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diff --git a/22362.txt b/22362.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4453ffc --- /dev/null +++ b/22362.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7050 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works +of Charles Dickens, by G. K. Chesterton + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens + +Author: G. K. Chesterton + +Release Date: August 20, 2007 [EBook #22362] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DICKENS *** + + + + +Produced by Sigal Alon, LN Yaddanapudi and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) + + + + + + + [Illustration: Charles Dickens, Circa 1840 + From an oil painting by R. J. Lane.] + +APPRECIATIONS AND CRITICISMS OF THE WORKS OF CHARLES DICKENS + +BY + +G. K. CHESTERTON + +[Illustration] + +1911 + +LONDON: J. M. DENT & SONS, LTD. +NEW YORK: E. P. DUTTON & CO. + +_All rights reserved_ + + + + +CONTENTS + + + CHAPTER PAGE + + I. INTRODUCTION vii + II. SKETCHES BY BOZ 1 + III. PICKWICK PAPERS 13 + IV. NICHOLAS NICKLEBY 26 + V. OLIVER TWIST 38 + VI. OLD CURIOSITY SHOP 50 + VII. BARNABY RUDGE 65 + VIII. AMERICAN NOTES 76 + IX. PICTURES FROM ITALY 87 + X. MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT 90 + XI. CHRISTMAS BOOKS 103 + XII. DOMBEY AND SON 114 + XIII. DAVID COPPERFIELD 129 + XIV. CHRISTMAS STORIES 140 + XV. BLEAK HOUSE 148 + XVI. CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND 160 + XVII. HARD TIMES 169 + XVIII. LITTLE DORRIT 178 + XIX. A TALE OF TWO CITIES 188 + XX. GREAT EXPECTATIONS 197 + XXI. OUR MUTUAL FRIEND 207 + XXII. EDWIN DROOD 218 + XXIII. MASTER HUMPHREY'S CLOCK 229 + XXIV. REPRINTED PIECES 239 + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + + PAGE + + CHARLES DICKENS, CIRCA 1840 _Frontispiece_ + From an oil painting by R. J. Lane. + + CHARLES DICKENS, 1842 76 + From a bust by H. Dexter, executed during Dickens's + first visit to America. + + CHARLES DICKENS, 1844 90 + From a miniature by Margaret Gillies. + + CHARLES DICKENS, 1849 130 + From a daguerreotype by Mayall. + + CHARLES DICKENS, 1858 184 + From a black and white drawing by Baughiet. + + CHARLES DICKENS, 1859 188 + From an oil painting by W. P. Frith, R.A. + + CHARLES DICKENS, CIRCA 1860 198 + Photograph by J. & C. Watkins. + + CHARLES DICKENS, 1868 218 + From a photograph by Gurney. + + + + +INTRODUCTION + + +These papers were originally published as prefaces to the separate books +of Dickens in one of the most extensive of those cheap libraries of the +classics which are one of the real improvements of recent times. Thus +they were harmless, being diluted by, or rather drowned in Dickens. My +scrap of theory was a mere dry biscuit to be taken with the grand tawny +port of great English comedy; and by most people it was not taken at +all--like the biscuit. Nevertheless the essays were not in intention so +aimless as they appear in fact. I had a general notion of what needed +saying about Dickens to the new generation, though probably I did not +say it. I will make another attempt to do so in this prologue, and, +possibly fail again. + +There was a painful moment (somewhere about the eighties) when we +watched anxiously to see whether Dickens was fading from the modern +world. We have watched a little longer, and with great relief we begin +to realise that it is the modern world that is fading. All that universe +of ranks and respectabilities in comparison with which Dickens was +called a caricaturist, all that Victorian universe in which he seemed +vulgar--all that is itself breaking up like a cloudland. And only the +caricatures of Dickens remain like things carved in stone. This, of +course, is an old story in the case of a man reproached with any excess +of the poetic. Again and again when the man of visions was pinned by the +sly dog who knows the world, + + "The man recovered of the bite, + The dog it was that died." + +To call Thackeray a cynic, which means a sly dog, was indeed absurd; but +it is fair to say that in comparison with Dickens he felt himself a man +of the world. Nevertheless, that world of which he was a man is coming +to an end before our eyes; its aristocracy has grown corrupt, its middle +class insecure, and things that he never thought of are walking about +the drawing-rooms of both. Thackeray has described for ever the +Anglo-Indian Colonel; but what on earth would he have done with an +Australian Colonel? What can it matter whether Dickens's clerks talked +cockney now that half the duchesses talk American? What would Thackeray +have made of an age in which a man in the position of Lord Kew may +actually be the born brother of Mr. Moss of Wardour Street? Nor does +this apply merely to Thackeray, but to all those Victorians who prided +themselves on the realism or sobriety of their descriptions; it applies +to Anthony Trollope and, as much as any one, to George Eliot. For we +have not only survived that present which Thackeray described: we have +even survived that future to which George Eliot looked forward. It is no +longer adequate to say that Dickens did not understand that old world of +gentility, of parliamentary politeness and the balance of the +constitution. That world is rapidly ceasing to understand itself. It is +vain to repeat the complaint of the old Quarterly Reviewers, that +Dickens had not enjoyed a university education. What would the old +Quarterly Reviewers themselves have thought of the Rhodes Scholarships? +It is useless to repeat the old tag that Dickens could not describe a +gentleman. A gentleman in our time has become something quite +indescribable. + +Now the interesting fact is this: That Dickens, whom so many considered +to be at the best a vulgar enthusiast, saw the coming change in our +society much more soberly and scientifically than did his better +educated and more pretentious contemporaries. I give but one example out +of many. Thackeray was a good Victorian radical, who seems to have gone +to his grave quite contented with the early Victorian radical +theory--the theory which Macaulay preached with unparalleled luminosity +and completeness; the theory that true progress goes on so steadily +through human history, that while reaction is indefensible, revolution +is unnecessary. Thackeray seems to have been quite content to think that +the world would grow more and more liberal in the limited sense; that +Free Trade would get freer; that ballot boxes would grow more and more +secret; that at last (as some satirist of Liberalism puts it) every man +would have two votes instead of one. There is no trace in Thackeray of +the slightest consciousness that progress could ever change its +direction. There is in Dickens. The whole of _Hard Times_ is the +expression of just such a realisation. It is not true to say that +Dickens was a Socialist, but it is not absurd to say so. And it would +be simply absurd to say it of any of the great Individualist novelists +of the Victorian time. Dickens saw far enough ahead to know that the +time was coming when the people would be imploring the State to save +them from mere freedom, as from some frightful foreign oppressor. He +felt the society changing; and Thackeray never did. + +As talking about Socialism and Individualism is one of the greatest +bores ever endured among men, I will take another instance to illustrate +my meaning, even though the instance be a queer and even a delicate one. +Even if the reader does not agree with my deduction, I ask his attention +to the fact itself, which I think a curiosity of literature. In the last +important work of Dickens, that excellent book _Our Mutual Friend_, +there is an odd thing about which I cannot make up my mind; I do not +know whether it is unconscious observation or fiendish irony. But it is +this. In _Our Mutual Friend_ is an old patriarch named Aaron, who is a +saintly Jew made to do the dirty work of an abominable Christian usurer. +In an artistic sense I think the patriarch Aaron as much of a humbug as +the patriarch Casby. In a moral sense there is no doubt at all that +Dickens introduced the Jew with a philanthropic idea of doing justice to +Judaism, which he was told he had affronted by the great gargoyle of +Fagin. If this was his motive, it was morally a most worthy one. But it +is certainly unfortunate for the Hebrew cause that the bad Jew should be +so very much more convincing than the good one. Old Aaron is not an +exaggeration of Jewish virtues; he is simply not Jewish, because he is +not human. There is nothing about him that in any way suggests the +nobler sort of Jew, such a man as Spinoza or Mr. Zangwill. He is simply +a public apology, and like most public apologies, he is very stiff and +not very convincing. + +So far so good. Now we come to the funny part. To describe the high +visionary and mystic Jew like Spinoza or Zangwill is a great and +delicate task in which even Dickens might have failed. But most of us +know something of the make and manners of the low Jew, who is generally +the successful one. Most of us know the Jew who calls himself De +Valancourt. Now to any one who knows a low Jew by sight or hearing, the +story called _Our Mutual Friend_ is literally full of Jews. Like all +Dickens's best characters they are vivid; we know them. And we know them +to be Hebrew. Mr. Veneering, the Man from Nowhere, dark, sphinx-like, +smiling, with black curling hair, and a taste in florid vulgar +furniture--of what stock was he? Mr. Lammle, with "too much nose in his +face, too much ginger in his whiskers, too much sparkle in his studs and +manners"--of what blood was he? Mr. Lammle's friends, coarse and +thick-lipped, with fingers so covered with rings that they could hardly +hold their gold pencils--do they remind us of anybody? Mr. Fledgeby, +with his little ugly eyes and social flashiness and craven bodily +servility--might not some fanatic like M. Drumont make interesting +conjectures about him? The particular types that people hate in Jewry, +the types that are the shame of all good Jews, absolutely run riot in +this book, which is supposed to contain an apology to them. It looks at +first sight as if Dickens's apology were one hideous sneer. It looks as +if he put in one good Jew whom nobody could believe in, and then +balanced him with ten bad Jews whom nobody could fail to recognise. It +seems as if he had avenged himself for the doubt about Fagin by +introducing five or six Fagins--triumphant Fagins, fashionable Fagins, +Fagins who had changed their names. The impeccable old Aaron stands up +in the middle of this ironic carnival with a peculiar solemnity and +silliness. He looks like one particularly stupid Englishman pretending +to be a Jew, amidst all that crowd of clever Jews who are pretending to +be Englishmen. + +But this notion of a sneer is not admissible. Dickens was far too frank +and generous a writer to employ such an elaborate plot of silence. His +satire was always intended to attack, never to entrap; moreover, he was +far too vain a man not to wish the crowd to see all his jokes. Vanity is +more divine than pride, because it is more democratic than pride. Third, +and most important, Dickens was a good Liberal, and would have been +horrified at the notion of making so venomous a vendetta against one +race or creed. Nevertheless the fact is there, as I say, if only as a +curiosity of literature. I defy any man to read through _Our Mutual +Friend_ after hearing this suggestion, and to get out of his head the +conviction that Lammle is the wrong kind of Jew. The explanation lies, I +think, in this, that Dickens was so wonderfully sensitive to that change +that has come over our society, that he noticed the type of the oriental +and cosmopolitan financier without even knowing that it was oriental or +cosmopolitan. He had, in fact, fallen a victim to a very simple fallacy +affecting this problem. Somebody said, with great wit and truth, that +treason cannot prosper, because when it prospers it cannot be called +treason. The same argument soothed all possible Anti-Semitism in men +like Dickens. Jews cannot be sneaks and snobs, because when they are +sneaks and snobs they do not admit that they are Jews. + +I have taken this case of the growth of the cosmopolitan financier, +because it is not so stale in discussion as its parallel, the growth of +Socialism. But as regards Dickens, the same criticism applies to both. +Dickens knew that Socialism was coming, though he did not know its name. +Similarly, Dickens knew that the South African millionaire was coming, +though he did not know the millionaire's name. Nobody does. His was not +a type of mind to disentangle either the abstract truths touching the +Socialist, nor the highly personal truth about the millionaire. He was a +man of impressions; he has never been equalled in the art of conveying +what a man looks like at first sight--and he simply felt the two things +as atmospheric facts. He felt that the mercantile power was oppressive, +past all bearing by Christian men; and he felt that this power was no +longer wholly in the hands even of heavy English merchants like Podsnap. +It was largely in the hands of a feverish and unfamiliar type, like +Lammle and Veneering. The fact that he felt these things is almost more +impressive because he did not understand them. + +Now for this reason Dickens must definitely be considered in the light +of the changes which his soul foresaw. Thackeray has become classical; +but Dickens has done more: he has remained modern. The grand +retrospective spirit of Thackeray is by its nature attached to places +and times; he belongs to Queen Victoria as much as Addison belongs to +Queen Anne, and it is not only Queen Anne who is dead. But Dickens, in a +dark prophetic kind of way, belongs to the developments. He belongs to +the times since his death when Hard Times grew harder, and when +Veneering became not only a Member of Parliament, but a Cabinet +Minister; the times when the very soul and spirit of Fledgeby carried +war into Africa. Dickens can be criticised as a contemporary of Bernard +Shaw or Anatole France or C. F. G. Masterman. In talking of him one need +no longer talk merely of the Manchester School or Puseyism or the Charge +of the Light Brigade; his name comes to the tongue when we are talking +of Christian Socialists or Mr. Roosevelt or County Council Steam Boats +or Guilds of Play. He can be considered under new lights, some larger +and some meaner than his own; and it is a very rough effort so to +consider him which is the excuse of these pages. Of the essays in this +book I desire to say as little as possible; I will discuss any other +subject in preference with a readiness which reaches to avidity. But I +may very curtly apply the explanation used above to the cases of two or +three of them. Thus in the article on _David Copperfield_ I have done +far less than justice to that fine book considered in its relation to +eternal literature; but I have dwelt at some length upon a particular +element in it which has grown enormous in England after Dickens's death. +Thus again, in introducing the _Sketches by Boz_ I have felt chiefly +that I am introducing them to a new generation insufficiently in +sympathy with such palpable and unsophisticated fun. A Board School +education, evolved since Dickens's day, has given to our people a queer +and inadequate sort of refinement, one which prevents them from enjoying +the raw jests of the _Sketches by Boz_, but leaves them easily open to +that slight but poisonous sentimentalism which I note amid all the +merits of David Copperfield. In the same way I shall speak of _Little +Dorrit_, with reference to a school of pessimistic fiction which did not +exist when it was written, of _Hard Times_ in the light of the most +modern crises of economics, and of _The Child's History of England_ in +the light of the most matured authority of history. In short, these +criticisms are an intrinsically ephemeral comment from one generation +upon work that will delight many more. Dickens was a very great man, and +there are many ways of testing and stating the fact. But one permissible +way is to say this, that he was an ignorant man, ill-read in the past, +and often confused about the present. Yet he remains great and true, and +even essentially reliable, if we suppose him to have known not only all +that went before his lifetime, but also all that was to come after. + +From this vanishing of the Victorian compromise (I might say the +Victorian illusion) there begins to emerge a menacing and even monstrous +thing--we may begin again to behold the English people. If that strange +dawn ever comes, it will be the final vindication of Dickens. It will be +proved that he is hardly even a caricaturist; that he is something very +like a realist. Those comic monstrosities which the critics found +incredible will be found to be the immense majority of the citizens of +this country. We shall find that Sweedlepipe cuts our hair and +Pumblechook sells our cereals; that Sam Weller blacks our boots and +Tony Weller drives our omnibus. For the exaggerated notion of the +exaggerations of Dickens (as was admirably pointed out by my old friend +and enemy Mr. Blatchford in a _Clarion_ review) is very largely due to +our mixing with only one social class, whose conventions are very +strict, and to whose affectations we are accustomed. In cabmen, in +cobblers, in charwomen, individuality is often pushed to the edge of +insanity. But as long as the Thackerayan platform of gentility stood +firm all this was, comparatively speaking, concealed. For the English, +of all nations, have the most uniform upper class and the most varied +democracy. In France it is the peasants who are solid to uniformity; it +is the marquises who are a little mad. But in England, while good form +restrains and levels the universities and the army, the poor people are +the most motley and amusing creatures in the world, full of humorous +affections and prejudices and twists of irony. Frenchmen tend to be +alike, because they are all soldiers; Prussians because they are all +something else, probably policemen; even Americans are all something, +though it is not easy to say what it is; it goes with hawk-like eyes and +an irrational eagerness. Perhaps it is savages. But two English cabmen +will be as grotesquely different as Mr. Weller and Mr. Wegg. Nor is it +true to say that I see this variety because it is in my own people. For +I do not see the same degree of variety in my own class or in the class +above it; there is more superficial resemblance between two Kensington +doctors or two Highland dukes. No; the democracy is really composed of +Dickens characters, for the simple reason that Dickens was himself one +of the democracy. + +There remains one thing to be added to this attempt to exhibit Dickens +in the growing and changing lights of our time. God forbid that any one +(especially any Dickensian) should dilute or discourage the great +efforts towards social improvement. But I wish that social reformers +would more often remember that they are imposing their rules not on dots +and numbers, but on Bob Sawyer and Tim Linkinwater, on Mrs. Lirriper and +Dr. Marigold. I wish Mr. Sidney Webb would shut his eyes until he _sees_ +Sam Weller. + +A great many circumstances have led to the neglect in literature of +these exuberant types which do actually exist in the ruder classes of +society. Perhaps the principal cause is that since Dickens's time the +study of the poor has ceased to be an art and become a sort of sham +science. Dickens took the poor individually: all modern writing tends to +take them collectively. It is said that the modern realist produces a +photograph rather than a picture. But this is an inadequate objection. +The real trouble with the realist is not that he produces a photograph, +but that he produces a composite photograph. It is like all composite +photographs, blurred; like all composite photographs, hideous; and like +all composite photographs, unlike anything or anybody. The new +sociological novels, which attempt to describe the abstract type of the +working-classes, sin in practice against the first canon of literature, +true when all others are subject to exception. Literature must always be +a pointing out of what is interesting in life; but these books are +duller than the life they represent. Even supposing that Dickens did +exaggerate the degree to which one man differs from another--that was at +least an exaggeration upon the side of literature; it was better than a +mere attempt to reduce what is actually vivid and unmistakable to what +is in comparison colourless or unnoticeable. Even the creditable and +necessary efforts of our time in certain matters of social reform have +discouraged the old distinctive Dickens treatment. People are so anxious +to do something for the poor man that they have a sort of subconscious +desire to think that there is only one kind of man to do it for. Thus +while the old accounts were sometimes too steep and crazy, the new +became too sweeping and flat. People write about the problem of drink, +for instance, as if it were one problem. Dickens could have told them +that there is the abyss between heaven and hell between the incongruous +excesses of Mr. Pickwick and the fatalistic soaking of Mr. Wickfield. He +could have shown that there was nothing in common between the brandy and +water of Bob Sawyer and the rum and water of Mr. Stiggins. People talk +of imprudent marriages among the poor, as if it were all one question. +Dickens could have told them that it is one thing to marry without much +money, like Stephen Blackpool, and quite another to marry without the +smallest intention of ever trying to get any, like Harold Skimpole. +People talk about husbands in the working-classes being kind or brutal +to their wives, as if that was the one permanent problem and no other +possibility need be considered. Dickens could have told them that there +was the case (the by no means uncommon case) of the husband of Mrs. +Gargery as well as of the wife of Mr. Quilp. In short, Dickens saw the +problem of the poor not as a dead and definite business, but as a living +and very complex one. In some ways he would be called much more +conservative than the modern sociologists, in some ways much more +revolutionary. + + +LITTLE DORRIT + +In the time of the decline and death of Dickens, and even more strongly +after it, there arose a school of criticism which substantially +maintained that a man wrote better when he was ill. It was some such +sentiment as this that made Mr. George Gissing, that able writer, come +near to contending that _Little Dorrit_ is Dickens's best book. It was +the principle of his philosophy to maintain (I know not why) that a man +was more likely to perceive the truth when in low spirits than when in +high spirits. + + +REPRINTED PIECES + +The three articles on Sunday of which I speak are almost the last +expression of an articulate sort in English literature of the ancient +and existing morality of the English people. It is always asserted that +Puritanism came in with the seventeenth century and thoroughly soaked +and absorbed the English. We are now, it is constantly said, an +incurably Puritanic people. Personally, I have my doubts about this. I +shall not refuse to admit to the Puritans that they conquered and +crushed the English people; but I do not think that they ever +transformed it. My doubt is chiefly derived from three historical +facts. First, that England was never so richly and recognisably English +as in the Shakespearian age before the Puritan had appeared. Second, +that ever since he did appear there has been a long unbroken line of +brilliant and typical Englishmen who belonged to the Shakespearian and +not the Puritanic tradition; Dryden, Johnson, Wilkes, Fox, Nelson, were +hardly Puritans. And third, that the real rise of a new, cold, and +illiberal morality in these matters seems to me to have occurred in the +time of Queen Victoria, and not of Queen Elizabeth. All things +considered, it is likely that future historians will say that the +Puritans first really triumphed in the twentieth century, and that +Dickens was the last cry of Merry England. + +And about these additional, miscellaneous, and even inferior works of +Dickens there is, moreover, another use and fascination which all +Dickensians will understand; which, after a manner, is not for the +profane. All who love Dickens have a strange sense that he is really +inexhaustible. It is this fantastic infinity that divides him even from +the strongest and healthiest romantic artists of a later day--from +Stevenson, for example. I have read _Treasure Island_ twenty times; +nevertheless I know it. But I do not really feel as if I knew all +_Pickwick_; I have not so much read it twenty times as read in it a +million times; and it almost seemed as if I always read something new. +We of the true faith look at each other and understand; yes, our master +was a magician. I believe the books are alive; I believe that leaves +still grow in them, as leaves grow on the trees. I believe that this +fairy library flourishes and increases like a fairy forest: but the +world is listening to us, and we will put our hand upon our mouth. + + +OUR MUTUAL FRIEND + +One thing at least seems certain. Dickens may or may not have been +socialist in his tendencies; one might quote on the affirmative side his +satire against Mr. Podsnap, who thought Centralisation "un-English"; one +might quote in reply the fact that he satirised quite as unmercifully +state and municipal officials of the most modern type. But there is one +condition of affairs which Dickens would certainly have detested and +denounced, and that is the condition in which we actually stand to-day. +At this moment it is vain to discuss whether socialism will be a selling +of men's liberty for bread. The men have already sold the liberty; only +they have not yet got the bread. A most incessant and exacting +interference with the poor is already in operation; they are already +ruled like slaves, only they are not fed like slaves. The children are +forcibly provided with a school; only they are not provided with a +house. Officials give the most detailed domestic directions about the +fireguard; only they do not give the fireguard. Officials bring round +the most stringent directions about the milk; only they do not bring +round the milk. The situation is perhaps the most humorous in the whole +history of oppression. We force the nigger to dig; but as a concession +to him we do not give him a spade. We compel Sambo to cook; but we +consult his dignity so far as to refuse him a fire. + +This state of things at least cannot conceivably endure. We must either +give the workers more property and liberty, or we must feed them +properly as we work them properly. If we insist on sending the menu into +them, they will naturally send the bill into us. This may possibly +result (it is not my purpose here to prove that it will) in the drilling +of the English people into hordes of humanely herded serfs; and this +again may mean the fading from our consciousness of all those elves and +giants, monsters and fantastics whom we are faintly beginning to feel +and remember in the land. If this be so, the work of Dickens may be +considered as a great vision--a vision, as Swinburne said, between a +sleep and a sleep. It can be said that between the grey past of +territorial depression and the grey future of economic routine the +strange clouds lifted, and we beheld the land of the living. + +Lastly, Dickens is even astonishingly right about Eugene Wrayburne. So +far from reproaching him with not understanding a gentleman, the critic +will be astonished at the accuracy with which he has really observed the +worth and the weakness of the aristocrat. He is quite right when he +suggests that such a man has intelligence enough to despise the +invitations which he has not the energy to refuse. He is quite right +when he makes Eugene (like Mr. Balfour) constantly right in argument +even when he is obviously wrong in fact. Dickens is quite right when he +describes Eugene as capable of cultivating a sort of secondary and false +industry about anything that is not profitable; or pursuing with passion +anything that is not his business. He is quite right in making Eugene +honestly appreciative of essential goodness--in other people. He is +quite right in making him really good at the graceful combination of +satire and sentiment, both perfectly sincere. He is also right in +indicating that the only cure for this intellectual condition is a +violent blow on the head. + + +DAVID COPPERFIELD + +The real achievement of the earlier part of _David Copperfield_ lies in +a certain impression of the little Copperfield living in a land of +giants. It is at once Gargantuan in its fancy and grossly vivid in its +facts; like Gulliver in the land of Brobdingnag when he describes +mountainous hands and faces filling the sky, bristles as big as hedges, +or moles as big as molehills. To him parents and guardians are not +Olympians (as in Mr. Kenneth Grahame's clever book), mysterious and +dignified, dwelling upon a cloudy hill. Rather they are all the more +visible for being large. They come all the closer because they are +colossal. Their queer features and weaknesses stand out large in a sort +of gigantic domesticity, like the hairs and freckles of a +Brobdingnagian. We feel the sombre Murdstone coming upon the house like +a tall storm striding through the sky. We watch every pucker of +Peggotty's peasant face in its moods of flinty prejudice or whimsical +hesitation. We look up and feel that Aunt Betsey in her garden gloves +was really terrible--especially her garden gloves. But one cannot avoid +the impression that as the boy grows larger these figures grow smaller, +and are not perhaps so completely satisfactory. + + +CHRISTMAS BOOKS + +And there is doubtless a certain poetic unity and irony in gathering +together three or four of the crudest and most cocksure of the modern +theorists, with their shrill voices and metallic virtues, under the +fulness and the sonorous sanity of Christian bells. But the figures +satirised in _The Chimes_ cross each other's path and spoil each other +in some degree. The main purpose of the book was a protest against that +impudent and hard-hearted utilitarianism which arranges the people only +in rows of men or even in rows of figures. It is a flaming denunciation +of that strange mathematical morality which was twisted often unfairly +out of Bentham and Mill: a morality by which each citizen must regard +himself as a fraction, and a very vulgar fraction. Though the particular +form of this insolent patronage has changed, this revolt and rebuke is +still of value, and may be wholesome for those who are teaching the poor +to be provident. Doubtless it is a good idea to be provident, in the +sense that Providence is provident, but that should mean being kind, and +certainly not merely being cold. + +_The Cricket on the Hearth_, though popular, I think, with many sections +of the great army of Dickensians, cannot be spoken of in any such +abstract or serious terms. It is a brief domestic glimpse; it is an +interior. It must be remembered that Dickens was fond of interiors as +such; he was like a romantic tramp who should go from window to window +looking in at the parlours. He had that solid, indescribable delight in +the mere solidity and neatness of funny little humanity in its funny +little houses, like doll's houses. To him every house was a box, a +Christmas box, in which a dancing human doll was tied up in bricks and +slates instead of string and brown paper. He went from one gleaming +window to another, looking in at the lamp-lit parlours. Thus he stood +for a little while looking in at this cosy if commonplace interior of +the carrier and his wife; but he did not stand there very long. He was +on his way to quainter towns and villages. Already the plants were +sprouting upon the balcony of Miss Tox; and the great wind was rising +that flung Mr. Pecksniff against his own front door. + + +TALE OF TWO CITIES + +It was well for him, at any rate, that the people rose in France. It was +well for him, at any rate, that the guillotine was set up in the Place +de la Concorde. Unconsciously, but not accidentally, Dickens was here +working out the whole true comparison between swift revolutionism in +Paris and slow evolutionism in London. Sidney Carton is one of those +sublime ascetics whose head offends them, and who cut it off. For him at +least it was better that the blood should flow in Paris than that the +wine should flow any longer in London. And if I say that even now the +guillotine might be the best cure for many a London lawyer, I ask you to +believe that I am not merely flippant. But you will not believe it. + + +BARNABY RUDGE + +It may be said that there is no comparison between that explosive +opening of the intellect in Paris and an antiquated madman leading a +knot of provincial Protestants. The Man of the Hill, says Victor Hugo +somewhere, fights for an idea; the Man of the Forest for a prejudice. +Nevertheless it remains true that the enemies of the red cap long +attempted to represent it as a sham decoration in the style of Sim +Tappertit. Long after the revolutionists had shown more than the +qualities of men, it was common among lords and lacqueys to attribute to +them the stagey and piratical pretentiousness of urchins. The kings +called Napoleon's pistol a toy pistol even while it was holding up their +coach and mastering their money or their lives; they called his sword a +stage sword even while they ran away from it. Something of the same +senile inconsistency can be found in an English and American habit +common until recently: that of painting the South Americans at once as +ruffians wading in carnage, and also as poltroons playing at war. They +blame them first for the cruelty of having a fight; and then for the +weakness of having a sham fight. Such, however, since the French +Revolution and before it, has been the fatuous attitude of certain +Anglo-Saxons towards the whole revolutionary tradition. Sim Tappertit +was a sort of answer to everything; and the young men were mocked as +'prentices long after they were masters. The rising fortune of the South +American republics to-day is symbolical and even menacing of many +things; and it may be that the romance of riot will not be so much +extinguished as extended; and nearer home we may have boys being boys +again, and in London the cry of "clubs." + + +THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELLER + +_The Uncommercial Traveller_ is a collection of Dickens's memories +rather than of his literary purposes; but it is due to him to say that +memory is often more startling in him than prophecy in anybody else. +They have the character which belongs to all his vivid incidental +writing: that they attach themselves always to some text which is a fact +rather than an idea. He was one of those sons of Eve who are fonder of +the Tree of Life than of