WRITING OF THE CHIMES

Taranaki Daily News, 17 December 1926, Page 5 (Supplement)

WRITING OF THE CHIMES

DICKENS' INSPIRATION. Eighty years has passed since Dickens wrote at Genoa the last word of "The Chimes,” probably the most beautiful and best-loved of his Christmas stories; and, as he put down his pen and looked down from his study-window on the waters of the Mediterranean, mirroring the blue Italian sky. the tears began to stream down his cheek*, ami. resting his head on his hands, he "subbed like a child.” Some minutes later he took up his pen again and wrote these words to his friend John Forster: "Half-past two. afternoon. Thank God! I have just finished ‘The ( himes.’ I take np my pen again only to say that much, ami to add that J have ha I what wumeij rail < ‘real goikf cry’"’

For weeks he had been writing at high pressure, "in a fever of inspiration.” lie had lived with and for his book, and as his pen flew over the sheets he had laughed and cried with his characters, and "generally." as he confessed, ‘•behaved like an idiot." And when at last he had to say good-bye to them it was as though he stood by the graveside of loved ones. “Day after day,” he says, •‘I was in my bath at seven o’clock, and an hour later I was at my desk, blazing away, resolutely and red-hot, for seven or eight hours at a stretch until my ha ml refused to work any more. ’ “1 ha<l almost finished the story, and. rack my brains as I would and did, I simply couldn't think of a title. Then, one morning, as T sat down to my desk, the bells of Genoa broke, as if by one consent, into a merry, almost deafening peal; and I had it! ’The Chimes!’ ’The Chimes!’ That was the very title 1 wanted, but could not find.”