“Artistically speaking, the story of Sikes and Nancy ends at the point here indicated. Throughout the entire scene of the murder, from the entrance of Sikes into the house until the catastrophe, the silence was intense—the old phrase ‘a pin might have been heard to drop,’ could have been legitimately employed. It was a great study to watch the faces of the people—eager, excited, intent—permitted for once in a life-time to be natural, forgetting to be British, and cynical, and unimpassioned. The great strength of this feeling did not last into the concluding five minutes. The people were earnest and attentive; but the wild excitement so seldom seen amongst us died as Nancy died, and the rest was somewhat of an anti-climax.
“No one who appreciates great acting should miss this scene. It will be a treat such as they have not had for a long time, such as, from all appearances, they are not likely to have soon again. To them the earnestness and force, the subtlety, the nuances, the delicate lights and shades of the great dramatic art, will be exhibited by one of the first—if not the first—of its living masters; while those of far less intellectual calibre will understand the vigour of the entire performance, and be specially amused at the facial and vocal dexterity by which the crafty Fagin is, instantaneously changed into the chuckle-headed Noah Claypole.”
Mr. Dickens, as a reader, is an artist of the very first rank; and to say that his reading of the choicest portions of his own works is actually as fine in its way as the works themselves in theirs, is a compliment at once exceedingly high and richly deserved.
During his late visit to America, the great men of the land travelled from far and near to be present at the readings; the poet Longfellow went three nights in succession, and he afterwards declared to a friend that they were “the most delightful evenings of his life.”
FOOTNOTES
[7] This first Sketch was entitled, “Mrs. Joseph Porter, ‘over the Way.’” The Monthly Magazine in which this appeared was published by Cochrane and M‘Crone, and must not be confounded with The New Monthly Magazine, published by Colburn.
[8a] This was the first paper in which Dickens assumed the pseudonym of “Boz.” The previous sketches appeared anonymously.
[8b] Of these Sketches two volumes were collected and published by Macrone (with illustrations by George Cruikshank), in February, 1836, and a third in the December following.
[10] The pamphlet was entitled Sunday wider Three Heads: As it is; as Sabbath Bills would make it; as it might be made. By Timothy Sparks. London, Chapman and Hall, 1836, pp. 49 (with illustrations by Hablot K. Browne).
[11] “Memoirs of Joseph Grimaldi,” edited by Boz. With illustrations by George Cruikshank. In two volumes. London, R. Bentley. 1838.