A Toast to Charles Dickens

...on the 155th anniversary of his death (with a reading from Peter Ackroyd)

“‘I rather grieve—I do rather grieve to think…that those who die about us, are so soon forgotten.’

“‘And do you think,’ said the schoolmaster, marking the glance she had thrown around, ‘that an unvisited grave, a withered tree, a faded flower or two, are tokens of forgetfulness or cold neglect? Do you think there are no deeds, far away from here, in which these dead may be best remembered? Nell, Nell, there may be people busy in the world, at this instant, in whose good actions and good thoughts these very graves—neglected as they look to us—are the chief instruments…Forgotten! oh, if the good deeds of human creatures could be traced to their source, how beautiful would even death appear; for how much charity, mercy, and purified affection, would be seen to have their growth in dusty graves!’”

~ The Old Curiosity Shop

I think of this passage so often when recalling beloved family members and friends who have passed on, or when I visit a graveyard. It still brings a tear to my eye to think of what the worldwide mourning must have been for Charles Dickens. He died one hundred and fifty-five years ago today—and five years after the eventful Staplehurst crash that Dickens was involved in, and from which, in a way, he never fully recovered.

How could such a font of imagination suddenly cease flowing? He was—and is—the consummate storyteller of the English-speaking world, and he understood the poor and gave them a voice. He was only fifty-eight, his care-worn face looking much older due to his relentless activity.

Dickens on his deathbed by John Everett Millais

Charles Dickens died at Gad’s Hill, the home that, many years ago, his father had pointed out to the youthful Charles as something to strive for.

“’Bless you, sir,’ said the very queer small boy, ‘when I was not more than half as old as nine, it used to be a treat for me to be brought to look at it. And now, I am nine, I come by myself to look at it. And ever since I can recollect, my father, seeing me so fond of it, has often said to me, “If you were to be very persevering and were to work hard, you might some day come to live in it.” Though that’s impossible!’ said the very queer small boy, drawing a low breath, and now staring at the house out of window with all his might.”

~ The Uncommercial Traveller

Decades later, Dickens had bought it.

Charles Dickens’s life was complicated; he was far from being a saint. But he spoke for the poor, the laborer, the suffering, as was eloquently attested by what Peter Ackroyd describes as the “ragged bundles of flowers” tied up with bits of rag that were found at his grave at Westminster Abbey—the grave which, after his death, had been open for two days in order to satisfy the endless waves of mourners. Indeed, “if the good deeds of human creatures could be traced to their source,” how many of us might be far better human beings for the influence of his works? He added to the world’s brightness, its “charity, mercy, and purified affection,” and its childlike joy.

No one writes of Dickens like Peter Ackroyd, whose biography of the Inimitable is one of my ten favorite books of all time. Here, I read the beautiful prologue—please forgive errors and imperfections!—and I hope you just think of it as a friend reading at your side, just as Dickens claims to be, himself, right at our elbow in A Christmas Carol.

(NOTE: SPOILER ALERT for events in Master Humphrey’s Clock and Little Dorrit.)

Here’s to the Inimitable, Charles Dickens!