Beech Tree News Network

On 48 Doughty Street, in London, England, sits the Charles Dickens Museum. The building was also home to the famous writer. On July 2 nd , I was there. A tourist, among tourists, strolling the rooms, touching the furniture, viewing the paintings on the walls. Paintings of Dickens’ characters, those who sprung from his imagination. Ebenezer Scrooge, Little Nell, Mr. Pickwick, and others.

As I moved from room to room, I listened to the stories told by the tour guide. Here was his chair, his desk. Dickens wrote every day from 9 AM to 2 PM, with a short break for lunch, and walked an average of 12 miles a day. I understood the walking. Movement is a creative tool. When the body is distracted, the mind is free to wander, to imagine, to create.

Dickens wrote at a desk, but he would often spring from his chair and run to the adjoining room, where a large mirror hung above a fireplace. It was there, in front of the mirror, that he acted out the expressions of his characters. Once he felt he had the appropriate reactions, he ran back to his desk and wrote descriptions of what he had seen in the mirror. Dickens was an actor at heart, and that was evidenced during the many public readings he did. He enjoyed rock star status during his lifetime, and his readings were always sell-outs, both in England and abroad.

Unlike many other writers who tend to be introverts, Dickens had a very active social life. When he wasn’t writing or walking, he entertained a great deal. The dining room table in the museum is set with the dishes he used for that purpose. There is a cave-like room that served as a wine cellar. Edgar Allen Poe was one of his friends. The story goes that Poe’s poem, “The Raven,” was inspired by Dickens’ pet raven, Grip, whom Poe was apparently afraid of. Dickens even taught Grip to say a few words, albeit nobody knows if “never more” was in his vocabulary. Grip still resides at the Dickens Museum, in stuffed form. He can be viewed in a shadow box on the top floor.

I think I have always admired Dickens, not just because of his writing, but because of his voicing the concerns of the simple man. Even though he rose to stardom during his lifetime, he never forgot the plight of the poor. He knew firsthand what it was like to be poor. When he was twelve-years-old, his father was put into debtor’s prison, and Charles had to go to work at a boot blacking factory, under conditions that later raised protests about the treatment of children in workhouses.

He was their hero—the poor. He wrote about them, even though criticized by the upper class for doing so. Many of his first stories were serialized in newspapers, and the poor, who often couldn’t read, would pay others a half-pence (half penny) to read the stories to them.

I didn’t get to visit the grave of Charles Dickens (age 58 at his death). He is buried in the Poet’s Corner of Westminster Abby, and we were just in London for a couple of days, before moving on to Ireland. I’ve read, but can’t confirm, that on his tombstone are these words:

He was a sympathizer of the poor

The suffering and the oppressed;

And by his death,

One of England’s greatest writers

Is lost to the world.