Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Missed in History Class from how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Fairy Dowdy and I'm Delaney Chuck Rewarding, And lately
Speaker 1: we've been on a bit of a literary event, covering
Speaker 1: everybody from the new to US Ottoman travel writer Eveleia
Speaker 1: Chellaby too old British literature friends like the Bronte's or
Speaker 1: the Brownings. But there's one name that keeps popping up,
Speaker 1: and that's Charles Dickens. And of course he's a natural
Speaker 1: when you're already thinking about the likes of the Brontes
Speaker 1: because he's a contemporary. They're both staples of any literature class.
Speaker 1: But Dickens also fits in with Chellaby, albeit in a
Speaker 1: lesser known kind of way. He was also a travel writer,
Speaker 1: and of course Dickens is best known for dramatizing the
Speaker 1: cruel life of London slums and finding comedy in Victorian hypocrisy.
Speaker 1: I'm sure most of you have read some Dickens along
Speaker 1: the way. He also wrote essays, and he covered parliamentary
Speaker 1: news and produced travelogs, including a very memorable account of
Speaker 1: his first trip to the United States and Canada and
Speaker 1: since two thousand twelve marks the two anniversary of dickens birth,
Speaker 1: will be focusing on a few aspects of his life
Speaker 1: over the next couple of weeks, but this seems like
Speaker 1: a natural place to start. For one, dickens first American
Speaker 1: tour came early in his career, right when he achieved
Speaker 1: great fame but not yet great wealth. Second, it shook
Speaker 1: him up, both in his beliefs and in his writing.
Speaker 1: America was not all he had hoped, and that disillusionment
Speaker 1: is believed to have greatly affected his later most famous works.
Speaker 1: And finally, it gives us a peek at something which
Speaker 1: in the forties was really just beginning in earnest celebrity culture,
Speaker 1: with all the barber sells your hair trimmings creepiness that's
Speaker 1: involved with that. And we'll that will explain that a
Speaker 1: little more, a little tantalizing clue for what lies ahead.
Speaker 1: But first we're going to give you a brief background
Speaker 1: on Charles Dickens. And today I think most people know
Speaker 1: about dickens childhood at the bootblacking factory, this really deeply
Speaker 1: scarring period during which his father was in debtors prison
Speaker 1: and little Charles had to go to work and retrospectively,
Speaker 1: of course, it's a critical experience for the man who
Speaker 1: went on to create characters like Joe and Oliver Twist
Speaker 1: or Tiny Tim. Even though I find this so interesting,
Speaker 1: his general public and even his own kids didn't know
Speaker 1: about that factory work or his father's prison time until
Speaker 1: after Dickens's death. What made that period really horrifying was
Speaker 1: that Dickens had come out of a comfortable home. He
Speaker 1: was born February seven, eighteen twelve, and he grew up
Speaker 1: in Chatham, his father working for the Navy Payoffice. His
Speaker 1: earlier years were heavy on games, magic lantern shows and
Speaker 1: performances of comic songs with his sister, sometimes even at
Speaker 1: a nearby tavern. He was educated, and he had a
Speaker 1: large library at his disposal, filled with titles like The
Speaker 1: Arabian Nights, Robinson Crusoe and Don Quixote. So it was
Speaker 1: a very happy, comfortable childhood. But as this father's fortune decline,
Speaker 1: the family moved to Camden Town, London, gave up educations
Speaker 1: for the children, I think except for dickens older sister,
Speaker 1: who still had music lessons, and rock Bottom finally came
Speaker 1: in eighteen twenty four with debtors prison and factory work
Speaker 1: for by then twelve year old Charles, and he later
Speaker 1: wrote of this, of this time in the shock of
Speaker 1: such a huge change in his circumstances quote, I felt
Speaker 1: my early hopes of growing up to be a learned
Speaker 1: and distinguished man crushed in my breast. So after a spell,
Speaker 1: you know, about nine or ten months working in the factory,
Speaker 1: he had continued to work there. Unfortunately, after his father
Speaker 1: got out of debtors prison. But after the family got
Speaker 1: back on its feet again, Dickens had a little bit
Speaker 1: more schooling and at age fifteen he went to work,
Speaker 1: this time as a solicitor's clerk. It wasn't the most
Speaker 1: interesting work, but at least it gave him a little
Speaker 1: bit of legal background, which influenced some of his later novels.
