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,-. jA THE LEADER. [No. 380, July 4, 185...
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LETTERS FROM HIGH LATITUDES. Letters fro...
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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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 ,
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Citation
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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/
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