you the loyal and always acceptable toast, ‘The Queen’, I have the pleasure of informing you that the Secretary has, this morning, received Her Majesty’s usual annual donation of one hundred pounds to the funds of the Institution. ‘The Queen.’ Gentlemen, I am sure it will not be necessary for me in presenting to you the next toast, to remind any gentleman present – it being sufficiently known to all parties – of the great interest taken by the illustrious individual whose health I am about to propose, in all the arts and sciences, or the zealous co-operation which His Royal Highness Prince Albert has always shown to any measure devised for their encouragement. At the present time, that is more particularly brought under the attention of the public through the exertions now being made on the suggestion of His Royal highness, to open within a few days, an Exhibition of the world’s progress in the arts and sciences in the magnificent and surprising Palace of Glass, which is, of itself, one of the most remarkable works of art of the age. ‘His Royal Highness Prince Albert, Albert Prince of Wales, and the rest of the Royal Family.’ Gentlemen, the next toast which I have to propose is one, in reference to which the gallant deeds of the members of the professions that are the subjects of it, speak sufficiently in themselves, and need no words of mine, – ‘The Army and Navy.’ Gentlemen, I have so often have the gratification of bearing my testimony in this place to the usefulness of the excellent institution in whose behalf we are assembled, that I should be sensible of the disadvantage of having nothing new to say to you in proposing the toast you all anticipate, if I were not relieved by the conviction that nothing new needs to be said, inasmuch as its old grounds of appeal to you can neither be weakened or strengthened by any advocacy of mine. Although the General Theatrical Fund, unlike some similar public institutions, is represented by no fabric of stone, or brick, or glass – like that wonderful achievement of my ingenious friend Mr. Paxton, of which the great demerit, as we learn from the best authorities, is, that it ought to have fallen down before it was quite built, and would by no means consent to do it. Although, I say, the General Theatrical Fund is represented by no great architectural edifice, it is nevertheless as plain a fact, rests upon as solid a foundation, and carries as erect a front as any building in the world. And the best that its exponent, standing in this place, can do, is to point it out to all beholders, saying simply, ‘There it is! Judge of it for yourselves.’ But, gentlemen, though there may be no necessity for me to state what the General Theatrical Fund is, it may be desirable (with reference to that portion of the present company who have hitherto had but a limited acquaintance with it), that I should state what it is not. It is not a theatrical association whose benefits are confined to a small body of actors, while its claims to public supports are uniformly preferred in the name of the whole histrionic art. It is not a theatrical association adapted to a state of things entirely past and gone, and no more a feature of the present time than groves of highwaymen hanging in chains on Hounslow Heath, or strings of packhorses between London and Birmingham. It is not a rich old gentlemen, with the gout in his vitals, brushed up once a year to look as vigorous as possible, and taken out for a public airing by the few survivors of a large family of nephews and nieces, who keep him laid up in lavender all the rest of the year as a mighty delicate old gentleman: then ask his poor relations, whom they lock out with a double turn of the street door key, why they don't come in and enjoy his money? It is not a theatrical association, which says to the poor actor, ‘You have only to strut and fret your hour, for so many consecutive nights and for so many seasons, on this stage – whereon it is impossible you ever can set foot; you have only to declaim for so many consecutive nights, in English – here, upon these boards where the English tongue is never heard; you have only to force yourself between these bars (of music), and to make your way – you, an unwieldy Swan of Avon, into this aviary of singing birds – you have only to do this, and you shall come into your share of the advantages of the fund which was raised from the public, in the name, and for the love, of your all-embracing art.’ No, gentlemen, if there be any such funds, this Fund is not of that kind. This Fund is a theatrical association, addressed to the means, and adapted to the wants – and sore and dire those often are – of the whole theatrical profession throughout England. It is a society in which the word ‘exclusiveness’ is unknown. It is a society which says to the actor, ‘You may be the Brigand, or the Hamlet, or the Ghost, or the Court Physician, or the King's whole army; you may do the light business, or the heavy business, or the comic business, or the serious business, or the eccentric business; you may be the captain who courts the young lady, whose guardian unaccountably persists in dressing himself a hundred years behind the time; or you may be the lady's younger brother, in white kid gloves and trousers, whose position in the family would appear to be to listen to all the female members of it when they sing, and to shake hands with them between all the verses; or you may be the Baron who gives the fête, and who sits on the sofa under the canopy, with the Baroness, to behold the fête; or you may be the peasant who swells the drinking chorus at the fête, and who may usually be observed to turn his glass upside-down immediately before drinking the Baron’s health; or you may be the Clown who takes away the door-step of the house where there's a dinner party; or you may be the first stout gentleman who issues forth out of that house, on the false alarm of fire, and precipitates himself into the area; or you may be a Fairy, residing for ever in a revolving Star, in the Regions of Pleasure, or the Palaces of Delight; or you may even be a Witch in Macbeth, bearing a marvellous resemblance to the Malcolm or Donalbain of the previous scenes with his wig hind-side before. But, be you what you may; be your path in the profession never so high or never so humble, this institution addresses you, and offers you the means of doing good to yourself, and doing good to other people.’ Nor let it be forgotten, gentlemen, that the General Theatrical Fund is essentially a Provident Institution. Its members are of a class whose earnings are, at the best, precarious; and they are required to lay by, out of their weekly salary, when they get it, a certain small weekly sum. This they do through every difficulty, with constancy that cannot be too much admired; and the first effect of the institution on them, is, to engender a habit of forethought and self-denial. By becoming a member of this society the actor is placing himself in a position to secure his own right at no man's wrong; and when in old age or times of distress he makes his claim to it, he will be entitled to say, ‘I do not compromise my independence herein; I do not disgrace my children; I am neither a beggar nor a suppliant; I come to reap the harvest from the seed which I sowed long ago.’ Therefore it is, gentlemen, that in asking you to support this Institution, I never will hold out to you the inducement, that you are performing an act of charity in the common acceptation of the word. Of all the abuses of that much abused term, none have so raised my indignation as some that I have heard in this room. If you help this Fund you will not be performing an act of charity, but you will be helping those who help themselves, and you will be coming to the aid of men who put their own shoulders to the wheel of their sunken carriage, and did not stand idly by while it sank deeper in the mire. Have you help this Fund you will not be performing an act of charity, but you will do an act of Christian kindness, benevolence, encouragement. You will do an act of justice – you will do an act of gratitude. But I will not so wrong a body of men struggling so manfully for independence, as to solicit you to perform, in their behalf, an act of charity. Gentlemen, I have used the term ‘gratitude’. Let any of us look back upon his past life, and say whether he owes no gratitude to the actor’s art! Not because it is often exercised in the midst of sickness, poverty, and misfortune, – other arts, God knows, are liable to the like distresses! Not because the actor sometimes comes from scenes of affliction and misfortune – even from death itself – to play his part before us; all men must do that violence to their feelings, in passing on to the fulfilment of their duties in the great strife and fight of life. But because in the relief afforded to us by the actor’s art, we always find some reflection, humorous or pathetic, sombre or grotesque, of all the best things that we feel and know. If any man were to tell me that he owed no great acknowledgement to the stage, I would ask him the one question, whether he remembered his first play? Oh, gentlemen, if you can but carry back your thoughts to that night, and think a little of the bright and harmless world it opened to your view, full well assured am I that we shall hear of it expressively from Mr. Cullenford, when he comes to read out the donations by and by! Gentlemen, this is the sixth year the members of this society have met together in this room. This is the sixth time your child has been brought down and introduced to the company after dinner. His nurse, a very worthy person of the name of Buckstone, with excellent characters from several places, is here, and will presently speak to you regarding the health of the child; and will, I have no doubt, be able to tell you that is chest is perfectly sound, and its general health in the best condition. Long may it continue so – long may it thrive and grow! Long may we meet here to congratulate each other on its increased and increasing prosperity, and longer than the line of Banquo may the line of figures be, in which its patriotic share in the National Debt shall be stated a hundred years hence, in the account books of the Governor and Company of the Bank of England! I beg to give you, ‘Prosperity to the General Theatrical Fund!’ Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource General Theatrical Fund Anniversary Festival 1851 Description An account of the resource Chairman's speeches at the General Theatrical Fund Anniversary Festival (14 April 1851). Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dickens, Charles Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1851-04-14 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1851-04-14_Speech_General-Theatrical-Fund-Anniversary-Festival Bibliographic Citation A bibliographic reference for the resource. Recommended practice is to include sufficient bibliographic detail to identify the resource as unambiguously as possible. Dickens, Charles. 'Chairman's speeches at the General Theatrical Fund Anniversary Festival' (14 April 1851). Dickens Search. Eds. Emily Middleton and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1851-04-14_Speech_General-Theatrical-Fund-Anniversary-Festival">https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1851-04-14_Speech_General-Theatrical-Fund-Anniversary-Festival</a>. Scripto Transcription A written representation of a document. Gentlemen, in offering to you the loyal and always acceptable toast, ‘The Queen’, I have the pleasure of informing you that the Secretary has, this morning, received Her Majesty’s usual annual donation of one hundred pounds to the funds of the Institution. ‘The Queen.’ Gentlemen, I am sure it will not be necessary for me in presenting to you the next toast, to remind any gentleman present – it being sufficiently known to all parties – of the great interest taken by the illustrious individual whose health I am about to propose, in all the arts and sciences, or the zealous co-operation which His Royal Highness Prince Albert has always shown to any measure devised for their encouragement. At the present time, that is more particularly brought under the attention of the public through the exertions now being made on the suggestion of His Royal highness, to open within a few days, an Exhibition of the world’s progress in the arts and sciences in the magnificent and surprising Palace of Glass, which is, of itself, one of the most remarkable works of art of the age. ‘His Royal Highness Prince Albert, Albert Prince of Wales, and the rest of the Royal Family.’ Gentlemen, the next toast which I have to propose is one, in reference to which the gallant deeds of the members of the professions that are the subjects of it, speak sufficiently in themselves, and need no words of mine, – ‘The Army and Navy.’ Gentlemen, I have so often have the gratification of bearing my testimony in this place to the usefulness of the excellent institution in whose behalf we are assembled, that I should be sensible of the disadvantage of having nothing new to say to you in proposing the toast you all anticipate, if I were not relieved by the conviction that nothing new needs to be said, inasmuch as its old grounds of appeal to you can neither be weakened or strengthened by any advocacy of mine. Although the General Theatrical Fund, unlike some similar public institutions, is represented by no fabric of stone, or brick, or glass – like that wonderful achievement of my ingenious friend Mr. Paxton, of which the great demerit, as we learn from the best authorities, is, that it ought to have fallen down before it was quite built, and would by no means consent to do it. Although, I say, the General Theatrical Fund is represented by no great architectural edifice, it is nevertheless as plain a fact, rests upon as solid a foundation, and carries as erect a front as any building in the world. And the best that its exponent, standing in this place, can do, is to point it out to all beholders, saying simply, ‘There it is! Judge of it for yourselves.’ But, gentlemen, though there may be no necessity for me to state what the General Theatrical Fund is, it may be desirable (with reference to that portion of the present company who have hitherto had but a limited acquaintance with it), that I should state what it is not. It is not a theatrical association whose benefits are confined to a small body of actors, while its claims to public supports are uniformly preferred in the name of the whole histrionic art. It is not a theatrical association adapted to a state of things entirely past and gone, and no more a feature of the present time than groves of highwaymen hanging in chains on Hounslow Heath, or strings of packhorses between London and Birmingham. It is not a rich old gentlemen, with the gout in his vitals, brushed up once a year to look as vigorous as possible, and taken out for a public airing by the few survivors of a large family of nephews and nieces, who keep him laid up in lavender all the rest of the year as a mighty delicate old gentleman: then ask his poor relations, whom they lock out with a double turn of the street door key, why they don't come in and enjoy his money? It is not a theatrical association, which says to the poor actor, ‘You have only to strut and fret your hour, for so many consecutive nights and for so many seasons, on this stage – whereon it is impossible you ever can set foot; you have only to declaim for so many consecutive nights, in English – here, upon these boards where the English tongue is never heard; you have only to force yourself between these bars (of music), and to make your way – you, an unwieldy Swan of Avon, into this aviary of singing birds – you have only to do this, and you shall come into your share of the advantages of the fund which was raised from the public, in the name, and for the love, of your all-embracing art.’ No, gentlemen, if there be any such funds, this Fund is not of that kind. This Fund is a theatrical association, addressed to the means, and adapted to the wants – and sore and dire those often are – of the whole theatrical profession throughout England. It is a society in which the word ‘exclusiveness’ is unknown. It is a society which says to the actor, ‘You may be the Brigand, or the Hamlet, or the Ghost, or the Court Physician, or the King's whole army; you may do the light business, or the heavy business, or the comic business, or the serious business, or the eccentric business; you may be the captain who courts the young lady, whose guardian unaccountably persists in dressing himself a hundred years behind the time; or you may be the lady's younger brother, in white kid gloves and trousers, whose position in the family would appear to be to listen to all the female members of it when they sing, and to shake hands with them between all the verses; or you may be the Baron who gives the fête, and who sits on the sofa under the canopy, with the Baroness, to behold the fête; or you may be the peasant who swells the drinking chorus at the fête, and who may usually be observed to turn his glass upside-down immediately before drinking the Baron’s health; or you may be the Clown who takes away the door-step of the house where there's a dinner party; or you may be the first stout gentleman who issues forth out of that house, on the false alarm of fire, and precipitates himself into the area; or you may be a Fairy, residing for ever in a revolving Star, in the Regions of Pleasure, or the Palaces of Delight; or you may even be a Witch in Macbeth, bearing a marvellous resemblance to the Malcolm or Donalbain of the previous scenes with his wig hind-side before. But, be you what you may; be your path in the profession never so high or never so humble, this institution addresses you, and offers you the means of doing good to yourself, and doing good to other people.’ Nor let it be forgotten, gentlemen, that the General Theatrical Fund is essentially a Provident Institution. Its members are of a class whose earnings are, at the best, precarious; and they are required to lay by, out of their weekly salary, when they get it, a certain small weekly sum. This they do through every difficulty, with constancy that cannot be too much admired; and the first effect of the institution on them, is, to engender a habit of forethought and self-denial. By becoming a member of this society the actor is placing himself in a position to secure his own right at no man's wrong; and when in old age or times of distress he makes his claim to it, he will be entitled to say, ‘I do not compromise my independence herein; I do not disgrace my children; I am neither a beggar nor a suppliant; I come to reap the harvest from the seed which I sowed long ago.’ Therefore it is, gentlemen, that in asking you to support this Institution, I never will hold out to you the inducement, that you are performing an act of charity in the common acceptation of the word. Of all the abuses of that much abused term, none have so raised my indignation as some that I have heard in this room. If you help this Fund you will not be performing an act of charity, but you will be helping those who help themselves, and you will be coming to the aid of men who put their own shoulders to the wheel of their sunken carriage, and did not stand idly by while it sank deeper in the mire. Have you help this Fund you will not be performing an act of charity, but you will do an act of Christian kindness, benevolence, encouragement. You will do an act of justice – you will do an act of gratitude. But I will not so wrong a body of men struggling so manfully for independence, as to solicit you to perform, in their behalf, an act of charity. Gentlemen, I have used the term ‘gratitude’. Let any of us look back upon his past life, and say whether he owes no gratitude to the actor’s art! Not because it is often exercised in the midst of sickness, poverty, and misfortune, – other arts, God knows, are liable to the like distresses! Not because the actor sometimes comes from scenes of affliction and misfortune – even from death itself – to play his part before us; all men must do that violence to their feelings, in passing on to the fulfilment of their duties in the great strife and fight of life. But because in the relief afforded to us by the actor’s art, we always find some reflection, humorous or pathetic, sombre or grotesque, of all the best things that we feel and know. If any man were to tell me that he owed no great acknowledgement to the stage, I would ask him the one question, whether he remembered his first play? Oh, gentlemen, if you can but carry back your thoughts to that night, and think a little of the bright and harmless world it opened to your view, full well assured am I that we shall hear of it expressively from Mr. Cullenford, when he comes to read out the donations by and by! Gentlemen, this is the sixth year the members of this society have met together in this room. This is the sixth time your child has been brought down and introduced to the company after dinner. His nurse, a very worthy person of the name of Buckstone, with excellent characters from several places, is here, and will presently speak to you regarding the health of the child; and will, I have no doubt, be able to tell you that is chest is perfectly sound, and its general health in the best condition. Long may it continue so – long may it thrive and grow! Long may we meet here to congratulate each other on its increased and increasing prosperity, and longer than the line of Banquo may the line of figures be, in which its patriotic share in the National Debt shall be stated a hundred years hence, in the account books of the Governor and Company of the Bank of England! I beg to give you, ‘Prosperity to the General Theatrical Fund!’ Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Speeches Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context speeches Description An account of the resource <h4>This collection brings together Dickens’s collected and uncollected speeches, making an under-explored body of work searchable for the first time. </h4> Dickens made more than a hundred speeches between 1837 and 1870 at events ranging from charitable dinners and award ceremonies to banquets in his honour or brief words of thanks before a public reading. In these speeches, the author touched on topics including his own life and professional development as well as other subjects such as politics, education, literature, public health and the development of the railway. Efforts to collect Dickens’s speeches prior to 1960 were incomplete at best, and misleading and fragmentary at worst. John Camden Hotten’s collection of speeches, begun without the author’s consent (although he never responded to Hotten’s letters, Dickens did begin efforts to block their publication) and published together with a hastily-compiled biography shortly after the author’s death, remained the primary collected version of the speeches until the Nonesuch Dickens of 1938-39 (a limited print run). Finally, K. J. Fielding brought all known speeches together in 1960, correcting shoddy transcriptions by Hotten using contemporary newspaper accounts, and nearly doubling the total number of speeches attributed to Dickens (The Speeches of Charles Dickens [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1960]): Hotten had only featured the text of 56 speeches, the Nonesuch edition of the speeches provided an additional nine, and Fielding presented more than a hundred. Since this monumental work, a handful have also appeared in The Dickensian;<a href="#fn1" id="ref1">1</a> there are certainly more to be found, as the volume of digitised newspapers and periodicals increases, and corrections to be made to existing transcriptions. No effort to collect the speeches has been made since Fielding; this collection thus represents the most complete body of Dickens's speeches ever assembled. Dickens did not write his speeches beforehand, nor did he speak from notes. George Dolby recounted his imaginative process in 1884: <blockquote>[S]upposing the speech was to be delivered in the evening, his habit was to take a long walk in the morning, during which he would decide on the various heads to be dealt with. These being arranged in their proper order, he would in his 'mind's eye,' liken the whole subject to the tire of a cart wheel – he being the hub. From the hub to the tire he would run as many spokes as there were subjects to be treated, and during the progress of the speech he would deal with each spoke separately, elaborating them as he went round the wheel; and when all the spokes dropped out one by one, and nothing but the tire and space remained […] his speech was at an end. (Charles Dickens as I Knew Him: The Story of the Reading Tours in Great Britain and America, pp. 273-74)</blockquote> However, on important occasions, Dickens might personally correct transcriptions of speeches for major London newspapers like The Times. As such, these newspaper accounts are as accurate a source as we can hope to have for what Dickens said (or meant to say). Our Transcription field will only include words attributed directly to Dickens rather than third-person reports or paraphrases of his speeches. Where only such reports exist, we will provide the text in the 'Summary' field. Ngram search and other text analysis tools will be applied to what are given as Dickens's words only, to avoid skewing the results, but of course we are reliant on the quality of the reporting: we recommend analysing topics, themes, quotations and concepts rather than granular detail such as prepositions, punctuation, capitalisation and the intricacies of grammar, as different newspaper accounts can vary on these points. Please <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/contact">contact us</a> with any errors, corrections, suggestions, or to contribute other uncollected speeches by Dickens. 1. These are Philip Collins, 'Some Uncollected Speeches by Dickens', The Dickensian 73.382 (1977): pp. 89-99; David A. Roos, 'Dickens at the Royal Academy of Arts: A New Speech and Two Eulogies', The Dickensian 73.382 (1977): pp. 100-107; and William F. Long, 'Dickens and the Coming of Rail to Deal: An Uncollected Speech and its Context', The Dickensian 85.418 (1989): pp. 66-80. <a href="#ref1" title="Jump back to footnote 1 in the text.">↩</a> Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Emily Middleton; Ellie-Louise Crampton; Maisie Howard; Adam Woods Speech Location The location Kensington Venue Where the speech was given Gore House Ngram Date Hidden from users and search. All items in a collection need to have the same data in the same format in order to show up in Ngram (either YYYY, YYYYMMDD, or YYYYMMDD). No combinations will work. For journalism, letters and poetry, if there is no month or day, default to the first of the month or January. So a poem with a date of March 1843 would be 18430301. A poem published in 1856 with no month or date information would be 18560101. 18510510 Ngram Text Hidden from users and search. Copy and paste from the Scripto transcription. Then check and uncheck HTML to strip out all formatting. Finally, search and remove any   (which is the HTML for spaces). This will prevent the Ngram picking up on irrelevant HTML. My Lord and Gentlemen, I am placed in that peculiarly advantageous position for speaking, that I must either turn from the chairman or from the company. But, as the company includes that best and brightest of all company, whose presence (I assume) we're supposed not to recognise on these occasions as we never address them – and, as I have abundant experience of the innate courtesy and politeness of my noble friend – I shall take the cause which I am sure will be most agreeable to him, and turn to this assembly in general. Indeed, gentlemen, I have but a few words to say, either on the needfulness of Sanitary Reform, or on the consequent usefulness of the Metropolitan Sanitary Association. That no one can estimate the amount of mischief which is grown in dirt; that no man can say, here it stops, or there it stops, either in its physical or moral results, when both begin in the cradle and are not at rest in the obscene grave, is now as certain as it is that the air from Gin Lane will be carried, when the wind is Easterly, into May Fair, and that if you once have a vigorous pestilence raging furiously in St. Giles’s, no mortal list of Lady Patronesses can keep it out of Almack’s. Twelve or fifteen years ago some, of the first valuable reports of Mr. Chadwick and of Dr. Southwood Smith strengthening and much enlarging my previous imperfect knowledge of this truth, made me, in my sphere, earnest in this Sanitary Cause. And I can honestly declare tonight, that all the use I have since made of my eyes – or nose – that all the information I have since been able to acquire through any of my senses, has strengthened me in the conviction that Searching Sanitary Reform must precede all other social remedies, and that even Education and Religion can do nothing where they are most needed, until the way is paved for their ministrations by Cleanliness and Decency. Am I singular in this opinion? You will remember the speech made this night by the Right Reverend Prelate, which no true Sanitary Reformer can have heard without emotion. What avails it to send a Missionary to me, a miserable man or woman living in a foetid Court where every sense bestowed upon me for my delight becomes a torment, and every month of my life is new mire added to the heap under which I lie degraded? To what natural feeling within me is he to address himself? What ancient chord within me can he hope to touch? Is it my remembrance of my children? Is it a remembrance of distortion and decay, scrofula and fever? Would he address himself to my hopes of immortality? I am so surrounded by material filth that my Soul can not rise to the contemplation an immaterial existence! Or, if I be a miserable child, born and natured in the same wretched place, and tempted, in these better times, to the Ragged School, what can the few hours’ teaching that I get there do for me, against the noxious, constant, ever-renewed lesson of my whole existence. But, give me my first glimpse of Heaven through a little of its light and air – give me water – help me to be clean – lighten this heavy atmosphere in which my spirit droops and I become the indifferent and callous creature that you see me – gently and kindly take the body of my dead relation out of the small room where I grow to be so familiar with the awful change that even its sanctity is lost to me – and, Teacher, then I’ll hear, you