the Tree of Knowledge--even of the knowledge of +good and of evil. He was in this profoundest sense a realist. Critics +have talked of an artist with his eye on the object. Dickens as an +essayist always had his eye on an object before he had the faintest +notion of a subject. All these works of his can best be considered as +letters; they are notes of personal travel, scribbles in a diary about +this or that that really happened. But Dickens was one of the few men +who have the two talents that are the whole of literature--and have them +both together. First, he could make a thing happen over again; and +second, he could make it happen better. He can be called exaggerative; +but mere exaggeration conveys nothing of his typical talent. Mere +whirlwinds of words, mere melodramas of earth and heaven do not affect +us as Dickens affects us, because they are exaggerations of nothing. If +asked for an exaggeration of something, their inventors would be +entirely dumb. They would not know how to exaggerate a broom-stick; for +the life of them they could not exaggerate a tenpenny nail. Dickens +always began with the nail or the broom-stick. He always began with a +fact even when he was most fanciful; and even when he drew the long bow +he was careful to hit the white. + +This riotous realism of Dickens has its disadvantage--a disadvantage +that comes out more clearly in these casual sketches than in his +constructed romances. One grave defect in his greatness is that he was +altogether too indifferent to theories. On large matters he went right +by the very largeness of his mind; but in small matters he suffered from +the lack of any logical test and ready reckoner. Hence his comment upon +the details of civilisation or reform are sometimes apt to be jerky and +jarring, and even grossly inconsistent. So long as a thing was heroic +enough to admire, Dickens admired it; whenever it was absurd enough to +laugh at he laughed at it: so far he was on sure ground. But about all +the small human projects that lie between the extremes of the sublime +and the ridiculous, his criticism was apt to have an accidental quality. +As Matthew Arnold said of the remarks of the Young Man from the Country +about the perambulator, they are felt not to be at the heart of the +situation. On a great many occasions the Uncommercial Traveller seems, +like other hasty travellers, to be criticising elements and institutions +which he has quite inadequately understood; and once or twice the +Uncommercial Traveller might almost as well be a Commercial Traveller +for all he knows of the countryside. + +An instance of what I mean may be found in the amusing article about the +nightmares of the nursery. Superficially read it might almost be taken +to mean that Dickens disapproved of ghost stories--disapproved of that +old and genial horror which nurses can hardly supply fast enough for the +children who want it. Dickens, one would have thought, should have been +the last man in the world to object to horrible stories, having himself +written some of the most horrible that exist in the world. The author of +the Madman's Manuscript, of the disease of Monk and the death of Krook, +cannot be considered fastidious in the matter of revolting realism or of +revolting mysticism. If artistic horror is to be kept from the young, it +is at least as necessary to keep little boys from reading _Pickwick_ or +_Bleak House_ as to refrain from telling them the story of Captain +Murderer or the terrible tale of Chips. If there was something appalling +in the rhyme of Chips and pips and ships, it was nothing compared to +that infernal refrain of "Mudstains, bloodstains" which Dickens himself, +in one of his highest moments of hellish art, put into _Oliver Twist_. + +I take this one instance of the excellent article called "Nurse's +Stories" because it is quite typical of all the rest. Dickens (accused +of superficiality by those who cannot grasp that there is foam upon deep +seas) was really deep about human beings; that is, he was original and +creative about them. But about ideas he did tend to be a little +superficial. He judged them by whether they hit him, and not by what +they were trying to hit. Thus in this book the great wizard of the +Christmas ghosts seems almost the enemy of ghost stories; thus the +almost melodramatic moralist who created Ralph Nickleby and Jonas +Chuzzlewit cannot see the point in original sin; thus the great +denouncer of official oppression in England may be found far too +indulgent to the basest aspects of the modern police. His theories were +less important than his creations, because he was a man of genius. But +he himself thought his theories the more important, because he was a +man. + + + + +SKETCHES BY BOZ + + +The greatest mystery about almost any great writer is why he was ever +allowed to write at all. The first efforts of eminent men are always +imitations; and very often they are bad imitations. The only question is +whether the publisher had (as his name would seem to imply) some +subconscious connection or sympathy with the public, and thus felt +instinctively the presence of something that might ultimately tell; or +whether the choice was merely a matter of chance and one Dickens was +chosen and another Dickens left. The fact is almost unquestionable: most +authors made their reputation by bad books and afterwards supported it +by good ones. This is in some degree true even in the case of Dickens. +The public continued to call him "Boz" long after the public had +forgotten the _Sketches by Boz_. Numberless writers of the time speak of +"Boz" as having written _Martin Chuzzlewit_ and "Boz" as having written +_David Copperfield_. Yet if they had gone back to the original book +signed "Boz" they might even have felt that it was vulgar and flippant. +This is indeed the chief tragedy of publishers: that they may easily +refuse at the same moment the wrong manuscript and the right man. It is +easy to see of Dickens now that he was the right man; but a man might +have been very well excused if he had not realised that the _Sketches_ +was the right book. Dickens, I say, is a case for this primary query: +whether there was in the first work any clear sign of his higher +creative spirit. But Dickens is much less a case for this query than +almost all the other great men of his period. The very earliest works of +Thackeray are much more unimpressive than those of Dickens. Nay, they +are much more vulgar than those of Dickens. And worst of all, they are +much more numerous than those of Dickens. Thackeray came much nearer to +being the ordinary literary failure than Dickens ever came. Read some of +the earliest criticisms of Mr. Yellowplush or Michael Angelo Titmarsh +and you will realise that at the very beginning there was more potential +clumsiness and silliness in Thackeray than there ever was in Dickens. +Nevertheless there was some potential clumsiness and silliness in +Dickens; and what there is of it appears here and there in the admirable +_Sketches by Boz_. + +Perhaps we may put the matter this way: this is the only one of +Dickens's works of which it is ordinarily necessary to know the date. To +a close and delicate comprehension it is indeed very important that +_Nicholas Nickleby_ was written at the beginning of Dickens's life, and +_Our Mutual Friend_ towards the end of it. Nevertheless anybody could +understand or enjoy these books, whenever they were written. If _Our +Mutual Friend_ was written in the Latin of the Dark Ages we should still +want it translated. If we thought that _Nicholas Nickleby_ would not be +written until thirty years hence we should all wait for it eagerly. The +general impression produced by Dickens's work is the same as that +produced by miraculous visions; it is the destruction of time. Thomas +Aquinas said that there was no time in the sight of God; however this +may be, there was no time in the sight of Dickens. As a general rule +Dickens can be read in any order; not only in any order of books, but +even in any order of chapters. In an average Dickens book every part is +so amusing and alive that you can read the parts backwards; you can read +the quarrel first and then the cause of the quarrel; you can fall in +love with a woman in the tenth chapter and then turn back to the first +chapter to find out who she is. This is not chaos; it is eternity. It +means merely that Dickens instinctively felt all his figures to be +immortal souls who existed whether he wrote of them or not, and whether +the reader read of them or not. There is a peculiar quality as of +celestial pre-existence about the Dickens characters. Not only did they +exist before we heard of them, they existed also before Dickens heard of +them. As a rule this unchangeable air in Dickens deprives any discussion +about date of its point. But as I have said, this is the one Dickens +work of which the date _is_ essential. It is really an important part of +the criticism of this book to say that it is his first book. Certain +elements of clumsiness, of obviousness, of evident blunder, actually +require the chronological explanation. It is biographically important +that this is his first book, almost exactly in the same way that it is +biographically important that _The Mystery of Edwin Drood_ was his last +book. Change or no change, _Edwin Drood_ has this plain point of a last +story about it: that it is not finished. But if the last book is +unfinished, the first book is more unfinished still. + +The _Sketches_ divide themselves, of course, into two broad classes. One +half consists of sketches that are truly and in the strict sense +sketches. That is, they are things that have no story and in their +outline none of the character of creation; they are merely facts from +the street or the tavern or the town hall, noted down as they occurred +by an intelligence of quite exceptional vivacity. The second class +consists of purely creative things: farces, romances, stories in any +case with a non-natural perfection, or a poetical justice, to round them +off. One class is admirably represented, for instance, by the sketch +describing the Charity Dinner, the other by such a story as that of +_Horatio Sparkins_. These things were almost certainly written by +Dickens at very various periods of his youth; and early as the harvest +is, no doubt it is a harvest and had ripened during a reasonably long +time. Nevertheless it is with these two types of narrative that the +young Charles Dickens first enters English literature; he enters it with +a number of journalistic notes of such things as he has seen happen in +streets or offices, and with a number of short stories which err on the +side of the extravagant and even the superficial. Journalism had not +then, indeed, sunk to the low level which it has since reached. His +sketches of dirty London would not have been dirty enough for the modern +Imperialist press. Still these first efforts of his are journalism, and +sometimes vulgar journalism. It was as a journalist that he attacked the +world, as a journalist that he conquered it. + +The biographical circumstances will not, of course, be forgotten. The +life of Dickens had been a curious one. Brought up in a family just poor +enough to be painfully conscious of its prosperity and its +respectability, he had been suddenly flung by a financial calamity into +a social condition far below his own. For men on that exact edge of the +educated class such a transition is really tragic. A duke may become a +navvy for a joke, but a clerk cannot become a navvy for a joke. +Dickens's parents went to a debtors' prison; Dickens himself went to a +far more unpleasant place. The debtors' prison had about it at least +that element of amiable compromise and kindly decay which belonged (and +belongs still) to all the official institutions of England. But Dickens +was doomed to see the very blackest aspect of nineteenth-century +England, something far blacker than any mere bad government. He went not +to a prison but to a factory. In the musty traditionalism of the +Marshalsea old John Dickens could easily remain optimistic. In the +ferocious efficiency of the modern factory young Charles Dickens +narrowly escaped being a pessimist. He did escape this danger; finally +he even escaped the factory itself. His next step in life was, if +possible, even more eccentric. He was sent to school; he was sent off +like an innocent little boy in Eton collars to learn the rudiments of +Latin grammar, without any reference to the fact that he had already +taken his part in the horrible competition and actuality of the age of +manufactures. It was like giving a sacked bank manager a satchel and +sending him to a dame's school. Nor was the third stage of this career +unconnected with the oddity of the others. On leaving the school he was +made a clerk in a lawyer's office, as if henceforward this child of +ridiculous changes was to settle down into a silent assistant for a +quiet solicitor. It was exactly at this moment that his fundamental +rebellion began to seethe; it seethed more against the quiet finality of +his legal occupation than it had seethed against the squalor and slavery +of his days of poverty. There must have been in his mind, I think, a dim +feeling: "Did all my dark crises mean only this; was I crucified only +that I might become a solicitor's clerk?" Whatever be the truth about +this conjecture there can be no question about the facts themselves. It +was about this time that he began to burst and bubble over, to insist +upon his own intellect, to claim a career. It was about this time that +he put together a loose pile of papers, satires on institutions, +pictures of private persons, fairy tales of the vulgarity of his world, +odds and ends such as come out of the facility and the fierce vanity of +youth. It was about this time at any rate that he decided to publish +them, and gave them the name of _Sketches by Boz_. + +They must, I think, be read in the light of this youthful explosion. In +some psychological sense he had really been wronged. But he had only +become conscious of his wrongs as his wrongs had been gradually righted. +Similarly, it has often been found that a man who can patiently endure +penal servitude through a judicial blunder will nevertheless, when once +his cause is well asserted, quarrel about the amount of compensation or +complain of small slights in his professional existence. These are the +marks of the first literary action of Dickens. It has in it all the +peculiar hardness of youth; a hardness which in those who have in any +way been unfairly treated reaches even to impudence. It is a terrible +thing for any man to find out that his elders are wrong. And this +almost unkindly courage of youth must partly be held responsible for the +smartness of Dickens, that almost offensive smartness which in these +earlier books of his sometimes irritates us like the showy gibes in the +tall talk of a school-boy. These first pages bear witness both to the +energy of his genius and also to its unenlightenment; he seems more +ignorant and more cocksure than so great a man should be. Dickens was +never stupid, but he was sometimes silly; and he is occasionally silly +here. + +All this must be said to prepare the more fastidious modern for these +papers, if he has never read them before. But when all this has been +said there remains in them exactly what always remains in Dickens when +you have taken away everything that can be taken away by the most +fastidious modern who ever dissected his grandmother. There remains that +_primum mobile_ of which all the mystics have spoken: energy, the power +to create. I will not call it "the will to live," for that is a priggish +phrase of German professors. Even German professors, I suppose, have the +will to live. But Dickens had exactly what German professors have not: +he had the power to live. And indeed it is most valuable to have these +early specimens of the Dickens work if only because they are specimens +of his spirit apart from his matured intelligence. It is well to be able +to realise that contact with the Dickens world is almost like a physical +contact; it is like stepping suddenly into the hot smells of a +greenhouse, or into the bleak smell of the sea. We know that we are +there. Let any one read, for instance, one of the foolish but amusing +farces in Dickens's first volume. Let him read, for instance, such a +story as that of _Horatio Sparkins_ or that of _The Tuggses at +Ramsgate_. He will not find very much of that verbal felicity or +fantastic irony that Dickens afterwards developed; the incidents are +upon the plain lines of the stock comedy of the day: sharpers who entrap +simpletons, spinsters who angle for husbands, youths who try to look +Byronic and only look foolish. Yet there is something in these stories +which there is not in the ordinary stock comedies of that day: an +indefinable flavour of emphasis and richness, a hint as of infinity of +fun. Doubtless, for instance, a million comic writers of that epoch had +made game of the dark, romantic young man who pretended to abysses of +philosophy and despair. And it is not easy to say exactly why we feel +that the few metaphysical remarks of Mr. Horatio Sparkins are in some +way really much funnier than any of those old stock jokes. It is in a +certain quality of deep enjoyment in the writer as well as the reader; +as if the few words written had been dipped in dark nonsense and were, +as it were, reeking with derision. "Because if Effect be the result of +Cause and Cause be the Precursor of Effect," said Mr. Horatio Sparkins, +"I apprehend that you are wrong." Nobody can get at the real secret of +sentences like that; sentences which were afterwards strewed with +reckless liberality over the conversation of Dick Swiveller or Mr. +Mantalini, Sim Tappertit or Mr. Pecksniff. Though the joke seems most +superficial one has only to read it a certain number of times to see +that it is most subtle. The joke does not lie in Mr. Sparkins merely +using long words, any more than the joke lies merely in Mr. Swiveller +drinking, or in Mr. Mantalini deceiving his wife. It is something in +the arrangement of the words; something in a last inspired turn of +absurdity given to a sentence. In spite of everything Horatio Sparkins +is funny. We cannot tell why he is funny. When we know why he is funny +we shall know why Dickens is great. + +Standing as we do here upon the threshold, as it were, of the work of +Dickens, it may be well perhaps to state this truth as being, after all, +the most important one. This first work had, as I have said, the faults +of first work and the special faults that arose from its author's +accidental history; he was deprived of education, and therefore it was +in some ways uneducated; he was confronted with the folly and failure of +his natural superiors and guardians, and therefore it was in some ways +pert and insolent. Nevertheless the main fact about the work is worth +stating here for any reader who should follow the chronological order +and read the _Sketches by Boz_ before embarking on the stormy and +splendid sea of _Pickwick_. For the sea of _Pickwick_, though splendid, +does make some people seasick. The great point to be emphasised at such +an initiation is this: that people, especially refined people, are not +to judge of Dickens by what they would call the coarseness or +commonplaceness of his subject. It is quite true that his jokes are +often on the same _subjects_ as the jokes in a halfpenny comic paper. +Only they happen to be good jokes. He does make jokes about drunkenness, +jokes about mothers-in-law, jokes about henpecked husbands, jokes (which +is much more really unpardonable) about spinsters, jokes about physical +cowardice, jokes about fatness, jokes about sitting down on one's hat. +He does make fun of all these things; and the reason is not very far to +seek. He makes fun of all these things because all these things, or +nearly all of them, are really very funny. But a large number of those +who might otherwise read and enjoy Dickens are undoubtedly "put off" (as +the phrase goes) by the fact that he seems to be echoing a poor kind of +claptrap in his choice of incidents and images. Partly, of course, he +suffers from the very fact of his success; his play with these topics +was so good that every one else has played with them increasingly since; +he may indeed have copied the old jokes, but he certainly renewed them. +For instance, "Ally Sloper" was certainly copied from Wilkins Micawber. +To this day you may see (in the front page of that fine periodical) the +bald head and the high shirt collar that betray the high original from +which "Ally Sloper" is derived. But exactly because "Sloper" was stolen +from Micawber, for that very reason the new generation feels as if +Micawber were stolen from "Sloper." Many modern readers feel as if +Dickens were copying the comic papers, whereas in truth the comic papers +are still copying Dickens. + +Dickens showed himself to be an original man by always accepting old and +established topics. There is no clearer sign of the absence of +originality among modern poets than their disposition to find new +themes. Really original poets write poems about the spring. They are +always fresh, just as the spring is always fresh. Men wholly without +originality write poems about torture, or new religions, of some +perversion of obscenity, hoping that the mere sting of the subject may +speak for them. But we do not sufficiently realise that what is true of +the classic ode is also true of the classic joke. A true poet writes +about the spring being beautiful because (after a thousand springs) the +spring really is beautiful. In the same way the true humourist writes +about a man sitting down on his hat, because the act of sitting down on +one's hat (however often and however admirably performed) really is +extremely funny. We must not dismiss a new poet because his poem is +called _To a Skylark_; nor must we dismiss a humourist because his new +farce is called _My Mother-in-law_. He may really have splendid and +inspiring things to say upon an eternal problem. The whole question is +whether he has. + +Now this is exactly where Dickens, and the possible mistake about +Dickens, both come in. Numbers of sensitive ladies, numbers of simple +aesthetes, have had a vague shrinking from that element in Dickens which +begins vaguely in _The Tuggses at Ramsgate_ and culminates in +_Pickwick_. They have a vague shrinking from the mere subject matter; +from the mere fact that so much of the fun is about drinking or +fighting, or falling down, or eloping with old ladies. It is to these +that the first appeal must be made upon the threshold of Dickens +criticism. Let them really read the thing and really see whether the +humour is the gross and half-witted jeering which they imagine it to be. +It is exactly here that the whole genius of Dickens is concerned. His +subjects are indeed stock subjects; like the skylark of Shelley, or the +autumn of Keats. But all the more because they are stock subjects the +reader realises what a magician is at work. The notion of a clumsy +fellow who falls off his horse is indeed a stock and stale subject. But +Mr. Winkle is not a stock and stale subject. Nor is his horse a stock +and stale subject; it is as immortal as the horses of Achilles. The +notion of a fat old gentleman proud of his legs might easily be vulgar. +But Mr. Pickwick proud of his legs is not vulgar; somehow we feel that +they were legs to be proud of. And it is exactly this that we must look +for in these _Sketches_. We must not leap to any cheap fancy that they +are low farces. Rather we must see that they are not low farces; and see +that nobody but Dickens could have prevented them from being so. + + + + +PICKWICK PAPERS + + +There are those who deny with enthusiasm the existence of a God and are +happy in a hobby which they call the Mistakes of Moses. I have not +studied their labours in detail, but it seems that the chief mistake of +Moses was that he neglected to write the Pentateuch. The lesser errors, +apparently, were not made by Moses, but by another person equally +unknown. These controversialists cover the very widest field, and their +attacks upon Scripture are varied to the point of wildness. They range +from the proposition that the unexpurgated Bible is almost as unfit for +an American girls' school as is an unexpurgated Shakespeare; they +descend to the proposition that kissing the Book is almost as +hygienically dangerous as kissing the babies of the poor. A superficial +critic might well imagine that there was not one single sentence left of +the Hebrew or Christian Scriptures which this school had not marked with +some ingenious and uneducated comment. But there is one passage at least +upon which they have never pounced, at least to my knowledge; and in +pointing it out to them I feel that I am, or ought to be, providing +material for quite a multitude of Hyde Park orations. I mean that +singular arrangement in the mystical account of the Creation by which +light is created first and all the luminous bodies afterwards. One could +not imagine a process more open to the elephantine logic of the +Bible-smasher than this: that the sun should be created after the +sunlight. The conception that lies at the back of the phrase is indeed +profoundly antagonistic to much of the modern point of view. To many +modern people it would sound like saying that foliage existed before the +first leaf; it would sound like saying that childhood existed before a +baby was born. The idea is, as I have said, alien to most modern +thought, and like many other ideas which are alien to most modern +thought, it is a very subtle and a very sound idea. Whatever be the +meaning of the passage in the actual primeval poem, there is a very real +metaphysical meaning in the idea that light existed before the sun and +stars. It is not barbaric; it is rather Platonic. The idea existed +before any of the machinery which made manifest the idea. Justice +existed when there was no need of judges, and mercy existed before any +man was oppressed. + +However this may be in the matter of religion and philosophy, it can be +said with little exaggeration that this truth is the very key of +literature. The whole difference between construction and creation is +exactly this: that a thing constructed can only be loved after it is +constructed; but a thing created is loved before it exists, as the +mother can love the unborn child. In creative art the essence of a book +exists before the book or before even the details or main features of +the book; the author enjoys it and lives in it with a kind of prophetic +rapture. He wishes to write a comic story before he has thought of a +single comic incident. He desires to write a sad story before he has +thought of anything sad. He knows the atmosphere before he knows +anything. There is a low priggish maxim sometimes uttered by men so +frivolous as to take humour seriously--a maxim that a man should not +laugh at his own jokes. But the great artist not only laughs at his own +jokes; he laughs at his own jokes before he has made them. In the case +of a man really humorous we can see humour in his eye before he has +thought of any amusing words at all. So the creative writer laughs at +his comedy before he creates it, and he has tears for his tragedy before +he knows what it is. When the symbols and the fulfilling facts do come +to him, they come generally in a manner very fragmentary and inverted, +mostly in irrational glimpses of crisis or consummation. The last page +comes before the first; before his romance has begun, he knows that it +has ended well. He sees the wedding before the wooing; he sees the death +before the duel. But most of all he sees the colour and character of the +whole story prior to any possible events in it. This is the real +argument for art and style, only that the artists and the stylists have +not the sense to use it. In one very real sense style is far more +important than either character or narrative. For a man knows what style +of book he wants to write when he knows nothing else about it. + +_Pickwick_ is in Dickens's career the mere mass of light before the +creation of sun or moon. It is the splendid, shapeless substance of +which all his stars were ultimately made. You might split up _Pickwick_ +into innumerable novels as you could split up that primeval light into +innumerable solar systems. The _Pickwick Papers_ constitute first and +foremost a kind of wild promise, a pre-natal vision of all the children +of Dickens. He had not yet settled down into the plain, professional +habit of picking out a plot and characters, of attending to one thing at +a time, of writing a separate, sensible novel and sending it off to his +publishers. He is still in the youthful whirl of the kind of world that +he would like to create. He has not yet really settled what story he +will write, but only what sort of story he will write. He tries to tell +ten stories at once; he pours into the pot all the chaotic fancies and +crude experiences of his boyhood; he sticks in irrelevant short stories +shamelessly, as into a scrap-book; he adopts designs and abandons them, +begins episodes and leaves them unfinished; but from the first page to +the last there is a nameless and elemental ecstasy--that of the man who +is doing the kind of thing that he can do. Dickens, like every other +honest and effective writer, came at last to some degree of care and +self-restraint. He learned how to make his _dramatis personae_ assist his +drama; he learned how to write stories which were full of rambling and +perversity, but which were stories. But before he wrote a single real +story, he had a kind of vision. It was a vision of the Dickens world--a +maze of white roads, a map full of fantastic towns, thundering coaches, +clamorous market-places, uproarious inns, strange and swaggering +figures. That vision was _Pickwick_. + +It must be remembered that this is true even in connection with the +man's contemporaneous biography. Apart from anything else about it, +_Pickwick_ was his first great chance. It was a big commission given in +some sense to an untried man, that he might show what he could do. It +was in a strict sense a sample. And just as a sample of leather can be +only a piece of leather, or a sample of coal a lump of coal, so this +book may most properly be regarded as simply a lump of Dickens. He was +anxious to show all that was in him. He was more concerned to prove that +he could write well than to prove that he could write this particular +book well. And he did prove this, at any rate. No one ever sent such a +sample as the sample of Dickens. His roll of leather blocked up the +street; his lump of coal set the Thames on fire. + +The book originated in the suggestion of a publisher; as many more good +books have done than the arrogance of the man of letters is commonly +inclined to admit. Very much is said in our time about Apollo and +Admetus, and the impossibility of asking genius to work within +prescribed limits or assist an alien design. But after all, as a matter +of fact, some of the greatest geniuses have done it, from Shakespeare +botching up bad comedies and dramatising bad novels down to Dickens +writing a masterpiece as the mere framework for a Mr. Seymour's +sketches. Nor is the true explanation irrelevant to the spirit and power +of Dickens. Very delicate, slender, and _bizarre_ talents are indeed +incapable of being used for an outside purpose, whether of public good +or of private gain. But about very great and rich talent there goes a +certain disdainful generosity which can turn its hand to anything. Minor +poets cannot write to order; but very great poets can write to order. +The larger the man's mind, the wider his scope of vision, the more +likely it will be that anything suggested to him will seem significant +and promising; the more he has a grasp of everything the more ready he +will be to write anything. It is very hard (if that is the question) to +throw a brick at a man and ask him to write an epic; but the more he is +a great man the more able he will be to write about the brick. It is +very unjust (if that is all) to point to a hoarding of Colman's mustard +and demand a flood of philosophical eloquence; but the greater the man +is the more likely he will be to give it to you. So it was proved, not +for the first time, in this great experiment of the early employment of +Dickens. Messrs. Chapman and Hall came to him with a scheme for a string +of sporting stories to serve as the context, and one might almost say +the excuse, for a string of sketches by Seymour, the sporting artist. +Dickens made some modifications in the plan, but he adopted its main +feature; and its main feature was Mr. Winkle. To think of what Mr. +Winkle might have been in the hands of a dull _farceur_, and then to +think of what he is, is to experience the feeling that Dickens made a +man out of rags and refuse. Dickens was to work splendidly and +successfully in many fields, and to send forth many brilliant books and +brave figures. He was destined to have the applause of continents like a +statesman, and to dictate to his publishers like a despot; but perhaps +he never worked again so supremely well as here, where he worked in +chains. It may well be questioned whether his one hack book is not his +masterpiece. + +Of course it is true that as he went on his independence increased, and +he kicked quite free of the influences that had suggested his story. So +Shakespeare declared his independence of the original chronicle of +Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, eliminating altogether (with some wisdom) +another uncle called Wiglerus. At the start the Nimrod Club of Chapman +and Hall may have even had equal chances with the Pickwick Club of young +Mr. Dickens; but the Pickwick Club became something much better than any +publisher had dared to dream of. Some of the old links were indeed +severed by accident or extraneous trouble; Seymour, for whose sake the +whole had perhaps been planned, blew his brains out before he had drawn +ten pictures. But such things were trifles compared to _Pickwick_ +itself. It mattered little now whether Seymour blew his brains out, so +long as Charles Dickens blew his brains in. The work became +systematically and progressively more powerful and masterly. Many +critics have commented on the somewhat discordant and inartistic change +between the earlier part of _Pickwick_ and the later; they have pointed +out, not without good sense, that the character of Mr. Pickwick changes +from that of a silly buffoon to that of a solid merchant. But the case, +if these critics had noticed it, is much stronger in the minor +characters of the great company. Mr. Winkle, who has been an idiot +(even, perhaps, as Mr. Pickwick says, "an impostor"), suddenly becomes a +romantic and even reckless lover, scaling a forbidden wall and planning +a bold elopement. Mr. Snodgrass, who has behaved in a ridiculous