Speaker 1: By eight though, he's started picking up extra work as
Speaker 1: a freelance journalist, and by eighteen thirty two he was
Speaker 1: taken on as a regular parliamentary reporter. And Dickens certainly
Speaker 1: could have spent his whole career as a journalist. He
Speaker 1: was popular, he was very good at it, but he
Speaker 1: was really itching to write more than just the news,
Speaker 1: and so he started publishing stories in eighteen thirty three
Speaker 1: and writing under the name Bows, which was kind of
Speaker 1: a version of his brother's childhood nickname. He started contributing
Speaker 1: these street sketches to his paper in eighteen thirty four.
Speaker 1: He had really been walking around London for most of
Speaker 1: his life, and he knew all types of people. He
Speaker 1: knew all neighborhoods, and he could paint them really vividly
Speaker 1: in these newspaper sketches. And these popular vignettes caught the
Speaker 1: attention of the booksellers Edward Chapman and William Hall, who
Speaker 1: commissioned him to write text for a series of illustrations
Speaker 1: done by a popular artist of the day. But when
Speaker 1: the artist committed suicide shortly after the project started, Dickens
Speaker 1: became the creative lead himself, shifting the focus to the
Speaker 1: text portion of it. The result was the name making
Speaker 1: Pickwick Papers a smash hit that had a run of
Speaker 1: forty thousand copies, and in his sudden success, Dickens signed
Speaker 1: up for a multitude of projects and stepped up as
Speaker 1: the editor of a new magazine. He'd also by this
Speaker 1: point married Catherine Hogarth and started a family. His hits
Speaker 1: came out one after another serialized, of course, Oliver Twist
Speaker 1: Nicholas nickleby the Old Curiosity Shop in Barnaby Rudge, and
Speaker 1: Dickens still has a reputation of being a shockingly prodigious writer,
Speaker 1: some say maybe too much so, but even he was
Speaker 1: getting worn down by doing so much work. So, with
Speaker 1: all of these post Pickwick promises wrapped up by the
Speaker 1: early eighteen forties, he talked to his publishers and talked
Speaker 1: them into giving him a lengthy sabbatical, paid in advance
Speaker 1: on future work. But what was he going to do
Speaker 1: with this really long vacation travel? Of course, and Dickens
Speaker 1: really only had one destination in mind. That was America,
Speaker 1: Land of liberty, this action unburdened by a bunch of
Speaker 1: old world hang ups, or so Dickens hoped. He very
Speaker 1: much hoped, as we're going to see later. He wanted
Speaker 1: to see the Great Frontier. He wanted to see the
Speaker 1: Democratic Experiment and Niagara Falls, all the things you can
Speaker 1: kind of imagine somebody like Dickens wanting to to see
Speaker 1: in person. But Dickens being Dickens, he also wanted to
Speaker 1: see the factories and prisons and mad houses. Having spent
Speaker 1: so much of his time investigating his own country's institutions.
Speaker 1: He was really ready to see other examples around the world,
Speaker 1: see what other people were up to. Catherine, of course,
Speaker 1: wasn't too keen on leaving their four kids at this point.
Speaker 1: Eventually they had ten, but it was decided that they
Speaker 1: would tour the United States in Canada for just six months,
Speaker 1: still a pretty long time, but they would leave their
Speaker 1: kids with the actor William McCready, who was a good
Speaker 1: family friend, and to spice up the deal for the publishers,
Speaker 1: who were of course paying in advance for the song sabbatical.
Speaker 1: Dickens would still be working the whole time, and upon
Speaker 1: his return he'd have a publishable notebook filled with all
Speaker 1: of his travel impressions. Turned out to be a pretty
Speaker 1: fateful decision. So January three, eight forty two, twenty nine
Speaker 1: year old Dickens left Liverpool in the steamship Britannia with
Speaker 1: Catherine and her maid Anne Brown. It was about the
Speaker 1: worst start you could possibly imagine. Though they were seasick,
Speaker 1: the cabin was so tiny and cramped that he joked
Speaker 1: that their luggage had about as much of a chance
Speaker 1: of fitting in the door as a giraffe had of
Speaker 1: getting into a flower pot. And the weather was bad,
Speaker 1: actually some of the worst weather that had been around
Speaker 1: in years. It probably spent most of the trip thinking
Speaker 1: that they were going to capsize them. Not very fun.