know how willingly, of Him whose thoughts were so much with the Poor, and who had compassion for all human sorrow! I am now, gentlemen, to propose to you as a toast a public Body without whose efficient aid this preparation so much to be desired, for Christianity at home, cannot be effected; and, by whom, if we earnestly desire such preparation, we must stand, giving them all the support it is in our power to render. I mean, the Board of Health. We have a transparent instance very near at hand of the mysterious arrangement that no great thing can possibly be done without a certain amount of nonsense being talked about it in the way of objection. Much as I respected friend the Ex-unprotected Female was confounded, at that family dinner party where we last heard of her, by some alarming conversation respecting the sparrows in Mr. Paxton's gutters, and the casks of gunpowder sent to the Great Exposition under the semblance of coffee, so, I dare say, it has been the fortune of most of us to hear the Board of Health discussed in various congenial circles. I've never been able to make out, distinctly, more than two objections to it; the first is expressed in a long word which I seem to have heard pronounced with a sort of violent relish on two or three previous occasions – Centralization. Now, gentlemen, in the year before last, in the time of the cholera, you had an excellent opportunity of judging between this Centralization on the one hand, and what I may be permitted to call Vestrylization on the other. You may recollect the Reports of the Board of Health on the subject of cholera, and you may recollect the Reports of the discussions on the same subject at some Vestry Meetings. I have the honour – of which I am very sensible – to be one of the constituent body of the amazing Vestry of Marylebone; and if you chance to remember (as you very likely do) what the Board of Health did, in Glasgow and other places, and what my vestry said, you will probably agree with me that between this so-called Centralization, and this Vestrylization, the former is by far the best thing to stand by in an emergency. My vestry even took the high ground of denying the existence of cholera in any unusual degree. And though that denial had no greater effect upon the disease than my vestry’s denial of the existence of Jacob’s Island had upon the Earth about Bermondsey, the circumstance may be suggestive to you in considering what Vestrylization is, when a few noisy little landlords interested in the maintenance of abuses, struggle to the foremost ranks; and what the so-called Centralization is when it is a combination of active business habits, sound medical knowledge, and a zealous sympathy with the sufferings of the people. But gentlemen there is, as I have said, another objection to the Board of Health. It is conveyed in the shorter and less alarming word – delay. Now, I need not suggest to you that it would surely be unreasonable to object to a first-rate chronometer that it wouldn't go – when its owner wouldn't wind it up. Yet I cannot help thinking, I must plainly avow, that the Board of Health is in the parallel position of being excellently adapted for going, being very willing and anxious to go, but not being able to go, because its lawful master has fallen into a gentle slumber, and forgotten to set it a-going. As a component particle of this association which my Noble friend in the chair considers useful as a gentle stimulus to governments, I must take leave to say that I do not, and can not, consider the Board of Health responsible for delay in sanitary reforms. Lord Robert Grosvenor referred just now to Lord Castlereagh’s favourite adage, that you must never hallo until you are out of the Wood. It occurred to me that with a very slight addition that would be an excellent adage for all Sanitary Reformers: to wit, that you must never hallo until you're out of the Woods – and Forests. If I may venture to make the remark under the presiding of my Noble friend whom we are all glad to see, and would all have been so happy to retain, in those leafy regions, I would say that since the remote period when ‘the noble Savage’ ran wild there, some other Nobles – not savages by any means, but gentlemen of high accomplishments and worth – have' gone a little wild in the same districts and wandered rather more languidly out of the direct path than is quite good for the public. You will of course understand that in saying this, I merely express my own individual misgivings. But I will tell you why I entertain them. Considering the Report of the Board of Health on Intra-mural Interments to be one of the most remarkable social documents ever issued under any Government, and an honour to the country and the time, I cannot but believe that the Board of Health would have advanced a little quicker in the carrying-out of the measure founded upon it but for some stoppage in the way above them which we don't clearly see. Remembering the vigour and perspicuity with which they have indicated to us the chief Sanitary evils it is essential to remove, I cannot hold them responsible for the prolonged existence of those evils. As with omission, so with commission. Remembering how clearly they showed us the advantages of a continuous supply of soft water, and how they pointed out to us an abundant source of supply, I cannot cast upon them the blame of a measure which gives us only hard water. Remembering how they dwelt upon the necessity of a combination of water-works, I cannot charge them with the injury of perpetuated separation. Remembering how they demonstrated to us that disease must lurk in houses founded over cesspools or built upon foundations saturated with cesspool matter, I cannot hold them responsible for a system of drainage which does not remove these ills. And therefore, gentlemen, both for the good they have done, and for the good they may be fairly assumed to have had the will to do, but not the power, I commend the Board of Health to you as especially deserving and requiring the sympathy, the encouragement, and the support of the Metropolitan Sanitary Association. I shall beg, in conclusion, to couple with the toast the name of a Noble Lord, one of its members, whose Earnestness in all good works no man can doubt, and who always has the courage to face the and commonest of all cants; that is to say, the cant about the cant of philanthropy and benevolence. I propose to you Lord Ashley and the Board of Health. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Metropolitan Sanitary Association Anniversary Banquet Description An account of the resource Speech at the Metropolitan Sanitary Association Anniversary Banquet (10 May 1851). Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dickens, Charles Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1851-05-10 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1851-05-10_Speech_Metropolitan-Sanitary-Association-Anniversary-Banquet Bibliographic Citation A bibliographic reference for the resource. Recommended practice is to include sufficient bibliographic detail to identify the resource as unambiguously as possible. Dickens, Charles. 'Metropolitan Sanitary Association Anniversary Banquet' (10 May 1851). Dickens Search. Eds. Emily Middleton and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1851-05-10_Speech_Metropolitan-Sanitary-Association-Anniversary-Banquet">https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1851-05-10_Speech_Metropolitan-Sanitary-Association-Anniversary-Banquet</a>. Scripto Transcription A written representation of a document. My Lord and Gentlemen, I am placed in that peculiarly advantageous position for speaking, that I must either turn from the chairman or from the company. But, as the company includes that best and brightest of all company, whose presence (I assume) we're supposed not to recognise on these occasions as we never address them – and, as I have abundant experience of the innate courtesy and politeness of my noble friend – I shall take the cause which I am sure will be most agreeable to him, and turn to this assembly in general. Indeed, gentlemen, I have but a few words to say, either on the needfulness of Sanitary Reform, or on the consequent usefulness of the Metropolitan Sanitary Association. That no one can estimate the amount of mischief which is grown in dirt; that no man can say, here it stops, or there it stops, either in its physical or moral results, when both begin in the cradle and are not at rest in the obscene grave, is now as certain as it is that the air from Gin Lane will be carried, when the wind is Easterly, into May Fair, and that if you once have a vigorous pestilence raging furiously in St. Giles’s, no mortal list of Lady Patronesses can keep it out of Almack’s. Twelve or fifteen years ago some, of the first valuable reports of Mr. Chadwick and of Dr. Southwood Smith strengthening and much enlarging my previous imperfect knowledge of this truth, made me, in my sphere, earnest in this Sanitary Cause. And I can honestly declare tonight, that all the use I have since made of my eyes – or nose – that all the information I have since been able to acquire through any of my senses, has strengthened me in the conviction that Searching Sanitary Reform must precede all other social remedies, and that even Education and Religion can do nothing where they are most needed, until the way is paved for their ministrations by Cleanliness and Decency. Am I singular in this opinion? You will remember the speech made this night by the Right Reverend Prelate, which no true Sanitary Reformer can have heard without emotion. What avails it to send a Missionary to me, a miserable man or woman living in a foetid Court where every sense bestowed upon me for my delight becomes a torment, and every month of my life is new mire added to the heap under which I lie degraded? To what natural feeling within me is he to address himself? What ancient chord within me can he hope to touch? Is it my remembrance of my children? Is it a remembrance of distortion and decay, scrofula and fever? Would he address himself to my hopes of immortality? I am so surrounded by material filth that my Soul can not rise to the contemplation an immaterial existence! Or, if I be a miserable child, born and natured in the same wretched place, and tempted, in these better times, to the Ragged School, what can the few hours’ teaching that I get there do for me, against the noxious, constant, ever-renewed lesson of my whole existence. But, give me my first glimpse of Heaven through a little of its light and air – give me water – help me to be clean – lighten this heavy atmosphere in which my spirit droops and I become the indifferent and callous creature that you see me – gently and kindly take the body of my dead relation out of the small room where I grow to be so familiar with the awful change that even its sanctity is lost to me – and, Teacher, then I’ll hear, you know how willingly, of Him whose thoughts were so much with the Poor, and who had compassion for all human sorrow! I am now, gentlemen, to propose to you as a toast a public Body without whose efficient aid this preparation so much to be desired, for Christianity at home, cannot be effected; and, by whom, if we earnestly desire such preparation, we must stand, giving them all the support it is in our power to render. I mean, the Board of Health. We have a transparent instance very near at hand of the mysterious arrangement that no great thing can possibly be done without a certain amount of nonsense being talked about it in the way of objection. Much as I respected friend the Ex-unprotected Female was confounded, at that family dinner party where we last heard of her, by some alarming conversation respecting the sparrows in Mr. Paxton's gutters, and the casks of gunpowder sent to the Great Exposition under the semblance of coffee, so, I dare say, it has been the fortune of most of us to hear the Board of Health discussed in various congenial circles. I've never been able to make out, distinctly, more than two objections to it; the first is expressed in a long word which I seem to have heard pronounced with a sort of violent relish on two or three previous occasions – Centralization. Now, gentlemen, in the year before last, in the time of the cholera, you had an excellent opportunity of judging between this Centralization on the one hand, and what I may be permitted to call Vestrylization on the other. You may recollect the Reports of the Board of Health on the subject of cholera, and you may recollect the Reports of the discussions on the same subject at some Vestry Meetings. I have the honour – of which I am very sensible – to be one of the constituent body of the amazing Vestry of Marylebone; and if you chance to remember (as you very likely do) what the Board of Health did, in Glasgow and other places, and what my vestry said, you will probably agree with me that between this so-called Centralization, and this Vestrylization, the former is by far the best thing to stand by in an emergency. My vestry even took the high ground of denying the existence of cholera in any unusual degree. And though that denial had no greater effect upon the disease than my vestry’s denial of the existence of Jacob’s Island had upon the Earth about Bermondsey, the circumstance may be suggestive to you in considering what Vestrylization is, when a few noisy little landlords interested in the maintenance of abuses, struggle to the foremost ranks; and what the so-called Centralization is when it is a combination of active business habits, sound medical knowledge, and a zealous sympathy with the sufferings of the people. But gentlemen there is, as I have said, another objection to the Board of Health. It is conveyed in the shorter and less alarming word – delay. Now, I need not suggest to you that it would surely be unreasonable to object to a first-rate chronometer that it wouldn't go – when its owner wouldn't wind it up. Yet I cannot help thinking, I must plainly avow, that the Board of Health is in the parallel position of being excellently adapted for going, being very willing and anxious to go, but not being able to go, because its lawful master has fallen into a gentle slumber, and forgotten to set it a-going. As a component particle of this association which my Noble friend in the chair considers useful as a gentle stimulus to governments, I must take leave to say that I do not, and can not, consider the Board of Health responsible for delay in sanitary reforms. Lord Robert Grosvenor referred just now to Lord Castlereagh’s favourite adage, that you must never hallo until you are out of the Wood. It occurred to me that with a very slight addition that would be an excellent adage for all Sanitary Reformers: to wit, that you must never hallo until you're out of the Woods – and Forests. If I may venture to make the remark under the presiding of my Noble friend whom we are all glad to see, and would all have been so happy to retain, in those leafy regions, I would say that since the remote period when ‘the noble Savage’ ran wild there, some other Nobles – not savages by any means, but gentlemen of high accomplishments and worth – have' gone a little wild in the same districts and wandered rather more languidly out of the direct path than is quite good for the public. You will of course understand that in saying this, I merely express my own individual misgivings. But I will tell you why I entertain them. Considering the Report of the Board of Health on Intra-mural Interments to be one of the most remarkable social documents ever issued under any Government, and an honour to the country and the time, I cannot but believe that the Board of Health would have advanced a little quicker in the carrying-out of the measure founded upon it but for some stoppage in the way above them which we don't clearly see. Remembering the vigour and perspicuity with which they have indicated to us the chief Sanitary evils it is essential to remove, I cannot hold them responsible for the prolonged existence of those evils. As with  omission, so with commission. Remembering how clearly they showed us the advantages of a continuous supply of soft water, and how they pointed out to us an abundant source of supply, I cannot cast upon them the blame of a measure which gives us only hard water. Remembering how they dwelt upon the necessity of a combination of water-works, I cannot charge them with the injury of perpetuated separation. Remembering how they demonstrated to us that disease must lurk in houses founded over cesspools or built upon foundations saturated with cesspool matter, I cannot hold them responsible for a system of drainage which does not remove these ills. And therefore, gentlemen, both for the good they have done, and for the good they may be fairly assumed to have had the will to do, but not the power, I commend the Board of Health to you as especially deserving and requiring the sympathy, the encouragement, and the support of the Metropolitan Sanitary Association. I shall beg, in conclusion, to couple with the toast the name of a Noble Lord, one of its members, whose Earnestness in all good works no man can doubt, and who always has the courage to face the and commonest of all cants; that is to say, the cant about the cant of philanthropy and benevolence. I propose to you Lord Ashley and the Board of Health. