Actor Dominic Gerrard hosts an exciting new series that explores the Life and Times of Charles Dickens: his extraordinary novels, who he was as a person, his career as a performer, and his activism. Guests include: Stephen Fry, Miriam Margolyes, Armando Iannucci, Alice Loxton, Robert Douglas-Fairhurst, Lucinda Hawksley, John Mullan, Pen Vogler, Andrew Davies, Rosie Holt, Bernard Cornwell .... and many more academics, writers, actors, directors and descendants of the great man himself! Along side these interviews there are special Dickens readings from across his works ... Thank you for listening 🔥
A Christmas episode from Master Humphrey's Clock read by Dominic Gerrard. Of all the days in the year I rejoice to think that it should have been Christmas Day, with which from childhood we associate something friendly, hearty, and sincere. I had walked out to cheer myself with the happiness of others, and in the little tokens of festivity and rejoicing, of which the streets and houses present so many upon that day, had lost some hours. Now I stopped to look at a merry party hurrying through the snow on foot to their place of meeting, and now turned back to see a whole coachful of children safely deposited at the welcome house. At one time I admired how carefully the working man carried the baby in its gaudy hat and feathers, and how his wife, trudging patiently on behind, forgot even her care of her gay clothes in exchanging greetings with the child as it crowed and laughed over the father's shoulder. At another, I pleased myself with some passing scene of gallantry or courtship, and was glad to believe that for a season half the world of poverty was gay. As the day closed in, I still rambled through the streets, feeling a companionship in the bright fires that cast their warm reflections on the windows as I passed, and losing all sense of my own loneliness in imagining the sociality and kind fellowship that everywhere prevailed. At length, I happened to stop before a tavern, and encountering a bill of fare in the window, it all at once brought into my head to wonder what kind of people dined alone in taverns upon Christmas Day? Solitary men are accustomed, I suppose, unconsciously to look upon their solitude as their own peculiar property. I had sat alone in my room on many, many anniversaries of this great holiday, and had never regarded it but as one of universal assemblage and rejoicing. I had expected, and with an aching heart, a crowd of prisoners and beggars, but these were not the men for whom the tavern doors were open. Had they any customers? Or was it a mere form? A form, no doubt. Trying to feel quite sure of this, I walked away, but before I had gone many paces, I stopped and looked back. There was a provoking air of business in the lamp above the door, which I could not overcome. I began to be afraid there might be many customers, young men perhaps struggling with the world, utter strangers in this great place, whose friends lived at a long distance off, and whose means were too slender to enable them to make the journey. The supposition gave rise to so many distressing little pictures that in preference to carrying them home with me, I determined to encounter the realities. So I turned and walked in. I was at once glad and sorry to find that there was only one person in the dining room, glad to know that there were not more, and sorry to think that he should be there by himself. He did not look so old as I, but like me he was advanced in life, and his hair was nearly white. Though I made more noise in entering and seating myself than was quite necessary, with the view of attracting his attention and saluting him in the good old form of that time of year, he did not raise his head, but sat with it resting on his hand, musing over his half finished meal. I called for something, which would give me an excuse for remaining in the room. I had dined early as my housekeeper was engaged at night to partake of some friends' good cheer, and sat where I could observe without intruding on him. After a time he looked up. He was aware that somebody had entered, but could see very little of me as I sat in the shade and he in the light. He was sad and thoughtful, and I forbore to trouble him by speaking. Let me believe that it was something better than curiosity which riveted my attention and impelled me strongly towards this gentleman. I never saw so patient and kind a face. He should have been surrounded by friends, and yet here he sat dejected and all alone when all men had their friends about them. As often as he roused himself from his reverie, he would fall into it again, and it was plain that whatever were the subject of his thoughts, they were of a melancholy kind, and would not be controlled. He was not used to solitude. I was sure of that, for I know by myself that if he had been his manner would have been different, and he would have taken some slight interest in the arrival of another. I could not fail to mark that he had no appetite, that he tried to eat in vain, that time after time the plate was pushed away, and he relapsed into his former posture. His mind was wandering among old Christmas days, I thought. Many of them sprung up together, not with a long gap between each but in unbroken succession, like days of the week. It was a great change to find himself for the first time, I quite settled that it was the first, in an empty, silent room, with no soul to care for. I could not help following him in imagination through crowds of pleasant faces, and then coming back to that dull place, with its bough of mistletoe sickening in the gas, and sprigs of holly parched up already by a samoom of roast and boiled. The very waiter had gone home, and his representative, a poor, lean, hungry man, was keeping Christmas in his jacket. I grew still more interested in my friend. His dinner done, a decanter of wine was placed before him. It remained untouched