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DICKENS POSITION.

Dickens' position in English literature is perfectly unique. He stands alone. "We have plenty o£ historical novelists, not, of course, so good as Scott, but still passable. We have plenty of social satirists who, if not equal to Thackeray, run him hard. Bat we have no one to compare with Dickens—no one who is either second or third or fourth in the same school of fiction. Dickens as yet has the whole field to himself. It is his own peculiar province, into which no one has yet ventured to intrude. This will help to perpetuate his fame. Bat the time is approaching, says the Standard, when his books will be library books, and no longer " Household Words." A. new race of writers has arisen, to whom the novel readers of to-day fly for excitement and amusement. They, too, in turn will experience the same decline. " Thou by some other shall be laid as low." But for the moment they eclipse even the exquisite humour and profound pathos of the elder writers, and reign supreme in the club and the drawing room. We do not know that this particular change is in all respects creditable to the public taste. An appetite for horrors anil for mousters seems to have sprung up among us akin to that which found a relish in the "Castle of Otranto" and the "Old English Baron." The great purveyor of this kind of literature is, of course, Mr Eider Haggard. But a host of minor writers, whose plots were all founded on crimes of an atrocious character, and chiefly on murder, continue to delight the public, who seem to be gradually acquiring a thirst for blood akin to the Roman lore of gladiatorial combats. These are the author 3 who are really driving Dickens out of the field, and not Mr Besant, Mr Norris, or Blr Hardy. The age is sensational and Dickens is not sensational enough. The horror must be laid on thicker, and the pictures must be painted with a coarser brush.. The writers who can do this have just now a good time of it. Qucm libet occidunt popularity. This taste, too, will pass away in turn, and make room for something different to flutter its little hour in the sunshine, and then disappear and be forgotten. But the great chiefs oE literature will still look down upon the gay and busy throng of ephemeral favourites from the same lofty eminence, secure of their renown, though not a line they ever wrote may linger in the memory of the vulgar. Among these Charles Dickens has already taken his place. His writings have infused into our literature a new and a permanent element, for which it will be all the richer, though future generations may be ignorant to whom they are indebted for it.

— In the manufacture of carriages it used to take one man 35 days to make a carriage. It is now made by the aid of machinery with the ■work of one man in 12 days.

— The largest oak now standing in England is the " Cowthorpe," which measures 78ft ia circumference at the ground. At one time this tree and its branches covered more than an acre of space. The gigantic old " Parliamentary Oak" in Clipsfcone Park, London, is believed to be 1500 years old. The tallest oak on the British Isles is called the Duke's "iValkingstiek. It is higher than the spire of Wcstminfcfccr Abbey. The oak of CJelcmos, which was feiicd ia 1810, realised LBVO for its owner. The bark was sold for L2OO, and the trunk and branches for L 670 more.

Permanent link to this item

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/ODT18921022.2.58

Bibliographic details

Otago Daily Times, Issue 9565, 22 October 1892, Page 6 (Supplement)

Word Count
605

DICKENS POSITION. Otago Daily Times, Issue 9565, 22 October 1892, Page 6 (Supplement)

DICKENS POSITION. Otago Daily Times, Issue 9565, 22 October 1892, Page 6 (Supplement)

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