: Rambles in Dickens' Land by Allbut Robert Brenan Gerald Author Of Introduction Etc James Helen M Illustrator - Dickens Charles 1812-1870 Homes and haunts England London; Literary landmarks England London

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INTRODUCTION

It is one of the magic legacies left by the great romancers, that the scenes and characters which they described should possess for most of us an air of reality, so convincing as sometimes to put staid history to the blush. The novelist's ideals become actual to the popular mind; while commonplace truth hides itself among its dry-as-dust records, until some curious antiquary or insistent pedant drags it forth to make a nine days' wonder. We sigh over "Juliet's Tomb" in spite of the precisians, sup in the inn kitchen at Pennaflor with Gil Blas at our elbow, and shudder through the small hours outside the haunted House of the Black Cat in Quaker Philadelphia. At Tarascon they show you Tartarin's oriental garden; and you must hide the irrepressible smile, for Tartarin is painfully real to these good cap-shooters. The other day an illustrated magazine published pictures of Alexander Selkirk's birthplace, and labelled them "The Home of Robinson Crusoe." The editor who chose that caption was still under the spell of Defoe. To him, as to the vast majority, Crusoe the imaginary seemed vividly real, while the flesh-and-blood Selkirk was but a name. And if you have that catholic sympathy which is the true test of the perfect lover of romance, read "David Copperfield" once again, and then, by way of experiment, spend an afternoon in Canterbury. You will find yourself expecting at one moment to see Mr. Micawber step jauntily out of the Queen's Head Inn, at another to catch a glimpse of the red-haired Heep slinking along North Lane to his "'umble dwelling." You will probably meet a dozen buxom "eldest Miss Larkinses," and obnoxious butcher-boys--perhaps even a sweet Agnes Wickfield, or a Miss Betsy Trotwood driving in from Dover. And, above all, you will certainly enjoy yourself, and thank your gods for Charles Dickens.

Mr. Would-be Wiseman may affect to sneer at our pilgrimages to this and other places connected with the imaginary names of fiction; but he must recognise the far-reaching influence for good exercised by symbols and associations over the human mind. The sight of a loved home after many years--the flutter of one's country's flag in foreign lands--these things touch keenly our better nature. In a like manner is the thoughtful man impressed when he treads a pathway hallowed by the writings of some favourite poet or romancer. The moral lesson which the author intended to convey, his insight into character or loving eye for Nature's beauties, and many exquisite passages from his books appeal to us all the more, when we recall them in the very rooms where they were written--among the gloomy streets or breezy hills which he has filled with his inventions. Says Washington Irving in his essay on Stratford: "I could not but reflect on the singular gift of the poet; to be able thus to spread the magic of his mind over the very face of Nature; to give to things and places a charm and character not their own, and to turn this 'working-day' world into a perfect fairyland. He is indeed the true enchanter, whose spell operates, not upon the senses, but upon the imagination and the heart. Under the wizard influence of Shakespeare I had been walking all day in a complete delusion. . . . I had been surrounded with fancied beings; with mere airy nothings conjured up by poetic power; yet which, to me, had all the charm of reality. I had heard Jaques soliloquise beneath his oak; had beheld the fair Rosalind and her companion adventuring through the woodlands; and, above all, had been once more present in spirit with fat Jack Falstaff and his contemporaries, from the august Justice Shallow down to the gentle Master Slender and the sweet Anne Page. Ten thousand honours and blessings on the bard who has thus gilded the dull realities of life with innocent illusions." Wherefore, in spite of the sneers of Master Would-be Wiseman, let us continue to make these pleasant pilgrimages; not alone for our own satisfaction and betterment, but also in memory of those who have opened before us so many delectable lands of fancy, and given us so many agreeable companions of the road.

This volume, then, is the pilgrim's guide to Dickens' Land--the loving topography of that fertile and very populous region. No far away foreign country is Dickens' Land. It lies at our doors; we may explore it when we choose, with never a passport to purchase nor a Custom House to fear. The sojourner in London can scarce look from his windows without beholding scores of its interesting places. To parody that passage which describes Mr. Pickwick's outlook into Goswell Street--Dickens' Land is at our feet; Dickens' Land is on our right hand as far as the eye can reach; Dickens' Land extends on our left, and the opposite side of Dickens' Land is over the way. Nor do the bounds of this genial territory confine themselves to London alone. Outlying portions spread north and south, east and west, over England. There is even, as Sala showed, a Dickens' quarter in Paris; and we have unexpectedly encountered small colonies of Dickens' Land across the wide Atlantic. But the best of it lies close to the great heart of the world--in London, or in the counties thereabout; and if "Rambles in Dickens' Land" succeeds in guiding its readers with pleasure and profit over this storied ground, it will have faithfully fulfilled its mission.

