Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 100, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 April 1911 — QUEEN VICTORIA TO DICKENS [ARTICLE]

QUEEN VICTORIA TO DICKENS

What a Humble Writer Said to One of the World’s Greatest Novelists. - Alfred Dickens’ record of Queen Victoria’s modest remark on the difference in literary rank between her authorship and bis father's differs a little (at any rate as reported) from what Foster tells In “Life.” According to the biographer, the queen said, but did not write, that she was giving the book of the humblest of writers to one of the greatest. Dickens had been famous for 35 years before the queen sent for ®m, and she was just in time, for he went to Buckingham palace in the year he died. “Describing the brief audience to my-fa-ther,” writes a correspondent, “Dickens said he could describe the queen’s manner only as that of a little-girl—‘a very difficult little girl,’ he added.” Perhaps the royal command was so long deferred because of Dickens' refusal, in 1857, to show himself to royal eyes in a stage dress. The queen attended an amateur play, and at the end sent for the principal actor, who was Dickens, to come to her box and receive her thanks. “I replied,” he wrote to a friend, “that I was in my farce dress and must be excused. Whereupon she sent again. I . . . again hoped her majesty would have the kindness to excuse my presenting myself in a costume and appearance that were not my own.” Previously Dickens declined to take his company to the palace. It did not seem to occur to the author that he was doing anything unusual.