YOUNG CHARLES DICKENS IN LOVE

by William H. Benson

February 14, 2002

     Charles Dickens was born on February 7, 1812, and at age eighteen in 1830 he fell in love with Maria Beadnell.  As his infatuation soared, he wrote her poetry and pages of love letters.  Often he visited her, and then alone at night he would walk past her home and dream of her.

     Maria was indeed pretty–petite with blonde curls.  And she captivated him with her smile and her giggle and her charming good looks.  That she could play music on her harp overwhelmed the intense young Charles.  But Maria was also flighty and willful and never really in love with Charles.  She laughed at his obsession and knew that she held almost a hypnotic power over him.

     Her father was a bank manager, whereas John Dickens was a never-do-well who had spent time in a debtors prison and who had sent young Charles at age twelve to work in a factory.  Maria’s parents were alarmed by Charles’s unabashed devotion to their daughter and steered her away.  They believed rightly that they were a cut above the Dickens clan, and besides Charles was just a guy who knew shorthand and took notes in court for lawyers. 

     After three years of pursuit, Charles realized that Maria would never love him.  In February of 1833 he wrote her a letter recounting all he had done to win her love.  “I have been too long used to inward wretchedness and real, real misery.”  She returned his letter without the formality of an envelope, and in total humiliation he wrote her a final letter and poured out his heart.  “I never have loved, and I never can love any human creature breathing but yourself.”

     Cupid finally had tapped on Charles’s shoulder and pointed first to an empty quiver and then to Maria, and Charles understood that none of Cupid’s arrows had struck her heart.

     The game of love is never easy, for the outcomes are ill-defined.  Winners are often the losers, and the losers often are better off.  And life is rarely kind to the frivolous women, and it was not kind to Maria.  Scarcely two years after the breakup, Charles Dickens published Pickwick Papers and was instantly famous.  People referred to Maria and said, “Boy, did she make a mistake.”

     Still deeply wounded, the young Dickens gradually understood that he should never again allow a woman to hold the kind of erotic power over him that Maria had, and so he married a kind, compliant, and placid woman named Catherine.

     Twenty-two years speed by, and in February of 1855 he receives a letter from Maria.  Once again he flies into a state of wild exuberance, and there is a flurry of letters as he yearns to recapture his youthful love.  She admits that at age thirty-five she had married Henry Winter, a poor sawmill manager, and that they had two daughters.  He suggests a tryst, and she agrees.  But she warns him that she is now “toothless, fat, old, and ugly.”  Impossible, he thinks.

     They meet, and it is true that she is no longer the twenty-year-old pretty young thing.  She has a head cold, and Charles soon has caught it.  Her giggle annoys him.  Her constant chatter bothers him.  He is forty-three years old, trim, fit, vigorous, the father of ten children, and world famous.  And quickly he understands that this woman bores him.  Allusions to their shared past sicken him, and what once delighted him now repels him.  Again he is disappointed but for a different reason.

     She begs to see him again, but he writes three final letters–a string of evasions and excuses why he cannot.  She finally understands that it is his turn to reject her, and so he exacts a revenge for the painful humilations that she had made him suffer twenty-two years before.

     Today in an unmarked pauper’s grave in the cemetery at Kensal Green lies Maria Beadnell Winter, a footnote in the biographies of Charles Dickens.     

     The other great British writer wrote, “It is better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all.”, which is to say that the intensity of love is worth the crushing pain when it evaporates.  I am not convinced that Charles Dickens would have agreed.

     And for you, my reader, on this Valentine’s Day may you find your true love, and may Cupid’s arrows strike many a tender heart.

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN IN THE COCKPIT

by William H. Benson

January 31, 2002

     On January 29, 1774 an Englishman from the British colony of Pennsylvania stood in the Cockpit in London, England and received a two hour tongue-lashing from the solicitor-general at that time, Alexander Wedderburn.  In the audience that day sat members of Parliament, both the Lords and the Commons, as well as the London press anxious for scandalous news.

     The reason for the diatribe was that two days before, on the 27th, a packet ship had arrived from Boston with news that men dressed as Indians had dumped hundreds of casks of tea into Boston harbor.  And the recipient of this public dressing down was the well-known and highly intelligent Benjamin Franklin who had just celebrated his sixty-eighth birthday on January 17th.