Some other inns to which Dickens is known to have resorted are: the "Bull" at Rochester, the "Leather Bottle" at Cobham, and the "Great White Horse" at Ipswich--all with Pickwickian associations; the "Old Cheshire Cheese" in Fleet Street, and the "George and Dragon" at Canterbury. To many minor taverns in London he was also a frequent visitor, for he sought his characters in the market-place rather than in the study. His signature, with the familiar flourish underneath, is treasured in hotel registers not a few, and it is esteemed a high honour to be permitted to slumber in the "Dickens' Room."

Into Dickens' Land, therefore, my masters, an you will and when you will! The high-roads thither are always open, the lanes and by-paths are free for us to tread. He that found out this rare world has made it fully ours. Let us visit our inheritance, or revisit it, if that be the better word. Let us make real the scenes we have read of and dreamt of--peopling them with the folk of Dickens, so that familiar faces shall look upon us from familiar windows, familiar voices greet us as we pass. Shall we travel abroad in the fashion of the corresponding committee of the Pickwick Club? Then here is this book, with a wealth of shrewd information between its covers, ready to be our own particular Samuel Weller--to wear our livery, whether of sadness or of joy--to point out to us the sights and the notabilities, to be garrulous when we look for gossip, and silent when our mood is for silence--to act, in short, as that useful individual whom we all "rayther want," "somebody to look arter us when we goes out a-wisitin'."

Where, if you please, shall we "wisit" first? It is hard to choose, since there is so much to choose from. We may ramble about London town, where, like Mr. Weller, our guide is "werry much at home." If so, we are sure to encounter a host of old cronies. Perhaps we shall see the great Buzfuz entering court, all in his wig and silk, nodding with lofty condescension to his struggling brother, Mr. T. Traddles, which latter is bringing "Sophy and the girls" to set Gray's Inn a-blooming. Or Tom Pinch going towards Fountain Court to meet the waiting Ruth. Or David Copperfield joyously ushering J. Steerforth into his rooms in the Adelphi. Or Captain Cuttle steering for the sign of the "Wooden Midshipman," which he may eventually find at its new moorings in the Minories. Or Dick Swiveller, poor soul, loafing to his dingy lodgings. Or that precious pair, Bob Sawyer and Benjamin Allen, startling the sullen repose of Lant Street with bacchanalian revelry.

And, if the London Dickens' Land palls, doth not this most inviting country stretch to all points of the compass? Northward goes yonder well-appointed coach, whereof the driver has just been escorted from a certain public-house in Portugal Street by a mottle-faced man, in company with two or three other persons of stout and weather-beaten aspect--the driver himself being stouter and more weather-beaten than all. Let us take the box-seat by his side, and lead him on to talk of "shepherds in wolves' clothing," until presently he tools us into Ipswich, pulling up under the sign of that "rapacious animal" the Great White Horse. In Ipswich we may catch a glimpse of a mulberry-coloured livery slinking by St. Clement's Church, and guess therefrom that one Alfred Jingle is here at his old game of laying siege to the hearts of susceptible females with money. Here, too, behind that green gate in Angel Lane, resides the pretty housemaid soon to become Mrs. Sam Weller. But we must not linger in Ipswich. Yarmouth lies before us, with its phantom boat-house still upturned on the waste places towards the sea, with Little Em'ly, and the Peggottys, and with Mr. Barkis waiting in the Market Place to jog us out to sleepy "Blunderstone."

Back again in London, there is another coach-of-fancy prepared to take us into Kent, from the yard of the Golden Cross. Four gentlemen--one a beaming, spectacled person in drab shorts--are outside passengers for Rochester. And see, here is the ubiquitous Jingle again, clambering to the roof with all his worldly goods wrapped up in a brown paper parcel. "Heads--heads--take care of your heads," he cries, as we rumble under the old archway; and then, hey! for hopfields and cherry orchards, for "mouldy old cathedrals" in "Cloisterham" or Canterbury, for jolly Kentish yeomen and bright-eyed maids of Kent. . . . Who was that wan-faced, coatless urchin we passed just now in a whirl of chalky dust? His name is Copperfield, and he is on his way to Dover. And is not that Mr. Wardle driving his laughing women-folk to the review? And again, yonder on the brown common, by the Punch and Judy show, there is a grey old man, pillowing in his loving arms a little blue-eyed girl. These, too, we know; and our hearts go out to them, for who of us is there that has not--

". . . with Nell, in Kentish meadows, Wandered, and lost his way"?

Of introduction there is no more to be said. The book itself lies open before you; and at your own sweet will you may ramble with it, high and low, through all the land of Dickens.

G. B.

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