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Speeches Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context speeches Description An account of the resource <h4>This collection brings together Dickens’s collected and uncollected speeches, making an under-explored body of work searchable for the first time. </h4> Dickens made more than a hundred speeches between 1837 and 1870 at events ranging from charitable dinners and award ceremonies to banquets in his honour or brief words of thanks before a public reading. In these speeches, the author touched on topics including his own life and professional development as well as other subjects such as politics, education, literature, public health and the development of the railway. Efforts to collect Dickens’s speeches prior to 1960 were incomplete at best, and misleading and fragmentary at worst. John Camden Hotten’s collection of speeches, begun without the author’s consent (although he never responded to Hotten’s letters, Dickens did begin efforts to block their publication) and published together with a hastily-compiled biography shortly after the author’s death, remained the primary collected version of the speeches until the Nonesuch Dickens of 1938-39 (a limited print run). Finally, K. J. Fielding brought all known speeches together in 1960, correcting shoddy transcriptions by Hotten using contemporary newspaper accounts, and nearly doubling the total number of speeches attributed to Dickens (The Speeches of Charles Dickens [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1960]): Hotten had only featured the text of 56 speeches, the Nonesuch edition of the speeches provided an additional nine, and Fielding presented more than a hundred. Since this monumental work, a handful have also appeared in The Dickensian;<a href="#fn1" id="ref1">1</a> there are certainly more to be found, as the volume of digitised newspapers and periodicals increases, and corrections to be made to existing transcriptions. No effort to collect the speeches has been made since Fielding; this collection thus represents the most complete body of Dickens's speeches ever assembled. Dickens did not write his speeches beforehand, nor did he speak from notes. George Dolby recounted his imaginative process in 1884: <blockquote>[S]upposing the speech was to be delivered in the evening, his habit was to take a long walk in the morning, during which he would decide on the various heads to be dealt with. These being arranged in their proper order, he would in his 'mind's eye,' liken the whole subject to the tire of a cart wheel – he being the hub. From the hub to the tire he would run as many spokes as there were subjects to be treated, and during the progress of the speech he would deal with each spoke separately, elaborating them as he went round the wheel; and when all the spokes dropped out one by one, and nothing but the tire and space remained […] his speech was at an end. (Charles Dickens as I Knew Him: The Story of the Reading Tours in Great Britain and America, pp. 273-74)</blockquote> However, on important occasions, Dickens might personally correct transcriptions of speeches for major London newspapers like The Times. As such, these newspaper accounts are as accurate a source as we can hope to have for what Dickens said (or meant to say). Our Transcription field will only include words attributed directly to Dickens rather than third-person reports or paraphrases of his speeches. Where only such reports exist, we will provide the text in the 'Summary' field. Ngram search and other text analysis tools will be applied to what are given as Dickens's words only, to avoid skewing the results, but of course we are reliant on the quality of the reporting: we recommend analysing topics, themes, quotations and concepts rather than granular detail such as prepositions, punctuation, capitalisation and the intricacies of grammar, as different newspaper accounts can vary on these points. Please <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/contact">contact us</a> with any errors, corrections, suggestions, or to contribute other uncollected speeches by Dickens. 1. These are Philip Collins, 'Some Uncollected Speeches by Dickens', The Dickensian 73.382 (1977): pp. 89-99; David A. Roos, 'Dickens at the Royal Academy of Arts: A New Speech and Two Eulogies', The Dickensian 73.382 (1977): pp. 100-107; and William F. Long, 'Dickens and the Coming of Rail to Deal: An Uncollected Speech and its Context', The Dickensian 85.418 (1989): pp. 66-80. <a href="#ref1" title="Jump back to footnote 1 in the text.">↩</a> Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Emily Middleton; Ellie-Louise Crampton; Maisie Howard; Adam Woods Speech Summary Occasionally speeches are summarised in sources in third person. Include that here, so that everything in the text transcription is only Dickens's words. He could assure them, he said, that when he entered that room he had no idea of addressing them, but a member of the committee had asked him to propose the toast in a manner which evinced that he thought he required no forcing, and that he only required to be planted in that soil to flower immediately. Though he was no gardener himself, he knew well and appreciated the repose and delight to be found in gardening, and amongst its productions. Probably there was no feeling in the human mind stronger than the love of gardening. The prisoner in his dismal cell would endeavour to raise a flower from the chinks in the floor of his dungeon; the invalid or lodger in the garret took delight in the pot of flowers on the parapet, or endeavoured to cultivate his scarlet runners in communication with the garret of his neighbour over the way; the miniature garden was one of the greatest amusements of childhood; and, again, gardening was one of the last and best pleasures of the aged. It was a holy duty in foreign countries to decorate the graves of the dead with flowers, and here, too, the resting-places of those who had passed away from us would soon be gardens. Indeed, from that old time when the Lord walked in the garden in the cool of the evening, down to the day when a Poet Laureate sang   Trust me, Clara Vere de Vere,   From yon blue heavens above us bent   The gardener Adam and his wife   Smile at the claims of long descent,  at all times and in all ages, gardens were among the objects of the greatest interest to mankind. There might be a few, but he believed they were but a few, who took no interest in the products of gardening, except perhaps in London Pride, or a certain degenerate kind of ‘Stock’, which was apt to grow hereabouts, cultivated by a species of frozen-out gardeners whom no thaw can ever penetrate; except these, the gardeners’ art had contributed to the delight of all men in their time. That there ought to be a Benevolent Provident Institution for gardeners was in the fitness of things, and that such an institution ought to flourish, and did flourish, was still more so. He had risen to propose to you the health of a gentleman who was a great gardener, and not only a great gardener, but a great man, the growth of a fine Saxon root cultivated up with a power of intellect that was at this time the talk of the civilized world – he alluded, of course, to his friend, the chairman of the day. He had taken occasion to say at a public assembly hard by, a month or two ago, in speaking of the wonderful building Mr. Paxton had designed for the Great Exhibition in Hyde Park, that it ought to have fallen down, but that it refused to do so. We were told that the glass ought to have been all broken, the gutters all choked up, and the building flooded, and that the roof and sides ought to have been blown away; in short, that everything ought to have done what everything obstinately persisted in not doing. Earth, air, fire and water all appear to have conspired together in Mr. Paxton's favour – all had conspired to one result, which, when the present generation was in dust, would be an enduring temple to his honour, and to the energy, the talent, and the resources of Englishmen. ‘But’, said a gentleman to him the other day, ‘no doubt Mr. Paxton is a great man, but there is one objection to him that you can never get over, that is, he is a gardener’. Now, that was their case tonight, that he was a gardener, and they were extremely proud of it. This was a great age, with all its faults, when a man by the power of his own genius and good sense could scale such a daring height as Mr. Paxton had reached, and composedly place his form on the top. This was a great age, when a man impressed with a useful idea, could carry out his project without being imprisoned, or thumb-screwed or persecuted in any form. I can well understand, Dickens continued, that you, to whom the genius, the intelligence, the industry, and the achievements of our friend are well known, should be anxious to do him honour by placing him in the position he occupies tonight; and I assure you, you have conferred great gratification on one of his friends, in permitting him to have the opportunity of proposing his health, which that friend now does most cordially, and with all the honours.  Location The location London Venue Where the speech was given London Coffee House Ngram Date Hidden from users and search. All items in a collection need to have the same data in the same format in order to show up in Ngram (either YYYY, YYYYMMDD, or YYYYMMDD). No combinations will work. For journalism, letters and poetry, if there is no month or day, default to the first of the month or January. So a poem with a date of March 1843 would be 18430301. A poem published in 1856 with no month or date information would be 18560101. 18510609 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gardeners' Benevolent Institution Anniversary Festival 1851 Description An account of the resource Speech at the Gardeners' Benevolent Institution Anniversary Festival (9 June 1851). Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dickens, Charles Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1851-06-09 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1851-06-09_Speech_Gardeners-Benevolent-Institution-Anniversary-Festival Bibliographic Citation A bibliographic reference for the resource. Recommended practice is to include sufficient bibliographic detail to identify the resource as unambiguously as possible. Dickens, Charles. 'Speech at the Gardeners' Benevolent Institution Anniversary Festival' (9 June 1851). Dickens Search. Eds. Emily Middleton and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1851-06-09_Speech_Gardeners-Benevolent-Institution-Anniversary-Festival">https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1851-06-09_Speech_Gardeners-Benevolent-Institution-Anniversary-Festival</a>. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Speeches Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context speeches Description An account of the resource <h4>This collection brings together Dickens’s collected and uncollected speeches, making an under-explored body of work searchable for the first time. </h4> Dickens made more than a hundred speeches between 1837 and 1870 at events ranging from charitable dinners and award ceremonies to banquets in his honour or brief words of thanks before a public reading. In these speeches, the author touched on topics including his own life and professional development as well as other subjects such as politics, education, literature, public health and the development of the railway. Efforts to collect Dickens’s speeches prior to 1960 were incomplete at best, and misleading and fragmentary at worst. John Camden Hotten’s collection of speeches, begun without the author’s consent (although he never responded to Hotten’s letters, Dickens did begin efforts to block their publication) and published together with a hastily-compiled biography shortly after the author’s death, remained the primary collected version of the speeches until the Nonesuch Dickens of 1938-39 (a limited print run). Finally, K. J. Fielding brought all known speeches together in 1960, correcting shoddy transcriptions by Hotten using contemporary newspaper accounts, and nearly doubling the total number of speeches attributed to Dickens (The Speeches of Charles Dickens [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1960]): Hotten had only featured the text of 56 speeches, the Nonesuch edition of the speeches provided an additional nine, and Fielding presented more than a hundred. Since this monumental work, a handful have also appeared in The Dickensian;<a href="#fn1" id="ref1">1</a> there are certainly more to be found, as the volume of digitised newspapers and periodicals increases, and corrections to be made to existing transcriptions. No effort to collect the speeches has been made since Fielding; this collection thus represents the most complete body of Dickens's speeches ever assembled. Dickens did not write his speeches beforehand, nor did he speak from notes. George Dolby recounted his imaginative process in 1884: <blockquote>[S]upposing the speech was to be delivered in the evening, his habit was to take a long walk in the morning, during which he would decide on the various heads to be dealt with. These being arranged in their proper order, he would in his 'mind's eye,' liken the whole subject to the tire of a cart wheel – he being the hub. From the hub to the tire he would run as many spokes as there were subjects to be treated, and during the progress of the speech he would deal with each spoke separately, elaborating them as he went round the wheel; and when all the spokes dropped out one by one, and nothing but the tire and space remained […] his speech was at an end. (Charles Dickens as I Knew Him: The Story of the Reading Tours in Great Britain and America, pp. 273-74)</blockquote> However, on important occasions, Dickens might personally correct transcriptions of speeches for major London newspapers like The Times. As such, these newspaper accounts are as accurate a source as we can hope to have for what Dickens said (or meant to say). Our Transcription field will only include words attributed directly to Dickens rather than third-person reports or paraphrases of his speeches. Where only such reports exist, we will provide the text in the 'Summary' field. Ngram search and other text analysis tools will be applied to what are given as Dickens's words only, to avoid skewing the results, but of course we are reliant on the quality of the reporting: we recommend analysing topics, themes, quotations and concepts rather than granular detail such as prepositions, punctuation, capitalisation and the intricacies of grammar, as different newspaper accounts can vary on these points. Please <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/contact">contact us</a> with any errors, corrections, suggestions, or to contribute other uncollected speeches by Dickens. 