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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 14, Issue 4 (July 1, 1939)

In Lighter Vein

In Lighter Vein.

The next pages of the “Miscellany” turn to a lighter topic—“Recollections of a Railway Traveller,” by the author of “Cousin Geoffrey.” This sketch begins with a picture of a traveller—safely through the anxiety and bustle of departure—settling back comfortably in the railway carriage, and opening his “new treasure,” the “new-born pet of Parnassus”—the “Railway Miscellany”; “revelling in its dainties” and “elegant compactness.”

We leave the traveller so doing, and passing over the next page, which contains a poem—“New Year's Eve, or Thoughts for the Thoughtless”—come to something which is of present-day interest—the first of a proposed series of articles on “Living Literati,” or “the claims of contemporary writers considered and compared.”

“It is our intention,” states the writer, “to offer to our ‘gentle reader’ a general review of the living lions of our land. In noble, well-assorted, shining pairs will they appear before you,” so that by aid of comparison criticism may be rendered more piquant.

As subjects for this ordeal, Sir E. Bulwer-Lytton and Charles Dickens, being novelists, were chosen first; because “the whole world reads novels.”

In this criticism, Dickens comes second. The author of “Pelham” and the author of “Pickwick” were both “rich in genius, wit, humour, eloquence, poetry, industry and daring.” Both were dear to England. To what, asks the writer, is due the difference of their present position? The answer given is that because of the discipline of mind resulting from his school and college education, Lytton had more resource within himself than had Dickens. Dickens, being self-educated, his genius was soon exhausted. Such, very briefly, was the judgment pronounced 85 years ago, in the “Railway Miscellany.”

A critic of a later date, Dr. W. J. Dawson, writing of Dickens, says: “New reputations rise and wane, but the time can never come when the great creative artist is dethroned and finally forgotten. It is as a great creative artist that Dickens takes his place with the immortals.” A guess at the respective popularity of Lytton and Dickens today, may be made from the fact that in one of the principal cities of New Zealand the Public Library records taken during a certain period, show that Lytton was asked for twice, and Dickens—thirteen times.