     The Cockpit was so named because during the reign of King Henry VIII two centuries before the King had permitted rooster fights on this site where prized birds had torn each other to shreds.  The atmosphere remained the same in 1774; only it was human beings that tore at others.

     Alexander Wedderburn considered this Boston Tea Party a treasonous act against the British Parliament, and Franklin stood as a symbol and a spokesman in London for colonial resistance to Parliament’s rule.  So bitter and malicious was Wedderburn’s denunciation of Franklin that no London newspaper would print his speech.

     One biographer wrote this, “For an hour he hurled invective at Franklin, branding him a liar, a thief, the instigator of the insurrection in Massachusetts, an outcast from the company of all honest men, an ingrate whose attack on Hutchinson [the governor of Massachusetts] betrayed nothing less than a desire to seize the governor’s office for himself.”  Those in the audience howled and cheered as Wedderburn tore into Franklin.

     Throughout the ordeal Franklin stood silent, and when instructed to submit to questions, he silently refused.  A lesser man would have been humiliated, but Franklin was only angered.

     What does a person do when he or she has been sorely and badly mistreated?

     As a teen-ager Franklin had discovered that he could think and write and speak better than almost everyone around him, including his older brother and employer James, who beat relentlessly on Ben for his supercilious attitude and for talking back.  Ben did the smart thing; he ran away to Philadelphia.

     Then, as a young adult he had learned to disarm those who were prone to envy his success and his genius.  He avoided arguments, but if he did argue, he did so anonymously, mixing it up with a measure of self-deprecating humor.  Others laughed and were persuaded.  Now Dale Carnegie may have written How to Win Friends and Influence People in the twentieth century, but Ben Franklin instinctively knew the message of that book two centuries before Carnegie wrote it.

     But what could he do now after his experience in the Cockpit?  Run away?  He could not, for there was no place to hide.  Reconcile?  No.  His disarming and reconciling nature had only brought him abuse and condemnation.  The only course left for him now was revenge.

     An enlightened Benjamin Franklin sailed back to America, back to his home, convinced that the British in England were wrong.  Once a loyal Briton, from that moment on he was the most  radical of Americans who demanded independence from the British.  He helped draft the Declaration of Independence, and he guided the rebellion into a genuine and successful revolution.  He then helped create the Constitution.  Britain did itself more damage in those two hours in the Cockpit by alienating Benjamin Franklin than anyone there could ever have imagined.

     The best advice I have ever gleaned from all of the dozens of self-help books on the market is that the best revenge is to not necessarily even the score when mistreated but instead to go on and to live a great life without them–those that wish you poorly.  Benjamin Franklin on board a sailing vessel heading west to cross the Atlantic Ocean and still smarting from that slanderous tongue-lashing in the Cockpit perfectly understood that he and his fellow Americans could live a great life without them, and millions of Americans ever since have done xactly that.  

MUHAMMAD ALI

by William H. Benson

January 17, 2002

     The new movie Ali covers ten years of Muhammad Ali’s life–from February of 1964, when he defeated Sonny Liston for the heavyweight boxing title, until 1974, when he recaptured the crown by defeating George Foreman in Zaire.  Those ten years were pivotal ones for Ali and the nation.

     Nine days after the Sonny Liston fight Cassius Clay ceased to exist, and Muhammad Ali was born when he announced without apology that he was a member of Malcom X’s organization–The Nation of Islam.  In the months that followed he showed his vulnerability to the cult’s persuasion when he spouted off their rhetoric and their version of the Islam faith.  But then he soon revealed his strength and willpower when he walked away from Malcom X and cut him off.  Above all else, Muhammad Ali chose to be his own person.

     He refused to be drafted.  “The Viet Nam war is the white man telling the black man to go kill the yellow man,” he said.  This decision to take a political stand and oppose the war cost him much popularity.  Then, without a hearing or much discussion the Boxing Commission stripped him of his heavyweight title and took away his source of income, and so it cost him financially.  Only Martin Luther King, Jr., the Baptist minister and civil rights promoter, came to his defense and spoke out in his favor, that he had the right to refuse the draft.

