READERS AND DICKENS

Evening Star, Issue 20055, 21 December 1928, Page 7

READERS AND DICKENS

M BALDWIN’S TEST 3L.’ Baldwin attended tho dinner given in London recently to celebrate the centenary of ‘ The Spectator/ and in tho course of a speecli paid a high tribute to the character of that newspaper. He noted, however, with amusement, that when ‘ Far From the Madding Crowd ’ first came out, tho reviewer in ‘The Spectator/ not only thought it was tho work of a woman, hut attributed it to George Eliot. “That, I must say, rather puzzles me. I remember as a Worcestershire small boy, when I first read Hardy,” he continued. “ I was far too young to understand_ him, but what struck me was that his country people did not seem to me true to life. Tho reason, of course, was that I come from West Worcestershire, where wo are extremely different from Dorset, and the country man that to mo was absolutely true to life was tho country man of George Eliot. Mrs Poyscr I have mot over and over again, and I knew all tho people in 1 Beenes from Clerical Life, ‘ Adam Bede/ and ‘ Tho Mill on the Floss. 1 “1 cannot understand, looking hack, how a reviewer could have attributed the entirely different mentality of the Dorset people to a woman who wrote about tiro , Worcestershire people. “If I may take a small point,” Air Baldwin said, “ it is that ‘ The Spectator 5 in its early days never properly appreciated Dickons. I always divide people in public life between people who appreciate certain statesmen and those who do not. In literary matters my dividing line is ‘Do you like Dickens or do you nob? IF you don’t, I’m sorry for you, and there is an end to it. ’ ”