Speaker 1: They finally landed in Nova Scotia and then went right
Speaker 1: on to Boston, which was the first stop of the trip,
Speaker 1: and they got their January and really, at first Dickens
Speaker 1: was in heaven. He supposedly would tear through the Boston snow,
Speaker 1: reading off shops, nines. He just loved everything he saw.
Speaker 1: But that elation didn't last very long. And one problem
Speaker 1: was being Dickens, who was, of course an incredibly famous
Speaker 1: and kind of surprisingly recognizable celebrity in the United States,
Speaker 1: though maybe it's not too surprising. Dickens was known as
Speaker 1: an eccentric dresser, particularly in his youth. One Massachusetts onlooker
Speaker 1: called him a genteel rowdy, but once he got pointed out,
Speaker 1: maybe you know, that's dickens um. As little as half
Speaker 1: a century earlier, though authors hadn't really been very famous
Speaker 1: as individuals, at least at least not in a stop
Speaker 1: and stare at them kind of way. They were known
Speaker 1: mostly for their work but with better dissemination of news,
Speaker 1: more gossips spreading around. I mean, think of our old
Speaker 1: very old by now Lord Byron episode. These famous personalities,
Speaker 1: whether they were authors or actors or singers, started to
Speaker 1: get as big as anything they were producing. They started
Speaker 1: to become names and recognizable people. But for Dickens, fain
Speaker 1: wasn't a very fun thing to acquire. No. I mean,
Speaker 1: it involved fancy parties and meeting icons, but it also
Speaker 1: involved a lot of the unpleasantness that we associate with
Speaker 1: modern day celebrity culture, which shocked Dickens and really disturbed him.
Speaker 1: Crowds would follow him everywhere. He wrote, quote, if I
Speaker 1: turned into the street, I'm followed by a multitude, and
Speaker 1: I can't drink a glass of water without having one
Speaker 1: hundred people looking down my throat when I opened my
Speaker 1: mouth to swallow. On a boat stop over near Cleveland,
Speaker 1: he caught a quote party of gentlemen staring at his
Speaker 1: sleeping wife through a cabin window. People on the docks
Speaker 1: would actually rip handfuls of fur from his coat when
Speaker 1: he came by. And then, I mean, if that's not
Speaker 1: bad enough, there was this profit driven side of a
Speaker 1: lot of the celebrity craze to the barbera re mentioned
Speaker 1: who tried to sell his hair. Tiffany's and Company apparently
Speaker 1: made copies of a Dickens bust and offered those up
Speaker 1: for sale. I think this really bothered him, all of
Speaker 1: this money making surrounding his name. And there's another aspect, though,
Speaker 1: of this fame that really their Dickens. And that was
Speaker 1: wherever he went, whether it was Boston, Philadelphia, St. Louis Washington,
Speaker 1: d C, Richmond, New York City, Louisville, he met throngs
Speaker 1: of American fans who had obviously read and enjoyed his books. Okay,
Speaker 1: that's a good thing. Presumably they've all been buying those books,
Speaker 1: which was true. The only problem was that, due to
Speaker 1: a lack of international copyright laws, Dickens knew he hadn't
Speaker 1: made any money off of these many fans, since the
Speaker 1: US publishers could rip off his work. So, on the
Speaker 1: one hand, he's seeing these busts of himself that people
Speaker 1: are trying to sell. He's knowing he's not making any
Speaker 1: money for the actual books that have made him so
Speaker 1: famous in the first place. So he started peppering his
Speaker 1: speeches with dissatisfaction about the laws, but he wasn't oblivious.
Speaker 1: He didn't try to center his argument on his own
Speaker 1: personal finances. Instead, he chose to focus on the fact
Speaker 1: that all writers, Americans included, would benefit from a change,
Speaker 1: and that at the end of the day, he'd quote
Speaker 1: rather have the affectionate regard of my fellow men as
Speaker 1: I would have heaps of gold, heaps and minds of gold.
Speaker 1: So we tried to catch it in terms like I'm
Speaker 1: just looking out for all writers, and gradually, though that
Speaker 1: sort of spin on, his argument changed and got a
Speaker 1: little more intense, and well, many average Americans would have
Speaker 1: agreed with him that there needed to be some kind
Speaker 1: of copyright changes. The press really pounced on this copyright
Speaker 1: obsession and declared it an indelicate, an improper avenue of
Speaker 1: public discussion, something that an honored guest shouldn't be going
Speaker 1: around talking to everybody about. And it was really the
Speaker 1: first strike in what became known as dickens quarrel with America.