     Religion and politics aside, Muhammad Ali understood the necessity of marketing himself differently than the typical silent and somber boxer.  Gorgeous George told him early on, “You can sell a lot more tickets being hated than being liked.”  He was a psychological fighter who knew how to taunt and berate and intimidate his opponents, predicting in which round he would win.  Everybody laughed, except his opponents who found him unnerving.  “Float like a butterfly and sting like a bee” and his “rope-a-dope” trick became his own trademarks.

     And then there was his strange relationship with Howard Cosell marked by a lot of banter back and forth.  They say it is lonely at the top of a profession, mainly because you quickly learn that you cannot trust anyone.  So, Ali and Cosell, two hyphenated Americans, one African and one Jewish, found each other.  Time magazine put it this way, “We don’t know exactly what he and Howard Cosell saw in each other; we just see him and the sportscaster playing their own mutually advantageous game while the rest of the media stumbled cluelessly in their wake.”

     In 1960 he won a gold medal at the Olympics in Rome, and thirty-six years later he carried the torch into the stadium to light the Olympic flame in Atlanta.  His redemption for all his past mistakes and miscues was complete.

     Idolized and yet scorned, admired and yet berated, loved and yet hated, Muhammad Ali mixed his own personal charm with a lightning fast wit to stand up against the harsh public criticism that he invariably created.

     Today at age sixty, Parkinson’s Disease, brought on by all the punches he took, has slowed his walk and slurred his speech, but his mind is as sharp as ever.  He passes out Islamic religious tracts to whomever he sees, and then, always the entertainer, he performs simple magic tricks.

     Now anybody can say, whenever they want to and in any context, “I am the greatest!”, but almost nobody ever says such an outrageous thing for fear of being criticized or laughted at.  It is only a very rare person–the one with enormous talent and superior strength and a deep inner will power who says and means it.  Muhammad Ali said those words, and if he was at first doubted, he has over the years converted many of those skeptics and doubters into genuine believers.   “I am the Champion!  I am the greatest!”

WAR AND PEACE

by William H. Benson

December 20, 2001

     Late in December of 1776 George Washington was desperate.  He needed a winning battle.  His army had dwindled to fewer than 8000 men, and most of them would finish their term of service after the first of the year.  He had earlier written to his brother that “if every nerve is not strained to recruit the new army with all possible expedition, I think the game is pretty nearly up.”

     It was then when the Colonists’ cause seemed almost hopeless that Thomas Paine published in the “Pennsylvania Journal” on December 19th, his American Crisis.  In it he argued persuasively that the Americans should seek freedom now.

     “These are the times that try men’s souls:  The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will in this crisis shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it NOW, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.  Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.  What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly; — ‘Tis dearness only that gives everything its value.”

     Paine’s words stirred the Americans to not give up.  So on Christmas Eve Washington led his army across the Delaware River to attack the British settled in for the winter at Trenton, New Jersey.  In the battle the Continental forces killed the commanding officer at Trenton, and captured 900 British prisoners.  For Washington and his soldiers the war was not over.

     We are now nearing the Christmas season, and once again we are at war–this time with one of the least powerful nations in the world, whose people in a misdirected, foolish, and suicide mission dared to attack the United States.

     War is a heavy thing.  It carries a sense of urgency.  It represents aggression.  It is emotional.  It indicates that a change is about to happen and that the change will be violent.  Because it breaks and crumbles another nation’s government, it is like a hammer.

      On the other hand, peace is light, easy, casual, and in favor of the status quo.  It represents contentment.  It carries a let-them-be attitude.  It is hopeful and reasonable.  It is often about music, for peace is like a tuning fork.

     Although gender roles have changed, war has historically been a male adventure performed far from home outside in a field or in the woods or on a desert, whereas peace is found at home, close to the fire, with women and children present, and at a table.  (King Arthur supposedly cut off the table’s corners, so that none of the knights thought that he was seated improperly.  All were equal at a round table.)  

     Some people hear the tuning fork.  For example, Clara Barton, the founder of the American Red Cross, was born on December 25, 1821, and although that organization is today under close media scrutiny for bungling the donations received since September 11th, she created and built an organization that delivers help and comfort to wars’ victims.

     Some only see the hammer in their hand, and they wish to use it against what they perceive are the enemy.  Because they are not listening, they do not hear the tiny pitch that the tuning fork of peace produces when struck.  Osama bin Laden and his cohorts were sadly tuned out.

