From: Charles Dickens (cdickens@RMPLC.CO.UK)
Date: Wed Jan 06 1999 - 10:36:36 PST
My dear Miss Soborowski,
Your students' interest flatters me.
I remember being perfectly delighted by Lowell. Ask your students to read
the fourth chapter of my book "American Notes," and they will find my
response to the city there. I was beguiled by the crisp new appearance of
the place, deeply impressed by the philanthropic spirit moving the mill
owners and prominent citizens of Lowell, who had made such generous and
thoughtful provision for the necessities and comforts of its workers
(chiefly young females) and of other humbler citizens. Would that such a
spirit had moved the mighty in my own country!
Which brings me to your second question. A visit to one of our great
industrial cities in the spring of 1843, only a few months after I had been
in Lowell, kindled my wrath and had me resolve to strike a hammer blow on
behalf of the dispossessed. At first I intended a pamphlet but, over the
year, a little story began to shape itself in my mind. It emerged as "A
Christmas Carol."
Scrooge was based on no real person. I have always been interested in
misers and misanthropists, real and fictional, and have scrutinised closely
those I have encountered, but I like to think Scrooge is based on a
perception of the ungenerous, inhumane and self-regarding in us all, and of
the capacity we all have, with encouragement, to redeem ourselves.
It is my firm belief that the task of the writer of fiction is to display
the consequences of moral choice, and my equally firm belief that good moral
choices tend to lead to good consequences. As a writer of stories, then, in
which the creatures of my imagination eventually learn to make good moral
choices, I am given to endings in which happiness prevails. It is true of
course that good moral choices don't always lead to good consequences, but
that is bad luck, and bad luck can be of little interest to the novelist.
Many of my stories are touched by sadness at the end: the death of Smike in
"Nicholas Nickleby," of Sydney Carton in "A Taler of Two Cities," but
happiness prevails as it should.
The writing of fiction yields both great joy and intense agony. I break
out in a cold sweat when I remember some of my travails, and into
uncontrolled laughter when I remember some of my triumphs.
Faithfully yours,
Charles Dickens
______________________________________________________
-----Original Message-----
From: !rene Soborowski <IRENEANNS@webtv.net>
To: cdickens@rmplc.co.uk <cdickens@rmplc.co.uk>
Date: 06 January 1999 15:51
Subject: Student questions
Dear Mr. Dickens,
My eitghth grade students recently finished a unit of study about
you and your work, and they have a few questions for you. They would
like to know:
What was your impression of Lowell, Massachusettes when you
visited? Why did you write A Christmas Carol. and how long did it take
you? Was Scrooge's character based on a real person? Do all of your
stories end up happy? Is it hard to write a novel?
Thank you. in advance for your response.
Irene Soborowski
Language Arts Teacher
APW Middle School
Parish, New York