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Show Small Boy and Noted Author -V Henry C. Robinson's Proud Memory of the Time When Charles Dickens Dick-ens Spoke to Him In Hartford, Hart-ford, Conn. The late Henry C. Robinson of Hartford, Hart-ford, Conn., one of the leaders of the New England'bar, Republican candidate candi-date for governor of Connecticut in 1876, and prominently identified for years with the New York, New Haven and Hartford railroad as counsel and director, was accustomed to say in the latter part of his life that the two incidents in-cidents of his career of which he was especially proud were these he had been a member of the famous class of 1853 at Yale, of which Andrew D. White, afterwards president of Cornell Cor-nell university and minister to Germany, Ger-many, was valedictorian, and he was one of the very few boys in the United States to whom Charles Dickens spoke on his first visit to America. "I am sure that at no other time during that visit did Dickens speak to any American boy as he spoke to me," Mr. Robinson told me. "What he said was not much, but it was Charles Dickens Dick-ens who said it, and he said it to me, and that was enough. "I was between eleven and twelve years of age when Dickens came to Hartford in 1842. He had been spending spend-ing a day or two in Springfield, Mass., and he insisted upon making the trip from Springfield to Hartford by the little steamboat which at that time plied between the two cities upon the Connecticut river. He told his friends that he wanted to see the Connecticut, for it was one of the American rivers of which he had heard much. "We knew in Hartford the hour at which Dickens would arrive, and there was a great throng at the steamboat landing waiting to see him. I was not able to be there, for I was at school when he arrived. But I heard that he was staying at the City hotel, which at that time was the leading hostelry In the city, and was located only three or four minutes' walk from the old state house. So, as soon as I was out of school, I went to the hotel, determined to stand on the sidewalk In front of It until I had caught a glimpse of Charles Dickens. "I think I must have stood there about an hour it may have been a little lit-tle longer when, looking up at one of the windows opening upon the room at the side of the main entrance of the hotel, I saw Charles Dickens standing there. I knew him instantly from the photographs I had seen of him. I was attracted by his peculiar waistcoat of very vivid color, from the pockets of which dangled a prodigious watch chain. He alternately tossed the chain in his hands and twisted it around his fingers. I also noticed his eyes, because be-cause they were very blue. After a while he put his hands Into his pockets, pock-ets, and stood looking across the street, not noticing me at first. He looked at me steadily for I do not know how many minutes. I stared at him steadily in return. I remember that I thought: 'This is the man who told me about Sam Weller,' who was one of the great favorites of my boyhood boy-hood days. "I wonder what Dickens thought of me! He certainly looked me through and through. We must have been, in fact, a spectacle, the lad and the famous fam-ous author staring at each other. "At last Dickens spoke, and the words have been treasured in my memory ever since. This Is what he said, and I heard him distinctly, although al-though he spoke through the window: 'Go away, little boy, go away.' Then he waved his hand gently, smiled upon me, and with that benediction I departed. de-parted. "I did not see him again until 1867, when he made his second visit to America. He had changed greatly in physical appearance, excepting that his eyes retained that brilliant blue tint, the bluest eyes I ever saw." (Copyright, 1910, by B. J. Edwards. All Rights Reserved.) |