Speaker 1: Because there's the press escalated things, so did Dickens. Okay,
Speaker 1: but before we get into more particulars about what really
Speaker 1: is going to sound like the ultimate failed vacation It's
Speaker 1: worth noting that there were some high points to this.
Speaker 1: There were some good times, sometimes being celebrated author meant
Speaker 1: parties as we mentioned, and mingling with fellow famous people.
Speaker 1: On Valentine's Day two, for example, Bold Dickens was the
Speaker 1: guest of honor at one of the biggest parties to
Speaker 1: that date in New York City's Park Theater, which was,
Speaker 1: according to Simon Watson BBC magazine, decorated with wreaths, paintings
Speaker 1: and a bust of Dickens with an eagle soaring over
Speaker 1: his head, which sounds a little strange and I can't
Speaker 1: help but wonder if that had anything to do with
Speaker 1: Dickens request in his will that no monuments being made
Speaker 1: of him seeing that eagle flying over his head. And
Speaker 1: like you just mentioned, he also did get to meet
Speaker 1: a lot of fellow writers. He met Edgar Allan, Poe, Washington,
Speaker 1: Irving Longfellow, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Harriet Beetrice Stow, a lot
Speaker 1: of folks who pop up in the podcast to what
Speaker 1: I do. And then he and Catherine had some fun too.
Speaker 1: I mean, I know their later relationship is not characterized
Speaker 1: very well. So we're going to talk about in another episode,
Speaker 1: but during this time they seemed to have a pretty
Speaker 1: good time. They acted in a play together. On the
Speaker 1: last leg of their trip was which was a jaunt
Speaker 1: through Canada that included a stop in Montreal they really
Speaker 1: enjoyed at And then whenever he could, he broke away
Speaker 1: from all of the hubbub, all of the fan fier
Speaker 1: people who were flocking around him to do what he
Speaker 1: liked to do most, which was just wander tour all
Speaker 1: of these new towns he was visiting. Yeah, he toured
Speaker 1: some of the worst neighborhoods in fact of New York
Speaker 1: City at the time. That was five Points in the Bowery.
Speaker 1: He visited the mills at Lowell, Massachusetts, and was impressed
Speaker 1: to find a model industrial community, a place where the
Speaker 1: women workers only stayed a few years. They lived in
Speaker 1: comfy boarding houses, and they had access to things like
Speaker 1: lecture series, a house run periodical, and pianos. So it
Speaker 1: was really different from what he knew of similar situations
Speaker 1: in England, and I think that's an important thing to
Speaker 1: consider when we get to some of the later particulars
Speaker 1: in this episode that he did see. Um he did
Speaker 1: compare some things in the United States positively compared to
Speaker 1: what he saw in England. He also toured prisons and
Speaker 1: insane asylums. It might seem a little strange to us
Speaker 1: now to do that on your vacation, but according to
Speaker 1: Natalie McKnight, a professor at Boston University interviewed on the World,
Speaker 1: it wasn't that weird for British writers to include investigative
Speaker 1: travel on their trips to the US. And there you go.
Speaker 1: Another major high point for Dickens was a trip to
Speaker 1: the Perkins Institute, which was well and is a school
Speaker 1: for the blind in Massachusetts. And I think it really
Speaker 1: speaks for dickins sincere interest in social issues that the
Speaker 1: top items on his to see in the United States
Speaker 1: list were Niagara Falls, as we already mentioned, and then
Speaker 1: Laura Bridgeman, who was a little girl who was deaf
Speaker 1: blind but had been educated with language. And Bridgeman, who
Speaker 1: incidentally is believed to be the first death blind person
Speaker 1: to be educated, had been written about by Perkins director
Speaker 1: Dr Samuel Gridley. How and uh he was the man
Speaker 1: who had also come up with the system for teaching
Speaker 1: her language in the first place. He had written this
Speaker 1: publication which proved pretty popular internationally, and Dickens had heard
Speaker 1: of it. So Dickens was so in pressed by meeting
Speaker 1: Laura that he included quite a bit of the meeting
Speaker 1: in his later published Notes on America. And according to
Speaker 1: jan seymour Ford, who was a research librarian at Perkins,
Speaker 1: schools for people with disabilities were really just starting to,
Speaker 1: as she said, get traction during this time, and dickens
Speaker 1: work helped spread the word a little bit about what
Speaker 1: an institution like this could do for people who had disabilities.
