Democratic Sentinel, Volume 6, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 December 1882 — THE GREAT NOVELIST. [ARTICLE]

THE GREAT NOVELIST.

LFrom an Interview with His Amanuensis.l “You were the amanuensis of Charles Dickens, were you not?** “Yes; I did shorthand work for Mr. Dickens for ten months. I did not take dictations for any one of his fugitive pieces. He dictated to me most of his articles in “All the Year Round.” He was a very clever gentleman to those under him. He always treated me very well, indeed. Moat people seem to think Dickens was a very ready writer. This is by no means the case. He used to come into his office in St. Catherine street about 9 o’clock in the morning and begin dictating a sentence or a paragraph and ask me to read it. I would do so, and he would, in nine cases out of ten order me to strikeout certain words and insert others. He was generally tired out by 11 o’clock and went down to his club on the srtrand. A very singular thing was that he never dictated the closing paragraphs of his story. He always finished ft himself. I used to look in the paper for it, and find that he had changed it very greatly from what he had dictated to me.

“Dickens had a very odd way of combing his hair. He would comb it a hundred times a day. He seemed never to tire of it. The first thing he did on coming into the office was to comb his hair. I have seen him dictate a sentence or two and then begin combing. When he got through he dictated another sentence. He was very careful about his writings. He wanted every sentence to be as perfect as possible before letting it go to press. Dickens was an odd fellow regarding the company he sought. I have known him, while I was employed by him, to go down to the Seven Dials, about the worst place in London, and sleep and eat there. He roasted his herring where the rest did, and slept with the poorest. He loved low society. He never seemed so happy as when seated in a poof coffee-house with a crowd of the lower classes talking around him. He never missed a ■word that was said, and was the closest observer I ever saw. Nothing escaped him. The most minute mannerisms were noted and stored away. When I was working for him he was at the zenith of his fame, just before his death, and even then he loved these careless, rollicking rounds among the poor better than a high-toned dinner. “Was he as great a drinker as he has the reputation of being?” “I never saw him myself. I have seen him several times exhilarated, however. He only drank the best of wine, but he drank that very freely. Sherry was his especial favorite, and he never refused a glass of fine old sherry. He was an insatiable cigarette smoker, and when dictating to me always had a cigarette in his mouth. He was a very spruce man, too. Ho brushed his coat frequently, and changed his collars several times in a day. He was every bit as humorous in his speech as in his writings. When he was in a particularly fine humor lie could keep you laughing by the hour with his witty talk. He ■was not one of those men who are above those they employ, he chatted as freely with me as any member of his club on the Strand. Dickens was, undoubtedly, the best after-dinner speaker in England. I heard him at Whitehall once, the occasion being the anniversary of the museum. There was an immense crowd, hardly standing-room, and lie kept them in one continual roar. He was a fine actor, and this, added to his wit, made him irresistibly funny. He was a great eater, not an epicure, but a gourmand. He ate, and ate, and ato, and cared little for the quality so there was enough before him.”