104
UIT DE DICKENSIA1T Nr.339
Op pagina 62 zijn de laatste alinea's van Mevrouw Heerma
van Voss voordracht afgedrukt.
Something Turning up Seen over one of the new ""bett
ing shops" in Weston-super-Mare s Wilkins Micawber Ltd.
Turf Accountant.
(E. G. V. op biz. 60)
DICKENS WAS RIGHT
By Ralph McGill
Washington. - Now and then, the more idiotic criticisms of
our political life remind us of a piece of writing of Charles
Dickens. In his „American Notes", written in 1843, one may
reads
"It is an essential part of every national character to pique
itself mightily upon its faults, and to deduce tokens of its
virtue or its wisdom from their very exaggeration. One great
blemish in the popular mind of America, and the prolific
parent of an innumerable brood of evil, is universal dis
trust
"You carry", says the stranger, "this jealousy and dis
trust into every transaction of public life. By repelling
worthy men from your legislative assemblies, it has bred up
a class of candidates for the suffrage, who, in their every
act, disgrace your institutions and your people's choice. It
has rendered you so fickle, and so given to change,that your
inconstance has passed into a proverb; for you no sooner set
up an idol firmly than you are suie to put it down and dash
it into fragments; and this because, directly you reward a
benefactor or a public servant, you distrust him, merely be
cause he is rewarded; and immediately apply yourselves to
find out, either that you have been too bountiful in your
acknowledgments, or he remiss in deserts.