1. These are Philip Collins, 'Some Uncollected Speeches by Dickens', The Dickensian 73.382 (1977): pp. 89-99; David A. Roos, 'Dickens at the Royal Academy of Arts: A New Speech and Two Eulogies', The Dickensian 73.382 (1977): pp. 100-107; and William F. Long, 'Dickens and the Coming of Rail to Deal: An Uncollected Speech and its Context', The Dickensian 85.418 (1989): pp. 66-80. <a href="#ref1" title="Jump back to footnote 1 in the text.">↩</a> Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Emily Middleton; Ellie-Louise Crampton; Maisie Howard; Adam Woods Speech Location The location Edinburgh Venue Where the speech was given Waterloo Rooms Ngram Date Hidden from users and search. All items in a collection need to have the same data in the same format in order to show up in Ngram (either YYYY, YYYYMMDD, or YYYYMMDD). No combinations will work. For journalism, letters and poetry, if there is no month or day, default to the first of the month or January. So a poem with a date of March 1843 would be 18430301. A poem published in 1856 with no month or date information would be 18560101. 18510625 Ngram Text Hidden from users and search. Copy and paste from the Scripto transcription. Then check and uncheck HTML to strip out all formatting. Finally, search and remove any   (which is the HTML for spaces). This will prevent the Ngram picking up on irrelevant HTML. If I felt your warm and generous welcome less, I should be better able to thank you. If I could have listened, as you have listened, to the glowing language of your distinguished chairman, and if I could have heard, as you heard, the “thoughts that breathe and words that burn”, which he has uttered, it would have gone hard but I should have caught some portion of his enthusiasm, and kindled at his example. But every word which fell from his lips, and every demonstration of sympathy and approbation with which you received his eloquent expressions, renders me unable to respond to his kindness, and leaves me at last all heart and no lips. Yearning to respond as I would do to your cordial greeting – possessing, Heaven knows, the will, and desiring only to find the way. The way to your good opinion, favour, and support, has been to me very pleasant – a path strewn with flowers and cheered with sunshine. I feel as if I stood amongst old friends, whom I had intimately known and highly valued. I feel as if the deaths of the fictitious creatures, in which you have been kind enough to express an interest, had endeared us to each other as real afflictions deepen friendships in actual life; I feel as if they had been real persons, whose fortunes we had pursued together in inseparable connexion, and that I had never known them apart from you. It is a difficult thing for a man to speak of himself or of his works. But perhaps on this occasion I may, without impropriety, venture to say a word on the spirit in which mine were conceived. I felt an earnest and humble desire, and shall do till I die, to increase the stock of harmless cheerfulness. I felt that the world was not utterly to be despised; that it was worthy of living in for many reasons. I was anxious to find, as the Professor has said, if I could, in evil things, that soul of goodness which the Creator has put in them. I was anxious to show that virtue may be found in the by-ways of the world, that it is not incompatible with poverty and even with rags, and to keep steadily through life the motto, expressed in the burning words of your Northern poet The rank is but the guinea stamp, The Man’s the gowd for a’ that. And in following this track, where could I have better assurance that I was right, or where could I have stronger assurance to cheer me on than in your kindness on this, to me, memorable night? I am anxious and glad to have an opportunity of saying a word in reference to one incident in which I am happy to know you were interested and still more happy to know, though it may sound paradoxical, that you were disappointed: I mean the death of the little heroine. When I first conceived the idea of conducting that simple story to its termination, I determined rigidly to adhere to it, and never to forsake the end I had in view. Not untried in the school of affliction, in the death of those we love, I thought what a good thing it would be if in my little work of pleasant amusement I could substitute a garland of fresh flowers for the sculptured horrors which disgrace the tomb. If I have put into my book anything which can fill the young mind with better thoughts of death, or soften the grief of older hearts; if I have written one word which can afford pleasure or consolation to old or young in time of trial, I shall consider it as something achieved – something which I shall be glad to look back upon in after life. Therefore I kept to my purpose, notwithstanding that towards the conclusion of the story, I daily received letters of remonstrance, especially from the ladies. God bless them for their tender mercies! The Professor was quite right when he said that I had not reached to an adequate delineation of their virtues; and I fear that I must go on blotting their characters in endeavouring to reach the ideal in my mind. These letters were, however, combined with others from the sterner sex, and some of them were not altogether free from personal invective. But notwithstanding, I kept to my purpose, and I am happy to know that many of those who at first condemned me are now foremost in their approbation. If I have made a mistake in detaining you with this little incident, I do not regret having done so; for your kindness has given me such a confidence in you, that the fault is yours and not mine. I come once more to thank you, and here I am in a difficulty again. The distinction you have conferred upon me is one which I never hoped for, and of which I never dared to dream. That it is one which I shall never forget, and that while I live I shall be proud of its remembrance, you must well know. I believe I shall never hear the name of this capital of Scotland without a thrill of gratitude and pleasure. I shall love while I have life her people, her hills, and her houses, and even the very stones of her streets. And if, in the future works which may lie before me, you should discern – God grant you may – a brighter spirit and a clearer wit, I pray you to refer it back to this night, and point to that as a Scottish passage for evermore. I thank you again and again, with the energy of a thousand thanks in each one, and I drink to you with a heart as full as my glass, and far less easily emptied, I do assure you. I have the honour to be entrusted with a toast, the very mention of which will recommend itself to you I know, as one possessing no ordinary claims to your sympathy and approbation, and the proposing of which is as congenial to my wishes and feelings as its acceptance must be to yours. It is the health of our Chairman, and coupled with his name I have to propose the ‘Literature of Scotland’: a literature which he has done much to render famous through the world, and of which he has been for many years – as I hope and believe he will be for many more – a most brilliant and distinguished ornament. Who can revert to the literature of the land of Scott and of Burns without having directly in his mind, as inseparable from the subject and foremost in the picture, that old man of might, with his lion heart and sceptred crutch, Christopher North? I am glad to remember the time when I believed him to be a real, actual, veritable old gentleman, that might be seen any day hobbling along the High Street with the most brilliant eye – but that is no fiction – and the greyest hair in all the world, who wrote not because he cared to write, not because he cared for the wonder and admiration of his fellow-men, but who wrote because he could not help it, because there was always springing up in his mind a clear and sparkling stream of poetry which must have vent, and like the glittering fountain in the fairy tale, draw what you might, was ever at the full, and never languished even by a single drop or bubble. I had so figured him in my mind, and when I saw the Professor two days ago, striding along the Parliament House, I was disposed to take it as a personal offence – I was vexed to see him look so hearty, I drooped to see twenty Christophers in one. I began to think that Scottish life was all ‘light’ and no ‘shadows’, and I began to doubt that beautiful book to which I have turned again and again, always to find new beauties and fresh sources of interest. It had been the happy lot of Scotland that her great writers have loved to exhibit her in various forms, whether in scenes of solitary grandeur or her simple village ways. The mighty genius who lately departed from you was equally at home in the wild grandeur of Highland scenery or the burning sands of Syria, and in the low haunts of London life; while there is not a shepherd or peasant who has not his type immortalized in the verse of him whose hand was on the plough while his heart was with the muse. There is not a glen of a lonely haunt in the Highlands which has not been visited by Christopher North in his shooting jacket, with a heart as free and as wild as the winds that swept over him. His voice has been heard from the lonely heaths and the snow drifts of the mountains, in the highways of Edinburgh, and in the caves of the Covenanters. By his genius every foot of ground in Scotland has been pictured to dwellers afar off as a fairy land. It is difficult to follow the Professor through all the scenes which he has depicted with such exquisite beauty, from the varied stores of his rich and teeming fancy; so that the epitaph of Goldsmith may be applied to him, that there was no subject but he touched, and nothing which he touched that he did not adorn. But the literature of Scotland comprises other names which are familiar to you: poets, historians, critics, all of the foremost rank. The learned Lord who I am proud to call my friend, to whom, by his fine taste and just appreciation of the beauties of an author, literature owes so much, and to the generosity of whose nature those who are opposed to him have borne high testimony; the author of Matthew Wold and Adam Blair, who has lately depicted with vivid colouring the last days of the mighty genius who departed on the banks of the river he loved so well; the gentleman who is present amongst us, and who under the signature of ‘Delta’ has given the world assurance of a poet, who has raised in us all admiration which we would fain be at liberty to increase still further by meeting him oftener; these, and other great names, are all included in the toast, which we drink to do honour, not to them, but to ourselves. I am less fortunate than the two gentlemen who have preceded me in their toasts, for I have to mention a name known to all present, but which I cannot utter at this time without deep sorrow – a name in which Scotland had high and endearing pride, which England delighted to honour, and which was cherished in the breast of every reflecting man throughout the whole civilized world. From among the gifted spirits of our times a gentle, honest, generous and true one has passed away, as it were but yesterday. The life of one devoted to all that was true and beautiful, and elevating, in art and nature, hath come to an end. I will give you the memory of Wilkie. It is not as one whom many of us knew and loved; it is not as one whose simple nature his high fame and fortune never spoiled or changed; it is not as one who acted up to what he taught, and who made the domestic virtues and duties his daily practice, that I think of him tonight. I think of him as one – and you should do so too – who has left behind him unwonted fire, who has left an undying and imperishable name, who made the cottage hearth his grave theme, and who surrounded the lives, and cares, and daily toils, and occupations of the poor, with dignity and beauty: who indeed found ‘books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything’, and who has left behind in all his works the same breathing of health, as of the air wafted from the heather of his native land. However desirous one may be on an occasion like the present to separate his memory from these mournful associations which gather around it, it is impossible, they are peculiarly inseparable from him: the painter’s study with the empty easel, the brush and palette which he was wont to use, now lie idly by, his unfinished pictures turn their faces to the wall, and that bereaved and affectionate mourner whom he loved in his days to honour, will look upon him no more. He is gone, and has left behind him, particularly to his countrymen and all who knew him, a name and fame as pure and unsullied as the bright sky which shines over the painter’s grave. He has filled our minds and memories with what is mournful, yet as soothing as the roll of the blue waters over his honoured head. Mindful of his only sister, I cannot help expressing the hope that the time will shortly come when she, like us, will feel a solemn pleasure in speaking of his goodness and greatness, and when she will have the grateful recollection that he died in the fulness of his powers, before age or sickness had dimmed his sight, or had bowed his head. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource At the Waterloo Rooms, Edinburgh Description An account of the resource Speech given at a banquet in his honour in Edinburgh (25 June 1841). Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dickens, Charles Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1851-06-25 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1851-06-25_Speech_Waterloo_Rooms Bibliographic Citation A bibliographic reference for the resource. Recommended practice is to include sufficient bibliographic detail to identify the resource as unambiguously as possible. Dickens, Charles. 