CHARLES DICKENS

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 126, 24 November 1923, Page 17

CHARLES DICKENS

Sir Henry Lucy in the "Cornhill Magazine", tells an incredible story of a "post-mortem interview" with Charles Dickens: He was by no means credulous of supernatural agency. But, having on several occasions • seen a table hopping about a room and spelling out words, I resolved >. to try the game under conditions that precluded conspiracy on the part of anyone taking part in it. My wife, a clergyman, and myself' seated ourselves at a small table and completed the ordained ritual by joining finger-tips of hands laid upon it. ... In a few minutes we distinctly felt the table throb. This increased till it was moving off towards the window.

"Will you tell us your name?" I ask. cd.

Instantly the table stopped and gave the decisive rap on the floor signifying assent. I began to recite the alphabet. Raps spelled put the unexpected name "C-h-a-r-1-e-s D-i-c-k-e-n-s."

_ .1- have before me now my wile's visiting cards, hastily produced, upon which I wrote what was subsequently spelled put by my voiceless interlocutor. What puzzled mo at the time was his rattling boyish flippancy, his childish mis-spel-ling of familiar words, and. his frequent lapses from grammar. ."Some people is werry green," was one of his remarks, which the cynical reader may regard as singularly appropriate, being offered in the presence of three grown-up people seated round an ambulatory table. "We are jolly good fellows, you and me," "She's a corker," "Hold your gab —go home," are some of the disjointed phrases spelled out; the latter being, I regret to say, addressed to the clergyman, who had offered an inoffensive remark. More curious was the message, "Mary Hogarth's works serve God. He sent her to help Kttle children." These seem trivial, inconsequential observations, continues Sir Henry Lucy, scarcely worth-the while of a great novelist revisiting the earth to utter them through the medium of a table's legs. There are, however, one or two striking points which induce me to publish this record. At the- time our table turned I had rot read Forster's "Life of Dickens." Indeed, I am not sure that it had been published. I had never heard the name "Mary Hogarth." Still less was I acquainted with Dickens's intense love for her, which led him, in anticipation of his death, to direct that his bones should be laid to rest in her gra-ve. When, years later, I read Forster's "Life," I was profoundly struck by the discovery that in his intimate correspondence with his biographer Dickens was accustomed to misspell long words, and ta et;|H piiMtiiss like "S»m« people *r« wenry green.."