"NICHOLAS NICKLEBY"

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 2219, 4 August 1914, Page 7

"NICHOLAS NICKLEBY"

-•'■'.' MR. ALEXANDER WATSON ; S ■-,'.,■ .RECITAL. ~; Charles Dickens's works scarcely need • anyone .to' remind, us of their imperishable "qualities—lJheir bountiful .humanity, their delicious humour, their heartrending tragedy Tho feeling is one of gratitude to Mr. Alexander Watson, who so skilfully arid resourcefully refreshed the memory with ..his recital of certain graphic: .scenes from that fine hovel, "Nicholas Nickleby" at the Concert'. Chamber .last evening'.. .' Mr. Watson dealt, witjlr three phases of Nickleby's association with ; Dr, Wackford Squeers's educational establishment at Dotheboy's Ball—the first; his meeting at a London coffee-house with the sinister ■ old schoolmaster, the'coach journey up to Yorkshire, and of his introduction to.. the miserable company ' of grossly neglected and villainously maltreated urchins; the second, with his humorous encounter with the love-struck Miss Squeers, and her comical.acquaintances; and the third, with that period whero Nickleby, slung l.eyond endurance at Squeers's inhuman cruelty, shelters''and defends -'the broken-witted Smike, and thraslh.es the'; schoolmaster into a state of insensibility.- _ _ : This evening is a speoial Kipling night, and as the author of the.' Bar-rack-room. Ballads" and "Seven Seas';was an inveterate flag-wagger, the,prevailing tensitv of the situation in Europe should add no inconsiderable measure of interest to the entertainment. To-morrow ovening ho recites Masefield's remarkable poom, ','The Everlasting Mercy " which has attracted llh'e attention of the whole of the literary world to the r.raccs- of Masefield as a poet. On .Thursday be is to recite "Tho Merchant of Venice," arid on Friday Dickens's "A Christmas Carol." - '