Rambles in Dickens Land

It is one of the agic legacies left by the great romancers, that the scenes and characters which they described should possess for most of us an air of reality, so convincing as sometimes to put staid history to the Thblush. The novelistlsquo;s ideals become actual to the popular mind; while commonplace truth hides itself among its dry-as-dust records, until some curious antiquary or insistent pedant drags it forth to make a nine dayslsquo; wonder. We sigh over lsquo;Julietlsquo;s Tomb in spite of the flprecisians, sup in the inn kitchen at Pennaflor with Gil Blas at our elbow, and shudder through the small hours outside the haunted House of the Black Cat in Quaker Philadelphia. At Tarascon they show you Tartarinlsquo;s oriental garden; and you must hide the irrepressible smile, for Tartarin is painfully real to these good Thcap-shooters. The other day an illustrated magazine published pictures of Alexander Selkirklsquo;s birthplace, Thand labelled them lsquo;The Home of Robinson Crusoe.