Evening Republican, Volume 23, Number 212, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 September 1920 — Another “Dickens Original." [ARTICLE]

Another “Dickens Original."

One by one the little band of remaining “Dickens Originals” are being gathered to their fathers. The London Morning Post chronicles the death tn Strood infirmary of Mrs. Regden, the Betty Higden of “Our Mutual Friend." She was one of the lesser characters of the great novelist’s ere- I ation. but as Gilbert Chesterton so truly says: “Dickens not only con-_ quered the world; he conquered it with minor characters. They appear only for a fragment of time, but they belong to eternity. We have them only for an Instant (like the young man with the lumpy forehead, who only says ‘Esker’ to Mr. Podsnap’s foreign gentleman), but they have u% forever." How great Dickens really was is seen from the fact that not more than one or two men have been found capable of creating even a single character In their books of equal vitality and individuality: Perhaps the two most outstanding Instances are Sherlock Holmes and Captain Kettle. But where Conan Doyle and Cutcliffe Hyne created one famous character of that disciple Dickens created fifty.