manner +in all serious positions, suddenly finds himself in a ridiculous +position--that of a gentleman surprised in a secret love affair--and +behaves in a manner perfectly manly, serious, and honourable. Mr. +Tupman alone has no serious emotional development, and for this reason +it is, presumably, that we hear less and less of Mr. Tupman towards the +end of the book. Dickens has by this time got into a thoroughly serious +mood--a mood expressed indeed by extravagant incidents, but none the +less serious for that; and into this Winkle and Snodgrass, in the +character of romantic lovers, could be made to fit. Mr. Tupman had to be +left out of the love affairs; therefore Mr. Tupman is left out of the +book. + +Much of the change was due to the entrance of the greatest character in +the story. It may seem strange at the first glance to say that Sam +Weller helped to make the story serious. Nevertheless, this is strictly +true. The introduction of Sam Weller had, to begin with, some merely +accidental and superficial effects. When Samuel Weller had appeared, +Samuel Pickwick was no longer the chief farcical character. Weller +became the joker and Pickwick in some sense the butt of his jokes. Thus +it was obvious that the more simple, solemn, and really respectable this +butt could be made the better. Mr. Pickwick had been the figure capering +before the footlights. But with the advent of Sam, Mr. Pickwick had +become a sort of black background and had to behave as such. But this +explanation, though true as far as it goes, is a mean and unsatisfactory +one, leaving the great elements unexplained. For a much deeper and more +righteous reason Sam Weller introduces the more serious tone of +Pickwick. He introduces it because he introduces something which it was +the chief business of Dickens to preach throughout his life--something +which he never preached so well as when he preached it unconsciously. +Sam Weller introduces the English people. + +Sam Weller is the great symbol in English literature of the populace +peculiar to England. His incessant stream of sane nonsense is a +wonderful achievement of Dickens: but it is no great falsification of +the incessant stream of sane nonsense as it really exists among the +English poor. The English poor live in an atmosphere of humour; they +think in humour. Irony is the very air that they breathe. A joke comes +suddenly from time to time into the head of a politician or a gentleman, +and then as a rule he makes the most of it; but when a serious word +comes into the mind of a coster it is almost as startling as a joke. The +word "chaff" was, I suppose, originally applied to badinage to express +its barren and unsustaining character; but to the English poor chaff is +as sustaining as grain. The phrase that leaps to their lips is the +ironical phrase. I remember once being driven in a hansom cab down a +street that turned out to be a _cul de sac_, and brought us bang up +against a wall. The driver and I simultaneously said something. But I +said: "This'll never do!" and he said: "This is all right!" Even in the +act of pulling back his horse's nose from a brick wall, that confirmed +satirist thought in terms of his highly-trained and traditional satire; +while I, belonging to a duller and simpler class, expressed my feelings +in words as innocent and literal as those of a rustic or a child. + +This eternal output of divine derision has never been so truly typified +as by the character of Sam; he is a grotesque fountain which gushes the +living waters for ever. Dickens is accused of exaggeration and he is +often guilty of exaggeration; but here he does not exaggerate: he merely +symbolises and sublimates like any other great artist. Sam Weller does +not exaggerate the wit of the London street arab one atom more than +Colonel Newcome, let us say, exaggerates the stateliness of an ordinary +soldier and gentleman, or than Mr. Collins exaggerates the fatuity of a +certain kind of country clergyman. And this breath from the boisterous +brotherhood of the poor lent a special seriousness and smell of reality +to the whole story. The unconscious follies of Winkle and Tupman are +blown away like leaves before the solid and conscious folly of Sam +Weller. Moreover, the relations between Pickwick and his servant Sam are +in some ways new and valuable in literature. Many comic writers had +described the clever rascal and his ridiculous dupe; but here, in a +fresh and very human atmosphere, we have a clever servant who was not a +rascal and a dupe who was not ridiculous. Sam Weller stands in some ways +for a cheerful knowledge of the world; Mr. Pickwick stands for a still +more cheerful ignorance of the world. And Dickens responded to a +profound human sentiment (the sentiment that has made saints and the +sanctity of children) when he made the gentler and less-travelled +type--the type which moderates and controls. Knowledge and innocence are +both excellent things, and they are both very funny. But it is right +that knowledge should be the servant and innocence the master. + +The sincerity of this study of Sam Weller has produced one particular +effect in the book which I wonder that critics of Dickens have never +noticed or discussed. Because it has no Dickens "pathos," certain parts +of it are truly pathetic. Dickens, realising rightly that the whole tone +of the book was fun, felt that he ought to keep out of it any great +experiments in sadness and keep within limits those that he put in. He +used this restraint in order not to spoil the humour; but (if he had +known himself better) he might well have used it in order not to spoil +the pathos. This is the one book in which Dickens was, as it were, +forced to trample down his tender feelings; and for that very reason it +is the one book where all the tenderness there is is quite +unquestionably true. An admirable example of what I mean may be found in +the scene in which Sam Weller goes down to see his bereaved father after +the death of his step-mother. The most loyal admirer of Dickens can +hardly prevent himself from giving a slight shudder when he thinks of +what Dickens might have made of that scene in some of his more expansive +and maudlin moments. For all I know old Mrs. Weller might have asked +what the wild waves were saying; and for all I know old Mr. Weller might +have told her. As it is, Dickens, being forced to keep the tale taut and +humorous, gives a picture of humble respect and decency which is manly, +dignified, and really sad. There is no attempt made by these simple and +honest men, the father and son, to pretend that the dead woman was +anything greatly other than she was; their respect is for death, and for +the human weakness and mystery which it must finally cover. Old Tony +Weller does not tell his shrewish wife that she is already a +white-winged angel; he speaks to her with an admirable good nature and +good sense: + + "'Susan,' I says, 'you've been a wery good vife to me altogether: + keep a good heart, my dear, and you'll live to see me punch that + 'ere Stiggins's 'ead yet.' She smiled at this, Samivel ... but she + died arter all." + +That is perhaps the first and the last time that Dickens ever touched +the extreme dignity of pathos. He is restraining his compassion, and +afterwards he let it go. Now laughter is a thing that can be let go; +laughter has in it a quality of liberty. But sorrow has in it by its +very nature a quality of confinement; pathos by its very nature fights +with itself. Humour is expansive; it bursts outwards; the fact is +attested by the common expression, "holding one's sides." But sorrow is +not expansive; and it was afterwards the mistake of Dickens that he +tried to make it expansive. It is the one great weakness of Dickens as a +great writer, that he did try to make that sudden sadness, that abrupt +pity, which we call pathos, a thing quite obvious, infectious, public, +as if it were journalism or the measles. It is pleasant to think that in +this supreme masterpiece, done in the dawn of his career, there is not +even this faint fleck upon the sun of his just splendour. Pickwick will +always be remembered as the great example of everything that made +Dickens great; of the solemn conviviality of great friendships, of the +erratic adventures of old English roads, of the hospitality of old +English inns, of the great fundamental kindliness and honour of old +English manners. First of all, however, it will always be remembered for +its laughter, or, if you will, for its folly. A good joke is the one +ultimate and sacred thing which cannot be criticised. Our relations +with a good joke are direct and even divine relations. We speak of +"seeing" a joke just as we speak of "seeing" a ghost or a vision. If we +have seen it, it is futile to argue with us; and we have seen the vision +of _Pickwick_. _Pickwick_ may be the top of Dickens's humour; I think +upon the whole it is. But the broad humour of _Pickwick_ he broadened +over many wonderful kingdoms; the narrow pathos of _Pickwick_ he never +found again. + + + + +NICHOLAS NICKLEBY + + +Romance is perhaps the highest point of human expression, except indeed +religion, to which it is closely allied. Romance resembles religion +especially in this, that it is not only a simplification but a +shortening of existence. Both romance and religion see everything as it +were foreshortened; they see everything in an abrupt and fantastic +perspective, coming to an apex. It is the whole essence of perspective +that it comes to a point. Similarly, religion comes to a point--to the +point. Thus religion is always insisting on the shortness of human life. +But it does not insist on the shortness of human life as the pessimists +insist on it. Pessimism insists on the shortness of human life in order +to show that life is valueless. Religion insists on the shortness of +human life in order to show that life is frightfully valuable--is almost +horribly valuable. Pessimism says that life is so short that it gives +nobody a chance; religion says that life is so short that it gives +everybody his final chance. In the first case the word brevity means +futility; in the second case, opportunity. But the case is even stronger +than this. Religion shortens everything. Religion shortens even +eternity. Where science, submitting to the false standard of time, sees +evolution, which is slow, religion sees creation, which is sudden. +Philosophically speaking, the process is neither slow nor quick since +we have nothing to compare it with. Religion prefers to think of it as +quick. For religion the flowers shoot up suddenly like rockets. For +religion the mountains are lifted up suddenly like waves. Those who +quote that fine passage which says that in God's sight a thousand years +are as yesterday that is passed as a watch in the night, do not realise +the full force of the meaning. To God a thousand years are not only a +watch but an exciting watch. For God time goes at a gallop, as it does +to a man reading a good tale. + +All this is, in a humble manner, true for romance. Romance is a +shortening and sharpening of the human difficulty. Where you and I have +to vote against a man, or write (rather feebly) against a man, or sign +illegible petitions against a man, romance does for him what we should +really like to see done. It knocks him down; it shortens the slow +process of historical justice. All romances consist of three characters. +Other characters may be introduced; but those other characters are +certainly mere scenery as far as the romance is concerned. They are +bushes that wave rather excitedly; they are posts that stand up with a +certain pride; they are correctly painted rocks that frown very +correctly; but they are all landscape--they are all a background. In +every pure romance there are three living and moving characters. For the +sake of argument they may be called St. George and the Dragon and the +Princess. In every romance there must be the twin elements of loving and +fighting. In every romance there must be the three characters: there +must be the Princess, who is a thing to be loved; there must be the +Dragon, who is a thing to be fought; and there must be St. George, who +is a thing that both loves and fights. There have been many symptoms of +cynicism and decay in our modern civilisation. But of all the signs of +modern feebleness, of lack of grasp on morals as they actually must be, +there has been none quite so silly or so dangerous as this: that the +philosophers of to-day have started to divide loving from fighting and +to put them into opposite camps. There could be no worse sign than that +a man, even Nietzsche, can be found to say that we should go in for +fighting instead of loving. There can be no worse sign than that a man, +even Tolstoi, can be found to tell us that we should go in for loving +instead of fighting. The two things imply each other; they implied each +other in the old romance and in the old religion, which were the two +permanent things of humanity. You cannot love a thing without wanting to +fight for it. You cannot fight without something to fight for. To love a +thing without wishing to fight for it is not love at all; it is lust. It +may be an airy, philosophical, and disinterested lust; it may be, so to +speak, a virgin lust; but it is lust, because it is wholly +self-indulgent and invites no attack. On the other hand, fighting for a +thing without loving it is not even fighting; it can only be called a +kind of horse-play that is occasionally fatal. Wherever human nature is +human and unspoilt by any special sophistry, there exists this natural +kinship between war and wooing, and that natural kinship is called +romance. It comes upon a man especially in the great hour of youth; and +every man who has ever been young at all has felt, if only for a moment, +this ultimate and poetic paradox. He knows that loving the world is the +same thing as fighting the world. It was at the very moment when he +offered to like everybody he also offered to hit everybody. To almost +every man that can be called a man this especial moment of the romantic +culmination has come. In the first resort the man wished to live a +romance. In the second resort, in the last and worst resort, he was +content to write one. + +Now there is a certain moment when this element enters independently +into the life of Dickens. There is a particular time when we can see him +suddenly realise that he wants to write a romance and nothing else. In +reading his letters, in appreciating his character, this point emerges +clearly enough. He was full of the afterglow of his marriage; he was +still young and psychologically ignorant; above all, he was now, really +for the first time, sure that he was going to be at least some kind of +success. There is, I repeat, a certain point at which one feels that +Dickens will either begin to write romances or go off on something +different altogether. This crucial point in his life is marked by +_Nicholas Nickleby_. + +It must be remembered that before this issue of _Nicholas Nickleby_ his +work, successful as it was, had not been such as to dedicate him +seriously or irrevocably to the writing of novels. He had already +written three books; and at least two of them are classed among the +novels under his name. But if we look at the actual origin and formation +of these books we see that they came from another source and were really +designed upon another plan. The three books were, of course, the +_Sketches by Boz_, _the Pickwick Papers_, and _Oliver Twist_. It is, I +suppose, sufficiently well understood that the _Sketches by Boz_ are, as +their name implies, only sketches. But surely it is quite equally clear +that the _Pickwick Papers_ are, as their name implies, merely papers. +Nor is the case at all different in spirit and essence when we come to +_Oliver Twist_. There is indeed a sort of romance in _Oliver Twist_, but +it is such an uncommonly bad one that it can hardly be regarded as +greatly interrupting the previous process; and if the reader chooses to +pay very little attention to it, he cannot pay less attention to it than +the author did. But in fact the case lies far deeper. _Oliver Twist_ is +so much apart from the ordinary track of Dickens, it is so gloomy, it is +so much all in one atmosphere, that it can best be considered as an +exception or a solitary excursus in his work. Perhaps it can best be +considered as the extension of one of his old sketches, of some sketch +that happened to be about a visit to a workhouse or a gaol. In the +_Sketches by Boz_ he might well have visited a workhouse where he saw +Bumble; in the _Sketches by Boz_ he might well have visited a prison +where he saw Fagin. We are still in the realm of sketches and +sketchiness. _The Pickwick Papers_ may be called an extension of one of +his bright sketches. _Oliver Twist_ may be called an extension of one of +his gloomy ones. + +Had he continued along this line all his books might very well have been +note-books. It would be very easy to split up all his subsequent books +into scraps and episodes, such as those which make up the _Sketches by +Boz_. It would be easy enough for Dickens, instead of publishing +_Nicholas Nickleby_, to have published a book of sketches, one of which +was called "A Yorkshire School," another called "A Provincial Theatre," +and another called "Sir Mulberry Hawk or High Life Revealed," another +called "Mrs. Nickleby or a Lady's Monologue." It would have been very +easy to have thrown over the rather chaotic plan of the _Old Curiosity +Shop_. He might have merely written short stories called "The Glorious +Apollos," "Mrs. Quilp's Tea-Party," "Mrs. Jarley's Waxwork," "The Little +Servant," and "The Death of a Dwarf." _Martin Chuzzlewit_ might have +been twenty stories instead of one story. _Dombey and Son_ might have +been twenty stories instead of one story. We might have lost all +Dickens's novels; we might have lost altogether Dickens the novelist. We +might have lost that steady love of a seminal and growing romance which +grew on him steadily as the years advanced, and which gave us towards +the end some of his greatest triumphs. All his books might have been +_Sketches by Boz_. But he did turn away from this, and the turning-point +is _Nicholas Nickleby_. + +Everything has a supreme moment and is crucial; that is where our +friends the evolutionists go wrong. I suppose that there is an instant +of midsummer as there is an instant of midnight. If in the same way +there is a supreme point of spring, _Nicholas Nickleby_ is the supreme +point of Dickens's spring. I do not mean that it is the best book that +he wrote in his youth. _Pickwick_ is a better book. I do not mean that +it contains more striking characters than any of the other books in his +youth. The _Old Curiosity Shop_ contains at least two more striking +characters. But I mean that this book coincided with his resolution to +be a great novelist and his final belief that he could be one. +Henceforward his books are novels, very commonly bad novels. Previously +they have not really been novels at all. There are many indications of +the change I mean. Here is one, for instance, which is more or less +final. _Nicholas Nickleby_ is Dickens's first romantic novel because it +is his first novel with a proper and dignified romantic hero; which +means, of course, a somewhat chivalrous young donkey. The hero of +_Pickwick_ is an old man. The hero of _Oliver Twist_ is a child. Even +after _Nicholas Nickleby_ this non-romantic custom continued. The _Old +Curiosity Shop_ has no hero in particular. The hero of _Barnaby Rudge_ +is a lunatic. But Nicholas Nickleby is a proper, formal, and ceremonial +hero. He has no psychology; he has not even any particular character; +but he is made deliberately a hero--young, poor, brave, unimpeachable, +and ultimately triumphant. He is, in short, the hero. Mr. Vincent +Crummles had a colossal intellect; and I always have a fancy that under +all his pomposity he saw things more keenly than he allowed others to +see. The moment he saw Nicholas Nickleby, almost in rags and limping +along the high road, he engaged him (you will remember) as first walking +gentleman. He was right. Nobody could possibly be more of a first +walking gentleman than Nicholas Nickleby was. He was the first walking +gentleman before he went on to the boards of Mr. Vincent Crummles's +theatre, and he remained the first walking gentleman after he had come +off. + +Now this romantic method involves a certain element of climax which to +us appears crudity. Nicholas Nickleby, for instance, wanders through the +world; he takes a situation as assistant to a Yorkshire schoolmaster; +he sees an act of tyranny of which he strongly disapproves; he cries out +"Stop!" in a voice that makes the rafters ring; he thrashes the +schoolmaster within an inch of his life; he throws the schoolmaster away +like an old cigar, and he goes away. The modern intellect is positively +prostrated and flattened by this rapid and romantic way of righting +wrongs. If a modern philanthropist came to Dotheboys Hall I fear he +would not employ the simple, sacred, and truly Christian solution of +beating Mr. Squeers with a stick. I fancy he would petition the +Government to appoint a Royal Commission to inquire into Mr. Squeers. I +think he would every now and then write letters to newspapers reminding +people that, in spite of all appearances to the contrary, there was a +Royal Commission to inquire into Mr. Squeers. I agree that he might even +go the length of calling a crowded meeting in St. James's Hall on the +subject of the best policy with regard to Mr. Squeers. At this meeting +some very heated and daring speakers might even go the length of +alluding sternly to Mr. Squeers. Occasionally even hoarse voices from +the back of the hall might ask (in vain) what was going to be done with +Mr. Squeers. The Royal Commission would report about three years +afterwards and would say that many things had happened which were +certainly most regrettable; that Mr. Squeers was the victim of a bad +system; that Mrs. Squeers was also the victim of a bad system; but that +the man who sold Squeers his cane had really acted with great +indiscretion and ought to be spoken to kindly. Something like this would +be what, after four years, the Royal Commission would have said; but it +would not matter in the least what the Royal Commission had said, for by +that time the philanthropists would be off on a new tack and the world +would have forgotten all about Dotheboys Hall and everything connected +with it. By that time the philanthropists would be petitioning +Parliament for another Royal Commission; perhaps a Royal Commission to +inquire into whether Mr. Mantalini was extravagant with his wife's +money; perhaps a commission to inquire into whether Mr. Vincent Crummles +kept the Infant Phenomenon short by means of gin. + +If we wish to understand the spirit and the period of _Nicholas +Nickleby_ we must endeavour to comprehend and to appreciate the old more +decisive remedies, or, if we prefer to put it so, the old more desperate +remedies. Our fathers had a plain sort of pity; if you will, a gross and +coarse pity. They had their own sort of sentimentalism. They were quite +willing to weep over Smike. But it certainly never occurred to them to +weep over Squeers. Even those who opposed the French war opposed it +exactly in the same way as their enemies opposed the French soldiers. +They fought with fighting. Charles Fox was full of horror at the +bitterness and the useless bloodshed; but if any one had insulted him +over the matter, he would have gone out and shot him in a duel as coolly +as any of his contemporaries. All their interference was heroic +interference. All their legislation was heroic legislation. All their +remedies were heroic remedies. No doubt they were often narrow and often +visionary. No doubt they often looked at a political formula when they +should have looked at an elemental fact. No doubt they were pedantic in +some of their principles and clumsy in some of their solutions. No +doubt, in short, they were all very wrong; and no doubt we are the +people, and wisdom shall die with us. But when they saw something which +in their eyes, such as they were, really violated their morality, such +as it was, then they did not cry "Investigate!" They did not cry +"Educate!" They did not cry "Improve!" They did not cry "Evolve!" Like +Nicholas Nickleby they cried "Stop!" And it did stop. + +This is the first mark of the purely romantic method: the swiftness and +simplicity with which St. George kills the dragon. The second mark of it +is exhibited here as one of the weaknesses of _Nicholas Nickleby_. I +mean the tendency in the purely romantic story to regard the heroine +merely as something to be won; to regard the princess solely as +something to be saved from the dragon. The father of Madeline Bray is +really a very respectable dragon. His selfishness is suggested with much +more psychological tact and truth than that of any other of the villains +that Dickens described about this time. But his daughter is merely the +young woman with whom Nicholas is in love. We do not care a rap about +Madeline Bray. Personally I should have preferred Cecilia Bobster. Here +is one real point where the Victorian romance falls below the +Elizabethan romantic drama. Shakespeare always made his heroines heroic +as well as his heroes. + +In Dickens's actual literary career it is this romantic quality in +_Nicholas Nickleby_ that is most important. It is his first definite +attempt to write a young and chivalrous novel. In this sense the comic +characters and the comic scenes are secondary; and indeed the comic +characters and the comic scenes, admirable as they are, could never be +considered as in themselves superior to such characters and such scenes +in many of the other books. But in themselves how unforgettable they +are. Mr. Crummles and the whole of his theatrical business is an +admirable case of that first and most splendid quality in Dickens--I +mean the art of making something which in life we call pompous and dull, +becoming in literature pompous and delightful. I have remarked before +that nearly every one of the amusing characters of Dickens is in reality +a great fool. But I might go further. Almost every one of his amusing +characters is in reality a great bore. The very people that we fly to in +Dickens are the very people that we fly from in life. And there is more +in Crummles than the mere entertainment of his solemnity and his tedium. +The enormous seriousness with which he takes his art is always an exact +touch in regard to the unsuccessful artist. If an artist is successful, +everything then depends upon a dilemma of his moral character. If he is +a mean artist success will make him a society man. If he is a +magnanimous artist, success will make him an ordinary man. But only as +long as he is unsuccessful will he be an unfathomable and serious +artist, like Mr. Crummles. Dickens was always particularly good at +expressing thus the treasures that belong to those who do not succeed in +this world. There are vast prospects and splendid songs in the point of +view of the typically unsuccessful man; if all the used-up actors and +spoilt journalists and broken clerks could give a chorus, it would be a +wonderful chorus in praise of the world. But these unsuccessful men +commonly cannot even speak. Dickens is the voice of them, and a very +ringing voice; because he was perhaps the only one of these unsuccessful +men that was ever successful. + + + + +OLIVER TWIST + + +In considering Dickens, as we almost always must consider him, as a man +of rich originality, we may possibly miss the forces from which he drew +even his original energy. It is not well for man to be alone. We, in the +modern world, are ready enough to admit that when it is applied to some +problem of monasticism or of an ecstatic life. But we will not admit +that our modern artistic claim to absolute originality is really a claim +to absolute unsociability; a claim to absolute loneliness. The anarchist +is at least as solitary as the ascetic. And the men of very vivid vigour +in literature, the men such as Dickens, have generally displayed a large +sociability towards the society of letters, always expressed in the +happy pursuit of pre-existent themes, sometimes expressed, as in the +case of Moliere or Sterne, in downright plagiarism. For even theft is a +confession of our dependence on society. In Dickens, however, this +element of the original foundations on which he worked is quite +especially difficult to determine. This is partly due to the fact that +for the present reading public he is practically the only one of his +long line that is read at all. He sums up Smollett and Goldsmith, but he +also destroys them. This one giant, being closest to us, cuts off from +our view even the giants that begat him. But much more is this +difficulty due to the fact that Dickens mixed up with the old material, +materials so subtly modern, so made of the French Revolution, that the +whole is transformed. If we want the best example of this, the best +example is _Oliver Twist_. + +Relatively to the other works of Dickens _Oliver Twist_ is not of great +value, but it is of great importance. Some parts of it are so crude and +of so clumsy a melodrama, that one is almost tempted to say that Dickens +would have been greater without it. But even if he had been greater +without it he would still have been incomplete without it. With the +exception of some gorgeous passages, both of humour and horror, the +interest of the book lies not so much in its revelation of Dickens's +literary genius as in its revelation of those moral, personal, and +political instincts which were the make-up of his character and the +permanent support of that literary genius. It is by far the most +depressing of all his books; it is in some ways the most irritating; yet +its ugliness gives the last touch of honesty to all that spontaneous and +splendid output. Without this one discordant note all his merriment +might have seemed like levity. + +Dickens had just appeared upon the stage and set the whole world +laughing with his first great story _Pickwick_. _Oliver Twist_ was his +encore. It was the second opportunity given to him by those who had +rolled about with laughter over Tupman and Jingle, Weller and Dowler. +Under such circumstances a stagey reciter will sometimes take care to +give a pathetic piece after his humorous one; and with all his many +moral merits, there was much that was stagey about Dickens. But this +explanation alone is altogether inadequate and unworthy. There was in +Dickens this other kind of energy, horrible, uncanny, barbaric, capable +in another age of coarseness, greedy for the emblems of established +ugliness, the coffin, the gibbet, the bones, the bloody knife. Dickens +liked these things and he was all the more of a man for liking them; +especially he was all the more of a boy. We can all recall with pleasure +the fact that Miss Petowker (afterwards Mrs. Lillyvick) was in the habit +of reciting a poem called "The Blood Drinker's Burial." I cannot express +my regret that the words of this poem are not given; for Dickens would +have been quite as capable of writing "The Blood Drinker's Burial" as +Miss Petowker was of reciting it. This strain existed in Dickens +alongside of his happy laughter; both were allied to the same robust +romance. Here as elsewhere Dickens is close to all the permanent human +things. He is close to religion, which has never allowed the thousand +devils on its churches to stop the dancing of its bells. He is allied to +the people, to the real poor, who love nothing so much as to take a +cheerful glass and to talk about funerals. The extremes of his gloom and +gaiety are the mark of religion and democracy; they mark him off from +the moderate happiness of philosophers, and from that stoicism which is +the virtue and the creed of aristocrats. There is nothing odd in the +fact that the same man who conceived the humane hospitalities of +Pickwick should also have imagined the inhuman laughter of Fagin's den. +They are both genuine and they are both exaggerated. And the whole human +tradition has tied up together in a strange knot these strands of +festivity and fear. It is over the cups of Christmas Eve that men have +always competed in telling ghost stories. + +This first element was present in Dickens, and it is very powerfully +present in _Oliver Twist_. It had not been present with sufficient +consistency or continuity in _Pickwick_ to make it remain on the +reader's memory at all, for the tale of "Gabriel Grubb" is grotesque +rather than horrible, and the two gloomy stories of the "Madman" and the +"Queer Client" are so utterly irrelevant to the tale, that even if the +reader remember them he probably does not remember that they occur in +_Pickwick_. Critics have complained of Shakespeare and others for +putting comic episodes into a tragedy. It required a man with the +courage and coarseness of Dickens actually to put tragic episodes into a +farce. But they are not caught up into the story at all. In _Oliver +Twist_, however, the thing broke out with an almost brutal inspiration, +and those who had fallen in love with Dickens for his generous +buffoonery may very likely have been startled at receiving such very +different fare at the next helping. When you have bought a man's book +because you like his writing about Mr. Wardle's punch-bowl and Mr. +Winkle's skates, it may very well be surprising to open it and read +about the sickening thuds that beat out the life of Nancy, or that +mysterious villain whose face was blasted with disease. + +As a nightmare, the work is really admirable. Characters which are not +very clearly conceived as regards their own psychology are yet, at +certain moments, managed so as to shake to its foundations our own +psychology. Bill Sikes is not exactly a real man, but for all that he is +a real murderer. Nancy is not really impressive as a living woman; but +(as the phrase goes) she makes a lovely corpse. Something quite childish +and eternal in us, something which is shocked with the mere simplicity +of death, quivers when we read of those repeated blows or see Sikes +cursing the tell-tale cur who will follow his bloody foot-prints. And +this strange, sublime, vulgar melodrama, which is melodrama and yet is +painfully real, reaches its hideous height in that fine scene of the +death of Sikes, the besieged house, the boy screaming within, the crowd +screaming without, the murderer turned almost a maniac and dragging his +victim uselessly up and down the room, the escape over the roof, the +rope swiftly running taut, and death sudden, startling and symbolic; a +man hanged. There is in this and similar scenes something of the quality +of Hogarth and many other English moralists of the early eighteenth +century. It is not easy to define this Hogarthian quality in words, +beyond saying that it is a sort of alphabetical realism, like the