'Shakespeare Club Dinner' (25 June 1841). Dickens Search. Eds. Emily Middleton and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1851-06-25_Speech_Waterloo_Rooms">https://dickenssearch.com/speeches/1851-06-25_Speech_Waterloo_Rooms</a>. Scripto Transcription A written representation of a document. If I felt your warm and generous welcome less, I should be better able to thank you. If I could have listened, as you have listened, to the glowing language of your distinguished chairman, and if I could have heard, as you heard, the “thoughts that breathe and words that burn”, which he has uttered, it would have gone hard but I should have caught some portion of his enthusiasm, and kindled at his example. But every word which fell from his lips, and every demonstration of sympathy and approbation with which you received his eloquent expressions, renders me unable to respond to his kindness, and leaves me at last all heart and no lips. Yearning to respond as I would do to your cordial greeting – possessing, Heaven knows, the will, and desiring only to find the way. The way to your good opinion, favour, and support, has been to me very pleasant – a path strewn with flowers and cheered with sunshine. I feel as if I stood amongst old friends, whom I had intimately known and highly valued. I feel as if the deaths of the fictitious creatures, in which you have been kind enough to express an interest, had endeared us to each other as real afflictions deepen friendships in actual life; I feel as if they had been real persons, whose fortunes we had pursued together in inseparable connexion, and that I had never known them apart from you. It is a difficult thing for a man to speak of himself or of his works. But perhaps on this occasion I may, without impropriety, venture to say a word on the spirit in which mine were conceived. I felt an earnest and humble desire, and shall do till I die, to increase the stock of harmless cheerfulness. I felt that the world was not utterly to be despised; that it was worthy of living in for many reasons. I was anxious to find, as the Professor has said, if I could, in evil things, that soul of goodness which the Creator has put in them. I was anxious to show that virtue may be found in the by-ways of the world, that it is not incompatible with poverty and even with rags, and to keep steadily through life the motto, expressed in the burning words of your Northern poet The rank is but the guinea stamp, The Man’s the gowd for a’ that. And in following this track, where could I have better assurance that I was right, or where could I have stronger assurance to cheer me on than in your kindness on this, to me, memorable night? I am anxious and glad to have an opportunity of saying a word in reference to one incident in which I am happy to know you were interested and still more happy to know, though it may sound paradoxical, that you were disappointed: I mean the death of the little heroine. When I first conceived the idea of conducting that simple story to its termination, I determined rigidly to adhere to it, and never to forsake the end I had in view. Not untried in the school of affliction, in the death of those we love, I thought what a good thing it would be if in my little work of pleasant amusement I could substitute a garland of fresh flowers for the sculptured horrors which disgrace the tomb. If I have put into my book anything which can fill the young mind with better thoughts of death, or soften the grief of older hearts; if I have written one word which can afford pleasure or consolation to old or young in time of trial, I shall consider it as something achieved – something which I shall be glad to look back upon in after life. Therefore I kept to my purpose, notwithstanding that towards the conclusion of the story, I daily received letters of remonstrance, especially from the ladies. God bless them for their tender mercies! The Professor was quite right when he said that I had not reached to an adequate delineation of their virtues; and I fear that I must go on blotting their characters in endeavouring to reach the ideal in my mind. These letters were, however, combined with others from the sterner sex, and some of them were not altogether free from personal invective. But notwithstanding, I kept to my purpose, and I am happy to know that many of those who at first condemned me are now foremost in their approbation. If I have made a mistake in detaining you with this little incident, I do not regret having done so; for your kindness has given me such a confidence in you, that the fault is yours and not mine. I come once more to thank you, and here I am in a difficulty again. The distinction you have conferred upon me is one which I never hoped for, and of which I never dared to dream. That it is one which I shall never forget, and that while I live I shall be proud of its remembrance, you must well know. I believe I shall never hear the name of this capital of Scotland without a thrill of gratitude and pleasure. I shall love while I have life her people, her hills, and her houses, and even the very stones of her streets. And if, in the future works which may lie before me, you should discern – God grant you may – a brighter spirit and a clearer wit, I pray you to refer it back to this night, and point to that as a Scottish passage for evermore. I thank you again and again, with the energy of a thousand thanks in each one, and I drink to you with a heart as full as my glass, and far less easily emptied, I do assure you. I have the honour to be entrusted with a toast, the very mention of which will recommend itself to you I know, as one possessing no ordinary claims to your sympathy and approbation, and the proposing of which is as congenial to my wishes and feelings as its acceptance must be to yours. It is the health of our Chairman, and coupled with his name I have to propose the ‘Literature of Scotland’: a literature which he has done much to render famous through the world, and of which he has been for many years – as I hope and believe he will be for many more – a most brilliant and distinguished ornament. Who can revert to the literature of the land of Scott and of Burns without having directly in his mind, as inseparable from the subject and foremost in the picture, that old man of might, with his lion heart and sceptred crutch, Christopher North? I am glad to remember the time when I believed him to be a real, actual, veritable old gentleman, that might be seen any day hobbling along the High Street with the most brilliant eye – but that is no fiction – and the greyest hair in all the world, who wrote not because he cared to write, not because he cared for the wonder and admiration of his fellow-men, but who wrote because he could not help it, because there was always springing up in his mind a clear and sparkling stream of poetry which must have vent, and like the glittering fountain in the fairy tale, draw what you might, was ever at the full, and never languished even by a single drop or bubble. I had so figured him in my mind, and when I saw the Professor two days ago, striding along the Parliament House, I was disposed to take it as a personal offence – I was vexed to see him look so hearty, I drooped to see twenty Christophers in one. I began to think that Scottish life was all ‘light’ and no ‘shadows’, and I began to doubt that beautiful book to which I have turned again and again, always to find new beauties and fresh sources of interest. It had been the happy lot of Scotland that her great writers have loved to exhibit her in various forms, whether in scenes of solitary grandeur or her simple village ways. The mighty genius who lately departed from you was equally at home in the wild grandeur of Highland scenery or the burning sands of Syria, and in the low haunts of London life; while there is not a shepherd or peasant who has not his type immortalized in the verse of him whose hand was on the plough while his heart was with the muse. There is not a glen of a lonely haunt in the Highlands which has not been visited by Christopher North in his shooting jacket, with a heart as free and as wild as the winds that swept over him. His voice has been heard from the lonely heaths and the snow drifts of the mountains, in the highways of Edinburgh, and in the caves of the Covenanters. By his genius every foot of ground in Scotland has been pictured to dwellers afar off as a fairy land. It is difficult to follow the Professor through all the scenes which he has depicted with such exquisite beauty, from the varied stores of his rich and teeming fancy; so that the epitaph of Goldsmith may be applied to him, that there was no subject but he touched, and nothing which he touched that he did not adorn. But the literature of Scotland comprises other names which are familiar to you: poets, historians, critics, all of the foremost rank. The learned Lord who I am proud to call my friend, to whom, by his fine taste and just appreciation of the beauties of an author, literature owes so much, and to the generosity of whose nature those who are opposed to him have borne high testimony; the author of Matthew Wold and Adam Blair, who has lately depicted with vivid colouring the last days of the mighty genius who departed on the banks of the river he loved so well; the gentleman who is present amongst us, and who under the signature of ‘Delta’ has given the world assurance of a poet, who has raised in us all admiration which we would fain be at liberty to increase still further by meeting him oftener; these, and other great names, are all included in the toast, which we drink to do honour, not to them, but to ourselves. I am less fortunate than the two gentlemen who have preceded me in their toasts, for I have to mention a name known to all present, but which I cannot utter at this time without deep sorrow – a name in which Scotland had high and endearing pride, which England delighted to honour, and which was cherished in the breast of every reflecting man throughout the whole civilized world. From among the gifted spirits of our times a gentle, honest, generous and true one has passed away, as it were but yesterday. The life of one devoted to all that was true and beautiful, and elevating, in art and nature, hath come to an end. I will give you the memory of Wilkie. It is not as one whom many of us knew and loved; it is not as one whose simple nature his high fame and fortune never spoiled or changed; it is not as one who acted up to what he taught, and who made the domestic virtues and duties his daily practice, that I think of him tonight. I think of him as one – and you should do so too – who has left behind him unwonted fire, who has left an undying and imperishable name, who made the cottage hearth his grave theme, and who surrounded the lives, and cares, and daily toils, and occupations of the poor, with dignity and beauty: who indeed found ‘books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything’, and who has left behind in all his works the same breathing of health, as of the air wafted from the heather of his native land. However desirous one may be on an occasion like the present to separate his memory from these mournful associations which gather around it, it is impossible, they are peculiarly inseparable from him: the painter’s study with the empty easel, the brush and palette which he was wont to use, now lie idly by, his unfinished pictures turn their faces to the wall, and that bereaved and affectionate mourner whom he loved in his days to honour, will look upon him no more. He is gone, and has left behind him, particularly to his countrymen and all who knew him, a name and fame as pure and unsullied as the bright sky which shines over the painter’s grave. He has filled our minds and memories with what is mournful, yet as soothing as the roll of the blue waters over his honoured head. Mindful of his only sister, I cannot help expressing the hope that the time will shortly come when she, like us, will feel a solemn pleasure in speaking of his goodness and greatness, and when she will have the grateful recollection that he died in the fulness of his powers, before age or sickness had dimmed his sight, or had bowed his head. https://www.dickenssearch.com/files/original/8/The_1851_Christmas_Number/1851-12-25-The_1851_Christmas_Number.pdf 92a4c2b7524ec149ff9d89cdd5e47f20 https://www.dickenssearch.com/files/original/8/The_1851_Christmas_Number/1851-12-25-What_Christmas_Is_As_We_Grow_Older.pdf a1125e8b3f1a564a2d6db38cd2f9039c Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Christmas Numbers Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Lydia Craig Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context christmas-numbers Scripto Transcription A written representation of a document. This collection (still in development) unites the eighteen Christmas numbers that Dickens orchestrated between 1850 and 1867 in conjunction with multiple Victorian authors, notably Wilkie Collins, and published in his periodicals Household Words and All the Year Round. After writing five Christmas books and multiple sketches on Yuletide cheer - notably 'Scenes and Characters, No. 10, Christmas Festivities', published as 'A Christmas Dinner' in Sketches by Boz (1836) - not to mention the holiday merry-making described in Pickwick Papers (1836-1837), Charles Dickens might reasonably be supposed to have had his fill of seasonal writing. However, he published a Christmas number in 1850 in HW that contained a series of sketches about Christmas, contributing 'A Christmas Tree' (1850). In the next year's Christmas number, he included the short piece 'What Christmas is, as we Grow Older' (1851). Holiday fiction, though, was what Dickens's readership seemed to crave, and the author, editor, and entrepreneur in Dickens all recognised the opportunity. In 1852, Dickens decided to develop an extra Christmas number for HW which would harness the creative talents of other writers for a series of unrelated stories told within a frame narrative of his own composition. Each year he himself would write several of these parts, generally two to three. Soon, the Christmas number became as much of an expected holiday tradition among Victorian subscribers as had been the Christmas books. All in all, eighteen Christmas numbers of this kind resulted (1850-1867); nine published in HW and nine in ATYR.  <div style="text-align: center;">Extra Christmas Numbers - Household Words</div> On 24 December 1852, Dickens published A Round of Stories by the Christmas Fire. Personally, he had written 'The Poor Relation's Story' (No.1) and 'The Child's Story' (No.2) with successive stories authored by other contributors, though no names appeared. What would have been the 1853 extra number was late, published instead on 18 February 1854, a circumstance that would not occur again until the 1864 Christmas number. This time, Dickens published more short stories by himself and others, contributing 'The Schoolboy's Story' and 'Nobody's Story', but the Christmas number, for once, lacked a frame narrative or overarching title, though it would come to be known as Another Round of Stories by the Christmas Fire. 25 December 1854 saw The Seven Poor Travellers, with Dickens penning 'The First' (No.1) and 'The Road' (No.7). By writing the first and last stories in the collection, he, as editor, might steer the entire composition towards a cohesive conclusion.  