Posted on 12/21/2023 3:20:02 PM PST by nickcarraway
To hear Philip Palmer, the literary curator at the Morgan Library & Museum tell it, the story behind the writing of "A Christmas Carol" sounds, well, like something out of Charles Dickens.
It is October 1843 and Dickens’ debts are mounting. The 31-year-old author has moved his growing family into a new home in London, a bigger house with more servants. His father and his brothers keep taking out loans using his famous name. He is forced to take out ads in newspapers warning creditors not to loan his father any more money.
By 1843, Dickens was already known for “The Pickwick Papers," “Oliver Twist,” “Nicholas Nickleby,” and “The Old Curiosity Shop.” But his latest work, “The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit,” serialized in magazines, isn’t the barn-burner he’d hoped.
He devises what he calls “a little scheme” to right his financial ship and earn him what he hopes will be £1,000. He’ll write a ghost story for Christmas. But he’ll have to work fast. It’s nearly Halloween. He cancels social engagements, instead seeking inspiration on long nighttime walks through London. Walking by night, writing by day, the novella emerges. In just six weeks, Dickens crafts the story of Ebenezer Scrooge, a “covetous old sinner” who is visited on Christmas Eve by the ghost of his seven-years-dead partner Jacob Marley.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
It depends on who the charity is for. If it is for yourself and you are able to work, it’s begging. If it is for the benefit of orphans and widows and the truly disabled, then it’s honorable. Provided that YOU have contributed to the charity you are asking for.
No movie does the book justice.
“My judgement on the behavior of Charles Dickens is based on documented history.”
Seen through your eyes, today.
My point is your judgment is personal to you, and thus biased, as are all judgments; and, when it comes to historical events, or historical persons, our judgments are naturally biased: They cannot be otherwise).
I choose not to pass judgment on his purported personal actions (especially since given the prevailing attitudes of the day his were not out of the ordinary; and, who knows? maybe his wife was a battle axe); my judgment is of his literary ability (and that judgment is, necessarily, biased; because it is mine).
Just as I can’t stand Barbara Streisand as a person,
I nonetheless think she is a great singer, and admire that aspect of her. I can separate the product from the person.
Documented history means others, including historians, have come to the same conclusion over the years. I happen to agree with them. There's nothing biased in calling a spade a spade, when basing your opinion on their actual documented behavior at that time. If anything, that philandering behavior would be more accepted today than in the 1850's.
When a man claims that his wife is too fat after bearing him 10 children, and uses that as an excuse for having an affair with an 18 year old girl who is 27 years his junior, and instead of divorcing his wife, tries to get her committed to an insane asylum to get her out of the way so he can be free to continue his adulterous affair, it doesn't take a brain surgeon to come to the conclusion that the guy is a selfish, self-serving, arrogant scumbag. When his plan to get her locked up failed, he left Catherine and the kids, and never saw her again. His personal life was more important than his wife and family. If he'd just left her, and not tried to get her institutionalized, I might not be so critical, but the fact that he couldn't be a man, and just leave, instead of trying to have her committed, maybe my bad opinion of him wouldn't be so strong. Leaving or getting a divorce wasn't his first choice. Locking her away in one of the inhumane institutions of that time was.
“Documented history means others, including historians, have come to the same conclusion over the years.”
And you don’t think historians differ? You think all historians are some harmonious monolithic body of agreement? For every historical event there are legions of historians who disagree on the whys and wherefores.
“If anything, that philandering behavior would be more accepted today than in the 1850’s.”
Are you kidding me? It was expected and accepted in certain social strata for a married man to have a mistress. Hell, in 17th and 18th century New Orleans it was common. It was also common in France and England among the aristocracy and well-positioned. And for the most part their wives knew about it and accepted it (though they didn’t want it “brought home”).
And, loonie bins? They were very common, as well. Have you ever heard of Bethlem Royal Hospital in London? Well, perhaps you know of it by its nickname: Bedlam. Hence, the word “bedlam.” Hell, in the 20th century lobotomies were accepted procedures.
You are too quick to condemn what was acceptable in the past. Society evolves, often for the better; be grateful for that; and stop rending your hair shirt and waxing indignant.
A cad is a cad. It doesn't matter what century they are from. If Dickens were alive today, and chose to have an affair with a girl 27 years his junior, Democrats would label him a pervert, if he was a Republican, like they did Judge Roy Moore.
"It was expected and accepted in certain social strata for a married man to have a mistress."
Monarchies for one, and rich aristocrats, because basically, their marriages were arranged, sometimes when they were just children, and were rarely love matches. Dickens didn't have an arranged marriage. He supposedly married out of love, then that went away, just like his hairline.
In the French and Spanish slave colonies of North America (including the Caribbean), wealthy men entered into civil relationships with women of African, Native American and mixed-race backgrounds. They were called placées, basically kept women who there benefactor set up in their own household, and even had children with.
Yes, I've heard about Bethlehem and Broadmoor, among others in England. You failed to mention what horrible places they were, and haven't once mentioned Dickens trying to get his wife committed to one of them. You've conveniently ignored that fact.
"You are too quick to condemn what was acceptable in the past."
Was it really acceptable to put your wife in a looney bin to get rid of her so you could carry on with your life? Women had no rights in those days. If the husband had the means like Dickens did, and the connections, he could pay a doctor to sign a certificate verifying she was insane, and she'd never see the outside world ever again. Dickens already knew, and had corresponded with the doctor he approached to have Catherine committed. His name was Dr. Thomas Harrington Tuke, Superintendent of Manor House Asylum in Chiswick between 1849 and 1888. Obviously Tuke wasn't willing to follow through with Dickens's plan, and they had a falling out. Dickens later made disparaging remarks about the man. He couldn't get what he wanted, so he turned on Tuke.