cruel +candour of children. But it has about it these two special principles +which separate it from all that we call realism in our time. First, that +with us a moral story means a story about moral people; with them a +moral story meant more often a story about immoral people. Second, that +with us realism is always associated with some subtle view of morals; +with them realism was always associated with some simple view of morals. +The end of Bill Sikes exactly in the way that the law would have killed +him--this is a Hogarthian incident; it carries on that tradition of +startling and shocking platitude. + +All this element in the book was a sincere thing in the author, but none +the less it came from old soils, from the graveyard and the gallows, and +the lane where the ghost walked. Dickens was always attracted to such +things, and (as Forster says with inimitable simplicity) "but for his +strong sense might have fallen into the follies of spiritualism." As a +matter of fact, like most of the men of strong sense in his tradition, +Dickens was left with a half belief in spirits which became in practice +a belief in bad spirits. The great disadvantage of those who have too +much strong sense to believe in supernaturalism is that they keep last +the low and little forms of the supernatural, such as omens, curses, +spectres, and retributions, but find a high and happy supernaturalism +quite incredible. Thus the Puritans denied the sacraments, but went on +burning witches. This shadow does rest, to some extent, upon the +rational English writers like Dickens; supernaturalism was dying, but +its ugliest roots died last. Dickens would have found it easier to +believe in a ghost than in a vision of the Virgin with angels. There, +for good or evil, however, was the root of the old _diablerie_ in +Dickens, and there it is in _Oliver Twist_. But this was only the first +of the new Dickens elements, which must have surprised those Dickensians +who eagerly bought his second book. The second of the new Dickens +elements is equally indisputable and separate. It swelled afterwards to +enormous proportions in Dickens's work; but it really has its rise here. +Again, as in the case of the element of _diablerie_, it would be +possible to make technical exceptions in favour of _Pickwick_. Just as +there were quite inappropriate scraps of the gruesome element in +_Pickwick_, so there are quite inappropriate allusions to this other +topic in _Pickwick_. But nobody by merely reading _Pickwick_ would even +remember this topic; no one by merely reading _Pickwick_ would know what +this topic is; this third great subject of Dickens; this second great +subject of the Dickens of _Oliver Twist_. + +This subject is social oppression. It is surely fair to say that no one +could have gathered from _Pickwick_ how this question boiled in the +blood of the author of _Pickwick_. There are, indeed, passages, +particularly in connection with Mr. Pickwick in the debtor's prison, +which prove to us, looking back on a whole public career, that Dickens +had been from the beginning bitter and inquisitive about the problem of +our civilisation. No one could have imagined at the time that this +bitterness ran in an unbroken river under all the surges of that superb +gaiety and exuberance. With _Oliver Twist_ this sterner side of Dickens +was suddenly revealed. For the very first pages of _Oliver Twist_ are +stern even when they are funny. They amuse, but they cannot be enjoyed, +as can the passages about the follies of Mr. Snodgrass or the +humiliations of Mr. Winkle. The difference between the old easy humour +and this new harsh humour is a difference not of degree but of kind. +Dickens makes game of Mr. Bumble because he wants to kill Mr. Bumble; he +made game of Mr. Winkle because he wanted him to live for ever. Dickens +has taken the sword in hand; against what is he declaring war? + +It is just here that the greatness of Dickens comes in; it is just here +that the difference lies between the pedant and the poet. Dickens enters +the social and political war, and the first stroke he deals is not only +significant but even startling. Fully to see this we must appreciate the +national situation. It was an age of reform, and even of radical reform; +the world was full of radicals and reformers; but only too many of them +took the line of attacking everything and anything that was opposed to +some particular theory among the many political theories that possessed +the end of the eighteenth century. Some had so much perfected the +perfect theory of republicanism that they almost lay awake at night +because Queen Victoria had a crown on her head. Others were so certain +that mankind had hitherto been merely strangled in the bonds of the +State that they saw truth only in the destruction of tariffs or of +by-laws. The greater part of that generation held that clearness, +economy, and a hard common-sense, would soon destroy the errors that had +been erected by the superstitions and sentimentalities of the past. In +pursuance of this idea many of the new men of the new century, quite +confident that they were invigorating the new age, sought to destroy the +old sentimental clericalism, the old sentimental feudalism, the +old-world belief in priests, the old-world belief in patrons, and among +other things the old-world belief in beggars. They sought among other +things to clear away the old visionary kindliness on the subject of +vagrants. Hence those reformers enacted not only a new reform bill but +also a new poor law. In creating many other modern things they created +the modern workhouse, and when Dickens came out to fight it was the +first thing that he broke with his battle-axe. + +This is where Dickens's social revolt is of more value than mere +politics and avoids the vulgarity of the novel with a purpose. His +revolt is not a revolt of the commercialist against the feudalist, of +the Nonconformist against the Churchman, of the Free-trader against the +Protectionist, of the Liberal against the Tory. If he were among us now +his revolt would not be the revolt of the Socialist against the +Individualist, or of the Anarchist against the Socialist. His revolt was +simply and solely the eternal revolt; it was the revolt of the weak +against the strong. He did not dislike this or that argument for +oppression; he disliked oppression. He disliked a certain look on the +face of a man when he looks down on another man. And that look on the +face is, indeed, the only thing in the world that we have really to +fight between here and the fires of Hell. That which pedants of that +time and this time would have called the sentimentalism of Dickens was +really simply the detached sanity of Dickens. He cared nothing for the +fugitive explanations of the Constitutional Conservatives; he cared +nothing for the fugitive explanations of the Manchester School. He would +have cared quite as little for the fugitive explanations of the Fabian +Society or of the modern scientific Socialist. He saw that under many +forms there was one fact, the tyranny of man over man; and he struck at +it when he saw it, whether it was old or new. When he found that footmen +and rustics were too much afraid of Sir Leicester Dedlock, he attacked +Sir Leicester Dedlock; he did not care whether Sir Leicester Dedlock +said he was attacking England or whether Mr. Rouncewell, the +Ironmaster, said he was attacking an effete oligarchy. In that case he +pleased Mr. Rouncewell, the Iron-master, and displeased Sir Leicester +Dedlock, the Aristocrat. But when he found that Mr. Rouncewell's workmen +were much too frightened of Mr. Rouncewell, then he displeased Mr. +Rouncewell in turn; he displeased Mr. Rouncewell very much by calling +him Mr. Bounderby. When he imagined himself to be fighting old laws he +gave a sort of vague and general approval to new laws. But when he came +to the new laws they had a bad time. When Dickens found that after a +hundred economic arguments and granting a hundred economic +considerations, the fact remained that paupers in modern workhouses were +much too afraid of the beadle, just as vassals in ancient castles were +much too afraid of the Dedlocks, then he struck suddenly and at once. +This is what makes the opening chapters of _Oliver Twist_ so curious and +important. The very fact of Dickens's distance from, and independence +of, the elaborate financial arguments of his time, makes more definite +and dazzling his sudden assertion that he sees the old human tyranny in +front of him as plain as the sun at noon-day. Dickens attacks the modern +workhouse with a sort of inspired simplicity as of a boy in a fairy tale +who had wandered about, sword in hand, looking for ogres and who had +found an indisputable ogre. All the other people of his time are +attacking things because they are bad economics or because they are bad +politics, or because they are bad science; he alone is attacking things +because they are bad. All the others are Radicals with a large R; he +alone is radical with a small one. He encounters evil with that +beautiful surprise which, as it is the beginning of all real pleasure, +is also the beginning of all righteous indignation. He enters the +workhouse just as Oliver Twist enters it, as a little child. + +This is the real power and pathos of that celebrated passage in the book +which has passed into a proverb; but which has not lost its terrible +humour even in being hackneyed. I mean, of course, the everlasting +quotation about Oliver Twist asking for more. The real poignancy that +there is in this idea is a very good study in that strong school of +social criticism which Dickens represented. A modern realist describing +the dreary workhouse would have made all the children utterly crushed, +not daring to speak at all, not expecting anything, not hoping anything, +past all possibility of affording even an ironical contrast or a protest +of despair. A modern, in short, would have made all the boys in the +workhouse pathetic by making them all pessimists. But Oliver Twist is +not pathetic because he is a pessimist. Oliver Twist is pathetic because +he is an optimist. The whole tragedy of that incident is in the fact +that he does expect the universe to be kind to him, that he does believe +that he is living in a just world. He comes before the Guardians as the +ragged peasants of the French Revolution came before the Kings and +Parliaments of Europe. That is to say, he comes, indeed, with gloomy +experiences, but he comes with a happy philosophy. He knows that there +are wrongs of man to be reviled; but he believes also that there are +rights of man to be demanded. It has often been remarked as a singular +fact that the French poor, who stand in historic tradition as typical +of all the desperate men who have dragged down tyranny, were, as a +matter of fact, by no means worse off than the poor of many other +European countries before the Revolution. The truth is that the French +were tragic because they were better off. The others had known the +sorrowful experiences; but they alone had known the splendid expectation +and the original claims. It was just here that Dickens was so true a +child of them and of that happy theory so bitterly applied. They were +the one oppressed people that simply asked for justice; they were the +one Parish Boy who innocently asked for more. + + + + +OLD CURIOSITY SHOP + + +Nothing is important except the fate of the soul; and literature is only +redeemed from an utter triviality, surpassing that of naughts and +crosses, by the fact that it describes not the world around us or the +things on the retina of the eye or the enormous irrelevancy of +encyclopaedias, but some condition to which the human spirit can come. +All good writers express the state of their souls, even (as occurs in +some cases of very good writers) if it is a state of damnation. The +first thing that has to be realised about Dickens is this ultimate +spiritual condition of the man, which lay behind all his creations. This +Dickens state of mind is difficult to pick out in words as are all +elementary states of mind; they cannot be described, not because they +are too subtle for words, but because they are too simple for words. +Perhaps the nearest approach to a statement of it would be this: that +Dickens expresses an eager anticipation of everything that will happen +in the motley affairs of men; he looks at the quiet crowd waiting for it +to be picturesque and to play the fool; he expects everything; he is +torn with a happy hunger. Thackeray is always looking back to yesterday; +Dickens is always looking forward to to-morrow. Both are profoundly +humorous, for there is a humour of the morning and a humour of the +evening; but the first guesses at what it will get, at all the +grotesqueness and variety which a day may bring forth; the second looks +back on what the day has been and sees even its solemnities as slightly +ironical. Nothing can be too extravagant for the laughter that looks +forward; and nothing can be too dignified for the laughter that looks +back. It is an idle but obvious thing, which many must have noticed, +that we often find in the title of one of an author's books what might +very well stand for a general description of all of them. Thus all +Spenser's works might be called _A Hymn to Heavenly Beauty_; or all Mr. +Bernard Shaw's bound books might be called _You Never Can Tell_. In the +same way the whole substance and spirit of Thackeray might be gathered +under the general title _Vanity Fair_. In the same way too the whole +substance and spirit of Dickens might be gathered under the general +title _Great Expectations_. + +In a recent criticism on this position I saw it remarked that all this +is reading into Dickens something that he did not mean; and I have been +told that it would have greatly surprised Dickens to be informed that he +"went down the broad road of the Revolution." Of course it would. +Criticism does not exist to say about authors the things that they knew +themselves. It exists to say the things about them which they did not +know themselves. If a critic says that the _Iliad_ has a pagan rather +than a Christian pity, or that it is full of pictures made by one +epithet, of course he does not mean that Homer could have said that. If +Homer could have said that the critic would leave Homer to say it. The +function of criticism, if it has a legitimate function at all, can only +be one function--that of dealing with the subconscious part of the +author's mind which only the critic can express, and not with the +conscious part of the author's mind, which the author himself can +express. Either criticism is no good at all (a very defensible position) +or else criticism means saying about an author the very things that +would have made him jump out of his boots. + +Doubtless the name in this case _Great Expectations_ is an empty +coincidence; and indeed it is not in the books of the later Dickens +period (the period of _Great Expectations_) that we should look for the +best examples of this sanguine and expectant spirit which is the +essential of the man's genius. There are plenty of good examples of it +especially in the earlier works. But even in the earlier works there is +no example of it more striking or more satisfactory than _The Old +Curiosity Shop_. It is particularly noticeable in the fact that its +opening and original framework express the idea of a random experience, +a thing come across in the street; a single face in the crowd, followed +until it tells its story. Though the thing ends in a novel it begins in +a sketch; it begins as one of the _Sketches by Boz_. There is something +unconsciously artistic in the very clumsiness of this opening. Master +Humphrey starts to keep a scrap-book of all his adventures, and he finds +that he can fill the whole scrap-book with the sequels and developments +of one adventure; he goes out to notice everybody and he finds himself +busily and variedly occupied only in watching somebody. In this there is +a very profound truth about the true excitement and inexhaustible poetry +of life. The truth is not so much that eternity is full of souls as that +one soul can fill eternity. In strict art there is something quite lame +and lumbering about the way in which the benevolent old story-teller +starts to tell many stories and then drops away altogether, while one of +his stories takes his place. But in a larger art, his collision with +Little Nell and his complete eclipse by her personality and narrative +have a real significance. They suggest the random richness of such +meetings, and their uncalculated results. It makes the whole book a sort +of splendid accident. + +It is not true, as is commonly said, that the Dickens pathos as pathos +is bad. It is not true, as is still more commonly said, that the whole +business about Little Nell is bad. The case is more complex than that. +Yet complex as it is it admits of one sufficiently clear distinction. +Those who have written about the death of Little Nell, have generally +noticed the crudities of the character itself; the little girl's +unnatural and staring innocence, her constrained and awkward piety. But +they have nearly all of them entirely failed to notice that there is in +the death of Little Nell one quite definite and really artistic idea. It +is not an artistic idea that a little child should die rhetorically on +the stage like Paul Dombey; and Little Nell does not die rhetorically +upon the stage like Paul Dombey. But it is an artistic idea that all the +good powers and personalities in the story should set out in pursuit of +one insignificant child, to repair an injustice to her, should track her +from town to town over England with all the resources of wealth, +intelligence, and travel, and should all--arrive too late. All the good +fairies and all the kind magicians, all the just kings and all the +gallant princes, with chariots and flying dragons and armies and navies +go after one little child who had strayed into a wood, and find her +dead. That is the conception which Dickens's artistic instinct was +really aiming at when he finally condemned Little Nell to death, after +keeping her, so to speak, so long with the rope round her neck. The +death of Little Nell is open certainly to the particular denial which +its enemies make about it. The death of Little Nell is not pathetic. It +is perhaps tragic; it is in reality ironic. Here is a very good case of +the injustice to Dickens on his purely literary side. It is not that I +say that Dickens achieved what he designed; it is that the critics will +not see what the design was. They go on talking of the death of Little +Nell as if it were a mere example of maudlin description like the death +of Little Paul. As a fact it is not described at all; so it cannot be +objectionable. It is not the death of Little Nell, but the life of +Little Nell, that I object to. + +In this, in the actual picture of her personality, if you can call it a +personality, Dickens did fall into some of his facile vices. The real +objection to much of his pathos belongs really to another part of his +character. It is connected with his vanity, his voracity for all kinds +of praise, his restive experimentalism and even perhaps his envy. He +strained himself to achieve pathos. His humour was inspiration; but his +pathos was ambition. His laughter was lonely; he would have laughed on a +desert island. But his grief was gregarious. He liked to move great +masses of men, to melt them into tenderness, to play on the people as a +great pianist plays on them; to make them mad or sad. His pathos was to +him a way of showing his power; and for that reason it was really +powerless. He could not help making people laugh; but he tried to make +them cry. We come in this novel, as we often do come in his novels, upon +hard lumps of unreality, upon a phrase that suddenly sickens. That is +always due to his conscious despotism over the delicate feelings; that +is always due to his love of fame as distinct from his love of fun. But +it is not true that all Dickens's pathos is like this; it is not even +true that all the passages about Little Nell are like this; there are +two strands almost everywhere and they can be differentiated as the +sincere and the deliberate. There is a great difference between Dickens +thinking about the tears of his characters and Dickens thinking about +the tears of his audience. + +When all this is allowed, however, and the exaggerated contempt for the +Dickens pathos is properly corrected, the broad fact remains: that to +pass from the solemn characters in this book to the comic characters in +this book, is to be like some Ulysses who should pass suddenly from the +land of shadows to the mountain of the gods. Little Nell has her own +position in careful and reasonable criticism: even that wobbling old +ass, her grandfather, has his position in it; perhaps even the +dissipated Fred (whom long acquaintance with Mr. Dick Swiveller has not +made any less dismal in his dissipation) has a place in it also. But +when we come to Swiveller and Sampson Brass and Quilp and Mrs. Jarley, +then Fred and Nell and the grandfather simply do not exist. There are no +such people in the story. The real hero and heroine of _The Old +Curiosity Shop_ are of course Dick Swiveller and the Marchioness. It is +significant in a sense that these two sane, strong, living, and lovable +human beings are the only two, or almost the only two, people in the +story who do not run after Little Nell. They have something better to do +than to go on that shadowy chase after that cheerless phantom. They have +to build up between them a true romance; perhaps the one true romance in +the whole of Dickens. Dick Swiveller really has all the half-heroic +characteristics which make a man respected by a woman and which are the +male contribution to virtue. He is brave, magnanimous, sincere about +himself, amusing, absurdly hopeful; above all, he is both strong and +weak. On the other hand the Marchioness really has all the +characteristics, the entirely heroic characteristics which make a woman +respected by a man. She is female: that is, she is at once incurably +candid and incurably loyal, she is full of terrible common-sense, she +expects little pleasure for herself and yet she can enjoy bursts of it; +above all, she is physically timid and yet she can face anything. All +this solid rocky romanticism is really implied in the speech and action +of these two characters and can be felt behind them all the time. +Because they are the two most absurd people in the book they are also +the most vivid, human, and imaginable. There are two really fine love +affairs in Dickens; and I almost think only two. One is the happy +courtship of Swiveller and the Marchioness; the other is the tragic +courtship of Toots and Florence Dombey. When Dick Swiveller wakes up in +bed and sees the Marchioness playing cribbage he thinks that he and she +are a prince and princess in a fairy tale. He thinks right. + +I speak thus seriously of such characters with a deliberate purpose; for +the frivolous characters of Dickens are taken much too frivolously. It +has been quite insufficiently pointed out that all the serious moral +ideas that Dickens did contrive to express he expressed altogether +through this fantastic medium, in such figures as Swiveller and the +little servant. The warmest upholder of Dickens would not go to the +solemn or sentimental passages for anything fresh or suggestive in faith +or philosophy. No one would pretend that the death of little Dombey +(with its "What are the wild waves saying?") told us anything new or +real about death. A good Christian dying, one would imagine, not only +would not know what the wild waves were saying, but would not care. No +one would pretend that the repentance of old Paul Dombey throws any +light on the psychology or philosophy of repentance. No doubt old +Dombey, white-haired and amiable, was a great improvement on old Dombey +brown-haired and unpleasant. But in his case the softening of the heart +seems to bear too close a resemblance to softening of the brain. Whether +these serious passages are as bad as the critical people or as good as +the sentimental people find them, at least they do not convey anything +in the way of an illuminating glimpse or a bold suggestion about men's +moral nature. The serious figures do not tell one anything about the +human soul. The comic figures do. Take anything almost at random out of +these admirable speeches of Dick Swiveller. Notice, for instance, how +exquisitely Dickens has caught a certain very deep and delicate quality +at the bottom of this idle kind of man. I mean that odd impersonal sort +of intellectual justice, by which the frivolous fellow sees things as +they are and even himself as he is; and is above irritation. Mr. +Swiveller, you remember, asks the Marchioness whether the Brass family +ever talk about him; she nods her head with vivacity. "'Complimentary?' +inquired Mr. Swiveller. The motion of the little servant's head +altered.... 'But she says,' continued the little servant, 'that you +ain't to be trusted.' 'Well, do you know, Marchioness,' said Mr. +Swiveller thoughtfully, 'many people, not exactly professional people, +but tradesmen, have had the same idea. The excellent citizen from whom I +ordered this beer inclines strongly to that opinion.'" + +This philosophical freedom from all resentment, this strange love of +truth which seems actually to come through carelessness, is a very real +piece of spiritual observation. Even among liars there are two classes, +one immeasurably better than another. The honest liar is the man who +tells the truth about his old lies; who says on Wednesday, "I told a +magnificent lie on Monday." He keeps the truth in circulation; no one +version of things stagnates in him and becomes an evil secret. He does +not have to live with old lies; a horrible domesticity. Mr. Swiveller +may mislead the waiter about whether he has the money to pay; but he +does not mislead his friend, and he does not mislead himself on the +point. He is quite as well aware as any one can be of the accumulating +falsity of the position of a gentleman who by his various debts has +closed up all the streets into the Strand except one, and who is going +to close that to-night with a pair of gloves. He shuts up the street +with a pair of gloves, but he does not shut up his mind with a secret. +The traffic of truth is still kept open through his soul. + +It is exactly in these absurd characters, then, that we can find a mass +of psychological and ethical suggestion. This cannot be found in the +serious characters except indeed in some of the later experiments: there +is a little of such psychological and ethical suggestion in figures like +Gridley, like Jasper, like Bradley Headstone. But in these earlier books +at least, such as _The Old Curiosity Shop_, the grave or moral figures +throw no light upon morals. I should maintain this generalisation even +in the presence of that apparent exception _The Christmas Carol_ with +its trio of didactic ghosts. Charity is certainly splendid, at once a +luxury and a necessity; but Dickens is not most effective when he is +preaching charity seriously; he is most effective when he is preaching +it uproariously; when he is preaching it by means of massive +personalities and vivid scenes. One might say that he is best not when +he is preaching his human love, but when he is practising it. In his +grave pages he tells us to love men; but in his wild pages he creates +men whom we can love. By his solemnity he commands us to love our +neighbours. By his caricature he makes us love them. + +There is an odd literary question which I wonder is not put more often +in literature. How far can an author tell a truth without seeing it +himself? Perhaps an actual example will express my meaning. I was once +talking to a highly intelligent lady about Thackeray's _Newcomes_. We +were speaking of the character of Mrs. Mackenzie, the Campaigner, and in +the middle of the conversation the lady leaned across to me and said in +a low, hoarse, but emphatic voice, "She drank. Thackeray didn't know it; +but she drank." And it is really astonishing what a shaft of white light +this sheds on the Campaigner, on her terrible temperament, on her +agonised abusiveness and her almost more agonised urbanity, on her +clamour which is nevertheless not open or explicable, on her temper +which is not so much bad temper as insatiable, bloodthirsty, man-eating +temper. How far can a writer thus indicate by accident a truth of which +he is himself ignorant? If truth is a plan or pattern of things that +really are, or in other words, if truth truly exists outside ourselves, +or in other words, if truth exists at all, it must be often possible for +a writer to uncover a corner of it which he happens not to understand, +but which his reader does happen to understand. The author sees only two +lines; the reader sees where they meet and what is the angle. The author +sees only an arc or fragment of a curve; the reader sees the size of the +circle. The last thing to say about Dickens, and especially about books +like _The Old Curiosity Shop_, is that they are full of these +unconscious truths. The careless reader may miss them. The careless +author almost certainly did miss them. But from them can be gathered an +impression of real truth to life which is for the grave critics of +Dickens an almost unknown benefit, buried treasure. Here for instance is +one of them out of _The Old Curiosity Shop_. I mean the passage in which +(by a blazing stroke of genius) the dashing Mr. Chuckster, one of the +Glorious Apollos of whom Mr. Swiveller was the Perpetual Grand, is made +to entertain a hatred bordering upon frenzy for the stolid, patient, +respectful, and laborious Kit. Now in the formal plan of the story Mr. +Chuckster is a fool, and Kit is almost a hero; at least he is a noble +boy. Yet unconsciously Dickens made the idiot Chuckster say something +profoundly suggestive on the subject. In speaking of Kit Mr. Chuckster +makes use of these two remarkable phrases; that Kit is "meek" and that +he is "a snob." Now Kit is really a very fresh and manly picture of a +boy, firm, sane, chivalrous, reasonable, full of those three great Roman +virtues which Mr. Belloc has so often celebrated, _virtus_ and +_verecundia_ and _pietas_. He is a sympathetic but still a +straightforward study of the best type of that most respectable of all +human classes, the respectable poor. All this is true; all that Dickens +utters in praise of Kit is true; nevertheless the awful words of +Chuckster remain written on the eternal skies. Kit is meek and Kit is a +snob. His natural dignity does include and is partly marred by that +instinctive subservience to the employing class which has been the +comfortable weakness of the whole English democracy, which has prevented +their making any revolution for the last two hundred years. Kit would +not serve any wicked man for money, but he would serve any moderately +good man and the money would give a certain dignity and decisiveness to +the goodness. All this is the English popular evil which goes along with +the English popular virtues of geniality, of homeliness, tolerance and +strong humour, hope and an enormous appetite for a hand-to-mouth +happiness. The scene in which Kit takes his family to the theatre is a +monument of the massive qualities of old English enjoyment. If what we +want is Merry England, our antiquarians ought not to revive the Maypole +or the Morris Dancers; they ought to revive Astley's and Sadler's Wells +and the old solemn Circus and the old stupid Pantomime, and all the +sawdust and all the oranges. Of all this strength and joy in the poor, +Kit is a splendid and final symbol. But amid all his masculine and +English virtue, he has this weak touch of meekness, or acceptance of the +powers that be. It is a sound touch; it is a real truth about Kit. But +Dickens did not know it. Mr. Chuckster did. + +Dickens's stories taken as a whole have more artistic unity than appears +at the first glance. It is the immediate impulse of a modern critic to +dismiss them as mere disorderly scrap-books with very brilliant scraps. +But this is not quite so true as it looks. In one of Dickens's novels +there is generally no particular unity of construction; but there is +often a considerable unity of sentiment and atmosphere. Things are +irrelevant, but not somehow inappropriate. The whole book is written +carelessly; but the whole book is generally written in one mood. To take +a rude parallel from the other arts, we may say that there is not much +unity of form, but there is much unity of colour. In most of the novels +this can be seen. _Nicholas Nickleby_, as I have remarked, is full of a +certain freshness, a certain light and open-air curiosity, which +irradiates from the image of the young man swinging along the Yorkshire +roads in the sun. Hence the comic characters with whom he falls in are +comic characters in the same key; they are a band of strolling players, +charlatans and poseurs, but too humane to be called humbugs. In the same +way, the central story of _Oliver Twist_ is sombre; and hence even its +comic character is almost sombre; at least he is too ugly to be merely +amusing. Mr. Bumble is in some ways a terrible grotesque; his apoplectic +visage recalls the "fire-red Cherubimme's face," which added such horror +to the height and stature of Chaucer's Sompnour. In both these cases +even the riotous and absurd characters are a little touched with the +tint of the whole story. But this neglected merit of Dickens can +certainly be seen best in _The Old Curiosity Shop_. + +The curiosity shop itself was a lumber of grotesque and sinister things, +outlandish weapons, twisted and diabolic decorations. The comic +characters in the book are all like images bought in an old curiosity +shop. Quilp might be a gargoyle. He might be some sort of devilish +door-knocker, dropped down and crawling about the pavement. The same +applies to the sinister and really terrifying stiffness of Sally Brass. +She is like some old staring figure cut out of wood. Sampson Brass, her +brother, again is a grotesque in the same rather inhuman manner; he is +especially himself when he comes in with the green shade over his eye. +About all this group of bad figures in _The Old Curiosity Shop_ there is +a sort of _diablerie_. There is also within this atmosphere an +extraordinary energy of irony and laughter. The scene in which Sampson +Brass draws up the description of Quilp, supposing him to be dead, +reaches a point of fiendish fun. "We will not say very bandy, Mrs. +Jiniwin," he says of his friend's legs, "we will confine ourselves to +bandy. He is gone, my friends, where his legs would never be called in +question." They go on to the discussion of his nose, and Mrs. Jiniwin +inclines to the view that it is flat. "Aquiline, you hag! Aquiline," +cries Mr. Quilp, pushing in his head and striking his nose with his +fist. There