A Novel Introduction.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXI, Issue 6696, 23 September 1896, Page 1

A Novel Introduction.

Mr Henry Lucy writes : I never had any transaction with Charles Dickens the younger but once, and that under very peculiar circumstances. More than 20 years ago, at a time when table-turning was in vogue, I took part in an attemptmade by three other earnest seekers after truth to test rhe bona fides of the mystery. For what followed I can certainly vouch that it was due to no deliberate trickery. We four sat round a table, which presently conducted itself in liveliest fashion. After a while the usual formula of inquiry elicited the interesting circumstance that " the spirit " at the moment in communication with us was that of the late Charles Dickens. A peculiarity of the visitation was that C. D. declined to hold communication with anyone but me. When any of the three others joined in the conversation there was no reply. When I took up the examination answers were promptly spelled out. I have them now somewhere among my papers, written down at the time. I remember the purport of the message was that Charles Dicken3 was very anxious for me to make the acquaintance of his son Charles, and bade me call upon him at the office of All the Year Round in Wellington street. What much impressed me and the others was the boyish, • almost babyish, humor of the style of communication. It was a sort of imitation of exaggerated East End tain, substituting^w's for v's and the like. This seemecl; nonsensical and",out of keeping iwith Dickens'. habits. When, a short time after, Foster's Life came out I found in it many scraps of letters sent to Foster and other - intimate friends in which Dickens dropped into exactly the same exaggeratedly" colloquial style as his curious message to me. I was so impressed with the incident that I resolved.toifpilow it up. At that time my. name was outside a narrow journalistic circle. If I called on the editor of prosperous journal I had no more right to expect to be admitted to -fhia; presence than- passing milkman lor 'busdriver. However, I made the call as bidden, was forthwith invited to the "editorial' sanctum,-; and found cordial accepbancefor a .suggestion, timidly made, to write an article for All the Year Round. I did, notthen nor ab any time since tell Charles Dickens the younger how I came to call upon him/ • i