"Society evolves, often for the better."
LOL! You call the society that exists today better? Can I have some of what you're snorting. You clearly missed my first comment where I said I enjoyed his novels, but thought he was a scumbag when it came to his personal life. You claim you like Streisand's singing, but dislike her as a person, so I have no idea why you are attacking me, for having similar opinions about Charles Dickens as you do about Streisand.
The only ones who accepted the behavior that Dickens exhibited, and considered it normal to locking their wives away in insane asylums (and there were plenty other men who did it), were the people who engaged in it.
“Yes, I’ve heard about Bethlehem and Broadmoor, among others in England. You failed to mention what horrible places they were, and haven’t once mentioned Dickens trying to get his wife committed to one of them. You’ve conveniently ignored that fact.”
I didn’t have to. It is well known. He wanted to have her committed but couldn’t. So, she was never committed. You make a big issue about his fame giving him the wherewithal to have a doctor sign commitment papers. Yet, he COULDN’T get one to do so; none thought commitment was warranted. And, as for him wanting to have her committed, it had less to do with his extramarital affairs — because she knew about them, and her knowledge didn’t stop his dalliances — but rather with his contention that she was an unfit mother.
This was, after all, the Victorian Age.
You seem absolutely obsessed with his indiscretions; so much, that it affects your argument, and you come off as a harridan. After all, he didn’t cheat on YOU! So, why are you taking his infidelities so personally?
And you wax indignant because I said that society evolves, and often for the better. Well, since you’re so adamant that our contemporary society is so awful, get your ass back in the kitchen and shut up; and hide behind your petticoats; and let the men in your life make all the decisions and do all the voting. In short, STAY IN YOUR PLACE! Is THAT what you long for? Those long-gone days when you had no options in life other than to tie yourself to a husband, a nunnery, a life of servitude in a manor, or a sordid life on the streets? Because, unless you were of the highest crust, or an unbelievably gifted writer, those were your only real options. You crack me up. Your emotionalism has got the better of you.
Lady, as the saying goes, you’ve come a LONG way. And yet, you bitch about it. I wonder if Catherine Dickens had your personality. Is THAT why you take all this so personally? You identify with Catherine?
So his having tried and failed in having her committed makes his effort alright with you then.
"get your ass back in the kitchen and shut up; and hide behind your petticoats."
My one and only husband and father of my two sons was a serial liar and serial philanderer, who tried to manipulate me into believing that I should be perfectly fine with his extra-marital affairs, and that I was the one with the problem because I couldn't accept it, and live with it. I got rid of him 44 years ago, and never looked back. My sons are 57 and 53. He moved out west, never telling them he was leaving, and has never contacted them in well over 30 years. He has no idea his youngest son is a cancer survivor.
Catherine Dickens in the 1850's, didn't have the options that I did. I didn't rely on anyone, and raised my two sons alone, working in uniform in NY State Corrections for 25 years in all-male facilities. I also went to college full time at night, and learned how to depend on myself and no one else. At 76, who needs an f-ing man? And in this day and age, real men are few and far between.
Go lecture someone else. You sound like a self-indulged nincompoop.
“So his having tried and failed in having her committed makes his effort alright with you then.”
Nice try evading what my comment was in response to: Your comment, “If the husband had the means like Dickens did, and the connections, he could pay a doctor to sign a certificate verifying she was insane, and she’d never see the outside world ever again.”
You implied that Dickens was such a man of means and connections, and thus it would be no big deal getting a doctor to sign commitment papers. But, he couldn’t. So your emotional drivel did not hold up to scrutiny.
“My one and only husband and father of my two sons was a serial liar and serial philanderer, who tried to manipulate me into believing that I should be perfectly fine with his extra-marital affairs, and that I was the one with the problem because I couldn’t accept it, and live with it.”
I figured as much. You made it quite obvious you were taking Dickens’ infidelities personally. You have an emotional anchor tied to it.
I’m not lecturing you, lady: I’m responding to your emotion-laden argument; which is so emotion-based it clouds your ability to look at things clearly. You come off as too personally invested in something someone you didn’t know did 175 years ago. That’s not healthy.
The door of Scrooge’s counting-house was open that he might keep his eye upon his clerk, who in
a dismal little cell beyond, a sort of tank, was copying letters. Scrooge had a very small fire, but
the clerk’s fire was so very much smaller that it looked like one coal. But he couldn’t replenish
it, for Scrooge kept the coal-box in his own room; and so surely as the clerk came in with the
shovel, the master predicted that it would be necessary for them to part. Wherefore the clerk put
on his white comforter, and tried to warm himself at the candle; in which effort, not being a man of
a strong imagination, he failed.
He got shot down by Dr. Tuke, someone he knew, and probably figured it wasn't worth the money or his time to seek another Doctor to approach. People had also told him it would damage his image if he pursued putting his wife away, so he simply gave up, left the home, and went on his merry way.
A normal person doesn't have to rely on emotions to determine someone is a scumbag based on their behavior and treatment of others. The man chose not to honor his wedding vow, chose to denigrate his wife to justify his philandering, then ran away like the pussy that he was, just so he could keep banging his 18 year old girlfriend who was the same age as his eldest daughter Mary. Perverted like Bill Clinton.
It’s called ‘thread crapping.’ Impressive loads.
Well; have a nice day, anyway.
Thanks, I appreciate that from a crapload-opinion giver.
I still love the works of Charles Dickens.
I do too. Just don't like the man he became.
I admire him for this.
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