is nothing better in the whole brutal exuberance of the +character than that gesture with which Quilp punches his own face with +his own fist. It is indeed a perfect symbol; for Quilp is always +fighting himself for want of anybody else. He is energy, and energy by +itself is always suicidal; he is that primordial energy which tears and +which destroys itself. + + + + +BARNABY RUDGE + + +_Barnaby Rudge_ was written by Dickens in the spring and first flowing +tide of his popularity; it came immediately after _The Old Curiosity +Shop_, and only a short time after _Pickwick_. Dickens was one of those +rare but often very sincere men in whom the high moment of success +almost coincides with the high moment of youth. The calls upon him at +this time were insistent and overwhelming; this necessarily happens at a +certain stage of a successful writer's career. He was just successful +enough to invite offers and not successful enough to reject them. At the +beginning of his career he could throw himself into _Pickwick_ because +there was nothing else to throw himself into. At the end of his life he +could throw himself into _A Tale of Two Cities_, because he refused to +throw himself into anything else. But there was an intervening period, +early in his life, when there was almost too much work for his +imagination, and yet not quite enough work for his housekeeping. To this +period _Barnaby Rudge_ belongs. And it is a curious tribute to the quite +curious greatness of Dickens that in this period of youthful strain we +do not feel the strain but feel only the youth. His own amazing wish to +write equalled or outstripped even his readers' amazing wish to read. +Working too hard did not cure him of his abstract love of work. +Unreasonable publishers asked him to write ten novels at once; but he +wanted to write twenty novels at once. All this period is strangely full +of his own sense at once of fertility and of futility; he did work which +no one else could have done, and yet he could not be certain as yet that +he was anybody. + +_Barnaby Rudge_ marks this epoch because it marks the fact that he is +still confused about what kind of person he is going to be. He has +already struck the note of the normal romance in _Nicholas Nickleby_; he +has already created some of his highest comic characters in _Pickwick_ +and _The Old Curiosity Shop_, but here he betrays the fact that it is +still a question what ultimate guide he shall follow. _Barnaby Rudge_ is +a romantic, historical novel. Its design reminds us of Scott; some parts +of its fulfilment remind us, alas! of Harrison Ainsworth. It is a very +fine romantic historical novel; Scott would have been proud of it. But +it is still so far different from the general work of Dickens that it is +permissible to wonder how far Dickens was proud of it. The book, +effective as it is, is almost entirely devoted to dealings with a +certain artistic element, which (in its mere isolation) Dickens did not +commonly affect; an element which many men of infinitely less genius +have often seemed to affect more successfully; I mean the element of the +picturesque. + +It is the custom in many quarters to speak somewhat sneeringly of that +element which is broadly called the picturesque. It is always felt to be +an inferior, a vulgar, and even an artificial form of art. Yet two +things may be remarked about it. The first is that, with few +exceptions, the greatest literary artists have been not only +particularly clever at the picturesque, but particularly fond of it. +Shakespeare, for instance, delighted in certain merely pictorial +contrasts which are quite distinct from, even when they are akin to, the +spiritual view involved. For instance, there is admirable satire in the +idea of Touchstone teaching worldly wisdom and worldly honour to the +woodland yokels. There is excellent philosophy in the idea of the fool +being the representative of civilisation in the forest. But quite apart +from this deeper meaning in the incident, the mere figure of the jester, +in his bright motley and his cap and bells, against the green background +of the forest and the rude forms of the shepherds, is a strong example +of the purely picturesque. There is excellent tragic irony in the +confrontation of the melancholy philosopher among the tombs with the +cheerful digger of the graves. It sums up the essential point, that dead +bodies can be comic; it is only dead souls that can be tragic. But quite +apart from such irony, the mere picture of the grotesque gravedigger, +the black-clad prince, and the skull is a picture in the strongest sense +picturesque. Caliban and the two shipwrecked drunkards are an admirable +symbol; but they are also an admirable scene. Bottom, with the ass's +head, sitting in a ring of elves, is excellent moving comedy, but also +excellent still life. Falstaff with his huge body, Bardolph with his +burning nose, are masterpieces of the pen; but they would be fine +sketches even for the pencil. King Lear, in the storm, is a landscape as +well as a character study. There is something decorative even about the +insistence on the swarthiness of Othello, or the deformity of Richard +III. Shakespeare's work is much more than picturesque; but it is +picturesque. And the same which is said here of him by way of example is +largely true of the highest class of literature. Dante's _Divine Comedy_ +is supremely important as a philosophy; but it is important merely as a +panorama. Spenser's _Faery Queen_ pleases us as an allegory; but it +would please us even as a wall-paper. Stronger still is the case of +Chaucer who loved the pure picturesque, which always includes something +of what we commonly call the ugly. The huge stature and startling +scarlet face of the Sompnour is in just the same spirit as Shakespeare's +skulls and motley; the same spirit gave Chaucer's miller bagpipes, and +clad his doctor in crimson. It is the spirit which, while making many +other things, loves to make a picture. + +Now the second thing to be remarked in apology for the picturesque is, +that the very thing which makes it seem trivial ought really to make it +seem important; I mean the fact that it consists necessarily of +contrasts. It brings together types that stand out from their +background, but are abruptly different from each other, like the clown +among the fairies or the fool in the forest. And his audacious +reconciliation is a mark not of frivolity but of extreme seriousness. A +man who deals in harmonies, who only matches stars with angels or lambs +with spring flowers, he indeed may be frivolous; for he is taking one +mood at a time, and perhaps forgetting each mood as it passes. But a man +who ventures to combine an angel and an octopus must have some serious +view of the universe. The man who should write a dialogue between two +early Christians might be a mere writer of dialogues. But a man who +should write a dialogue between an early Christian and the Missing Link +would have to be a philosopher. The more widely different the types +talked of, the more serious and universal must be the philosophy which +talks of them. The mark of the light and thoughtless writer is the +harmony of his subject matter; the mark of the thoughtful writer is its +apparent diversity. The most flippant lyric poet might write a pretty +poem about lambs; but it requires something bolder and graver than a +poet, it requires an ecstatic prophet, to talk about the lion lying down +with the lamb. + +Dickens, at any rate, strongly supports this conception: that great +literary men as such do not despise the purely pictorial. No man's works +have so much the quality of illustrating themselves. Few men's works +have been more thoroughly and eagerly illustrated; few men's works can +it have been better fun to illustrate. As a rule this fascinating +quality in the mere fantastic figures of the tale was inseparable from +their farcical quality in the tale. Stiggins's red nose is distinctly +connected with the fact that he is a member of the Ebenezer Temperance +Association; Quilp is little, because a little of him goes a long way. +Mr. Carker smiles and smiles and is a villain; Mr. Chadband is fat +because in his case to be fat is to be hated. The story is immeasurably +more important than the picture; it is not mere indulgence in the +picturesque. Generally it is an intellectual love of the comic; not a +pure love of the grotesque. + +But in one book Dickens suddenly confesses that he likes the grotesque +even without the comic. In one case he makes clear that he enjoys pure +pictures with a pure love of the picturesque. That place is _Barnaby +Rudge_. There had indeed been hints of it in many episodes in his books; +notably, for example, in that fine scene of the death of Quilp--a scene +in which the dwarf remains fantastic long after he has ceased to be in +any way funny. Still, the dwarf was meant to be funny. Humour of a +horrible kind, but still humour, is the purpose of Quilp's existence and +position in the book. Laughter is the object of all his oddities. But +laughter is not the object of Barnaby Rudge's oddities. His idiot +costume and his ugly raven are used for the purpose of the pure +grotesque; solely to make a certain kind of Gothic sketch. + +It is commonly this love of pictures that drives men back upon the +historical novel. But it is very typical of Dickens's living interest in +his own time, that though he wrote two historical novels they were +neither of them of very ancient history. They were both, indeed, of very +recent history; only they were those parts of recent history which were +specially picturesque. I do not think that this was due to any mere +consciousness on his part that he knew no history. Undoubtedly he knew +no history; and he may or may not have been conscious of the fact. But +the consciousness did not prevent him from writing a _History of +England_. Nor did it prevent him from interlarding all or any of his +works with tales of the pictorial past, such as the tale of the broken +swords in _Master Humphrey's Clock_, or the indefensibly delightful +nightmare of the lady in the stage-coach, which helps to soften the +amiable end of Pickwick. Neither, worst of all, did it prevent him from +dogmatising anywhere and everywhere about the past, of which he knew +nothing; it did not prevent him from telling the bells to tell Trotty +Veck that the Middle Ages were a failure, nor from solemnly declaring +that the best thing that the mediaeval monks ever did was to create the +mean and snobbish quietude of a modern cathedral city. No, it was not +historical reverence that held him back from dealing with the remote +past; but rather something much better--a living interest in the living +century in which he was born. He would have thought himself quite +intellectually capable of writing a novel about the Council of Trent or +the First Crusade. He would have thought himself quite equal to +analysing the psychology of Abelard or giving a bright, satiric sketch +of St. Augustine. It must frankly be confessed that it was not a sense +of his own unworthiness that held him back; I fear it was rather a sense +of St. Augustine's unworthiness. He could not see the point of any +history before the first slow swell of the French Revolution. He could +understand the revolutions of the eighteenth century; all the other +revolutions of history (so many and so splendid) were unmeaning to him. +But the revolutions of the eighteenth century he did understand; and to +them therefore he went back, as all historical novelists go back, in +search of the picturesque. And from this fact an important result +follows. + +The result that follows is this: that his only two historical novels are +both tales of revolutions--of eighteenth-century revolutions. These two +eighteenth-century revolutions may seem to differ, and perhaps do +differ in everything except in being revolutions and of the eighteenth +century. The French Revolution, which is the theme of _A Tale of Two +Cities_, was a revolt in favour of all that is now called enlightenment +and liberation. The great Gordon Riot, which is the theme of _Barnaby +Rudge_, was a revolt in favour of something which would now be called +mere ignorant and obscurantist Protestantism. Nevertheless both belonged +more typically to the age out of which Dickens came--the great sceptical +and yet creative eighteenth century of Europe. Whether the mob rose on +the right side or the wrong they both belonged to the time in which a +mob could rise, in which a mob could conquer. No growth of intellectual +science or of moral cowardice had made it impossible to fight in the +streets, whether for the republic or for the Bible. If we wish to know +what was the real link, existing actually in ultimate truth, existing +unconsciously in Dickens's mind, which connected the Gordon Riots with +the French Revolution, the link may be defined though not with any great +adequacy. The nearest and truest way of stating it is that neither of +the two could possibly happen in Fleet Street to-morrow evening. + +Another point of resemblance between the two books might be found in the +fact that they both contain the sketch of the same kind of +eighteenth-century aristocrat, if indeed that kind of aristocrat really +existed in the eighteenth century. The diabolical dandy with the rapier +and the sneer is at any rate a necessity of all normal plays and +romances; hence Mr. Chester has a right to exist in this romance, and +Foulon a right to exist in a page of history almost as cloudy and +disputable as a romance. What Dickens and other romancers do probably +omit from the picture of the eighteenth-century oligarch is probably his +liberality. It must never be forgotten that even when he was a despot in +practice he was generally a liberal in theory. Dickens and romancers +make the pre-revolution tyrant a sincere believer in tyranny; generally +he was not. He was a sceptic about everything, even about his own +position. The romantic Foulon says of the people, "Let them eat grass," +with bitter and deliberate contempt. The real Foulon (if he ever said it +at all) probably said it as a sort of dreary joke because he couldn't +think of any other way out of the problem. Similarly Mr. Chester, a +cynic as he is, believes seriously in the beauty of being a gentleman; a +real man of that type probably disbelieved in that as in everything +else. Dickens was too bracing, one may say too bouncing himself to +understand the psychology of fatigue in a protected and leisured class. +He could understand a tyrant like Quilp, a tyrant who is on his throne +because he has climbed up into it, like a monkey. He could not +understand a tyrant who is on his throne because he is too weary to get +out of it. The old aristocrats were in a dead way quite good-natured. +They were even humanitarians; which perhaps accounts for the extent to +which they roused against themselves the healthy hatred of humanity. But +they were tired humanitarians; tired with doing nothing. Figures like +that of Mr. Chester, therefore, fail somewhat to give the true sense of +something hopeless and helpless which led men to despair of the upper +class. He has a boyish pleasure in play-acting; he has an interest in +life; being a villain is his hobby. But the true man of that type had +found all hobbies fail him. He had wearied of himself as he had wearied +of a hundred women. He was graceful and could not even admire himself in +the glass. He was witty and could not even laugh at his own jokes. +Dickens could never understand tedium. + +There is no mark more strange and perhaps sinister of the interesting +and not very sane condition of our modern literature, than the fact that +tedium has been admirably described in it. Our best modern writers are +never so exciting as they are about dulness. Mr. Rudyard Kipling is +never so powerful as when he is painting yawning deserts, aching +silences, sleepless nights, or infernal isolation. The excitement in one +of the stories of Mr. Henry James becomes tense, thrilling, and almost +intolerable in all the half hours during which nothing whatever is said +or done. We are entering again into the mind, into the real mind of +Foulon and Mr. Chester. We begin to understand the deep despair of those +tyrants whom our fathers pulled down. But Dickens could never have +understood that despair; it was not in his soul. And it is an +interesting coincidence that here, in this book of _Barnaby Rudge_, +there is a character meant to be wholly grotesque, who, nevertheless, +expresses much of that element in Dickens which prevented him from being +a true interpreter of the tired and sceptical aristocrat. + +Sim Tappertit is a fool, but a perfectly honourable fool. It requires +some sincerity to pose. Posing means that one has not dried up in +oneself all the youthful and innocent vanities with the slow paralysis +of mere pride. Posing means that one is still fresh enough to enjoy the +good opinion of one's fellows. On the other hand, the true cynic has not +enough truth in him to attempt affectation; he has never even seen the +truth, far less tried to imitate it. Now we might very well take the +type of Mr. Chester on the one hand, and of Sim Tappertit on the other, +as marking the issue, the conflict, and the victory which really ushered +in the nineteenth century. Dickens was very like Sim Tappertit. The +Liberal Revolution was very like a Sim Tappertit revolution. It was +vulgar, it was overdone, it was absurd, but it was alive. Dickens was +vulgar, was absurd, overdid everything, but he was alive. The +aristocrats were perfectly correct, but quite dead; dead long before +they were guillotined. The classics and critics who lamented that +Dickens was no gentleman were quite right, but quite dead. The +revolution thought itself rational; but so did Sim Tappertit. It was +really a huge revolt of romanticism against a reason which had grown +sick even of itself. Sim Tappertit rose against Mr. Chester; and, thank +God! he put his foot upon his neck. + + [Illustration: Charles Dickens, 1842 + From a bust by H. Dexter, executed during Dickens's first visit to + America.] + + + + +AMERICAN NOTES + + +_American Notes_ was written soon after Dickens had returned from his +first visit to America. That visit had, of course, been a great epoch in +his life; but how much of an epoch men did not truly realise until, some +time after, in the middle of a quiet story about Salisbury and a +ridiculous architect, his feelings flamed out and flared up to the stars +in _Martin Chuzzlewit_. The _American Notes_ are, however, interesting, +because in them he betrays his feelings when he does not know that he is +betraying them. Dickens's first visit to America was, from his own point +of view, and at the beginning, a happy and festive experiment. It is +very characteristic of him that he went among the Americans, enjoyed +them, even admired them, and then had a quarrel with them. Nothing was +ever so unmistakable as his good-will, except his ill-will; and they +were never far apart. And this was not, as some bloodless moderns have +sneeringly insinuated, a mere repetition of the proximity between the +benevolent stage and the quarrelsome stage of drink. It was a piece of +pure optimism; he believed so readily that men were going to be good to +him that an injury to him was something more than an injury: it was a +shock. What was the exact nature of the American shock must, however, be +more carefully stated. + +The famous quarrel between Dickens and America, which finds its most +elaborate expression in _American Notes_, though its most brilliant +expression in _Martin Chuzzlewit_, is an incident about which a great +deal remains to be said. But the thing which most specially remains to +be said is this. This old Anglo-American quarrel was much more +fundamentally friendly than most Anglo-American alliances. In Dickens's +day each nation understood the other enough to argue. In our time +neither nation understands itself even enough to quarrel. There was an +English tradition, from Fox and eighteenth-century England; there was an +American tradition from Franklin and eighteenth-century America; and +they were still close enough together to discuss their differences with +acrimony, perhaps, but with certain fundamental understandings. The +eighteenth-century belief in a liberal civilisation was still a dogma; +for dogma is the only thing that makes argument or reasoning possible. +America, under all its swagger, did still really believe that Europe was +its fountain and its mother, because Europe was more fully civilised. +Dickens, under all his disgust, did still believe that America was in +advance of Europe, because it was more democratic. It was an age, in +short, in which the word "progress" could still be used reasonably; +because the whole world looked to one way of escape and there was only +one kind of progress under discussion. Now, of course, "progress" is a +useless word; for progress takes for granted an already defined +direction; and it is exactly about the direction that we disagree. Do +not let us therefore be misled into any mistaken optimism or special +self-congratulation upon what many people would call the improved +relations between England and America. The relations are improved +because America has finally become a foreign country. And with foreign +countries all sane men take care to exchange a certain consideration and +courtesy. But even as late as the time of Dickens's first visit to the +United States, we English still felt America as a colony; an insolent, +offensive, and even unintelligible colony sometimes, but still a colony; +a part of our civilisation, a limb of our life. And America itself, as I +have said, under all its bounce and independence, really regarded us as +a mother country. This being the case it was possible for us to quarrel, +like kinsmen. Now we only bow and smile, like strangers. + +This tone, as a sort of family responsibility, can be felt quite +specially all through the satires or suggestions of these _American +Notes_. Dickens is cross with America because he is worried about +America; as if he were its father. He explores its industrial, legal, +and educational arrangements like a mother looking at the housekeeping +of a married son; he makes suggestions with a certain acidity; he takes +a strange pleasure in being pessimistic. He advises them to take note of +how much better certain things are done in England. All this is very +different from Dickens's characteristic way of dealing with a foreign +country. In countries really foreign, such as France, Switzerland, and +Italy, he had two attitudes, neither of them in the least worried or +paternal. When he found a thing in Europe which he did not understand, +such as the Roman Catholic Church, he simply called it an old-world +superstition, and sat looking at it like a moonlit ruin. When he found +something that he did understand, such as luncheon baskets, he burst +into carols of praise over the superior sense in our civilisation and +good management to Continental methods. An example of the first attitude +may be found in one of his letters, in which he describes the +backwardness and idleness of Catholics who would not build a Birmingham +in Italy. He seems quite unconscious of the obvious truth, that the +backwardness of Catholics was simply the refusal of Bob Cratchit to +enter the house of Gradgrind. An example of the second attitude can be +found in the purple patches of fun in _Mugby Junction_; in which the +English waitress denounces the profligate French habit of providing new +bread and clean food for people travelling by rail. The point is, +however, that in neither case has he the air of one suggesting +improvements or sharing a problem with the people engaged on it. He does +not go carefully with a notebook through Jesuit schools nor offer +friendly suggestions to the governors of Parisian prisons. Or if he +does, it is in a different spirit; it is in the spirit of an ordinary +tourist being shown over the Coliseum or the Pyramids. But he visited +America in the spirit of a Government inspector dealing with something +it was his duty to inspect. This is never felt either in his praise or +blame of Continental countries. When he did not leave a foreign country +to decay like a dead dog, he merely watched it at play like a kitten. +France he mistook for a kitten. Italy he mistook for a dead dog. + +But with America he could feel--and fear. There he could hate, because +he could love. There he could feel not the past alone nor the present, +but the future also; and, like all brave men, when he saw the future he +was a little afraid of it. For of all tests by which the good citizen +and strong reformer can be distinguished from the vague faddist or the +inhuman sceptic, I know no better test than this--that the unreal +reformer sees in front of him one certain future, the future of his fad; +while the real reformer sees before him ten or twenty futures among +which his country must choose, and may, in some dreadful hour, choose +the wrong one. The true patriot is always doubtful of victory; because +he knows that he is dealing with a living thing; a thing with free will. +To be certain of free will is to be uncertain of success. + +The subject matter of the real difference of opinion between Dickens and +the public of America can only be understood if it is thus treated as a +dispute between brothers about the destiny of a common heritage. The +point at issue might be stated like this. Dickens, on his side, did not +in his heart doubt for a moment that England would eventually follow +America along the road towards real political equality and purely +republican institutions. He lived, it must be remembered, before the +revival of aristocracy, which has since overwhelmed us--the revival of +aristocracy worked through popular science and commercial dictatorship, +and which has nowhere been more manifest than in America itself. He knew +nothing of this; in his heart he conceded to the Yankees that not only +was their revolution right but would ultimately be completed everywhere. +But on the other hand, his whole point against the American experiment +was this--that if it ignored certain ancient English contributions it +would go to pieces for lack of them. Of these the first was good manners +and the second individual liberty--liberty, that is, to speak and write +against the trend of the majority. In these things he was much more +serious and much more sensible than it is the fashion to think he was; +he was indeed one of the most serious and sensible critics England ever +had of current and present problems, though his criticism is useless to +the point of nonentity about all things remote from him in style of +civilisation or in time. His point about good manners is really +important. All his grumblings through this book of _American Notes_, all +his shrieking satire in _Martin Chuzzlewit_ are expressions of a grave +and reasonable fear he had touching the future of democracy. And +remember again what has been already remarked--instinctively he paid +America the compliment of looking at her as the future of democracy. + +The mistake which he attacked still exists. I cannot imagine why it is +that social equality is somehow supposed to mean social familiarity. Why +should equality mean that all men are equally rude? Should it not rather +mean that all men are equally polite? Might it not quite reasonably mean +that all men should be equally ceremonious and stately and pontifical? +What is there specially Equalitarian, for instance, in calling your +political friends and even your political enemies by their Christian +names in public? There is something very futile in the way in which +certain Socialist leaders call each other Tom, Dick, and Harry; +especially when Tom is accusing Harry of having basely imposed upon the +well-known imbecility of Dick. There is something quite undemocratic in +all men calling each other by the special and affectionate term +"comrade"; especially when they say it with a sneer and smart inquiry +about the funds. Democracy would be quite satisfied if every man called +every other man "sir." Democracy would have no conceivable reason to +complain if every man called every other man "your excellency" or "your +holiness" or "brother of the sun and moon." The only democratic +essential is that it should be a term of dignity and that it should be +given to all. To abolish all terms of dignity is no more specially +democratic than the Roman emperor's wish to cut off everybody's head at +once was specially democratic. That involved equality certainly, but it +was lacking in respect. + +Dickens saw America as markedly the seat of this danger. He saw that +there was a perilous possibility that republican ideals might be allied +to a social anarchy good neither for them nor for any other ideals. +Republican simplicity, which is difficult, might be quickly turned into +Bohemian brutality, which is easy. Cincinnatus, instead of putting his +hand to the plough, might put his feet on the tablecloth, and an +impression prevail that it was all a part of the same rugged equality +and freedom. Insolence might become a tradition. Bad manners might have +all the sanctity of good manners. "There you are!" cries Martin +Chuzzlewit indignantly, when the American has befouled the butter. "A +man deliberately makes a hog of himself and _that_ is an Institution." +But the thread of thought which we must always keep in hand in this +matter is that he would not thus have worried about the degradation of +republican simplicity into general rudeness if he had not from first to +last instinctively felt that America held human democracy in her hand, +to exalt it or to let it fall. In one of his gloomier moments he wrote +down his fear that the greatest blow ever struck at liberty would be +struck by America in the failure of her mission upon the earth. + +This brings us to the other ground of his alarm--the matter of liberty +of speech. Here also he was much more reasonable and philosophic than +has commonly been realised. The truth is that the lurid individualism of +Carlyle has, with its violent colours, "killed" the tones of most +criticism of his time; and just as we can often see a scheme of +decoration better if we cover some flaming picture, so you can judge +nineteenth-century England much better if you leave Carlyle out. He is +important to moderns because he led that return to Toryism which has +been the chief feature of modernity, but his judgments were often not +only spiritually false, but really quite superficial. Dickens understood +the danger of democracy far better than Carlyle; just as he understood +the merits of democracy far better than Carlyle. And of this fact we can +produce one plain evidence in the matter of which we speak. Carlyle, in +his general dislike of the revolutionary movement, lumped liberty and +democracy together and said that the chief objection to democracy was +that it involved the excess and misuse of liberty; he called democracy +"anarchy or no-rule." Dickens, with far more philosophical insight and +spiritual delicacy, saw that the real danger of democracy is that it +tends to the very opposite of anarchy; even to the very opposite of +liberty. He lamented in America the freedom of manners. But he lamented +even more the absence of freedom of opinion. "I believe there is no +country on the face of the earth," he says, "where there is less freedom +of opinion on any subject in reference to which there is a broad +difference of opinion than in this. There! I write the words with +reluctance, disappointment, and sorrow; but I believe it from the bottom +of my soul. The notion that I, a man alone by myself in America, should +venture to suggest to the Americans that there was one point on which +they were neither just to their own countrymen nor to us, actually +struck the boldest dumb! Washington Irving, Prescott, Hoffman, Bryant, +Halleck, Dana, Washington Allston--every man who writes in this country +is devoted to the question, and not one of them _dares_ to raise his +voice and complain of the atrocious state of the law. The wonder is that +a breathing man can be found with temerity enough to suggest to the +Americans the possibility of their having done wrong. I wish you could +have seen the faces that I saw down both sides of the table at Hartford +when I began to talk about Scott. I wish you could have heard how I gave +it out. My blood so boiled when I thought of the monstrous injustice +that I felt as if I were twelve feet high when I thrust it down their +throats." Dickens knew no history, but he had all history behind him in +feeling that a pure democracy does tend, when it goes wrong, to be too +traditional and absolute. The truth is indeed a singular example of the +unfair attack upon democracy in our own time. Everybody can repeat the +platitude that the mob can be the greatest of all tyrants. But few +realise or remember the corresponding truth which goes along with +it--that the mob is the only permanent and unassailable high priest. +Democracy drives its traditions too hard; but democracy is the only +thing that keeps any traditions. An aristocracy must always be going +after some new thing. The severity of democracy is far more of a virtue +than its liberty. The decorum of a democracy is far more of a danger +than its lawlessness. Dickens discovered this in his great quarrels +about the copyright, when a whole nation acted on a small point of +opinion as if it were going to lynch him. But, fortunately for the +purpose of this argument, there is no need to go back to the forties for +such a case. Another great literary man has of late visited America; and +it is possible that Maxim Gorky may be in a position to state how far +democracy is likely to err on the side of mere liberty and laxity. He +may have found, like Dickens, some freedom of manners; he did not find +much freedom of morals. + +Along with such American criticism should really go his very +characteristic summary of the question of the Red Indian. It marks the +combination between the mental narrowness and the moral justice of the +old Liberal. Dickens can see nothing in the Red Indian except that he is +barbaric, retrograde, bellicose, uncleanly, and superstitious--in short, +that he is not a member of the special civilisation of Birmingham or +Brighton. It is curious to note the contrast between the cheery, nay +Cockney, contempt with which Dickens speaks of the American Indian and +that chivalrous and pathetic essay in which Washington Irving celebrates +the virtues of the vanishing race. Between Washington Irving and his +friend Charles Dickens there was always indeed this ironical comedy of +inversion. It is amusing that the Englishman should have been the +pushing and even pert modernist, and the American the stately +antiquarian and lover of lost causes. But while a man of more mellow +sympathies may well dislike Dickens's dislike of savages, and even +disdain his disdain, he ought to sharply