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Leader (1850-1860), 4th July 1857, Edition 1 of 2, Page 640, LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. Letters fro...

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      The Reading Of The Christinas Carol By M...

      ntrh voice How eager Mr . Dickens ' s friends , in other words , all classes of ttoTnublic ' were to welcome one who had for years contributed so largely to their eniojVnent , may be gathered from the fact that every unreserved seat was fflled more than half an hour before the reading began , that every bit of standing room was soon occupied , and that by eight o ' clock so many had been sent Sray from the doors that it was deemed desirable to advertise at once a second reading , which is accordingly ¦ ' to take place on the 24 th of the month . Had the audience waited half a day , however , instead of . half an hour , it was sufficiently evident they would have felt amply rewarded by the result . We have rarely witnessed or shared an evening of such genuine enjoyment , and never before remember to have seen a crowded assembly of three thousand people hanging for upwards of two hours on the lips of a sile readernot only without any touch of impatience , or trace of

      weang , riness , but with an excited and even passionate interest that it was impossible to repress , that at eveiy turn of the story found involuntary expression in laughter or tears , hushed silence or rapturous applause , and that to the end kept them so absorbed in tie progress of the narrative as to be unconscious of everything beside . The reports of Mr . Dickens ' s success in the provinces as a reader , which at the time seemed exaggerated , scarcely did justice to his peculiar power ; his oral interpretation of the story , from first to last , being admirable . In the first place , Mr . Dickens ' s voice , naturally powerful and expressive , and specially rich in its lower tones , is completely under his control , and he modulates it with the practised ease of one accustomed to

      address the public from the platform rather than through the pen . In the second place , his reading is thoroughly dramatic throughout ; and it is the more important to insist on this point , as certain critics , through some strange oversight , failed to recognise it . Every fragment of the dialogue was treated dramatically—the rendering of each character being equally successful , from the eager , childlike tones of the little girl who runs into the empty schoolroom to fetch the lonely boy home for the holidays , and the thin voice of ' tiny Tim , ' to Scrooge ' s growl of mingled wrath and scorn , or the deep , hollow accents of Marley ' s Ghost . Mrs . Cratchit , in particular , was a great success , and the simpering matronly vanity with which she confesses ' now the weight is off her mind , that she had her doubts about the

      pudding , ' was delightful . The narrative part arid reflections Mr . Dickens of course read in bis natural voice , —so effectively that , at one point , a philanthropic legislator , carried away by his" feelings , gave forth a vigorous * Blear , hear ! ' that echoed through the hall . At the close there was an outburst , not 3 O much of applause as of downright hurrahing , from every partthe stalls even being startled from their propriety into the waving of hats and handkerchiefs , and joining heartily in the contagious cheer . Our readers will be glad to learn that upwards of two hundred pounds was realized by the reading for the Memorial fund .

      The concert on Saturday evening was , in its way , equally gratifying and successful . The hearty sympathy between artists and audience visible through , out , was especially seen towards the close , when Mr . Robson being unexpectedly delayed , Mr . Albert Smith , Miss Dolb y , and Mr . Weiss , each volunteered an additional song , so that on the appearance of the favourite the audience were in a state of enthusiasm . A . gratifying feature connected with these ' memorial occasions' is the general support they have received from the press . We have noticed this before , and allude to it again , mainly to state that an ardent though reserved weekly organ of progress , which at first kept aloof , has at length taken part in the movement . Our amiable contemporary , the Peelite Review , lias come forward with characteristic generosity . " The

      only true offering is a portion of thyself ; " and our contemporary , entering into the spirit of this rule , appropriately contributes its richest gift—a sneer . The late Mr . Douglas Jebr . om > , we are informed with refined truthfulness , was utterly uninstruoted and hopelessly perverse . " As delicacy of feeling is not wholly banished even from academic breasts , this candour must have cost the united brethren who support the paper in question an effort ; but the claims of their sacred and self-imposed mission were obviously imperative , and in their Quixotic zeal to put down all popular writers and popular literature , tlioy tilt against a newly-made grave as blindly as against the sturdiest living celebrity . Of course they have their feelings like other men , but these must bo sacrificed at the shrine of truth and duty . They have fallen on evil days , that require

      men of resolute speech and action . The world lias outgrown academic dictation and academic control , ohoosing , in defiance of all authority , to recognize as great men many whoso names were nover entered at any college . They naturally feel that this sort of thing ought to be put a stop to . So , having decided , over their port and olives , or their coffee and cigar , that Shakswhawe is an overrated man , and having pooh-poohed Thackeray and Dickens to their hearts' content , they betake themselves to the congenial work of dostroying these popular idola . We cannot help fooling a cortain interest in suoli

      desperate iconoolaats . It is pleasant to find , in the absence of any very lively faith , that they have a strength of denial and disbelief that presses for utterance , and ia active enoiigh to become aggressive Rudiments of a more positive faith may perhaps , however , bo discerned in their writings . It would Beem they have not only iixtollcot to detect the weakness of those popular writers , but a oonsoienoe to fool thoir alarming unverncity , and that they look upon them not only with oontompt , but with indignation . They would fain rosouo the world from the influence of tlxoir false and degrading pictures of actual life , by infusing into it the purer

      morality of the combination-room , the severe philosophy of the academic groves . They have no patience with the praises lavished on such men as Dickens and Jerrold ; they will not share the popular feeling , but reserve their manl y sympathy , their honest but severely temperate enthusiasm , for the gentle Erlam , and the brave Macdon ald , who , after the fashion of their order , ' loved not wisely but too well ; ' or , if any touch of fancy mingle with the stern realism of their sympathy , it must be consecrated by classical associations , must be connected with the Homeric conflicts of the middle-weight hero , Mr . Thomas Sayers , and Ms vanquished opponent , the Tipion Slasher . In comparison with such men , Jerrold of course looks small ; and one cannot help feeling that from such a quarter a sneer is a not unfitting tribute to his memory . Jerrold himsolf , indeed , had happily characterized the spirit that animates our contemporary long before it took a weekly form , in his celebrated definition of Dogmatism as ' Puppyism conic to maturity . '

      ,-. Ja The Leader. [No. 380, July 4, 185...

