Rensselaer Republican, Volume 22, Number 24, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 February 1890 — CHARLES DICKENS’ ANNIVERSARY. [ARTICLE]

CHARLES DICKENS’ ANNIVERSARY.

Seventy-eight years ago Friday, C harles Dickens, the great novelist of the common people, first saw the light at Portsmouth, England. The anniversary has been appropriately observed by the Christoinathian Literary Society, of the Central Christian church. Charles Crosley read a well considered paper on the life of the storj teller whose works have exercised so great a humanizing influence in the world. He spoke of him in his early work as areportor when he wrote in one hour a column Parlimentary report equal to two columns of one o's the journals of to-day, and was equaled by none in rapidity and accuracy, and of the time When he sprang suddenly into the fullness of fame as a novelist Reviewing Dickens’ works, Mr. Crosley said: “In the whole range, vast as it is, which constitutes the common literature of America and England, there are no purer tfooks than those written by Dickens. There is no line in them which the most fastidious or the most tender hearted husband or father could wish to keep back from a ctiild. They may be taken up at any time or any place, and the reader will be gratifk d at the entertainment they sup ply and the moral lesson they teach. Dickens’ life as an author was traced till the time of his death at Gad’s Hill, June 9, 1870.” No death since that of Abraham Lincoln, the essayist thought, had cast such universal gloom over the world. According to the great author’s wishes, the funeral was strictly private, and his burial in Westminister Abbey was witnessed by fourteen mourners and about as many more attracted by curiosity.