remind himself of the admirable +ethical fairness and equity which meet with that restricted outlook. In +the very act of describing Red Indians as devils who, like so much dirt, +it would pay us to sweep away, he pauses to deny emphatically that we +have any right to sweep them away. We have no right to wrong the man, he +means to say, even if he himself be a kind of wrong. Here we strike the +ringing iron of the old conscience and sense of honour which marked the +best men of his party and of his epoch. This rigid and even reluctant +justice towers, at any rate, far above modern views of savages, above +the sentimentalism of the mere humanitarian and the far weaker +sentimentalism that pleads for brutality and a race war. Dickens was at +least more of a man than the brutalitarian who claims to wrong people +because they are nasty, or the humanitarian who cannot be just to them +without pretending that they are nice. + + + + +PICTURES FROM ITALY + + +The _Pictures from Italy_ are excellent in themselves and excellent as a +foil to the _American Notes_. Here we have none of that air of giving a +decision like a judge or sending in a report like an inspector; here we +have only glimpses, light and even fantastic glimpses, of a world that +is really alien to Dickens. It is so alien that he can almost entirely +enjoy it. For no man can entirely enjoy that which he loves; contentment +is always unpatriotic. The difference can indeed be put with approximate +perfection in one phrase. In Italy he was on a holiday; in America he +was on a tour. But indeed Dickens himself has quite sufficiently +conveyed the difference in the two phrases that he did actually use for +the titles of the two books. Dickens often told unconscious truths, +especially in small matters. The _American Notes_ really are notes, like +the notes of a student or a professional witness. The _Pictures from +Italy_ are only pictures from Italy, like the miscellaneous pictures +that all tourists bring from Italy. + +To take another and perhaps closer figure of speech, almost all +Dickens's works such as these may best be regarded as private letters +addressed to the public. His private correspondence was quite as +brilliant as his public works; and many of his public works are almost +as formless and casual as his private correspondence. If he had been +struck insensible for a year, I really think that his friends and family +could have brought out one of his best books by themselves if they had +happened to keep his letters. The homogeneity of his public and private +work was indeed strange in many ways. On the one hand, there was little +that was pompously and unmistakably public in the publications; on the +other hand, there was very little that was private in the private +letters. His hilarity had almost a kind of hardness about it; no man's +letters, I should think, ever needed less expurgation on the ground of +weakness or undue confession. The main part, and certainly the best +part, of such a book as _Pictures from Italy_ can certainly be +criticised best as part of that perpetual torrent of entertaining +autobiography which he flung at his children as if they were his readers +and his readers as if they were his children. There are some brilliant +patches of sense and nonsense in this book; but there is always +something accidental in them; as if they might have occurred somewhere +else. Perhaps the most attractive of them is the incomparable +description of the Italian Marionette Theatre in which they acted a play +about the death of Napoleon in St. Helena. The description is better +than that of Codlin and Short's Punch and Judy, and almost as good as +that of Mrs. Jarley's Wax Works. Indeed the humour is similar; for Punch +is supposed to be funny, but Napoleon (as Mrs. Jarley said when asked if +her show was funnier than Punch) was not funny at all. The idea of a +really tragic scene being enacted between tiny wooden dolls with large +heads is delightfully dealt with by Dickens. We can almost imagine the +scene in which the wooden Napoleon haughtily rebukes his wooden jailor +for calling him General Bonaparte--"Sir Hudson Low, call me not thus; I +am Napoleon, Emperor of the French." There is also something singularly +gratifying about the scene of Napoleon's death, in which he lay in bed +with his little wooden hands outside the counterpane and the doctor (who +was hung on wires too short) "delivered medical opinions in the air." It +may seem flippant to dwell on such flippancies in connection with a book +which contains many romantic descriptions and many moral generalisations +which Dickens probably valued highly. But it is not for such things that +he is valued. In all his writings, from his most reasoned and sustained +novel to his maddest private note, it is always this obstreperous +instinct for farce which stands out as his in the highest sense. His +wisdom is at the best talent, his foolishness is genius. Just that +exuberant levity which we associate with a moment we associate in his +case with immortality. It is said of certain old masonry that the mortar +was so hard that it has survived the stones. So if Dickens could revisit +the thing he built, he would be surprised to see all the work he thought +solid and responsible wasted almost utterly away, but the shortest +frivolities and the most momentary jokes remaining like colossal rocks +for ever. + + [Illustration: Charles Dickens, 1844 + From a miniature by Margaret Gillies.] + + + + +MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT + + +There is a certain quality or element which broods over the whole of +_Martin Chuzzlewit_ to which it is difficult for either friends or foes +to put a name. I think the reader who enjoys Dickens's other books has +an impression that it is a kind of melancholy. There are grotesque +figures of the most gorgeous kind; there are scenes that are farcical +even by the standard of the farcical license of Dickens; there is humour +both of the heaviest and of the lightest kind; there are two great comic +personalities who run like a rich vein through the whole story, +Pecksniff and Mrs. Gamp; there is one blinding patch of brilliancy, the +satire on American cant; there is Todgers's boarding-house; there is +Bailey; there is Mr. Mould, the incomparable undertaker. But yet in +spite of everything, in spite even of the undertaker, the book is sad. +No one I think ever went to it in that mixed mood of a tired tenderness +and a readiness to believe and laugh in which most of Dickens's novels +are most enjoyed. We go for a particular novel to Dickens as we go for a +particular inn. We go to the sign of the Pickwick Papers. We go to the +sign of the Rudge and Raven. We go to the sign of the Old Curiosities. +We go to the sign of the Two Cities. We go to each or all of them +according to what kind of hospitality and what kind of happiness we +require. But it is always some kind of hospitality and some kind of +happiness that we require. And as in the case of inns we also remember +that while there was shelter in all and food in all and some kind of +fire and some kind of wine in all, yet one has left upon us an +indescribable and unaccountable memory of mortality and decay, of +dreariness in the rooms and even of tastelessness in the banquet. So any +one who has enjoyed the stories of Dickens as they should be enjoyed has +a nameless feeling that this one story is sad and almost sodden. Dickens +himself had this feeling, though his breezy vanity forbade him to +express it in so many words. In spite of Pecksniff, in spite of Mrs. +Gamp, in spite of the yet greater Bailey, the story went lumberingly and +even lifelessly; he found the sales falling off; he fancied his +popularity waning, and by a sudden impulse most inartistic and yet most +artistic, he dragged in the episode of Martin's visit to America, which +is the blazing jewel and the sudden redemption of the book. He wrote it +at an uneasy and unhappy period of his life; when he had ceased +wandering in America, but could not cease wandering altogether; when he +had lost his original routine of work which was violent but regular, and +had not yet settled down to the full enjoyment of his success and his +later years. He poured into this book genius that might make the +mountains laugh, invention that juggled with the stars. But the book was +sad; and he knew it. + +The just reason for this is really interesting. Yet it is one that is +not easy to state without guarding one's self on the one side or the +other against great misunderstandings; and these stipulations or +preliminary allowances must in such a case as this of necessity be made +first. Dickens was among other things a satirist, a pure satirist. I +have never been able to understand why this title is always specially +and sacredly reserved for Thackeray. Thackeray was a novelist; in the +strict and narrow sense at any rate, Thackeray was a far greater +novelist than Dickens. But Dickens certainly was the satirist. The +essence of satire is that it perceives some absurdity inherent in the +logic of some position, and that it draws that absurdity out and +isolates it, so that all can see it. Thus for instance when Dickens +says, "Lord Coodle would go out; Sir Thomas Doodle wouldn't come in; and +there being no people to speak of in England except Coodle and Doodle +the country has been without a Government"; when Dickens says this he +suddenly pounces on and plucks out the one inherent absurdity in the +English party system which is hidden behind all its paraphernalia of +Parliaments and Statutes, elections and ballot papers. When all the +dignity and all the patriotism and all the public interest of the +English constitutional party conflict have been fully allowed for, there +does remain the bold, bleak question which Dickens in substance asks, +"Suppose I want somebody else who is neither Coodle nor Doodle." This is +the great quality called satire; it is a kind of taunting +reasonableness; and it is inseparable from a certain insane logic which +is often called exaggeration. Dickens was more of a satirist than +Thackeray for this simple reason: that Thackeray carried a man's +principles as far as that man carried them; Dickens carried a man's +principles as far as a man's principles would go. Dickens in short (as +people put it) exaggerated the man and his principles; that is to say +he emphasised them. Dickens drew a man's absurdity out of him; Thackeray +left a man's absurdity in him. Of this last fact we can take any example +we like; take for instance the comparison between the city man as +treated by Thackeray in the most satiric of his novels, with the city +man as treated by Dickens in one of the mildest and maturest of his. +Compare the character of old Mr. Osborne in _Vanity Fair_ with the +character of Mr. Podsnap in _Our Mutual Friend_. In the case of Mr. +Osborne there is nothing except the solid blocking in of a brutal dull +convincing character. _Vanity Fair_ is not a satire on the City except +in so far as it happens to be true. _Vanity Fair_ is not a satire on the +City, in short, except in so far as the City is a satire on the City. +But Mr. Podsnap is a pure satire; he is an extracting out of the City +man of those purely intellectual qualities which happen to make that +kind of City man a particularly exasperating fool. One might almost say +that Mr. Podsnap is all Mr. Osborne's opinions separated from Mr. +Osborne and turned into a character. In short the satirist is more +purely philosophical than the novelist. The novelist may be only an +observer; the satirist must be a thinker. He must be a thinker, he must +be a philosophical thinker for this simple reason; that he exercises his +philosophical thought in deciding what part of his subject he is to +satirise. You may have the dullest possible intelligence and be a +portrait painter; but a man must have a serious intellect in order to be +a caricaturist. He has to select what thing he will caricature. True +satire is always of this intellectual kind; true satire is always, so +to speak, a variation or fantasia upon the air of pure logic. The +satirist is the man who carries men's enthusiasm further than they carry +it themselves. He outstrips the most extravagant fanatic. He is years +ahead of the most audacious prophet. He sees where men's detached +intellect will eventually lead them, and he tells them the name of the +place--which is generally hell. + +Now of this detached and rational use of satire there is one great +example in this book. Even _Gulliver's Travels_ is hardly more +reasonable than Martin Chuzzlewit's travels in the incredible land of +the Americans. Before considering the humour of this description in its +more exhaustive and liberal aspects, it may be first remarked that in +this American part of _Martin Chuzzlewit_, Dickens quite specially +sharpens up his own more controversial and political intelligence. There +are more things here than anywhere else in Dickens that partake of the +nature of pamphleteering, of positive challenge, of sudden repartee, of +pugnacious and exasperating query, in a word of everything that belongs +to the pure art of controversy as distinct not only from the pure art of +fiction but even also from the pure art of satire. I am inclined to +think (to put the matter not only shortly but clumsily) that Dickens was +never in all his life so strictly clever as he is in the American part +of _Martin Chuzzlewit_. There are places where he was more inspired, +almost in the sense of being intoxicated, as, for instance, in the +Micawber feasts of _David Copperfield_; there are places where he wrote +more carefully and cunningly, as, for instance, in the mystery of _The +Mystery of Edwin Drood_; there are places where he wrote very much more +humanly, more close to the ground and to growing things, as in the whole +of that admirable book _Great Expectations_. But I do not think that his +mere abstract acuteness and rapidity of thought were ever exercised with +such startling exactitude as they are in this place in _Martin +Chuzzlewit_. It is to be noted, for instance, that his American +experience had actually worked him up to a heat and habit of argument. A +slave-owner in the Southern States tells Dickens that slave-owners do +not ill-treat their slaves, that it is not to the interest of +slave-owners to ill-treat their slaves. Dickens flashes back that it is +not to the interest of a man to get drunk, but he does get drunk. This +pugnacious atmosphere of parry and riposte must first of all be allowed +for and understood in all the satiric excursus of Martin in America. +Dickens is arguing all the time; and, to do him justice, arguing very +well. These chapters are full not merely of exuberant satire on America +in the sense that Dotheboys Hall or Mr. Bumble's Workhouse are exuberant +satires on England. They are full also of sharp argument with America as +if the man who wrote expected retort and was prepared with rejoinder. +The rest of the book, like the rest of Dickens's books, possesses +humour. This part of the book, like hardly any of Dickens's books, +possesses wit. The republican gentleman who receives Martin on landing +is horrified on hearing an English servant speak of the employer as "the +master." "There are no masters in America," says the gentleman. "All +owners are they?" says Martin. This sort of verbal promptitude is out of +the ordinary scope of Dickens; but we find it frequently in this +particular part of _Martin Chuzzlewit_. Martin himself is constantly +breaking out into a controversial lucidity, which is elsewhere not at +all a part of his character. When they talk to him about the +institutions of America he asks sarcastically whether bowie knives and +swordsticks and revolvers are the institutions of America. All this (if +I may summarise) is expressive of one main fact. Being a satirist means +being a philosopher. Dickens was not always very philosophical; but he +had this permanent quality of the philosopher about him, that he always +remembered people by their opinions. Elijah Pogram was to him the man +who said that "his boastful answer to the tyrant and the despot was that +his bright home was the land of the settin' sun." Mr. Scadder and Mr. +Jefferson Brick were to him the men who said (in cooperation) that "the +libation of freedom must sometimes be quaffed in blood." And in these +chapters more than anywhere else he falls into the extreme habit of +satire, that of treating people as if there were nothing about them +except their opinions. It is therefore difficult to accept these pages +as pages in a novel, splendid as they are considered as pages in a +parody. I do not dispute that men have said and do say that "the +libation of freedom must sometimes be quaffed in blood," that "their +bright homes are the land of the settin' sun," that "they taunt that +lion," that "alone they dare him," or "that softly sleeps the calm ideal +in the whispering chambers of imagination." I have read too much +American journalism to deny that any of these sentences and any of these +opinions may at some time or other have been uttered. I do not deny +that there are such opinions. But I do deny that there are such people. +Elijah Pogram had some other business in life besides defending +defaulting postmasters; he must have been a son or a father or a husband +or at least (admirable thought) a lover. Mr. Chollop had some moments in +his existence when he was not threatening his fellow-creatures with his +sword-stick and his revolver. Of all this human side of such American +types Dickens does not really give any hint at all. He does not suggest +that the bully Chollop had even such coarse good-humour as bullies +almost always have. He does not suggest that the humbug Elijah Pogram +had even as much greasy amiability as humbugs almost invariably have. He +is not studying them as human beings, even as bad human beings; he is +studying them as conceptions, as points of view, as symbols of a state +of mind with which he is in violent disagreement. To put it roughly, he +is not describing characters, he is satirising fads. To put it more +exactly, he is not describing characters; he is persecuting heresies. +There is one thing really to be said against his American satire; it is +a serious thing to be said: it is an argument, and it is true. This can +be said of Martin's wanderings in America, that from the time he lands +in America to the time he sets sail from it he never meets a living man. +He has travelled in the land of Laputa. All the people he has met have +been absurd opinions walking about. The whole art of Dickens in such +passages as these consisted in one thing. It consisted in finding an +opinion that had not a leg to stand on, and then giving it two legs to +stand on. + +So much may be allowed; it may be admitted that Dickens is in this sense +the great satirist, in that he can imagine absurd opinions walking by +themselves about the street. It may be admitted that Thackeray would not +have allowed an absurd opinion to walk about the street without at least +tying a man on to it for the sake of safety. But while this first truth +may be evident, the second truth which is the complement of it may +easily be forgotten. On the one hand there was no man who could so much +enjoy mere intellectual satire apart from humanity as Dickens. On the +other hand there was no man who, with another and more turbulent part of +his nature, demanded humanity, and demanded its supremacy over +intellect, more than Dickens. To put it shortly: there never was a man +so much fitted for saying that everything was wrong; and there never was +a man who was so desirous of saying that everything was right. Thus, +when he met men with whom he violently disagreed, he described them as +devils or lunatics; he could not bear to describe them as men. If they +could not think with him on essentials he could not stand the idea that +they were human souls; he cast them out; he forgot them; and if he could +not forget them he caricatured them. He was too emotional to regard them +as anything but enemies, if they were not friends. He was too humane not +to hate them. Charles Lamb said with his inimitable sleek pungency that +he could read all the books there were; he excluded books that obviously +were not books, as cookery books, chessboards bound so as to look like +books, and all the works of modern historians and philosophers. One +might say in much the same style that Dickens loved all the men in the +world; that is he loved all the men whom he was able to recognise as +men; the rest he turned into griffins and chimeras without any serious +semblance to humanity. Even in his books he never hates a human being. +If he wishes to hate him he adopts the simple expedient of making him an +inhuman being. Now of these two strands almost the whole of Dickens is +made up; they are not only different strands, they are even antagonistic +strands. I mean that the whole of Dickens is made up of the strand of +satire and the strand of sentimentalism; and the strand of satire is +quite unnecessarily merciless and hostile, and the strand of +sentimentalism is quite unnecessarily humanitarian and even maudlin. On +the proper interweaving of these two things depends the great part of +Dickens's success in a novel. And by the consideration of them we can +probably best arrive at the solution of the particular emotional enigma +of the novel called _Martin Chuzzlewit_. + +_Martin Chuzzlewit_ is, I think, vaguely unsatisfactory to the reader, +vaguely sad and heavy even to the reader who loves Dickens, because in +_Martin Chuzzlewit_ more than anywhere else in Dickens's works, more +even than in _Oliver Twist_, there is a predominance of the harsh and +hostile sort of humour over the hilarious and the humane. It is absurd +to lay down any such little rules for the testing of literature. But +this may be broadly said and yet with confidence: that Dickens is always +at his best when he is laughing at the people whom he really admires. He +is at his most humorous in writing of Mr. Pickwick, who represents +passive virtue. He is at his most humorous in writing of Mr. Sam +Weller, who represents active virtue. He is never so funny as when he is +speaking of people in whom fun itself is a virtue, like the poor people +in the Fleet or the Marshalsea. And in the stories that had immediately +preceded _Martin Chuzzlewit_ he had consistently concerned himself in +the majority of cases with the study of such genial and honourable +eccentrics; if they are lunatics they are amiable lunatics. In the last +important novel before _Martin Chuzzlewit_, _Barnaby Rudge_, the hero +himself is an amiable lunatic. In the novel before that, _The Old +Curiosity Shop_, the two comic figures, Dick Swiveller and the +Marchioness, are not only the most really entertaining, but also the +most really sympathetic characters in the book. Before that came _Oliver +Twist_ (which is, I have said, an exception), and before that +_Pickwick_, where the hero is, as Mr. Weller says, "an angel in +gaiters." Hitherto, then, on the whole, the central Dickens character +had been the man who gave to the poor many things, gold and wine and +feasting and good advice; but among other things gave them a good laugh +at himself. The jolly old English merchant of the Pickwick type was +popular on both counts. People liked to see him throw his money in the +gutter. They also liked to see him throw himself there occasionally. In +both acts they recognised a common quality of virtue. + +Now I think it is certainly the disadvantage of _Martin Chuzzlewit_ that +none of its absurd characters are thus sympathetic. There are in the +book two celebrated characters who are both especially exuberant and +amusing even for Dickens, and who are both especially heartless and +abominable even for Dickens--I mean of course Mr. Pecksniff on the one +hand and Mrs. Gamp on the other. The humour of both of them is +gigantesque. Nobody will ever forget the first time he read the words +"Now I should be very glad to see Mrs. Todgers's idea of a wooden leg." +It is like remembering first love: there is still some sort of ancient +sweetness and sting. I am afraid that, in spite of many criticisms to +the contrary, I am still unable to take Mr. Pecksniff's hypocrisy +seriously. He does not seem to me so much a hypocrite as a rhetorician; +he reminds me of Serjeant Buzfuz. A very capable critic, Mr. Noyes, said +that I was wrong when I suggested in another place that Dickens must +have loved Pecksniff. Mr. Noyes thinks it clear that Dickens hated +Pecksniff. I cannot believe it. Hatred does indeed linger round its +object as much as love; but not in that way. Dickens is always making +Pecksniff say things which have a wild poetical truth about them. Hatred +allows no such outbursts of original innocence. But however that may be +the broad fact remains--Dickens may or may not have loved Pecksniff +comically, but he did not love him seriously; he did not respect him as +he certainly respected Sam Weller. The same of course is true of Mrs. +Gamp. To any one who appreciates her unctuous and sumptuous conversation +it is difficult indeed not to feel that it would be almost better to be +killed by Mrs. Gamp than to be saved by a better nurse. But the fact +remains. In this book Dickens has not allowed us to love the most absurd +people seriously, and absurd people ought to be loved seriously. +Pecksniff has to be amusing all the time; the instant he ceases to be +laughable he becomes detestable. Pickwick can take his ease at his inn; +he can be leisurely, he can be spacious; he can fall into moods of +gravity and even of dulness; he is not bound to be always funny or to +forfeit the reader's concern, for he is a good man, and therefore even +his dulness is beautiful, just as is the dulness of the animal. We can +leave Pickwick a little while by the fire to think; for the thoughts of +Pickwick, even if they were to go slowly, would be full of all the +things that all men care for--old friends and old inns and memory and +the goodness of God. But we dare not leave Pecksniff alone for a moment. +We dare not leave him thinking by the fire, for the thoughts of +Pecksniff would be too frightful. + + + + +CHRISTMAS BOOKS + + +The mystery of Christmas is in a manner identical with the mystery of +Dickens. If ever we adequately explain the one we may adequately explain +the other. And indeed, in the treatment of the two, the chronological or +historical order must in some degree be remembered. Before we come to +the question of what Dickens did for Christmas we must consider the +question of what Christmas did for Dickens. How did it happen that this +bustling, nineteenth-century man, full of the almost cock-sure +common-sense of the utilitarian and liberal epoch, came to associate his +name chiefly in literary history with the perpetuation of a half pagan +and half Catholic festival which he would certainly have called an +antiquity and might easily have called a superstition? Christmas has +indeed been celebrated before in English literature; but it had, in the +most noticeable cases, been celebrated in connection with that kind of +feudalism with which Dickens would have severed his connection with an +ignorant and even excessive scorn. Sir Roger de Coverley kept Christmas; +but it was a feudal Christmas. Sir Walter Scott sang in praise of +Christmas; but it was a feudal Christmas. And Dickens was not only +indifferent to the dignity of the old country gentleman or to the genial +archaeology of Scott; he was even harshly and insolently hostile to it. +If Dickens had lived in the neighbourhood of Sir Roger de Coverley he +would undoubtedly, like Tom Touchy, have been always "having the law of +him." If Dickens had stumbled in among the old armour and quaint folios +of Scott's study he would certainly have read his brother novelist a +lesson in no measured terms about the futility of thus fumbling in the +dust-bins of old oppression and error. So far from Dickens being one of +those who like a thing because it is old, he was one of those cruder +kind of reformers, in theory at least, who actually dislike a thing +because it is old. He was not merely the more righteous kind of Radical +who tries to uproot abuses; he was partly also that more suicidal kind +of Radical who tries to uproot himself. In theory at any rate, he had no +adequate conception of the importance of human tradition; in his time it +had been twisted and falsified into the form of an opposition to +democracy. In truth, of course, tradition is the most democratic of all +things, for tradition is merely a democracy of the dead as well as the +living. But Dickens and his special group or generation had no grasp of +this permanent position; they had been called to a special war for the +righting of special wrongs. In so far as such an institution as +Christmas was old, Dickens would even have tended to despise it. He +could never have put the matter to himself in the correct way--that +while there are some things whose antiquity does prove that they are +dying, there are some other things whose antiquity only proves that they +cannot die. If some Radical contemporary and friend of Dickens had +happened to say to him that in defending the mince-pies and the +mummeries of Christmas he was defending a piece of barbaric and brutal +ritualism, doomed to disappear in the light of reason along with the +Boy-Bishop and the Lord of Misrule, I am not sure that Dickens (though +he was one of the readiest and most rapid masters of reply in history) +would have found it very easy upon his own principles to answer. It was +by a great ancestral instinct that he defended Christmas; by that sacred +sub-consciousness which is called tradition, which some have called a +dead thing, but which is really a thing far more living than the +intellect. There is a dark kinship and brotherhood of all mankind which +is much too deep to be called heredity or to be in any way explained in +scientific formulae; blood is thicker than water and is especially very +much thicker than water on the brain. But this unconscious and even +automatic quality in Dickens's defence of the Christmas feast, this fact +that his defence might almost be called animal rather than mental, +though in proper language it should be called merely virile; all this +brings us back to the fact that we must begin with the atmosphere of the +subject itself. We must not ask Dickens what Christmas is, for with all +his heat and eloquence he does not know. Rather we must ask Christmas +what Dickens is--ask how this strange child of Christmas came to be born +out of due time. + +Dickens devoted his genius in a somewhat special sense to the +description of happiness. No other literary man of his eminence has made +this central human aim so specially his subject matter. Happiness is a +mystery--generally a momentary mystery--which seldom stops long enough +to submit itself to artistic observation, and which, even when it is +habitual, has something about it which renders artistic description +almost impossible. There are twenty tiny minor poets who can describe +fairly impressively an eternity of agony; there are very few even of the +eternal poets who can describe ten minutes of satisfaction. +Nevertheless, mankind being half divine is always in love with the +impossible, and numberless attempts have been made from the beginning of +human literature to describe a real state of felicity. Upon the whole, I +think, the most successful have been the most frankly physical and +symbolic; the flowers of Eden or the jewels of the New Jerusalem. Many +writers, for instance, have called the gold and chrysolite of the Holy +City a vulgar lump of jewellery. But when these critics themselves +attempt to describe their conceptions of future happiness, it is always +some priggish nonsense about "planes," about "cycles of fulfilment," or +"spirals of spiritual evolution." Now a cycle is just as much a physical +metaphor as a flower of Eden; a spiral is just as much a physical +metaphor as a precious stone. But, after all, a garden is a beautiful +thing; whereas this is by no means necessarily true of a cycle, as can +be seen in the case of a bicycle. A jewel, after all, is a beautiful +thing; but this is not necessarily so of a spiral, as can be seen in the +case of a corkscrew. Nothing is gained by dropping the old material +metaphors, which did hint at heavenly beauty, and adopting other +material metaphors which do not even give a hint of earthly beauty. This +modern or spiral method of describing indescribable happiness may, I +think, be dismissed. Then there has been another method which has been +adopted by many men of a very real poetical genius. It was the method of +the old pastoral poets like Theocritus. It was in another way that +adopted by the elegance and piety of Spenser. It was certainly expressed +in the pictures of Watteau; and it had a very sympathetic and even manly +expression in modern England in the decorative poetry of William Morris. +These men of genius, from Theocritus to Morris, occupied themselves in +endeavouring to describe happiness as a state of certain human beings, +the atmosphere of a commonwealth, the enduring climate of certain cities +or islands. They poured forth treasures of the truest kind of +imagination upon describing the happy lives and landscapes of Utopia or +Atlantis or the Earthly Paradise. They traced with the most tender +accuracy the tracery of its fruit-trees or the glimmering garments of +its women; they used every ingenuity of colour or intricate shape to +suggest its infinite delight. And what they succeeded in suggesting was +always its infinite melancholy. William Morris described the Earthly +Paradise in such a way that the only strong emotional note left on the +mind was the feeling of how homeless his travellers felt in that alien +Elysium; and the reader sympathised with them, feeling that he would +prefer not only Elizabethan England but even twentieth-century +Camberwell to such a land of shining shadows. Thus literature has almost +always failed in endeavouring to describe happiness as a state. Human +tradition, human custom and folk-lore (though far more true and reliable +than literature as a rule) have not often succeeded in giving quite the +correct symbols for a real atmosphere of _camaraderie_ and joy. But +here and there the note has been struck with the sudden vibration of the +_vox humana_. In human tradition it has been struck chiefly in the old +celebrations of Christmas. In literature it has been struck chiefly in +Dickens's Christmas tales. + +In the historic celebration of Christmas as it remains from Catholic +times in certain northern countries (and it is to be remembered that in +Catholic times the northern countries were, if possible, more Catholic +than anybody else), there are three qualities which explain, I think, +its hold upon the human sense of happiness, especially in such men as +Dickens. There are three notes of Christmas, so to speak, which