for a long time. But at length, with a quivering hand, he filled a glass and raised it to his lips. Some tender wish to which he had been accustomed to give utterance on that day, or some beloved name that he had been used to pledge, trembled upon them at the moment. He put it down very hastily. Took it up once more, again put it down, pressed his hand upon his face, yes, and tears stole down his cheeks. I am certain. Without pausing to consider whether I did right or wrong, I stepped across the room and sitting down beside him laid my hand gently on his arm. My friend, I said, forgive me if I beseech you to take comfort and consolation from the lips of an old man. I will not preach to you what I have not practised, indeed. Whatever be your grief, be of good heart be of good heart, pray. I am sure that you speak earnestly, he replied, and kindly, I am very sure, but I nodded my head, to show that I understood what he would say, for I had already gathered from a certain fixed expression in his face, and from the attention with which he watched me while I spoke, that his sense of hearing was destroyed. There should be a Freemasonry between us, said I, pointing from himself to me to explain my meaning. If not in our grey hairs, at least in our misfortunes. You see that I am but a poor cripple. I have never felt so happy under my affliction since the trying moment of my first becoming conscious of it, as when he took my hand in his with a smile that has lighted my path in life from that day, and we sat down side by side. This was the beginning of my friendship with the deaf gentleman. And when was ever the slight and easy service of a kind word in season repaid by such attachment and devotion as he has shown to me? He produced a little set of tablets and a pencil to facilitate our conversation on that our first acquaintance, and I well remember how awkward and constrained I was in writing down my share of the dialogue, and how easily he guessed my meaning before I had written half of what I had to say. He told me, in a faltering voice, that he had not been accustomed to be alone on that day, that it had always been a little festival with him, and seeing that I glanced at his dress in the expectation that he wore mourning, he added hastily that it was not that. If it had been, he thought, he could have borne it better. From that time to the present, we have never touched upon this theme. Upon every return of the same day we have been together, and although we make it our annual custom to drink to each other hand in hand after dinner, and to recall with affectionate guerrillity every circumstance of our first meeting, we always avoid this one as if by mutual consent. Meantime, we have gone on strengthening in our friendship and regard, and forming an attachment which, I trust and believe, will only be interrupted by death, to be renewed in another existence. I scarcely know how we communicate as we do, but he has long since ceased to be deaf to me. He is frequently the companion of my walks, and even in crowded streets replies to my slightest look or gesture as though he could read my thoughts. From the vast number of objects which pass in rapid succession before our eyes, we frequently select the same for some particular notice or remark, and, when one of these little coincidences occurs, I cannot describe the pleasure that animates my friend, or the beaming countenance he will preserve for half an hour afterwards at least. He is a great thinker from living so much within himself, and having a lively imagination has a facility of conceiving and enlarging upon odd ideas which renders him invaluable to our little body, and greatly astonishes our two friends. His powers in this respect are much assisted by a large pipe, which he assures us once belonged to a German student. Be this as it may, it has undoubtedly a very ancient and mysterious appearance, and is of such capacity that it takes three hours and a half to smoke it out. I have reason to believe that my barber, who is the chief authority of a knot of gossips who congregate every evening at a small tobacconist hard by, has related anecdotes of this pipe and the grim figures that are carved upon its bowl, at which all the smokers in the neighbourhood have stood aghast. And I know that my housekeeper, while she holds it in high veneration, has a superstitious feeling connected with it which would render her exceedingly unwilling to be left alone in its company after dark. Whatever sorrow my deaf friend has known, and whatever grief may linger in some secret corner of his heart, he is now a cheerful, placid, happy creature. Misfortune can never have fallen upon such a man but for some good purpose, and when I see its traces in his gentle nature and his earnest feeling, I am the less disposed to murmur at such trials as I may have undergone myself. With regard to the pipe, I have a theory of my own. I cannot help thinking that it is in some manner connected with the event that brought us together, for I remember that it was a long time before he even talked about it, that when he did, he grew reserved and melancholy, and that it was a long time yet before he brought it forth. I have no curiosity, however, upon this subject, for I know that it promotes his tranquility and comfort, and I need no other inducement to regard it with my utmost favour. Such is the deaf gentleman. I can call up his figure now, clad in sober grey, and seated in the chimney corner. As he puffs out the smoke from his favourite pipe, he casts a look on me, brimful of cordiality and friendship, and says all manner of kind and genial things in a cheerful smile. Then he raises his eyes to my clock, which is just about to strike, and glancing from it to me and back again, seems to divide his heart between us. For myself, it is not too much to say that I would gladly part with one of my poor limbs, could he but hear the old clock's voice?