Speaker 1: Dickens work also led directly to the education of none
Speaker 1: other than Helen Keller. Decades after Dickens visit, Keller's parents
Speaker 1: read his American Notes and came across the story of
Speaker 1: Laura Bridgeman. They went to Perkins and were connected with
Speaker 1: a graduate and teacher who was Ann Sullivan, the miracle
Speaker 1: worker who taught Keller language. And this little sub story
Speaker 1: here was just so interesting to me. It makes me
Speaker 1: almost want to maybe do a future upset on Helen Keller.
Speaker 1: But it wasn't, of course, all pleasant trips like trips
Speaker 1: to little trips to Perkins for Dickens. He visited Washington,
Speaker 1: d C. In March and he met President John Tyler.
Speaker 1: He toured the capital, but the trip was kind of
Speaker 1: defined by the disregard for spittoons that he witnessed in
Speaker 1: the nation's capital. He later wrote, Washington maybe called the
Speaker 1: headquarters of tobacco tinctured saliva. The thing itself is an
Speaker 1: exaggeration of nastiness which cannot be outdone. And he went
Speaker 1: on to Warren readers that if they were gonna tour
Speaker 1: the capital, and I mean the capital building, um, if
Speaker 1: in case they dropped anything, be careful not to pick
Speaker 1: it up without a gloved hands, because you were probably
Speaker 1: gonna run into a bunch of tobaccos. That other issues
Speaker 1: around the country involved what he saw as poor table manners,
Speaker 1: overheated homes, arrogance, hypocrisy, and a tendency towards violence that
Speaker 1: was illustrated by a gun fight between two kids who
Speaker 1: were using real guns. So it kind of ran the
Speaker 1: whole rage from the whole ungloved hands to poor table
Speaker 1: manner and went up from there. It got more serious
Speaker 1: than that too. In Richmond he saw slavery, which he
Speaker 1: was very outspoken against, and then some of it was
Speaker 1: just disappointment. In St. Louis, for instance, he was disappointed
Speaker 1: by a trip to see the Looking Glass Prairie, which
Speaker 1: is something he had really wanted to do, go see
Speaker 1: the prairie. According to Professor Jerome Mechier, who's the author
Speaker 1: of Dickens and Innocent Abroad quote, the longer Dickens rubbed
Speaker 1: shoulders with Americans, the more he realized that the Americans
Speaker 1: were simply not English enough. And Dickens himself wrote to
Speaker 1: his friend McCready he was taking care of his kids.
Speaker 1: This is not the republic I came to see. This
Speaker 1: is not the Republic of my imagination. So those are
Speaker 1: harsh words. But after he got home, Dickens did one better.
Speaker 1: He started polishing up his travel journals and he ended
Speaker 1: up publishing them as promised as American Notes for general circulation.
Speaker 1: Then he stepped it up again. The following year he
Speaker 1: started a new book called Martin Chuzzlewood, and when the
Speaker 1: first issues weren't really selling that well, he decided to
Speaker 1: pack off his Hero to America and included a lot
Speaker 1: of his own kind of experiences he had seen in
Speaker 1: the Midwest. So both his travelogue and his novel painted
Speaker 1: quite an unflattering picture of America, seems folks wouldn't have
Speaker 1: expected the man famous for tearing apart hypocrisies of British
Speaker 1: life to be entirely kind, But in fact they had
Speaker 1: new friends like Washington Irving were hurt, even outraged. People
Speaker 1: in New York burned copies of Martin Chuzzlewit papers denounced
Speaker 1: the American notes. The trip very likely changed Dickens to
Speaker 1: Some scholars see his work getting less optimistic after his
Speaker 1: American journey. And I can kind of see this from
Speaker 1: several different perspectives. One, it does seem like people overreacted
Speaker 1: quite a bit. The travel notes do include kind of
Speaker 1: unfavorable comparisons to British things, you know, where we were
Speaker 1: talking about the low um little factories and how it's
Speaker 1: England that comes across as worse in that situation. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff like that. But um, if people
Speaker 1: were overreacting a bit, well then maybe also Dickens kind
Speaker 1: of had unrealistic expectations. If you go into a trip
Speaker 1: and your expectations are that it will be a land
Speaker 1: of innocent people where everything's perfect, you know, kind of
Speaker 1: a utopia themed he was expecting, you're probably going to
Speaker 1: be a little bit disappointed. Especially people are ripping fur
Speaker 1: out of your coat. And that's true, So it's not
Speaker 1: that any of this really affected dickens popularity as an
Speaker 1: author in the US. More than twenty years later, Dickens,
Speaker 1: who by this point had multiple households to support, and
Speaker 1: that's just a hint for the next podcast we're going
Speaker 1: to come up with, he decided it might be time
Speaker 1: to revisit America, and this time as a part of
Speaker 1: his Smash lecture series, in which he'd act rather than
Speaker 1: read portions of his own works from a special gas
Speaker 1: lit lecture. So, after sending a reconnaissance scout on ahead,
Speaker 1: he arrived in Boston in mid November of eighteen sixty seven.