are also +notes of happiness, and which the pagans and the Utopians forget. If we +state what they are in the case of Christmas, it will be quite +sufficiently obvious how important they are in the case of Dickens. + +The first quality is what may be called the dramatic quality. The +happiness is not a state; it is a crisis. All the old customs +surrounding the celebration of the birth of Christ are made by human +instinct so as to insist and re-insist upon this crucial quality. +Everything is so arranged that the whole household may feel, if +possible, as a household does when a child is actually being born in it. +The thing is a vigil and a vigil with a definite limit. People sit up at +night until they hear the bells ring. Or they try to sleep at night in +order to see their presents the next morning. Everywhere there is a +limitation, a restraint; at one moment the door is shut, at the moment +after it is opened. The hour has come or it has not come; the parcels +are undone or they are not undone; there is no evolution of Christmas +presents. This sharp and theatrical quality in pleasure, which human +instinct and the mother wit of the world has wisely put into the popular +celebrations of Christmas, is also a quality which is essential in such +romantic literature as Dickens wrote. In romantic literature the hero +and heroine must indeed be happy, but they must also be unexpectedly +happy. This is the first connecting link between literature and the old +religious feast; this is the first connecting link between Dickens and +Christmas. + +The second element to be found in all such festivity and all such +romance is the element which is represented as well as it could be +represented by the mere fact that Christmas occurs in the winter. It is +the element not merely of contrast, but actually of antagonism. It +preserves everything that was best in the merely primitive or pagan view +of such ceremonies or such banquets. If we are carousing, at least we +are warriors carousing. We hang above us, as it were, the shields and +battle-axes with which we must do battle with the giants of the snow and +hail. All comfort must be based on discomfort. Man chooses when he +wishes to be most joyful the very moment when the whole material +universe is most sad. It is this contradiction and mystical defiance +which gives a quality of manliness and reality to the old winter feasts +which is not characteristic of the sunny felicities of the Earthly +Paradise. And this curious element has been carried out even in all the +trivial jokes and tasks that have always surrounded such occasions as +these. The object of the jovial customs was not to make everything +artificially easy: on the contrary, it was rather to make everything +artificially difficult. Idealism is not only expressed by shooting an +arrow at the stars; the fundamental principle of idealism is also +expressed by putting a leg of mutton at the top of a greasy pole. There +is in all such observances a quality which can be called only the +quality of divine obstruction. For instance, in the game of snapdragon +(that admirable occupation) the conception is that raisins taste much +nicer if they are brands saved from the burning. About all Christmas +things there is something a little nobler, if only nobler in form and +theory, than mere comfort; even holly is prickly. It is not hard to see +the connection of this kind of historic instinct with a romantic writer +like Dickens. The healthy novelist must always play snapdragon with his +principal characters; he must always be snatching the hero and heroine +like raisins out of the fire. + +The third great Christmas element is the element of the grotesque. The +grotesque is the natural expression of joy; and all the Utopias and new +Edens of the poets fail to give a real impression of enjoyment, very +largely because they leave out the grotesque. A man in most modern +Utopias cannot really be happy; he is too dignified. A man in Morris's +Earthly Paradise cannot really be enjoying himself; he is too +decorative. When real human beings have real delights they tend to +express them entirely in grotesques--I might almost say entirely in +goblins. On Christmas Eve one may talk about ghosts so long as they are +turnip ghosts. But one would not be allowed (I hope, in any decent +family) to talk on Christmas Eve about astral bodies. The boar's head of +old Yule-time was as grotesque as the donkey's head of Bottom the +Weaver. But there is only one set of goblins quite wild enough to +express the wild goodwill of Christmas. Those goblins are the characters +of Dickens. + +Arcadian poets and Arcadian painters have striven to express happiness +by means of beautiful figures. Dickens understood that happiness is best +expressed by ugly figures. In beauty, perhaps, there is something allied +to sadness; certainly there is something akin to joy in the grotesque, +nay, in the uncouth. There is something mysteriously associated with +happiness not only in the corpulence of Falstaff and the corpulence of +Tony Weller, but even in the red nose of Bardolph or the red nose of Mr. +Stiggins. A thing of beauty is an inspiration for ever--a matter of +meditation for ever. It is rather a thing of ugliness that is strictly a +joy for ever. + +All Dickens's books are Christmas books. But this is still truest of his +two or three famous Yuletide tales--The _Christmas Carol_ and _The +Chimes_ and _The Cricket on the Hearth_. Of these _The Christmas Carol_ +is beyond comparison the best as well as the most popular. Indeed, +Dickens is in so profound and spiritual a sense a popular author that in +his case, unlike most others, it can generally be said that the best +work is the most popular. It is for _Pickwick_ that he is best known; +and upon the whole it is for Pickwick that he is best worth knowing. In +any case this superiority of _The Christmas Carol_ makes it convenient +for us to take it as an example of the generalisations already made. If +we study the very real atmosphere of rejoicing and of riotous charity in +_The Christmas Carol_ we shall find that all the three marks I have +mentioned are unmistakably visible. _The Christmas Carol_ is a happy +story first, because it describes an abrupt and dramatic change. It is +not only the story of a conversion, but of a sudden conversion; as +sudden as the conversion of a man at a Salvation Army meeting. Popular +religion is quite right in insisting on the fact of a crisis in most +things. It is true that the man at the Salvation Army meeting would +probably be converted from the punch bowl; whereas Scrooge was converted +to it. That only means that Scrooge and Dickens represented a higher and +more historic Christianity. + +Again, _The Christmas Carol_ owes much of its hilarity to our second +source--the fact of its being a tale of winter and of a very wintry +winter. There is much about comfort in the story; yet the comfort is +never enervating: it is saved from that by a tingle of something bitter +and bracing in the weather. Lastly, the story exemplifies throughout the +power of the third principle--the kinship between gaiety and the +grotesque. Everybody is happy because nobody is dignified. We have a +feeling somehow that Scrooge looked even uglier when he was kind than he +had looked when he was cruel. The turkey that Scrooge bought was so fat, +says Dickens, that it could never have stood upright. That top-heavy and +monstrous bird is a good symbol of the top-heavy happiness of the +stories. + +It is less profitable to criticise the other two tales in detail because +they represent variations on the theme in two directions; and variations +that were not, upon the whole, improvements. _The Chimes_ is a monument +of Dickens's honourable quality of pugnacity. He could not admire +anything, even peace, without wanting to be warlike about it. That was +all as it should be. + + + + +DOMBEY AND SON + + +In Dickens's literary life _Dombey and Son_ represents a break so +important as to necessitate our casting back to a summary and a +generalisation. In order fully to understand what this break is, we must +say something of the previous character of Dickens's novels, and even +something of the general character of novels in themselves. How +essential this is we shall see shortly. + +It must first be remembered that the novel is the most typical of modern +forms. It is typical of modern forms especially in this, that it is +essentially formless. All the ancient modes or structures of literature +were definite and severe. Any one composing them had to abide by their +rules; they were what their name implied. Thus a tragedy might be a bad +tragedy, but it was always a tragedy. Thus an epic might be a bad epic, +but it was always an epic. Now in the sense in which there is such a +thing as an epic, in that sense there is no such thing as a novel. We +call any long fictitious narrative in prose a novel, just as we call any +short piece of prose without any narrative an essay. Both these forms +are really quite formless, and both of them are really quite new. The +difference between a good epic by Mr. John Milton and a bad epic by Mr. +John Smith was simply the difference between the same thing done well +and the same thing done badly. But it was not (for instance) like the +difference between _Clarissa Harlowe_ and _The Time Machine_. If we +class Richardson's book with Mr. Wells's book it is really only for +convenience; if we say that they are both novels we shall certainly be +puzzled in that case to say what on earth a novel is. But the note of +our age, both for good and evil, is a highly poetical and largely +illogical faith in liberty. Liberty is not a negation or a piece of +nonsense, as the cheap reactionaries say; it is a belief in variety and +growth. But it is a purely poetic and even a merely romantic belief. The +nineteenth century was an age of romance as certainly as the Middle Ages +was an age of reason. Mediaevals liked to have everything defined and +defensible; the modern world prefers to run some risks for the sake of +spontaneity and diversity. Consequently the modern world is full of a +phenomenon peculiar to itself--I mean the spectacle of small or +originally small things swollen to enormous size and power. The modern +world is like a world in which toadstools should be as big as trees, and +insects should walk about in the sun as large as elephants. Thus, for +instance, the shopkeeper, almost an unimportant figure in carefully +ordered states, has in our time become the millionaire, and has more +power than ten kings. Thus again a practical knowledge of nature, of the +habits of animals or the properties of fire and water, was in the old +ordered state either an almost servile labour or a sort of joke; it was +left to old women and gamekeepers and boys who went birds'-nesting. In +our time this commonplace daily knowledge has swollen into the enormous +miracle of physical size, weighing the stars and talking under the sea. +In short, our age is a sort of splendid jungle in which some of the most +towering weeds and blossoms have come from the smallest seed. + +And this is, generally speaking, the explanation of the novel. The novel +is not so much the filling up of an artistic plan, however new or +fantastic. It is a thing that has grown from some germ of suggestion, +and has often turned out much larger than the author intended. And this, +lastly, is the final result of these facts, that the critic can +generally trace in a novel what was the original artistic type or shape +of thought from which the whole matter started, and he will generally +find that this is different in every case. In one novel he will find +that the first impulse is a character. In another novel he will find +that the first impulse is a landscape, the atmosphere of some special +countryside. In another novel he will find that the first impulse is the +last chapter. Or it may be a thrust with sword or dagger, it may be a +theology, it may be a song. Somewhere embedded in every ordinary book +are the five or six words for which really all the rest will be written. +Some of our enterprising editors who set their readers to hunt for +banknotes and missing ladies might start a competition for finding those +words in every novel. But whether or no this is possible, there is no +doubt that the principle in question is of great importance in the case +of Dickens, and especially in the case of _Dombey and Son_. + +In all the Dickens novels can be seen, so to speak, the original thing +that they were before they were novels. The same may be observed, for +the matter of that, in the great novels of most of the great modern +novelists. For example, Sir Walter Scott wrote poetical romances before +he wrote prose romances. Hence it follows that, with all their much +greater merit, his novels may still be described as poetical romances in +prose. While adding a new and powerful element of popular humours and +observation, Scott still retains a certain purely poetical right--a +right to make his heroes and outlaws and great kings speak at the great +moments with a rhetoric so rhythmical that it partakes of the nature of +song, the same quite metrical rhetoric which is used in the metrical +speeches of Marmion or Roderick Dhu. In the same way, although _Don +Quixote_ is a modern novel in its irony and subtlety, we can see that it +comes from the old long romances of chivalry. In the same way, although +_Clarissa_ is a modern novel in its intimacy and actuality, we can see +that it comes from the old polite letter-writing and polite essays of +the period of the _Spectator_. Any one can see that Scott formed in _The +Lay of the Last Minstrel_ the style that he applied again and again +afterwards, like the reappearances of a star taking leave of the stage. +All his other romances were positively last appearances of the +positively last Minstrel. Any one can see that Thackeray formed in +fragmentary satires like _The Book of Snobs_ or _The Yellowplush Papers_ +the style, the rather fragmentary style, in which he was to write +_Vanity Fair_. In most modern cases, in short (until very lately, at any +rate), the novel is an enormous outgrowth from something that was not a +novel. And in Dickens this is very important. All his novels are +outgrowths of the original notion of taking notes, splendid and +inspired notes, of what happens in the street. Those in the modern +world who cannot reconcile themselves to his method--those who feel that +there is about his books something intolerably clumsy or +superficial--have either no natural taste for strong literature at all, +or else have fallen into their error by too persistently regarding +Dickens as a modern novelist and expecting all his books to be modern +novels. Dickens did not know at what exact point he really turned into a +novelist. Nor do we. Dickens did not know, in his deepest soul, whether +he ever really did turn into a novelist. Nor do we. The novel being a +modern product is one of the few things to which we really can apply +that disgusting method of thought--the method of evolution. But even in +evolution there are great gaps, there are great breaks, there are great +crises. I have said that the first of these breaks in Dickens may be +placed at the point when he wrote _Nicholas Nickleby_. This was his +first serious decision to be a novelist in any sense at all, to be +anything except a maker of momentary farces. The second break, and that +a far more important break, is in _Dombey and Son_. This marks his final +resolution to be a novelist and nothing else, to be a serious +constructor of fiction in the serious sense. Before _Dombey and Son_ +even his pathos had been really frivolous. After _Dombey and Son_ even +his absurdity was intentional and grave. + +In case this transition is not understood, one or two tests may be taken +at random. The episodes in _Dombey and Son_, the episodes in _David +Copperfield_, which came after it, are no longer episodes merely stuck +into the middle of the story without any connection with it, like most +of the episodes in _Nicholas Nickleby_, or most of the episodes even in +_Martin Chuzzlewit_. Take, for instance, by way of a mere coincidence, +the fact that three schools for boys are described successively in +_Nicholas Nickleby_, in _Dombey and Son_, and in _David Copperfield_. +But the difference is enormous. Dotheboys Hall does not exist to tell us +anything about Nicholas Nickleby. Rather Nicholas Nickleby exists +entirely in order to tell us about Dotheboys Hall. It does not in any +way affect his history or psychology; he enters Mr. Squeers's school and +leaves Mr. Squeers's school with the same character, or rather absence +of character. It is a mere episode, existing for itself. But when little +Paul Dombey goes to an old-fashioned but kindly school, it is in a very +different sense and for a very different reason from that for which +Nicholas Nickleby goes to an old-fashioned and cruel school. The sending +of little Paul to Dr. Blimber's is a real part of the history of little +Paul, such as it is. Dickens deliberately invents all that elderly +pedantry in order to show up Paul's childishness. Dickens deliberately +invents all that rather heavy kindness in order to show up Paul's +predestination and tragedy. Dotheboys Hall is not meant to show up +anything except Dotheboys Hall. But although Dickens doubtless enjoyed +Dr. Blimber quite as much as Mr. Squeers, it remains true that Dr. +Blimber is really a very good foil to Paul; whereas Squeers is not a +foil to Nicholas; Nicholas is merely a lame excuse for Squeers. The +change can be seen continued in the school, or rather the two schools, +to which David Copperfield goes. The whole idea of David Copperfield's +life is that he had the dregs of life before the wine of it. He knew +the worst of the world before he knew the best of it. His childhood at +Dr. Strong's is a second childhood. Now for this purpose the two schools +are perfectly well adapted. Mr. Creakle's school is not only, like Mr. +Squeers's school, a bad school, it is a bad influence upon David +Copperfield. Dr. Strong's school is not only a good school, it is a good +influence upon David Copperfield. I have taken this case of the schools +as a case casual but concrete. The same, however, can be seen in any of +the groups or incidents of the novels on both sides of the boundary. Mr. +Crummles's theatrical company is only a society that Nicholas happens to +fall into. America is only a place to which Martin Chuzzlewit happens to +go. These things are isolated sketches, and nothing else. Even Todgers's +boarding-house is only a place where Mr. Pecksniff can be delightfully +hypocritical. It is not a place which throws any new light on Mr. +Pecksniff's hypocrisy. But the case is different with that more subtle +hypocrite in _Dombey and Son_--I mean Major Bagstock. Dickens does mean +it as a deliberate light on Mr. Dombey's character that he basks with a +fatuous calm in the blazing sun of Major Bagstock's tropical and +offensive flattery. Here, then, is the essence of the change. He not +only wishes to write a novel; this he did as early as _Nicholas +Nickleby_. He wishes to have as little as possible in the novel that +does not really assist it as a novel. Previously he had asked with the +assistance of what incidents could his hero wander farther and farther +from the pathway. Now he has really begun to ask with the assistance of +what incidents his hero can get nearer and nearer to the goal. + +The change made Dickens a greater novelist. I am not sure that it made +him a greater man. One good character by Dickens requires all eternity +to stretch its legs in; and the characters in his later books are always +being tripped up by some tiresome nonsense about the story. For +instance, in _Dombey and Son_, Mrs. Skewton is really very funny. But +nobody with a love of the real smell of Dickens would compare her for a +moment, for instance, with Mrs. Nickleby. And the reason of Mrs. +Skewton's inferiority is simply this, that she has something to do in +the plot; she has to entrap or assist to entrap Mr. Dombey into marrying +Edith. Mrs. Nickleby, on the other hand, has nothing at all to do in the +story, except to get in everybody's way. The consequence is that we +complain not of her for getting in everyone's way, but of everyone for +getting in hers. What are suns and stars, what are times and seasons, +what is the mere universe, that it should presume to interrupt Mrs. +Nickleby? Mrs. Skewton (though supposed, of course, to be a much viler +sort of woman) has something of the same quality of splendid and +startling irrelevancy. In her also there is the same feeling of wild +threads hung from world to world like the webs of gigantic spiders; of +things connected that seem to have no connection save by this one +adventurous filament of frail and daring folly. Nothing could be better +than Mrs. Skewton when she finds herself, after convolutions of speech, +somehow on the subject of Henry VIII., and pauses to mention with +approval "his dear little peepy eyes and his benevolent chin." Nothing +could be better than her attempt at Mahomedan resignation when she feels +almost inclined to say "that there is no What's-his-name but Thingummy, +and What-you-may-call-it is his prophet!" But she has not so much time +as Mrs. Nickleby to say these good things; also she has not sufficient +human virtue to say them constantly. She is always intent upon her +worldly plans, among other things upon the worldly plan of assisting +Charles Dickens to get a story finished. She is always "advancing her +shrivelled ear" to listen to what Dombey is saying to Edith. Worldliness +is the most solemn thing in the world; it is far more solemn than +other-worldliness. Mrs. Nickleby can afford to ramble as a child does in +a field, or as a child does to laugh at nothing, for she is like a +child, innocent. It is only the good who can afford to be frivolous. + +Broadly speaking, what is said here of Mrs. Skewton applies to the great +part of _Dombey and Son_, even to the comic part of it. It shows an +advance in art and unity; it does not show an advance in genius and +creation. In some cases, in fact, I cannot help feeling that it shows a +falling off. It may be a personal idiosyncrasy, but there is only one +comic character really prominent in Dickens, upon whom Dickens has +really lavished the wealth of his invention, and who does not amuse me +at all, and that character is Captain Cuttle. But three great exceptions +must be made to any such disparagement of _Dombey and Son_. They are all +three of that royal order in Dickens's creation which can no more be +described or criticised than strong wine. The first is Major Bagstock, +the second is Cousin Feenix, the third is Toots. In Bagstock Dickens has +blasted for ever that type which pretends to be sincere by the simple +operation of being explosively obvious. He tells about a quarter of the +truth, and then poses as truthful because a quarter of the truth is much +simpler than the whole of it. He is the kind of man who goes about with +posers for Bishops or for Socialists, with plain questions to which he +wants a plain answer. His questions are plain only in the same sense +that he himself is plain--in the sense of being uncommonly ugly. He is +the man who always bursts with satisfaction because he can call a spade +a spade, as if there were any kind of logical or philosophical use in +merely saying the same word twice over. He is the man who wants things +down in black and white, as if black and white were the only two +colours; as if blue and green and red and gold were not facts of the +universe. He is too selfish to tell the truth and too impatient even to +hear it. He cannot endure the truth, because it is subtle. This man is +almost always like Bagstock--a sycophant and a toad-eater. A man is not +any the less a toad-eater because he eats his toads with a huge appetite +and gobbles them up, as Bagstock did his breakfast, with the eyes +starting out of his purple face. He flatters brutally. He cringes with a +swagger. And men of the world like Dombey are always taken in by him, +because men of the world are probably the simplest of all the children +of Adam. + +Cousin Feenix again is an exquisite suggestion, with his rickety +chivalry and rambling compliments. It was about the period of _Dombey +and Son_ that Dickens began to be taken up by good society. (One can use +only vulgar terms for an essentially vulgar process.) And his sketches +of the man of good family in the books of this period show that he had +had glimpses of what that singular world is like. The aristocrats in his +earliest books are simply dragons and griffins for his heroes to fight +with--monsters like Sir Mulberry Hawk or Lord Verisopht. They are merely +created upon the old principle, that your scoundrel must be polite and +powerful--a very sound principle. The villain must be not only a +villain, but a tyrant. The giant must be larger than Jack. But in the +books of the Dombey period we have many shrewd glimpses of the queer +realities of English aristocracy. Of these Cousin Feenix is one of the +best. Cousin Feenix is a much better sketch of the essentially decent +and chivalrous aristocrat than Sir Leicester Dedlock. Both of the men +are, if you will, fools, as both are honourable gentlemen. But if one +may attempt a classification among fools, Sir Leicester Dedlock is a +stupid fool, while Cousin Feenix is a silly fool--which is much better. +The difference is that the silly fool has a folly which is always on the +borderland of wit, and even of wisdom; his wandering wits come often +upon undiscovered truths. The stupid fool is as consistent and as +homogeneous as wood; he is as invincible as the ancestral darkness. +Cousin Feenix is a good sketch of the sort of well-bred old ass who is +so fundamentally genuine that he is always saying very true things by +accident. His whole tone also, though exaggerated like everything in +Dickens, is very true to the bewildered good nature which marks English +aristocratic life. The statement that Dickens could not describe a +gentleman is, like most popular animadversions against Dickens, so very +thin and one-sided a truth as to be for serious purposes a falsehood. +When people say that Dickens could not describe a gentleman, what they +mean is this, and so far what they mean is true. They mean that Dickens +could not describe a gentleman as gentlemen feel a gentleman. They mean +that he could not take that atmosphere easily, accept it as the normal +atmosphere, or describe that world from the inside. This is true. In +Dickens's time there was such a thing as the English people, and Dickens +belonged to it. Because there is no such thing as an English people now, +almost all literary men drift towards what is called Society; almost all +literary men either are gentlemen or pretend to be. Hence, as I say, +when we talk of describing a gentleman, we always mean describing a +gentleman from the point of view of one who either belongs to, or is +interested in perpetuating, that type. Dickens did not describe +gentlemen in the way that gentlemen describe gentlemen. He described +them in the way in which he described waiters, or railway guards, or men +drawing with chalk on the pavement. He described them, in short (and +this we may freely concede), from the outside, as he described any other +oddity or special trade. But when it comes to saying that he did not +describe them well, then that is quite another matter, and that I should +emphatically deny. The things that are really odd about the English +upper class he saw with startling promptitude and penetration, and if +the English upper class does not see these odd things in itself, it is +not because they are not there, but because we are all blind to our own +oddities; it is for the same reason that tramps do not feel dirty, or +that niggers do not feel black. I have often heard a dear old English +oligarch say that Dickens could not describe a gentleman, while every +note of his own voice and turn of his own hand recalled Sir Leicester +Dedlock. I have often been told by some old buck that Dickens could not +describe a gentleman, and been told so in the shaky voice and with all +the vague allusiveness of Cousin Feenix. + +Cousin Feenix has really many of the main points of the class that +governs England. Take, for an instance, his hazy notion that he is in a +world where everybody knows everybody; whenever he mentions a man, it is +a man "with whom my friend Dombey is no doubt acquainted." That pierces +to the very helpless soul of aristocracy. Take again the stupendous +gravity with which he leads up to a joke. That is the very soul of the +House of Commons and the Cabinet, of the high-class English politics, +where a joke is always enjoyed solemnly. Take his insistence upon the +technique of Parliament, his regrets for the time when the rules of +debate were perhaps better observed than they are now. Take that +wonderful mixture in him (which is the real human virtue of our +aristocracy) of a fair amount of personal modesty with an innocent +assumption of rank. Of a man who saw all these genteel foibles so +clearly it is absurd merely to say without further explanation that he +could not describe a gentleman. Let us confine ourselves to saying that +he did not describe a gentleman as gentlemen like to be described. + +Lastly, there is the admirable study of Toots, who may be considered as +being in some ways the masterpiece of Dickens. Nowhere else did Dickens +express with such astonishing insight and truth his main contention, +which is that to be good and idiotic is not a poor fate, but, on the +contrary, an experience of primeval innocence, which wonders at all +things. Dickens did not know, anymore than any great man ever knows, +what was the particular thing that he had to preach. He did not know it; +he only preached it. But the particular thing that he had to preach was +this: That humility is the only possible basis of enjoyment; that if one +has no other way of being humble except being poor, then it is better to +be poor, and to enjoy; that if one has no other way of being humble +except being imbecile, then it is better to be imbecile, and to enjoy. +That is the deep unconscious truth in the character of Toots--that all +his externals are flashy and false; all his internals unconscious, +obscure, and true. He wears loud clothes, and he is silent inside them. +His shirts and waistcoats are covered with bright spots of pink and +purple, while his soul is always covered with the sacred shame. He +always gets all the outside things of life wrong, and all the inside +things right. He always admires the right Christian people, and gives +them the wrong Christian names. Dimly connecting Captain Cuttle with the +shop of Mr. Solomon Gills, he always addresses the astonished mariner as +"Captain Gills." He turns Mr. Walter Gay, by a most improving +transformation, into "Lieutenant Walters." But he always knows which +people upon his own principles to admire. He forgets who they are, but +he remembers what they are. With the clear eyes of humility he perceives +the whole world as it is. He respects the Game Chicken for being +strong, as even the Game Chicken ought to be respected for being strong. +He respects Florence for being good, as even Florence ought to be +respected for being good. And he has no doubt about which he admires +most; he prefers goodness to strength, as do all masculine men. It is +through the eyes of such characters as Toots that Dickens really sees +the whole of his tales. For even if one calls him a half-wit, it still +makes a difference that he keeps the right half of his wits. When we +think of the unclean and craven spirit in which Toots might be treated +in a psychological novel of to-day; how he might walk with a mooncalf +face, and a brain of bestial darkness, the soul rises in real homage to +Dickens for showing how much simple gratitude and happiness can remain +in the lopped roots of the most simplified intelligence. If scientists +must treat a man as a dog, it need not be always as a mad dog. They +might grant him, like Toots, a little of the dog's loyalty and the dog's +reward. + + [Illustration: Charles Dickens, 1849 + From a daguerreotype by Mayall.] + + + + +DAVID COPPERFIELD + + +In this book Dickens is really trying to write a new kind of book, and +the enterprise is almost as chivalrous as a cavalry charge. He is making +a romantic attempt to be realistic. That is almost the definition of +_David Copperfield_. In his last book, _Dombey and Son_, we see a +certain maturity and even a certain mild exhaustion in his earlier +farcical method. He never failed to have fine things in any of his +books, and Toots is a very fine thing. Still, I could never find Captain +Cuttle and Mr. Sol Gills very funny, and the whole Wooden Midshipman +seems to me very wooden. In _David Copperfield_ he suddenly unseals a +new torrent of truth, the truth out of his own life. The impulse of the +thing is autobiography; he is trying to tell all the absurd things that +have happened to himself, and not the least absurd thing is himself. Yet +though it is Dickens's ablest and clearest book, there is in it a +falling away of a somewhat singular kind. + +Generally speaking there was astonishingly little of fatigue in +Dickens's books. He sometimes wrote bad work; he sometimes wrote even +unimportant work; but he wrote hardly a line which is not full of his +own fierce vitality and fancy. If he is dull it is hardly ever because +he cannot think of anything; it is because, by some silly excitement or +momentary lapse of judgment, he has thought of something that was not +worth thinking of. If his joke is feeble, it is as an impromptu joke at +an uproarious dinner-table may be feeble; it is no indication of any +lack of vitality. The joke is feeble, but it is not a sign of +feebleness. Broadly speaking, this is true of Dickens. If his writing is +not amusing us, at least it is amusing him. Even when he is tiring he is +not tired. + +But in the case of _David Copperfield_ there is a real reason for noting +an air of fatigue. For although this is the best of all Dickens's books, +it constantly disappoints the critical and intelligent reader. The +reason is that Dickens began it under his sudden emotional impulse of +telling the whole truth about himself and gradually allowed the whole +truth to be more and more diluted, until towards the end of the book we +are back in the old pedantic and decorative art of Dickens, an art which +we justly admired in its own place and on its own terms, but which we +resent when we feel it gradually returning through a tale pitched +originally in a more practical and piercing key. Here, I say, is the one +real example of the fatigue of Dickens. He begins his story in a new +style and then slips back into an old one. The earlier part is in his +later manner. The later part is in his earlier manner. + +There are many marks of something weak