and refinement, arrogant and unhygienic, creators of a society of 'jarring tumult and universal degradation'. Her asperity can no doubt be largely attributed to the ludicrous failure of her stay-at-home husband's schemes for making a fortune through the emporium she went out to set up in Cin cinnati and the subsequent discomfort of having to keep herself and several children afloat for a couple of years in an uncongenial country on very little money. But her Tory prejudices would have ensured her finding little to praise in the young Republic even if the income from 'Trollope's Bazaar' had equalled the lavishness of its Moorish-Grecian-Gothic architecture. Her book made 'Dame Trol lope' the best-hated woman in America^but made her fortune in England. Dickens joked about it in Pickwick Papers but a few years later we find him solemnly reproving another hostile English ana- tomiser of America for dedicating his book to the Tory Premier, Sir Robert Peel 'your dedication like Mrs. Trollope's (sic) preface seems to denote a foregone conclusion My notion is that in going to a New World one must for the time utterly forget, and put out of sight the Old one and bring none of its customs or observance into the comparison - or if you do compare remember how much brutality you may see (if you choose) in the common streets and public places of London'. By the time he wrote this, in October 1841, Dickens was preparing to visit America himself. For four years he had been looking forward to the event 'I shall be glad to hear', he had written to the Philadelphia publisher, Lea and Blanchard, in July 1838, 'that Nicholas (Nickleby) is in favor with our American friends (whom I long to see).' A month later he had expressed his readiness to write for some American journals but not until he was actually in the States because then, he said, he would be 'more independent and free, which will be more in keeping.' 'Independent and free' - that was how he imagined the American nation and it was a vision that brought a glow to his Radical heart. In 1840 he told C.E. Lester, a New York journalist who called on him in London, that 'nothing could be more gratifying to him than to receive demonstrations of regard from American readers'. 'American praise', Lester reports him as saying, 'is the best praise in the world for it is sincere' whereas most British reviews were written 'under the influence of some personal feeling'. It seems that he was not above teasing his American admirer, however. When Lester apolo gised for asking so many questions Dickens told him to ask as many as he pleased, saying, Lester solemnly records, 'as an American it is one of your inalienable rights to ask questions; and this, I fancy, is the reason why Yankees are so intelligent1 (the extreme inquisitiveness of New Englanders was a stock joke in Victorian Britain - 11 -

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The Dutch Dickensian | 1978 | | pagina 12