Speaker 1: During his with Eastern tour, quite a few things happened.
Speaker 1: He met Mark Twain, remark Twain saw him, and of
Speaker 1: course Mark Twain is also known for his his public readings,
Speaker 1: which were apparently just as good as Dickens, and a
Speaker 1: twelve year old girl chatted with him on a train,
Speaker 1: telling him that she'd read all his books but skipped
Speaker 1: to the quote lengthy and dull parts, and she, in fact,
Speaker 1: he grew up to write Rebecca of Sunny Book Farms.
Speaker 1: They were a popular children's book there, and then Dr
Speaker 1: Samuel Gridley how of Perkins, who we mentioned, contacted Dickens
Speaker 1: about publishing The Old Curiosity Shop in Braille, and Dickens
Speaker 1: actually not only gave his approval, he put up one thousand,
Speaker 1: seven hundred dollars to have two hundred fifty copies printed,
Speaker 1: which were in turn distributed to all of the blind
Speaker 1: schools in America, something I thought was pretty cool. The
Speaker 1: lectures themselves were a huge hit. I mean, of course,
Speaker 1: that was why he was back in the United States
Speaker 1: in the first place. He made nineteen thousand pounds, and
Speaker 1: many folks couldn't remember the first tour, so there weren't
Speaker 1: any hard feelings there. And even the press took dickens
Speaker 1: return as a sign of goodwill. For instance, the New
Speaker 1: York Tribune wrote, dickens second coming was needed to disperse
Speaker 1: every cloud and every doubt, and to place his name
Speaker 1: undimmed and the silver sunshine of American admiration. Kind of
Speaker 1: an overblown welcome welcome back Dickens, and Dickens himself felt
Speaker 1: differently too. In his farewell speech, he spoke of the
Speaker 1: quote gigantic changes he'd seen in the country, changes, moral changes,
Speaker 1: physical changes in the amount of land subdued and people,
Speaker 1: changes in the rise of vast new cities, changes in
Speaker 1: the growth of older cities almost out of recognition, changes
Speaker 1: in the graces and amenities of life, changes in the press,
Speaker 1: without whose advancement, no advancement can take place anywhere. And
Speaker 1: he asked that the statement be added to every copy
Speaker 1: of American Notes and Martin Chuzzlewitt, And it still is
Speaker 1: there today. Kind of, I take it back, you guys
Speaker 1: have mid some improvement xt job um. So, I think
Speaker 1: it was really interesting to learn about an author so
Speaker 1: associated with England, or really so associated with London in
Speaker 1: a different context, see him out of his element a
Speaker 1: little bit. That was what appealed to me about this story. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think in a way it's actually quite a testament
Speaker 1: to travel itself, that you can go abroad and it
Speaker 1: opens your eyes and you just see things in a
Speaker 1: different way. I mean, he obviously didn't work out so
Speaker 1: well the first time because he had a bad experience.
Speaker 1: He was disappointed, and like you said, that was probably
Speaker 1: equal parts his fault and you know, the fault of
Speaker 1: what he saw exactly, of people spitting tobacco on the floor.