Next, Dickens wrote 'The Guest' (No.1), 'The Boots' (No.3), and 'The Bill' (No.7) as part of The Holly-Tree Inn (15 December 1855). The Wreck of the 'Golden Mary' followed on 25 December 1856, with Dickens composing only 'The Wreck' (No.1), a lengthy description of a shipwreck which sets up the framing narrative. Next, Dickens collaborated with Wilkie Collins on The Perils of Certain English Prisoners, and their Treasure in Women, Children, Silver, and Jewels (7 December 1857), Dickens writing 'The Island of Silver-Store' (No.1) and 'The Rafts on the River' (No.3) with Collins contributing the second chapter. Rounding out the extra Christmas numbers for HW, A House to Let appeared on 7 December 1858, with Dickens authoring 'Going into Society' (No.3). The last issue of HW appeared on 28 May 1859, with the journal virtually concluded, due to disagreements with Dickens's publishers Bradbury and Evans, though it was symbolically folded into ATYR. <div style="text-align: center;">Extra Christmas Numbers - All the Year Round</div> After Dickens launched his new journal ATYR on 30 April 1859, Christmas remained house-themed with the extra Christmas number The Haunted House (13 December 1859). It featured three offerings from him, 'The Mortals in the House' (No.1), 'The Ghost in Master B's Room' (No.6), and 'The Ghost in the Corner Room' (No.8). Yet Dickens continued to experiment with his holiday themes. He would write 'The Village' (No.1), 'The Money' (No.2), and 'The Restitution' (No.5) for A Message from the Sea, published on 25 December 1860, a story about a New England mariner, Captain Jorgan, who seeks to discover the truth about the origin of a Welsh family's mysterious nest-egg.  For Tom Tiddler's Ground, published 25 December 1861, Dickens produced 'Picking up Soot and Cinders' (No.1), 'Picking up Miss Kimmeens' (No.6), and 'Picking up the Tinker' (No. 7). An impressive four parts of Somebody's Luggage (4 December 1862), 'His Leaving it Till Called For' (No.1), 'His Boots' (No.2), 'His Brown-Paper Parcel' (No.7), and 'His Wonderful End' (No. 10) were produced by Dickens, who notably portrays himself in the story as a character, in his capacity as AYTR editor, to amusing effect. Two subsequent Christmas numbers, Mrs. Lirriper's Lodgings (25 December 1863) and Mrs. Lirriper's Legacy' (12 January 1864), concern the life and activities of a generous landlady who adopts a young boy and raises him with the help of her gallant lodger, Major Jackman. The former contained Dickens's two introductory and conclusion chapters, 'How Mrs. Lirriper carried on the Business' (No.1) and 'How the Parlours added a few words' (No.6), while the latter featured 'Mrs. Lirriper relates how she went on, and went over' (No.1) and 'Mrs. Lirriper relates how Jimmy topped up' (No.7), a story including a jaunt to France, with identical placement at the beginning and end of the number. Doctor Marigold's Prescriptions appeared in 1865, with Mugby Junction following in 1866; both frame narratives deal with themes of disability and poverty. For the first, Dickens contributed 'To be Taken Immediately' (No.1), 'To be Taken with a Grain of Salt' (No.6), and 'To be Taken for Life' (No.8); for the latter, he wrote 'Barbox Brothers' (No.1), 'Barbox Brothers and Co.' (No.2), 'Main Line. The Boy at Mugby' (No.3), and 'No.1 Branch Line. The Signal-man' (No.4). For the final Christmas number, No Thoroughfare (12 December 1867), Dickens collaborated with Collins on an imaginative European thriller that ranges from orphanages and offices in London to hotels and precipices in the Swiss Alps. Dickens is known to have primarily written most of The Overture, Act I, Act III, with Collins taking Act 2. Both collaborated on Acts IV and V. However, they deliberately interspersed passages into each other's parts to confuse readers as to which author had written which 'Acts' (Slater, Charles Dickens, pp. 569-573). Consequently, we have merely transcribed the Christmas number in its entirety, as a collaboration. Though Dickens considered beginning a Christmas number in 1868, his other activities, coupled with failing health, led him to gratefully relinquish the idea. Instead, he would eventually go on to attempt another novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood (1870), evidently sensing the public's interest in the detective genre, one which he and Collins had, more or less, pioneered with their respective novels Bleak House (1853) (Inspector Bucket) and The Moonstone (1868) (Sergeant Cuff). His mind may also have been running on the mysterious plot of No Thoroughfare, with its malevolent villain, though he did not live to see the plot through to its conclusion. While building this collection, we have consulted, and transcribed scans from Dickens Journals Online; all items are linked to their original location on the internet. With the exception of No Thoroughfare, transcripts have been made only of parts of numbers Dickens is known to have authored. Lists of writers known to have authored chapters or portions of these extra Christmas numbers have been added to the metadata of each item (Klimaszewski, Appendix A).  Please contact us with any errors, corrections, and suggestions. 1. See Melisa Klimaszewski. Collaborative Dickens: Authorship and Victorian Christmas Periodicals (Ohio University Press, 2019); Jude Piesse. 'Dreaming Across Oceans: Emigration and Nation in the Mid-Victorian Christmas Issue'. Victorian Periodicals Review 46.1 (Spring 2013): 37-60; Robert Tracy. '"A Whimsical Kind of Masque": The Christmas Books and Victorian Spectacle'. Dickens Studies Annual 27 (1998): 113-30; Deborah A. Thomas. 'The Chord of the Christmas Season'. In Dickens and the Short Story (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1982): pp. 62-93; Sarah A. Solberg. '"Text Dropped into the Woodcuts": Dickens's Christmas Books'. Dickens Studies Annual 8 (1980): pp. 103-18; Ruth Glancy. 'Dickens and Christmas: His Framed-Tale Themes'. Nineteenth-Century Fiction 35.1 (June 1980): pp. 53-72; Thomas. 'Contributors to the Christmas Numbers of Household Words and All the Year Round, 1850-1867.' Part I. The Dickensian 70.372 (1973): pp. 163-72. and Part II. TD 70 (1974): pp. 21-29; 'Messages in Bottles and Collins's Seafaring Man'. Anthea Trodd. SEL: Studies in English Literature 41.4 (Autumn 2002), pp. 751-64; Susan Shatto. 'Miss Havisham and Mr. Mopes the Hermit: Dickens and the Mentally Ill'. (Part One) Dickens Quarterly 2.2 (June 1985): pp. 43-50 and (Part Two) DQ 2.3 (September 1985): pp. 79-84; Molly Boggs. '"Given to you by nature for an enemy": The landlady in mid-century London'. Journal of Victorian Culture 23.3 (2018): pp. 310-331; Thomas. 'Dickens' Mrs. Lirriper and the Evolution of a Feminine Stereotype'. Dickens Studies Annual 6 (1977): 154-169; Martha Stoddard Holmes. '"Happy and Yet Pitying Tears": Deafness and Affective Disjuncture in Dickens's Doctor Marigold'. Victorian Review 35.2 (Fall 2009): 53-64; Diana C. Archibald. 'Dickens's Visit to the Perkins School and Doctor Marigold'. Dickens and Massachusetts: The Lasting Legacy of the Commonwealth Visits. Eds. Archibald and Joel J. Brattin (University of Massachusetts, 2015): pp. 123-33; Anne Chapman. '"I am not going on": Negotiating Christmas Publishing Rhythms with Dickens's Mugby Junction'. Victorian Periodicals Review 51.1 (2018): 70-85; Samia Ounoughi. 'The Swiss Alps and Character Framing in No Thoroughfare'. Ed. Maxime Leroy. In Charles Dickens and Europe. Cambridge Scholars Publishing; 2013. pp. 114-25; Lillian Nayder. Unequal Partners: Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins, and Victorian Authorship (Cornell University Press, 2002). Michael Hollington. '"To the Droodstone": Or, From The Moonstone to Edwin Drood via No Thoroughfare'. Q/W/E/R/T/Y: Arts, Littératures & Civilisations du Monde Anglophone 5 (1995): 141-9.  Short Story Publication Type E.g. newspaper/serial Periodical Publication The title of the newspaper/serial (if applicable) Household Words Ngram Date Hidden from users and search. All items in a collection need to have the same data in the same format in order to show up in Ngram (either YYYY, YYYYMMDD, or YYYYMMDD). No combinations will work. For journalism, letters and poetry, if there is no month or day, default to the first of the month or January. So a poem with a date of March 1843 would be 18430301. A poem published in 1856 with no month or date information would be 18560101. 18511225 Ngram Text Hidden from users and search. Copy and paste from the Scripto transcription. Then check and uncheck HTML to strip out all formatting. Finally, search and remove any   (which is the HTML for spaces). This will prevent the Ngram picking up on irrelevant HTML. Time was, with most of us, when Christmas Day encircling all our limited world like a magic ring, left nothing out for us to miss or seek; bound together all our home enjoyments, affections, and hopes; grouped every thing and every one around the Christmas fire; and made the little picture shining in our bright young eyes, complete. Time came, perhaps, all so soon! when our thoughts overleaped that narrow boundary when there was some one (very dear, we thought then, very beautiful, and absolutely perfect) wanting to the fulness of our happiness; when we were wanting too (or we thought so, which did just as well) at the Christmas hearth by which that some one sat; and when we intertwined with every wreath and garland of our life that some one's name. That was the time for the bright visionary Christmases which have long arisen from us to shew faintly, after summer rain, in the palest edges of the rainbow! That was the time for the beatified enjoyment of the things that were to be, and never were, and yet the things that were so real in our resolute hope that it would be hard to say, now, what realities achieved since, have been stronger! What! Did that Christmas never really come when we and the priceless pearl who was our young choice were received, after the happiest of totally impossible marriages, by the two united families previously at daggers-drawn on our account? When brothers and sisters in law who had always been rather cool to us before our relationship was effected, perfectly doted on us, and when fathers and mothers overwhelmed us with unlimited incomes? Was that Christmas dinner never really eaten, after which we arose, and generously and eloquently rendered honor to our late rival, present in the company, then and there exchanging friendship and forgiveness, and founding an attachment, not surpassed in Greek or Roman story, which subsisted until death? Has that same rival long ceased to care for that same priceless pearl, and married for money, and become usurious? Above all, do we really know, now, that we should probably have been miserable if we had won and worn the pearl, and that we are better without her? That Christmas when we had recently achieved so much fame; when we had been carried in triumph somewhere, for doing something great and good; when we had won an honored and ennobled name, and arrived and were received at home in a shower of tears of joy; is it possible that that Christmas has not come yet? And is our life here, at the best, so constituted that, pausing as we advance at such a noticeable mile-stone in the track as this great birthday, we look back on the things that never were, as naturally and full as gravely as on the things that have been and are gone, or have been and still are? If it be so, and so it seems to be, must we come to the conclusion, that life is little better than a dream, and little worth the loves and strivings that we crowd into it? No! Far be such miscalled philosophy from us, dear Reader, on Christmas Day! Nearer and closer to our hearts be the Christmas spirit, which is the spirit of active usefulness, perseverance, cheerful discharge of duty, kindness, and forbearance! It is in the last virtues especially, that we are, or should be, strengthened by the unaccomplished visions of our youth; for, who shall say that they are not our teachers to deal gently even with the impalpable nothings of the earth! Therefore, as we grow older, let us be more thankful that the circle of our Christmas associations and of the lessons that they bring, expands! Let us welcome every one of them, and summon them to take their places by the Christmas hearth. Welcome, old aspirations, glittering creatures of an ardent fancy, to your shelter underneath the holly! We know you, and have not outlived you yet. Welcome, old projects and old loves, however fleeting, to your nooks among the steadier lights that burn around us. Welcome, all that was ever real to our hearts; and for the earnestness that made you real, thanks to Heaven! Do we build no Christmas castles in the clouds now? Let our thoughts, fluttering like butterflies among these flowers of children, bear witness! Before this boy, there stretches out a Future, brighter than we ever looked on in our old romantic time, but bright with honor and with truth. Around this little head on which the sunny curls lie heaped, the graces sport, as prettily, as airily, as when there was no scythe within the reach of Time to shear away the curls of our first-love. Upon another girl's face near it placider—but smiling bright—a quiet and contented little face, we see Home fairly written. Shining from the word, as rays shine from a star, we see how, when our graves are old, other hopes than ours are young, other hearts than ours are moved; how other ways are smoothed; how other happiness blooms, ripens, and decays—no, not decays, for other homes and other bands of children, not yet in being nor for ages yet to be, arise, and bloom and ripen to the end of all! Welcome, everything! Welcome, alike what has been, and what never was, and what we hope may be, to your shelter underneath the holly, to your places 'round the Christmas fire, where what is sits open-hearted! In yonder shadow, do we see obtruding furtively upon the blaze, an enemy's face? By Christmas Day we do forgive him! If the injury he has done us may admit of such companionship, let him come here and take his place. If otherwise, unhappily, let him go hence, assured that we will never injure nor accuse him. On this day, we shut out Nothing! "Pause," says a low voice. "Nothing? Think!" "On Christmas Day, we will shut out from our fireside, Nothing." "Not the shadow of a vast City where the withered leaves are lying deep?" the voice replies. "Not the shadow that darkens the whole globe? Not the shadow of the City of the Dead?" Not even that. Of all days in the year, we will turn our faces towards that City upon Christmas Day, and from its silent hosts bring those we loved, among us. City of the Dead, in the blessed name wherein we are gathered together at this time, and in the Presence that is here among us according to the promise, we will receive, and not dismiss, thy people who are dear to us! Yes. We can look upon these children angels that alight, so solemnly, so beautifully, among the living children by the fire, and can bear to think how they departed from us. Entertaining angels unawares, as the Patriarchs did, the playful children are