Three masters Author:Stefan Zweig Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: DICKENS (1812-1870) We meet thee, like a pleasant thought, When such is wanted. WORDSWORTH A WRITER LOVED MORE THAN ALL OTHERS The love Dickens's c... more »ontemporaries lavished upon the creator of Pickwick is not to be assessed by accounts given in books and biographies. Love lives and breathes only in the spoken word. To get an adequate idea of the intensity of this love, one must catch (as I once caught) an Englishman old enough to have youthful memories of the days when Dickens was still alive. Preferably it should be someone who finds it hard even now to speak of him as Charles Dickens, choosing, rather, to use the affectionate nickname of "Box." The emotion, tinged with melancholy, which these old reminiscences call up, gives us of a younger generation some inkling of the enthusiasm that inspired the hearts of thousands when the monthly instalments in their blue covers (great rarities, now) arrived at English homes. At such times, my old Dickensian told me, people would walk a long way to meet the postman when a fresh number was due, so impatient were they to read what Boz had to tell. They had hungered for this day ever since the previous month, hoping, wondering, disputing as to whether young Copperfield would marry Dora or Agnes, delighted at the prospect of Micawber having to face another crisis in his affairs, which they knew well enough he would get through safely with the help of hot punch and good temper. How could they be expected to wait patiently until the letter-carrier, lumbering along on an old nag, would arrive with the solution of these burning problems? When the appointed hour came round, old and young would sally forth, walking two miles and more to the post office merely to have the issue sooner. On the way home they would start reading, those who ha...« less