     At any given moment there walks on Planet Earth at the same time warmongers carrying hammers and peacemakers sounding out tuning forks, and even though those with the hammers hold the power, it is the latter that receive the blessing.  They create the music.  On that first Christmas shepherds reported that they heard angels singing a song with the following lyrics, “Peace on earth.  Goodwill toward men.”  I would think that all those angels sang on key, for they were listening to the same Tuning Fork, and so they could easily match their voices to His pitch.

     The war in Afghanistan against the Taliban and the Al Qaeda will end, and somebody will finally step forward and take the hammer out of one guy’s hand.  And then somebody else will strike the tuning fork, and peace will reign for a season.

PROHIBITION

by William H. Benson

December 6, 2001

     On January 16, 1920 the United States embraced a peculiar drama–Prohibition, a grand social and legal experiment designed initially to better people’s lives, and yet it was a dismal failure.  Fourteen years later on December 5, 1933 the 21st Amendment repealed Prohibition and the 18th Amendment, and H. L. Mencken wrote that those years “seemed almost a geologic epoch while it was going on, and the human suffering that it entailed must have been a fair match for that of the Black Death or the Thirty Years War.”

     Indeed, the law’s intention was noble enough–to Americanize the new class of immigrants and their notorious drinking habits.  But by the Law of Unintended Consequences, the utopian belief that a law can stop people from doing something pleasurable slammed up against the utopian belief that trade and free enterprise should be left unrestricted.  Far from driving the alien minorities into Anglo-Saxon conformity it actually enabled them to consolidate themselves.

     New York City’s bootlegging operations were controlled by the Jews, the Italians, the Poles, and the Irish, and Boston had Joseph Kennedy, an Irishman who discreetly provided its citizens with bootlegged liquor.  But in Chicago it was the the Italians who were particularly adept at manufacturing and distributing liquor in large and inexpensive quantities.

     First there was Joseph Torrio who by 1924  had accumulated some $30 million from his enterprise and retired comfortably to a villa in Italy.  He turned over his entire business to Al Capone who promptly turned Chicago into gangster-land, with murder a daily occurrence and extortion a fact of life.

     Organized crime built around families found its impetus and start during Prohibition.  After liquor was legalized, the mob moved then into drugs, gambling, prostitution, and loan sharking–an unwanted and embarrassing heritage that Prohibition has left us.

     The law was a social catstrophe.  Walter Ligget testified before the House Judiciary Committee in 1930 that “there is considerably more hard liquor being drunk than there was in the days before Prohibition and drunk in more evil surroundings.”  And the Wickersham report, commissioned by President Hoover, ended all pretense that Prohibition had been a success.  Page after page told the sorry story of its failures.  The 18th Amendment had never been and probably never could be enforced.  It was part of the Constitution, but it lacked the power of the people.

     Walter Lippman denounced the “circle of powerlessness in which we outlaw the satisfaction of certain persistent human desires, and then tolerate what we have prohibited.”

     Some would aruge that alcohol is now more intelligently regulated; enforceable laws prohibit underage drinking and drinking while driving.  Plus, education and treatment focuses upon the physical and social affects of alcohol.  However, so many of the issues with drugs that we deal with today are the same issues that people dealt with in the 1920’s over alcohol.

     How does a society force its people to stop producing, selling, and buying a product that its users find appealing and yet has such disastrous individual and social consequences?

     I will leave the legal implications to that question to the politicians and courts, and I will leave the social affects of alcohol and drug use to the sociologists and counselors.  But from the historian’s point of view, it is a mistake to naively believe that a law can radically reform a sick society or make it tolerable to its law-abiding majority.  

     The former Senator from New York, Daniel Moynihan, said, “The nation’s choice of policy, legalization or prohibition, offers a choice of outcomes.”  And neither is great.  Legalization means increased health problems–millions of  new addicts that will overwhelm the nations’s hospitals, whereas prohibition leads to an enormous increase in crime that has overwhelmed the prisons.

     In the months and years ahead the citizens of this nation will be constantly confronted with a choice of how best to deal with the rampant drug use in our communities.  We will be asked to vote and decide.  What do you want?  More hospitals and treatment centers or more prisons?  Despite Prohibition’s undeniable and catastrophic failure in the 1920’s, that historical fact cannot and should not be used as an excuse to go ahead and legalize drug use today.  The war on drugs is a war that we cannot choose to lose.