unconscious of their guests; but we can see them—can see a radiant arm around one favorite neck, as if there were a tempting of that child away. Among the celestial figures there is one, a poor mis-shapen boy on earth, of a glorious beauty now, of whom his dying mother said it grieved her much to leave him here, alone, for so many years as it was likely would elapse before he came to her—being such a little child. But he went quickly, and was laid upon her breast, and in her hand she leads him. There was a gallant boy, who fell, far away, upon a burning sand beneath a burning sun, and said, "Tell them at home, with my last love, how much I could have wished to kiss them once, but that I died contented and had done my duty!" Or there was another, over whom they read the words, "Therefore we commit his body to the dark!" and so consigned him to the lonely ocean and sailed on. Or there was another who lay down to his rest in the dark shadow of great forests, and, on earth, awoke no more. O shall they not, from sand and sea and forest, be brought home at such a time! There was a dear girl—almost a woman—never to be one—who made a mourning Christmas in a house of joy, and went her trackless way to the silent City. Do we recollect her, worn out, faintly whispering what could not be heard, and falling into that last sleep for weariness? O look upon her now! O look upon her beauty, her serenity, her changeless youth, her happiness! The daughter of Jairus was recalled to life, to die; but she, more blest, has heard the same voice, saying unto her, "Arise for ever!" We had a friend who was our friend from early days, with whom we often pictured the changes .'that were to come upon our lives, and merrily imagined how we would speak, and walk, and think, and talk, when we came to be old. His destined habitation in the City of the Dead received him in his prime. Shall he be shut out from our Christmas remembrance? Would his love have so excluded us? Lost friend, lost child, lost parent, sister, brother, husband, wife, we will not so discard you! You shall hold your cherished places /in our Christmas hearts, and by our Christmas fires; and in the season of immortal hope, and on the birthday of immortal mercy, we will shut out Nothing! The winter sun goes down over town and village; on the sea it makes a rosy path, as if the Sacred tread were fresh upon the water. A few more moments, and it sinks, and night comes on, and lights begin to sparkle in the prospect. On the hill-side beyond the shapelessly- diffused town, and in the quiet keeping of the trees that gird the village-steeple, remembrances are cut in stone, planted in common flowers, growing in grass, entwined with lowly brambles around many a mound of earth. In town and village, there are doors and windows closed against the weather, there are flaming logs heaped high, there are joyful faces, there is healthy music of voices. Be all ungentleness and harm excluded from the temples of the Household Gods, but be those remembrances admitted with tender encouragement! They are of the time and all its comforting and peaceful reassurances; and of the history that reunited even upon earth the living and the dead; and of the broad beneficence and goodness that too many men have tried to tear to narrow shreds. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The 1851 Christmas Number Description An account of the resource Published in Household Words, Vol. IV, Extra Christmas Number, 25 December 1851, pp. 1-24. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dickens, Charles Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Dickens Journals Online, <a href="https://www.djo.org.uk/household-words/volume-iv/page-601.html">https://www.djo.org.uk/household-words/volume-iv/page-601.html</a>. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1851-12-25 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Scanned material from Dickens Journals Online, <a href="http://www.djo.org.uk/" id="LPNoLPOWALinkPreview" contenteditable="false" title="http://www.djo.org.uk">www.djo.org.uk</a>. Available under CC BY licence. Type The nature or genre of the resource Christmas Number Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1851-12-25-The_1851_Christmas_Number Bibliographic Citation A bibliographic reference for the resource. Recommended practice is to include sufficient bibliographic detail to identify the resource as unambiguously as possible. Dickens, Charles et. al. 1851 Christmas Number (25 December 1851). Dickens Search. Edited by Emily Middleton and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://www.dickenssearch.com/christmas-numbers/1851-12-25-The_1851_Christmas_Number">https://www.dickenssearch.com/christmas-numbers/1851-12-25-The_1851_Christmas_Number</a>. Table Of Contents A list of subunits of the resource. <ul> <li>Charles Dickens. 'What Christmas Is, as e Grow Older' (No.1), pp. 1-3.</li> <li>Richard H. Horne. 'What Christmas is to a Bunch of People' (No.2), pp. 3-7.</li> <li>Edmund Ollier. 'An Idyl for Christmas In-doors (No.3), pp. 7-8.</li> <li>Harriet Martineau. 'What Christmas is in Country Places' (No.4), pp. 8-11.</li> <li>George Augustus Sala. 'What Christmas is in the Company of John Doe' (No.5), pp. 11-16.</li> <li>Eliza Griffiths. 'The Orphan's Dream of Christmas' (No.6), pp. 16-17.</li> <li>Samuel Sidney. 'What Christmas is after a Long Absence' (No.7), pp. 17-20.</li> <li>Theodore Buckley. 'What Christmas is if you Outgrow it' (No.8), pp. 20-23.</li> <li>Richard H. Horne. 'The Round Game of the Christmas Bowl' (No.9), pp. 23-24.</li> </ul> Scripto Transcription A written representation of a document. Time was, with most of us, when Christmas Day encircling all our limited world like a magic ring, left nothing out for us to miss or seek; bound together all our home enjoyments, affections, and hopes; grouped every thing and every one around the Christmas fire; and made the little picture shining in our bright young eyes, complete. Time came, perhaps, all so soon! when our thoughts overleaped that narrow boundary when there was some one (very dear, we thought then, very beautiful, and absolutely perfect) wanting to the fulness of our happiness; when we were wanting too (or we thought so, which did just as well) at the Christmas hearth by which that some one sat; and when we intertwined with every wreath and garland of our life that some one's name. That was the time for the bright visionary Christmases which have long arisen from us to shew faintly, after summer rain, in the palest edges of the rainbow! That was the time for the beatified enjoyment of the things that were to be, and never were, and yet the things that were so real in our resolute hope that it would be hard to say, now, what realities achieved since, have been stronger! What! Did that Christmas never really come when we and the priceless pearl who was our young choice were received, after the happiest of totally impossible marriages, by the two united families previously at daggers-drawn on our account? When brothers and sisters in law who had always been rather cool to us before our relationship was effected, perfectly doted on us, and when fathers and mothers overwhelmed us with unlimited incomes? Was that Christmas dinner never really eaten, after which we arose, and generously and eloquently rendered honor to our late rival, present in the company, then and there exchanging friendship and forgiveness, and founding an attachment, not surpassed in Greek or Roman story, which subsisted until death? Has that same rival long ceased to care for that same priceless pearl, and married for money, and become usurious? Above all, do we really know, now, that we should probably have been miserable if we had won and worn the pearl, and that we are better without her? That Christmas when we had recently achieved so much fame; when we had been carried in triumph somewhere, for doing something great and good; when we had won an honored and ennobled name, and arrived and were received at home in a shower of tears of joy; is it possible that that Christmas has not come yet? And is our life here, at the best, so constituted that, pausing as we advance at such a noticeable mile-stone in the track as this great birthday, we look back on the things that never were, as naturally and full as gravely as on the things that have been and are gone, or have been and still are? If it be so, and so it seems to be, must we come to the conclusion, that life is little better than a dream, and little worth the loves and strivings that we crowd into it? No! Far be such miscalled philosophy from us, dear Reader, on Christmas Day! Nearer and closer to our hearts be the Christmas spirit, which is the spirit of active usefulness, perseverance, cheerful discharge of duty, kindness, and forbearance! It is in the last virtues especially, that we are, or should be, strengthened by the unaccomplished visions of our youth; for, who shall say that they are not our teachers to deal gently even with the impalpable nothings of the earth! Therefore, as we grow older, let us be more thankful that the circle of our Christmas associations and of the lessons that they bring, expands! Let us welcome every one of them, and summon them to take their places by the Christmas hearth. Welcome, old aspirations, glittering creatures of an ardent fancy, to your shelter underneath the holly! We know you, and have not outlived you yet. Welcome, old projects and old loves, however fleeting, to your nooks among the steadier lights that burn around us. Welcome, all that was ever real to our hearts; and for the earnestness that made you real, thanks to Heaven! Do we build no Christmas castles in the clouds now? Let our thoughts, fluttering like butterflies among these flowers of children, bear witness! Before this boy, there stretches out a Future, brighter than we ever looked on in our old romantic time, but bright with honor and with truth. Around this little head on which the sunny curls lie heaped, the graces sport, as prettily, as airily, as when there was no scythe within the reach of Time to shear away the curls of our first-love. Upon another girl's face near it placider—but smiling bright—a quiet and contented little face, we see Home fairly written. Shining from the word, as rays shine from a star, we see how, when our graves are old, other hopes than ours are young, other hearts than ours are moved; how other ways are smoothed; how other happiness blooms, ripens, and decays—no, not decays, for other homes and other bands of children, not yet in being nor for ages yet to be, arise, and bloom and ripen to the end of all! Welcome, everything! Welcome, alike what has been, and what never was, and what we hope may be, to your shelter underneath the holly, to your places 'round the Christmas fire, where what is sits open-hearted! In yonder shadow, do we see obtruding furtively upon the blaze, an enemy's face? By Christmas Day we do forgive him! If the injury he has done us may admit of such companionship, let him come here and take his place. If otherwise, unhappily, let him go hence, assured that we will never injure nor accuse him. On this day, we shut out Nothing! "Pause," says a low voice. "Nothing? Think!" "On Christmas Day, we will shut out from our fireside, Nothing." "Not the shadow of a vast City where the withered leaves are lying deep?" the voice replies. "Not the shadow that darkens the whole globe? Not the shadow of the City of the Dead?" Not even that. Of all days in the year, we will turn our faces towards that City upon Christmas Day, and from its silent hosts bring those we loved, among us. City of the Dead, in the blessed name wherein we are gathered together at this time, and in the Presence that is here among us according to the promise, we will receive, and not dismiss, thy people who are dear to us! Yes. We can look upon these children angels that alight, so solemnly, so beautifully, among the living children by the fire, and can bear to think how they departed from us. Entertaining angels unawares, as the Patriarchs did, the playful children are unconscious of their guests; but we can see them—can see a radiant arm around one favorite neck, as if there were a tempting of that child away. Among the celestial figures there is one, a poor mis-shapen boy on earth, of a glorious beauty now, of whom his dying mother said it grieved her much to leave him here, alone, for so many years as it was likely would elapse before he came to her—being such a little child. But he went quickly, and was laid upon her breast, and in her hand she leads him. There was a gallant boy, who fell, far away, upon a burning sand beneath a burning sun, and said, "Tell them at home, with my last love, how much I could have wished to kiss them once, but that I died contented and had done my duty!" Or there was another, over whom they read the words, "Therefore we commit his body to the dark!" and so consigned him to the lonely ocean and sailed on. Or there was another who lay down to his rest in the dark shadow of great forests, and, on earth, awoke no more. O shall they not, from sand and sea and forest, be brought home at such a time! There was a dear girl—almost a woman—never to be one—who made a mourning Christmas in a house of joy, and went her trackless way to the silent City. Do we recollect her, worn out, faintly whispering what could not be heard, and falling into that last sleep for weariness? O look upon her now! O look upon her beauty, her serenity, her changeless youth, her happiness! The daughter of Jairus was recalled to life, to die; but she, more blest, has heard the same voice, saying unto her, "Arise for ever!" We had a friend who was our friend from early days, with whom we often pictured the changes .'that were to come upon our lives, and merrily imagined how we would speak, and walk, and think, and talk, when we came to be old. His destined habitation in the City of the Dead received him in his prime. Shall he be shut out from our Christmas remembrance? Would his love have so excluded us? Lost friend, lost child, lost parent, sister, brother, husband, wife, we will not so discard you! You shall hold your cherished places /in our Christmas hearts, and by our Christmas fires; and in the season of immortal hope, and on the birthday of immortal mercy, we will shut out Nothing! The winter sun goes down over town and village; on the sea it makes a rosy path, as if the Sacred tread were fresh upon the water. A few more moments, and it sinks, and night comes on, and lights begin to sparkle in the prospect. On the hill-side beyond the shapelessly- diffused town, and in the quiet keeping of the trees that gird the village-steeple, remembrances are cut in stone, planted in common flowers, growing in grass, entwined with lowly brambles around many a mound of earth. In town and village, there are doors and windows closed against the weather, there are flaming logs heaped high, there are joyful faces, there is healthy music of voices. Be all ungentleness and harm excluded from the temples of the Household Gods, but be those remembrances admitted with tender encouragement! They are of the time and all its comforting and peaceful reassurances; and of the history that reunited even upon earth the living and the dead; and of the broad beneficence and goodness that too many men have tried to tear to narrow shreds.