Charles Dickens as a Reader | Page 4

by a casual freak which way with
him the breeze in his leisure hours was drifting. A dozen years or more
after this came the private theatricals at Tavistock House. Beginning
simply, first of all, with his direction of his children's frolics in the
enacting of a burletta, of a Cracker Bonbon for Christmas, and of one
of Planché's charming fairy extravaganzas, these led up in the end
through what must be called circuitously Dickens's emendations of
O'Hara's version of Fielding's burlesque of "Tom Thumb," to the
manifestation of the novelist's remarkable genius for dramatic
impersonation: first of all, as Aaron Gurnock in Wilkie Collins's
"Lighthouse," and afterwards as Richard War dour in the same author's
"Frozen Deep." Already he had achieved success, some years earlier, as
an amateur performer in characters not essentially his own, as, for
example, in the representation of the senile blandness of Justice
Shallow, or of the gasconading humours of Captain Bobadil. Just, as
afterwards, in furtherance of the interests of the Guild of Literature and
Art, he impersonated Lord Wilmot in Lytton's comedy of "Not so Bad
as we Seem," and represented in a series of wonderfully rapid
transformations the protean person of Mr. Gabblewig, through the
medium of a delightful farce called "Mr. Nightingale's Diary."
Whoever witnessed Dickens's impersonation of Mr. Gabblewig, will
remember that it included a whole cluster of grotesque creations of his
own. Among these there was a stone-deaf old man, who, whenever he
was shouted at, used to sigh out resignedly, "Ah, it's no use your
whispering!" Besides whom there was a garrulous old lady, in herself
the worthy double of Mrs. Gamp; a sort of half-brother to Sam Weller;
and an alternately shrieking and apologetic valetudinarian, who was,
perhaps, the most whimsical of them all. Nothing more, however, need
here be said in regard to Charles Dickens's share, either in these
performances for the Guild or in the other strictly private theatricals.
They are simply here referred to, as having prepared the way by
practice, for the Readings, still so called, though, in all save costume
and general mis en scene, they were from first to last essentially and
intensely dramatic representations.
Readings of this character, it is curious to reflect for a moment,

resemble somewhat in the simplicity of their surroundings the habitual
stage arrangements of the days of Shakspere. The arena, in each
instance, might be described accurately enough as a platform, draped
with screens and hangings of cloth or of green baize. The principal
difference, in point of fact, between the two would be apparent in this,
that whereas, in the one case any reasonable number of performers
might be grouped together simultaneously, in the other there would
remain from first to last before the audience but one solitary performer.
He, however, as a mere matter of course, by the very necessity of his
position, would have to be regarded throughout as though he were a
noun of multitude signifying many. Slashed doublets and trunk hose,
might just possibly be deemed by some more picturesque, if not in
outline, at least in colour and material, than the evening costume of
now-a-days. But, apart from this, whatever would meet the gaze of the
spectator in either instance would bear the like aspect of familiarity or
of incongruity, in contrast to or in association with, the characters
represented at the moment before actual contemporaries. These later
performances partake, of course, in some sense of the nature of a
monologue. Besides which, they involve the display of a desk and a
book instead of the almost ludicrous exhibition of a board inscribed, as
the case might be, "Syracuse" or "Verona." Apart from this, however, a
modern reading is, in the very nature of it, like a reverting to the
primitive simplicity of the stage, when the stage, in its social influences,
was at its highest and noblest, when, for the matter of that, it was all but
paramount. Given genius in the author and in the impersonator, and
that very simplicity has its enormous advantages.
The greatest of all the law-givers of art in this later civilisation has
more than merely hinted at what is here maintained. Goethe has said
emphatically, in Wilhelm Meister, that a really good actor makes us
soon enough forget the awkwardness, even the meanness, of trumpery
decorations; whereas, he continues, a magnificent theatre is precisely
the very thing that makes us feel the most keenly the want of actors of
real excellence. How wisely in this Goethe, according to his wont, has
spoken, we all of us, here in England, know by our own experience. Of
the truth of his opinion we have had in this country, of late years, more
than one startling illustration. Archaeological knowledge, scenic

illusion, gorgeous upholstery, sumptuous costumes, have, in