Speaker 1: But when he came back the next time, it seems
Speaker 1: like he sort of had a different point of view well,
Speaker 1: and he had definitely learned kind of a lesson about
Speaker 1: maybe being careful when you're traveling to keep some of
Speaker 1: your opinions. Although it's kind of nice to have that honesty.
Speaker 1: I'm glad looking back on it now. Well, it's interesting
Speaker 1: that we're doing this to podcast now because just this
Speaker 1: week we got a letter and kind of a little
Speaker 1: gift from a listener that was related to Dickens. We
Speaker 1: heard from listener Tory, and she wanted to share with
Speaker 1: us what she does while she listens to the podcast.
Speaker 1: And she makes these really cool book scarves. And I
Speaker 1: didn't even know what a book scarf was before I
Speaker 1: got the she invented it. She I guess maybe she
Speaker 1: invented it. She makes these scarves that actually have screenprinting
Speaker 1: done on them, and they have the words like passages
Speaker 1: from books on them. And she sent us one that
Speaker 1: was from Jane Eyre and one that was from a
Speaker 1: Tale of Two Cities. Charles Dickens because she's heard us
Speaker 1: to drop his name all the time. I'm always mentioning
Speaker 1: at the podcast, So I'll just read a little bit
Speaker 1: of this, she said. For quite some time now, I
Speaker 1: wanted to share with you my own I listen while
Speaker 1: I response, and in doing so, I hope to strike
Speaker 1: a likewise joyous chord with you. Two is a token
Speaker 1: of thanks and gratitude for your hard work. In order
Speaker 1: or to do so, I thought it would be best
Speaker 1: to show you what I do while I listen, and
Speaker 1: your last podcast, Growing Up Bronte instantly confirmed my decision
Speaker 1: to do so. I am extremely fortunate to be able
Speaker 1: to combine my passions for classical literature, history, fashion design,
Speaker 1: and the art of silk screening by producing a unique
Speaker 1: product of my own imagining, the book scars that you
Speaker 1: have now here. Hence I listen while I'm constantly moving
Speaker 1: my hands as a screenprint, cut pin, and so fabric.
Speaker 1: I have thus included two of my finished designs, and
Speaker 1: we mentioned to you what those are. So thank you
Speaker 1: very much, Tori. These are cool. We're just trying to
Speaker 1: figure out how to wear them. I saw the picture,
Speaker 1: so you did. You did see the picture. It requires
Speaker 1: a double wrapping. Maybe if we if we can get
Speaker 1: it looking really good, we'll post the pictures or something
Speaker 1: that sounds like a plan, So yeah, thank you, Tori.
Speaker 1: And then another Dickens coincidence from this week. I was
Speaker 1: reading all sorts of material about Dickens and I came
Speaker 1: across the quote regarding his se trip to America. Um.
Speaker 1: An article said that he was quote a noted in
Speaker 1: Biber and mythologist of some repute. And like, I share
Speaker 1: this with Deblina earlier, and you pointed out that noted Imbiber,
Speaker 1: So sounds pretty good, you know, not quite like fancy
Speaker 1: he drank a lot. But UM, I thought it was
Speaker 1: such a strange coincidence because the day before another one
Speaker 1: of our listeners, listener Rose, had treated me to a
Speaker 1: mythology class where I learned a lot about the history
Speaker 1: of cocktails in general. It was really fun and um
Speaker 1: kind of almost an extension of our historic alcohol episode, um,
Speaker 1: extending more into the golden age of cocktails, you know,
Speaker 1: pre prohibition. And so I thought that was such a
Speaker 1: nice compliment to all of this Dickens research. So, if
Speaker 1: you'd like to share with us any Dickens related stories
Speaker 1: or maybe Dickens related projects that you work on, drinks
Speaker 1: that you make that our Dickens or not Dickens related,
Speaker 1: you think we might enjoy or be interested in. Feel
Speaker 1: free to write us or at History Podcast at Discovery
Speaker 1: dot com. You can also find us on Facebook and
Speaker 1: on Twitter at Myston History. And we have an article
Speaker 1: which I think Dickens himself probably would have been interested in.
Speaker 1: It's called Can Travel Change You? I would say it
Speaker 1: change Dickens a bit. I would say so, um, but
Speaker 1: I don't know how you guys feel about that. You
Speaker 1: can check it out for yourselves. It's called again, can
Speaker 1: Travel Change You? And you can find it by searching
Speaker 1: on our home page at www dot housetop works dot com.
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