      ,-. jA THE LEADER . [ No . 380 , July 4 , 1857 . 640 . . -

      Letters From High Latitudes. Letters Fro...

      LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES . Letters from High Latitudes . Being some Account of a Voyage , in the Schooner Yacht Foam , to Iceland , Jan Mayen , and Spitzbergen , in 1856 . By Lord Dufferin . Murray . Since Forrest made his famous voyage in the Tartar galley there has not been a more adventurous cruiser than Lord Duflferin . He is one of a nice peculiar to our islands . In the north there are adventurous navigators ; but they do not come to us ; we go to them . Who but an English or Scottish gentleman would penetrate the depths of the American continent in a sixoared cutter , or roam through the channels of the Oriental islands in a schooner yacht , or work the Foam amid a maze of icebergs , iron-bound rocks , and perilous seas within the Arctic circle ? The spirit of Drake and Raleigh is preserved in our matchless yachtsmen , whose adventures , purely

      voluntary and pleasurable , abound not less in excitement—sometimes in danger—than those of the noble old voyagers who began their records thus : " Being resolved to take a survey of the globe , we sailed from Bristol , " & c . Lord Dufferin ' s most charming book is the account of a voyage made by the Foam , a schooner yacht of eighty-five tons , from Falmoutb , by way of the Hebrides round Iceland , along the line of eternal congelation almost to the limits of the habitable world at Spitzbergen . Illustrated as it is by admirable lithographs and woodcuts beautifully printed on fine paper , with an apparatus of topographical and scientific maps and diagrams , the volume is at once valuable and fascinating . It has all the cheerfulness of a saltwater chronicle , mingled with graphic landscape sketching and notes , which justify us in crediting Lord Duflferin with some of the highest qualities of a traveller .

      The Foam set sail for the silent seas in June last year—hope at the . helm , and beauty at the prow . Literally so , for hope is always at the vessel ' s helm when leaving port , and , in this case , the figure-head in bronze , by Marochetti , was the portrait of —rr— in a gold crown , in outline ever lovely , although the water changed her complexion to a dolphin green . First to Iceland , roadless regions of pumice hills , purple and gold light , wood nml lava , yellow ponies , and briny legends . There , of course , he inspected the Geysers , fountains of the Norse furies , with those even more wondrous sunken levels of rock , molten once and then solidified , which mark the interior like scars of antediluvian centuries—a tremendops desert , ' pilo J up for thirty thousand square miles in disordered pyramids of ice and lava , ' periodically blasted by volcanic eruptions , or ' overwhelmed by whirlwinds desolations Lord Duf

      of intermingled snow and cinders . ' Yet amid these - ferin was continually reminded of the East . But it was by Northern rumours that he was lured to wander with Marochetti ' Grace of bronze beyond the birthplace of bogs to Jan Mayen , ' a spike of igneous rock shooting straight up out of the sea to the height of 6 S 70 feet , ' needle-shaped from base to peak . In search of this monstrous mountain , Lord Dufferin , after dipping once more into Europe , set sail , leaving behind a hundred tradition-peopled spots , the point whence America is fabled to have been spied by the Northmen , the , Arctic line , and the barriers of the Glacial Sea . The albatross knows nothing of such mist and cloudy confusion as oppress these waters , amid which the Foam was now solitary . No one had been visible for two days ; the world was grey dark ; but after long floating in this ittferno of fog , the gloom was riven , a snowy peak glistened thousands of feet in tlic air , a rich line of purple coast came in view , and there was Jan Mayen ,

      mother of glaciers . Still further the yachtsmen mingled with the Lapp population , whose manners are pleasantly pictured by Lord Dufferin . In summer , tllo Lapps live in tents , like Tartars ; in winter , amon" tree-tops , like birds . Away onwards , with the moon on one side of the sky and tlie sun on the other , and not far from Maalstroom , was discovered an English settler , with his wife and two snowdrop children , the lady herself more lovely than one of Spenser ' s visions , or the ideal of any Italian Allegro , white and fragile as a lily , with blonde hair , eyes of dusky blue , a cool radiance on her brow , and * lips of that rare tint which lines the conch-shell . From a lovely woman to a lovoly scene : Lord Duflerin was no less inspired by a glimpse of a forest of thin lilac peaks' painted on the sky by refraction , yet existing in reality and warming in colour aa the Foam made way . Early in August she anchored in a Spitsbergen bay , with the muflled midnight sun shining mysteriously over a vast circle of land and sea , utterly forlorn and voicoless . Hero from mountainous crystal cliffs thunder down into tho sea masses of ice * the size of a cathedral , ' enough to bury half a iloet ; yot on these waters float the wrecks of American forests , drifted here b y tho Gulf stronm , and on the coast Lord DufFerin saw an open coffin containing a skeleton : — -

      1 have boon told by an ovo-witness , that in Magdalona Bay thoro aro to bo soon , ovon to this day , the bodfoa of men who died two hundred and fifty years ngo , Ijm supli complete preservation , that when you pour " hot water on tho toy coating which encases thorn , you can actually boo tho unchanged features of tho doad , through ilia transparent incrustation . After exploring these wild seas , Lord Duffbrin returned to England by another route , reviving b y the way many a passage of old NortUorn saga ,

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), July 4, 1857, page 640, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/ldr_04071857/page/16/