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the THE LEADER. P^,. 380, July 4, 1857. ...
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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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H^*W Is Mainly Biographical This Month, ...
own voice How eager Mr . Dickens ' s friends , in other words all classes of trP ub ^ c were to wdcome one who had for years contributed so largely to their enjoyment , may be gathered from the fact that every unreserved seat was Sled morfthan 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 away 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 single readernot only without any touch of impatience , or trace of
wea-, riness , but with an excited and even passionate interest that it was impossible to repress , that at every 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 the 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 tlie 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 and reflections Mr . Dickens of course read in his natural voice .- ^ so effectively that , at one point , a
philanthropic legislator , carried away by his feelings , gave forth a vigorous * Hear , hear ! ' that echoed through the hall . At the close there was an outburst , not so 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 throughout , was especially seen towards the close , when Mr . Robson being unexpectedly delayed , Mr . Albekt Smith , Miss Dojlby , 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 liave received from the press . We have noticed tliis 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 , has 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 . Dougias Jerhold , we are informed with refined truthfulness , was utterly uninstructed 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 j 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 , they 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 be sacrificed at the shrine of truth and duty . They have fallen on evil days , that require men of resolute speech and aotion . The world has outgrown academic dictation and academic control , choosing , in defiance of all authority , to recognize as great men many whoso names were never entered at any college . They naturally feel that this sort of thing ought to bo put a stop to . So , having decided , over their port and olives , or their coffee and cigar , that Siiakspbare
is on overrated man , and having pooh-poohed Thackeray and Dickens to their hearts' content , they bptake themselves to the congenial work of destroying these popular idols . Wo cannot help fooling a certain intorcst in suoh desiderate iconoclasts . It is pleasant to find , in the absence of any vory lively faith , that they have a strength of denial and disboliof that presses for utterance , and is active enough to bcoomo aggressive . Rudiments of a more positive faith may perhaps , howovor , bo dispernod in their writings . It would seem they havo not only intoUeot to dcteot the weakness of those popular writers , but a conscience to feol thoir alarming unveraeity , and that they look upon them not only with contempt , but with indignation . They would fain rcsouo the world from the inftuonco of thoir false and degrading pioturos of actual life , by infusing into it the purer
morality of the combination-room , sr y philosophy of the academic groves . They have no patience with the pr ^ jses lavished on sueli men as Dickens and Jebrold ; they will not shese ^ he popular feeling , but reserve their manly sympathy , their hoi ^ st but severely temperate enthusiasm , for the gentle Erxam , and the brave Macdonaxd , who , . after the fashion of their order , ' loved not wisely . bit too well ; ' or , if any touch of fancy mingle with , the stem-realism of their sympathy , it must be consecrated by classical associations , must be Connected with the Homeric conflicts of tlic middle-weight hero , Mr . TpoMAS Saters , and his vanquished opponent , the Tipxon 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 . Jerroxd himself , 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 come to maturity . '
The The Leader. P^,. 380, July 4, 1857. ...
the THE LEADER . P ^ ,. 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 bas not been a more adventurous cruiser than Lord Dufferin . He is one of a race 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 tho Foam amid a maze of icebergs , iron-bound rocks , and perilous seas within the Arctic circle ? The spirit of Drake and Kaleigh is preserved in our matchless yachtsmen , whose adventurespurely
^ 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 Falmouth , 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 arid 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 Dufferin 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 —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 and lava , yellow ponies , and briny legends . There , of course , he inspected the Geysers , fountains of the Norse furies , with those even more wondrous sunken Jevels of rock , molten once and then solidified , which mark the interior like scars of antediluvian centuries—a tremendous desert , ' piled up for thirty thousand square miles in disordered pyramids of ice and lava , ' periodically blasted by volcanic eruptions , or ' overwhelmed by whirlwinds of intermingled snow and cinders . ' Yet amid these desolations Lord Dufb
ferin was continually reminded of the East . But it was y Northern rumours that he was lured to wander with Marochetti ' s 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 6870 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 tho barriers of the Glacial Sea . The albatross knows nothing of such mist and cloudy confusion as oppress these waters , ainid 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 inferno of fog , the gloom was riven , a snowy peak glistened thousands of feet in the air , a rich line of purple coast came in view , and there was Jan Mayc , n , mother of glaciers . Still further the yachtsmen mingled with the Lapp population , whose manners are pleasantly pictured by Lord Dufferin . In summer , the Lapps live in tents , like Tartars ; in winter , among treo-tops ,
like birds . Away onwards , with the moon on one side of the sky and the sun on the other , and not far from Maalstroom , was discovered an English settler , with his wife and two snowdrop children , tho lady herself moro 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 . ' Prom a lovely woman to a lovely scene : Lord Dufferin was no less inspired by a glimpse of a forest of thin lilac peaks' painted on tho sky by refraction , yet existing in roality and warming in colour as the Foam made way . Early in August aho anchored in a Spitsbergen bay , with the muffled midnight a , un shining mysteriously over a vast circle of land and sea , utterly forlorn and voiceless . Here from mountainous crystal cliffs thunder down into tho sea masses of ice ' tho size of a cathedral , ' enough to bury half a fleet ; yot on theeo waters float the wrecks of American forests , drifted here b y tlic Gulf stream , and on the coast Lord Dufierin eavv an open coffin containing a skeleton : —
1 havo boon told by an oyo-witnoas , that in Magdalona Bay thoro are to bo soon , ovon to this day , tho bodies of men who died two liupdrod and flfty years ng <> , i » auch compJoto preeorvatlon , that when you pour hot -water on tho . icy ooating which encases them , you can actually eoo tho unchanged features of tho doad , throHffll &>•» transparent incrustation . After exploring those wild seae , Lord Dufibrin returned to England by another F 9 MP ; reviving by the way many a passage of oh } Northern snga .
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), July 4, 1857, page 16, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_04071857/page/16/
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