and shadowy in the end of _David +Copperfield_. Here, for instance, is one of them which is not without +its bearing on many tendencies of modern England. Why did Dickens at the +end of this book give way to that typically English optimism about +emigration? He seems to think that he can cure the souls of a whole +cartload, or rather boatload, of his characters by sending them all +to the Colonies. Peggotty is a desolate and insulted parent whose house +has been desecrated and his pride laid low; therefore let him go to +Australia. Emily is a woman whose heart is broken and whose honour is +blasted; but she will be quite happy if she goes to Australia. Mr. +Micawber is a man whose soul cannot be made to understand the tyranny of +time or the limits of human hope; but he will understand all these +things if he goes to Australia. For it must be noted that Dickens does +not use this emigration merely as a mode of exit. He does not send these +characters away on a ship merely as a symbol suggesting that they pass +wholly out of his hearer's life. He does definitely suggest that +Australia is a sort of island Valley of Avalon, where the soul may heal +it of its grievous wound. It is seriously suggested that Peggotty finds +peace in Australia. It is really indicated that Emily regains her +dignity in Australia. It is positively explained of Mr. Micawber not +that he was happy in Australia (for he would be that anywhere), but that +he was definitely prosperous and practically successful in Australia; +and that he would certainly be nowhere. Colonising is not talked of +merely as a coarse, economic expedient for going to a new market. It is +really offered as something that will cure the hopeless tragedy of +Peggotty; as something that will cure the still more hopeless comedy of +Micawber. + +I will not dwell here on the subsequent adventures of this very +sentimental and extremely English illusion. It would be an exaggeration +to say that Dickens in this matter is something of a forerunner of much +modern imperialism. His political views were such that he would have +regarded modern imperialism with horror and contempt. Nevertheless there +is here something of that hazy sentimentalism which makes some +Imperialists prefer to talk of the fringe of the empire of which they +know nothing, rather than of the heart of the empire which they know is +diseased. It is said that in the twilight and decline of Rome, close to +the dark ages, the people in Gaul believed that Britain was a land of +ghosts (perhaps it was foggy), and that the dead were ferried across to +it from the northern coast of France. If (as is not entirely impossible) +our own century appears to future ages as a time of temporary decay and +twilight, it may be said that there was attached to England a blessed +island called Australia to which the souls of the socially dead were +ferried across to remain in bliss for ever. + +This element which is represented by the colonial optimism at the end of +_David Copperfield_ is a moral element. The truth is that there is +something a little mean about this sort of optimism. I do not like the +notion of David Copperfield sitting down comfortably to his tea-table +with Agnes, having got rid of all the inconvenient or distressing +characters of the story by sending them to the other side of the world. +The whole thing has too much about it of the selfishness of a family +which sends a scapegrace to the Colonies to starve with its blessing. +There is too much in the whole thing of that element which was satirised +by an ironic interpretation of the epitaph "Peace, perfect peace, with +loved ones far away." We should have thought more of David Copperfield +(and also of Charles Dickens) if he had endeavoured for the rest of his +life, by conversation and comfort, to bind up the wounds of his old +friends from the seaside. We should have thought more of David +Copperfield (and also of Charles Dickens) if he had faced the +possibility of going on till his dying day lending money to Mr. Wilkins +Micawber. We should have thought more of David Copperfield (and also of +Charles Dickens) if he had not looked upon the marriage with Dora merely +as a flirtation, an episode which he survived and ought to survive. And +yet the truth is that there is nowhere in fiction where we feel so +keenly the primary human instinct and principle that a marriage is a +marriage and irrevocable, that such things do leave a wound and also a +bond as in this case of David's short connection with his silly little +wife. When all is said and done, when Dickens has done his best and his +worst, when he has sentimentalised for pages and tried to tie up +everything in the pink tape of optimism, the fact, in the psychology of +the reader, still remains. The reader does still feel that David's +marriage to Dora was a real marriage; and that his marriage to Agnes was +nothing, a middle-aged compromise, a taking of the second best, a sort +of spiritualised and sublimated marriage of convenience. For all the +readers of Dickens Dora is thoroughly avenged. The modern world (intent +on anarchy in everything, even in Government) refuses to perceive the +permanent element of tragic constancy which inheres in all passion, and +which is the origin of marriage. Marriage rests upon the fact that you +cannot have your cake and eat it; that you cannot lose your heart and +have it. But, as I have said, there is perhaps no place in literature +where we feel more vividly the sense of this monogamous instinct in man +than in David Copperfield. A man is monogamous even if he is only +monogamous for a month; love is eternal even if it is only eternal for a +month. It always leaves behind it the sense of something broken and +betrayed. + +But I have mentioned Dora in this connection only because she +illustrates the same fact which Micawber illustrates; the fact that +there is at the end of this book too much tendency to bless people and +get rid of them. Micawber is a nuisance. Dickens the despot condemns him +to exile. Dora is a nuisance. Dickens the despot condemns her to death. +But it is the whole business of Dickens in the world to express the fact +that such people are the spice and interest of life. It is the whole +point of Dickens that there is nobody more worth living with than a +strong, splendid, entertaining, immortal nuisance. Micawber interrupts +practical life; but what is practical life that it should venture to +interrupt Micawber? Dora confuses the housekeeping; but we are not angry +with Dora because she confuses the housekeeping. We are angry with the +housekeeping because it confuses Dora. I repeat, and it cannot be too +much repeated that the whole lesson of Dickens is here. It is better to +know Micawber than not to know the minor worries that arise out of +knowing Micawber. It is better to have a bad debt and a good friend. In +the same way it is better to marry a human and healthy personality which +happens to attract you than to marry a mere housewife; for a mere +housewife is a mere housekeeper. All this was what Dickens stood for; +that the very people who are most irritating in small business +circumstances are often the people who are most delightful in long +stretches of experience of life. It is just the man who is maddening +when he is ordering a cutlet or arranging an appointment who is probably +the man in whose company it is worth while to journey steadily towards +the grave. Distribute the dignified people and the capable people and +the highly business-like people among all the situations which their +ambition or their innate corruption may demand; but keep close to your +heart, keep deep in your inner councils the absurd people. Let the +clever people pretend to govern you, let the unimpeachable people +pretend to advise you, but let the fools alone influence you; let the +laughable people whose faults you see and understand be the only people +who are really inside your life, who really come near you or accompany +you on your lonely march towards the last impossibility. That is the +whole meaning of Dickens; that we should keep the absurd people for our +friends. And here at the end of _David Copperfield_ he seems in some dim +way to deny it. He seems to want to get rid of the preposterous people +simply because they will always continue to be preposterous. I have a +horrible feeling that David Copperfield will send even his aunt to +Australia if she worries him too much about donkeys. + +I repeat, then, that this wrong ending of _David Copperfield_ is one of +the very few examples in Dickens of a real symptom of fatigue. Having +created splendid beings for whom alone life might be worth living, he +cannot endure the thought of his hero living with them. Having given his +hero superb and terrible friends, he is afraid of the awful and +tempestuous vista of their friendship. He slips back into a more +superficial kind of story and ends it in a more superficial way. He is +afraid of the things he has made; of that terrible figure Micawber; of +that yet more terrible figure Dora. He cannot make up his mind to see +his hero perpetually entangled in the splendid tortures and sacred +surprises that come from living with really individual and unmanageable +people. He cannot endure the idea that his fairy prince will not have +henceforward a perfectly peaceful time. But the wise old fairy tales +(which are the wisest things in the world, at any rate the wisest things +of worldly origin), the wise old fairy tales never were so silly as to +say that the prince and the princess lived peacefully ever afterwards. +The fairy tales said that the prince and princess lived happily ever +afterwards: and so they did. They lived happily, although it is very +likely that from time to time they threw the furniture at each other. +Most marriages, I think, are happy marriages; but there is no such thing +as a contented marriage. The whole pleasure of marriage is that it is a +perpetual crisis. David Copperfield and Dora quarrelled over the cold +mutton; and if they had gone on quarrelling to the end of their lives, +they would have gone on loving each other to the end of their lives; it +would have been a human marriage. But David Copperfield and Agnes would +agree about the cold mutton. And that cold mutton would be very cold. + +I have here endeavoured to suggest some of the main merits of Dickens +within the framework of one of his faults. I have said that _David +Copperfield_ represents a rather sad transition from his strongest +method to his weakest. Nobody would ever complain of Charles Dickens +going on writing his own kind of novels, his old kind of novels. If +there be anywhere a man who loves good books, that man wishes that there +were four _Oliver Twists_ and at least forty-four _Pickwicks_. If there +be any one who loves laughter and creation, he would be glad to read a +hundred of _Nicholas Nickleby_ and two hundred of _The Old Curiosity +Shop_. But while any one would have welcomed one of Dickens's own +ordered and conventional novels, it was not in this spirit that they +welcomed _David Copperfield_. + +_David Copperfield_ begins as if it were going to be a new kind of +Dickens novel; then it gradually turns into an old kind of Dickens +novel. It is here that many readers of this splendid book have been +subtly and secretly irritated. Nicholas Nickleby is all very well; we +accept him as something which is required to tie the whole affair +together. Nicholas is a sort of string or clothes-line on which are hung +the limp figure of Smike, the jumping-jack of Mr. Squeers and the twin +dolls named Cheeryble. If we do not accept Nicholas Nickleby as the hero +of the story, at least we accept him as the title of the story. But in +_David Copperfield_ Dickens begins something which looks for the moment +fresh and startling. In the earlier chapters (the amazing earlier +chapters of this book) he does seem to be going to tell the living truth +about a living boy and man. It is melancholy to see that sudden fire +fading. It is sad to see David Copperfield gradually turning into +Nicholas Nickleby. Nicholas Nickleby does not exist at all; he is a +quite colourless primary condition of the story. We look through +Nicholas Nickleby at the story just as we look through a plain pane of +glass at the street. But David Copperfield does begin by existing; it is +only gradually that he gives up that exhausting habit. + +Any fair critical account of Dickens must always make him out much +smaller than he is. For any fair criticism of Dickens must take account +of his evident errors, as I have taken account of one of the most +evident of them during the last two or three pages. It would not even be +loyal to conceal them. But no honest criticism, no criticism, though it +spoke with the tongues of men and angels, could ever really talk about +Dickens. In all this that I have said I have not been talking about +Dickens at all. I say it with equanimity; I say it even with arrogance. +I have been talking about the gaps of Dickens. I have been talking about +the omissions of Dickens. I have been talking about the slumber of +Dickens and the forgetfulness and unconsciousness of Dickens. In one +word, I have been talking not about Dickens, but about the absence of +Dickens. But when we come to him and his work itself, what is there to +be said? What is there to be said about earthquake and the dawn? He has +created, especially in this book of _David Copperfield_, he has created, +creatures who cling to us and tyrannise over us, creatures whom we would +not forget if we could, creatures whom we could not forget if we would, +creatures who are more actual than the man who made them. + +This is the excuse for all that indeterminate and rambling and sometimes +sentimental criticism of which Dickens, more than any one else, is the +victim, of which I fear that I for one have made him the victim in this +place. When I was a boy I could not understand why the Dickensians +worried so wearily about Dickens, about where he went to school and +where he ate his dinners, about how he wore his trousers and when he cut +his hair. I used to wonder why they did not write something that I could +read about a man like Micawber. But I have come to the conclusion that +this almost hysterical worship of the man, combined with a comparatively +feeble criticism on his works, is just and natural. Dickens was a man +like ourselves; we can see where he went wrong, and study him without +being stunned or getting the sunstroke. But Micawber is not a man; +Micawber is the superman. We can only walk round and round him wondering +what we shall say. All the critics of Dickens, when all is said and +done, have only walked round and round Micawber wondering what they +should say. I am myself at this moment walking round and round Micawber +wondering what I shall say. And I have not found out yet. + + + + +CHRISTMAS STORIES + + +The power of Dickens is shown even in the scraps of Dickens, just as the +virtue of a saint is said to be shown in fragments of his property or +rags from his robe. It is with such fragments that we are chiefly +concerned in the _Christmas Stories_. Many of them are fragments in the +literal sense; Dickens began them and then allowed some one else to +carry them on; they are almost rejected notes. In all the other cases we +have been considering the books that he wrote; here we have rather to +consider the books that he might have written. And here we find the +final evidence and the unconscious stamp of greatness, as we might find +it in some broken bust or some rejected moulding in the studio of +Michael Angelo. + +These sketches or parts of sketches all belong to that period in his +later life when he had undertaken the duties of an editor, the very +heavy duties of a very popular editor. He was not by any means naturally +fitted for that position. He was the best man in the world for founding +papers; but many people wished that he could have been buried under the +foundations, like the first builder in some pagan and prehistoric pile. +He called the _Daily News_ into existence, but when once it existed, it +objected to him strongly. It is not easy, and perhaps it is not +important, to state truly the cause of this incapacity. It was not in +the least what is called the ordinary fault or weakness of the artist. +It was not that he was careless; rather it was that he was too +conscientious. It was not that he had the irresponsibility of genius; +rather it was that he had the irritating responsibility of genius; he +wanted everybody to see things as he saw them. But in spite of all this +he certainly ran two great popular periodicals--_Household Words_ and +_All the Year Round_--with enormous popular success. And he certainly so +far succeeded in throwing himself into the communism of journalism, into +the nameless brotherhood of a big paper, that many earnest Dickensians +are still engaged in picking out pieces of Dickens from the anonymous +pages of _Household Words_ and _All the Year Round_, and those parts +which have been already beyond question picked out and proved are often +fragmentary. The genuine writing of Dickens breaks off at a certain +point, and the writing of some one else begins. But when the writing of +Dickens breaks off, I fancy that we know it. + +The singular thing is that some of the best work that Dickens ever did, +better than the work in his best novels, can be found in these slight +and composite scraps of journalism. For instance, the solemn and +self-satisfied account of the duty and dignity of a waiter given in the +opening chapter of _Somebody's Luggage_ is quite as full and fine as +anything done anywhere by its author in the same vein of sumptuous +satire. It is as good as the account which Mr. Bumble gives of out-door +relief, which, "properly understood, is the parochial safeguard. The +great thing is to give the paupers what they don't want, and then they +never come again." It is as good as Mr. Podsnap's description of the +British Constitution, which was bestowed on him by Providence. None of +these celebrated passages is more obviously Dickens at his best than +this, the admirable description of "the true principles of waitering," +or the account of how the waiter's father came back to his mother in +broad daylight, "in itself an act of madness on the part of a waiter," +and how he expired repeating continually "two and six is three and four +is nine." That waiter's explanatory soliloquy might easily have opened +an excellent novel, as _Martin Chuzzlewit_ is opened by the clever +nonsense about the genealogy of the Chuzzlewits, or as _Bleak House_ is +opened by a satiric account of the damp, dim life of a law court. Yet +Dickens practically abandoned the scheme of _Somebody's Luggage_; he +only wrote two sketches out of those obviously intended. He may almost +be said to have only written a brilliant introduction to another man's +book. + +Yet it is exactly in such broken outbreaks that his greatness appears. +If a man has flung away bad ideas he has shown his sense, but if he has +flung away good ideas he has shown his genius. He has proved that he +actually has that over-pressure of pure creativeness which we see in +nature itself, "that of a hundred seeds, she often brings but one to +bear." Dickens had to be Malthusian about his spiritual children. +Critics have called Keats and others who died young "the great +Might-have-beens of literary history." Dickens certainly was not merely +a great Might-have-been. Dickens, to say the least of him, was a great +Was. Yet this fails fully to express the richness of his talent; for +the truth is that he was a great Was and also a great Might-have-been. +He said what he had to say, and yet not all he had to say. Wild +pictures, possible stories, tantalising and attractive trains of +thought, perspectives of adventure, crowded so continually upon his mind +that at the end there was a vast mass of them left over, ideas that he +literally had not the opportunity to develop, tales that he literally +had not the time to tell. This is shown clearly in his private notes and +letters, which are full of schemes singularly striking and suggestive, +schemes which he never carried out. It is indicated even more clearly by +these _Christmas Stories_, collected out of the chaotic opulence of +_Household Words_ and _All the Year Round_. He wrote short stories +actually because he had not time to write long stories. He often put +into the short story a deep and branching idea which would have done +very well for a long story; many of his long stories, so to speak, broke +off short. This is where he differs from most who are called the +Might-have-beens of literature. Marlowe and Chatterton failed because of +their weakness. Dickens failed because of his force. + +Examine for example this case of the waiter in _Somebody's Luggage_. +Dickens obviously knew enough about that waiter to have made him a +running spring of joy throughout a whole novel; as the beadle is in +_Oliver Twist_, or the undertaker in _Martin Chuzzlewit_. Every touch of +him tingles with truth, from the vague gallantry with which he asks, +"Would'st thou know, fair reader (if of the adorable female sex)" to the +official severity with which he takes the chambermaid down, "as many +pegs as is desirable for the future comfort of all parties." If Dickens +had developed this character at full length in a book he would have +preserved for ever in literature a type of great humour and great value, +and a type which may only too soon be disappearing from English history. +He would have eternalised the English waiter. He still exists in some +sound old taverns and decent country inns, but there is no one left +really capable of singing his praises. I know that Mr. Bernard Shaw has +done something of the sort in the delightfully whimsical account of +William in _You Never Can Tell_. But nothing will persuade me that Mr. +Bernard Shaw can really understand the English waiter. He can never have +ordered wine from him for instance. And though the English waiter is by +the nature of things solemn about everything, he can never reach the +true height and ecstasy of his solemnity except about wine. What the +real English waiter would do or say if Mr. Shaw asked him for a +vegetarian meal I cannot dare to predict. I rather think that for the +first time in his life he would laugh--a horrible sight. + +Dickens's waiter is described by one who is not merely witty, truthful, +and observant, like Mr. Bernard Shaw, but one who really knew the +atmosphere of inns, one who knew and even liked the smell of beef, and +beer, and brandy. Hence there is a richness in Dickens's portrait which +does not exist in Mr. Shaw's. Mr. Shaw's waiter is merely a man of tact; +Dickens's is a man of principle. Mr. Shaw's waiter is an opportunist, +just as Mr. Shaw is an opportunist in politics. Dickens's waiter is +ready to stand up seriously for "the true principles of waitering," +just as Dickens was ready to stand up for the true principles of +Liberalism. Mr. Shaw's waiter is agnostic; his motto is "You never can +tell." Dickens's waiter is a dogmatist; his motto is "You can tell; I +will tell you." And the true old-fashioned English waiter had really +this grave and even moral attitude; he was the servant of the customers +as a priest is the servant of the faithful, but scarcely in any less +dignified sense. Surely it is not mere patriotic partiality that makes +one lament the disappearance of this careful and honourable figure +crowded out by meaner men at meaner wages, by the German waiter who has +learnt five languages in the course of running away from his own, or the +Italian waiter who regards those he serves with a darkling contempt +which must certainly be that either of a dynamiter or an exiled prince. +The human and hospitable English waiter is vanishing. And Dickens might +perhaps have saved him, as he saved Christmas. + +I have taken this case of the waiter in Dickens and his equally +important counterpart in England as an example of the sincere and genial +sketches scattered about these short stories. But there are many others, +and one at least demands special mention; I mean Mrs. Lirriper, the +London landlady. Not only did Dickens never do anything better in a +literary sense, but he never performed more perfectly his main moral +function, that of insisting through laughter and flippancy upon the +virtue of Christian charity. There has been much broad farce against the +lodging-house keeper: he alone could have written broad farce in her +favour. It is fashionable to represent the landlady as a tyrant; it is +too much forgotten that if she is one of the oppressors she is at least +as much one of the oppressed. If she is bad-tempered it is often for the +same reasons that make all women bad-tempered (I suppose the +exasperating qualities of the other sex); if she is grasping it is often +because when a husband makes generosity a vice it is often necessary +that a wife should make avarice a virtue. All this Dickens suggested +very soundly and in a few strokes in the more remote character of Miss +Wozenham. But in Mrs. Lirriper he went further and did not fare worse. +In Mrs. Lirriper he suggested quite truly how huge a mass of real good +humour, of grand unconscious patience, of unfailing courtesy and +constant and difficult benevolence is concealed behind many a +lodging-house door and compact in the red-faced person of many a +preposterous landlady. Any one could easily excuse the ill-humour of the +poor. But great masses of the poor have not even any ill-humour to be +excused. Their cheeriness is startling enough to be the foundation of a +miracle play; and certainly is startling enough to be the foundation of +a romance. Yet I do not know of any romance in which it is expressed +except this one. + +Of the landlady as of the waiter it may be said that Dickens left in a +slight sketch what he might have developed through a long and strong +novel. For Dickens had hold of one great truth, the neglect of which +has, as it were, truncated and made meagre the work of many brilliant +modern novelists. Modern novelists try to make long novels out of subtle +characters. But a subtle character soon comes to an end, because it +works in and in to its own centre and dies there. But a simple +character goes on for ever in a fresh interest and energy, because it +works out and out into the infinite universe. Mr. George Moore in France +is not by any means so interesting as Mrs. Lirriper in France; for she +is trying to find France and he is only trying to find George Moore. +Mrs. Lirriper is the female equivalent of Mr. Pickwick. Unlike Mrs. +Bardell (another and lesser landlady) she was fully worthy to be Mrs. +Pickwick. For in both cases the essential truth is the same; that +original innocence which alone deserves adventures and because it alone +can appreciate them. We have had Mr. Pickwick in England and we can +imagine him in France. We have had Mrs. Lirriper in France and we can +imagine her in Mesopotamia or in heaven. The subtle character in the +modern novels we cannot really imagine anywhere except in the suburbs or +in Limbo. + + + + +BLEAK HOUSE + + +_Bleak House_ is not certainly Dickens's best book; but perhaps it is +his best novel. Such a distinction is not a mere verbal trick; it has to +be remembered rather constantly in connection with his work. This +particular story represents the highest point of his intellectual +maturity. Maturity does not necessarily mean perfection. It is idle to +say that a mature potato is perfect; some people like new potatoes. A +mature potato is not perfect, but it is a mature potato; the mind of an +intelligent epicure may find it less adapted to his particular purpose; +but the mind of an intelligent potato would at once admit it as being, +beyond all doubt, a genuine, fully developed specimen of his own +particular species. The same is in some degree true even of literature. +We can say more or less when a human being has come to his full mental +growth, even if we go so far as to wish that he had never come to it. +Children are very much nicer than grown-up people; but there is such a +thing as growing up. When Dickens wrote _Bleak House_ he had grown up. + +Like Napoleon, he had made his army on the march. He had walked in front +of his mob of aggressive characters as Napoleon did in front of the +half-baked battalions of the Revolution. And, like Napoleon, he won +battle after battle before he knew his own plan of campaign; like +Napoleon, he put the enemies' forces to rout before he had put his own +force into order. Like Napoleon, he had a victorious army almost before +he had an army. After his decisive victories Napoleon began to put his +house in order; after his decisive victories Dickens also began to put +his house in order. The house, when he had put it in order, was _Bleak +House_. + +There was one thing common to nearly all the other Dickens tales, with +the possible exception of _Dombey and Son_. They were all rambling +tales; and they all had a perfect right to be. They were all rambling +tales for the very simple reason that they were all about rambling +people. They were novels of adventure; they were even diaries of travel. +Since the hero strayed from place to place, it did not seem unreasonable +that the story should stray from subject to subject. This is true of the +bulk of the novels up to and including _David Copperfield_, up to the +very brink or threshold of _Bleak House_. Mr. Pickwick wanders about on +the white English roads, always looking for antiquities and always +finding novelties. Poor Oliver Twist wanders along the same white roads +to seek his fortune and to find his misfortune. Nicholas Nickleby goes +walking across England because he is young and hopeful; Little Nell's +grandfather does the same thing because he is old and silly. There is +not much in common between Samuel Pickwick and Oliver Twist; there is +not much in common between Oliver Twist and Nicholas Nickleby; there is +not much in common (let us hope) between Little Nell's grandfather and +any other human being. But they all have this in common, that they may +actually all have trodden in each other's footprints. They were all +wanderers on the face of the same fair English land. _Martin Chuzzlewit_ +was only made popular by the travels of the hero in America. When we +come to _Dombey and Son_ we find, as I have said, an exception; but even +here it is odd to note the fact that it was an exception almost by +accident. In Dickens's original scheme of the story, much greater +prominence was to have been given to the travels and trials of Walter +Gay; in fact, the young man was to have had a deterioration of character +which could only have been adequately detailed in him in his character +of a vagabond and a wastrel. The most important point, however, is that +when we come to _David Copperfield_, in some sense the summit of his +serious literature, we find the thing still there. The hero still +wanders from place to place, his genius is still gipsy. The adventures +in the book are less violent and less improbable than those which wait +for Pickwick and Nicholas Nickleby; but they are still adventures and +not merely events; they are still things met on a road. The facts of the +story fall away from David as such facts do fall away from a traveller +walking fast. We are more likely perhaps, to pass by Mr. Creakle's +school than to pass by Mrs. Jarley's wax-works. The only point is that +we should pass by both of them. Up to this point in Dickens's +development, his novel, however true, is still picaresque; his hero +never really rests anywhere in the story. No one seems really to know +where Mr. Pickwick lived. Here he has no abiding city. + +When we come to _Bleak House_, we come to a change in artistic +structure. The thing is no longer a string of incidents; it is a cycle +of incidents. It returns upon itself; it has recurrent melody and +poetic justice; it has artistic constancy and artistic revenge. It +preserves the unities; even to some extent it preserves the unities of +time and place. The story circles round two or three symbolic places; it +does not go straggling irregularly all over England like one of Mr. +Pickwick's coaches. People go from one place to another place; but not +from one place to another place on the road to everywhere else. Mr. +Jarndyce goes from Bleak House to visit Mr. Boythorn; but he comes back +to Bleak House. Miss Clare and Miss Summerson go from Bleak House to +visit Mr. and Mrs. Bayham Badger; but they come back to Bleak House. The +whole story strays from Bleak House and plunges into the foul fogs of +Chancery and the autumn mists of Chesney Wold; but the whole story comes +back to Bleak House. The domestic title is appropriate; it is a +permanent address. + +Dickens's openings are almost always good; but the opening of _Bleak +House_ is good in a quite new and striking sense. Nothing could be +better, for instance, than the first foolish chapter about the genealogy +of the Chuzzlewits; but it has nothing to do with the Chuzzlewits. +Nothing could be better than the first chapter of _David Copperfield_; +the breezy entrance and banging exit of Miss Betsy Trotwood. But if +there is ultimately any crisis or serious subject-matter of _David +Copperfield_, it is the marred marriage with Dora, the final return to +Agnes; and all this is in no way involved in the highly-amusing fact +that his aunt expected him to be a girl. We may repeat that the matter +is picaresque. The story begins in one place and ends in another place, +and there is no real connection between the beginning and the end +except a biographical connection. + +A picaresque novel is only a very eventful biography; but the opening of +_Bleak House_ is quite another business altogether. It is admirable in +quite another way. The description of the fog in the first chapter of +_Bleak House_ is good in itself; but it is not merely good in itself, +like the description of the wind in the opening of _Martin Chuzzlewit_; +it is also good in the sense that Maeterlinck is good; it is what the +modern people call an atmosphere. Dickens begins in the Chancery fog +because he means to end in the Chancery fog. He did not begin in the +Chuzzlewit wind because he meant to end in it; he began in it because it +was a good beginning. This is perhaps the best short way of stating the +peculiarity of the position of _Bleak House_. In this _Bleak House_ +beginning we have the feeling that it is not only a beginning; we have +the feeling that the author sees the conclusion and the whole. The +beginning is alpha and omega: the beginning and the end. He means that +all the characters and all the events shall be read through the smoky +colours of that sinister and unnatural vapour. + +The same is true throughout the whole tale; the whole tale is symbolic +and crowded with symbols. Miss Flite is a funny character, like Miss La +Creevy, but Miss La Creevy means only Miss La Creevy. Miss Flite means +Chancery. The rag-and-bone man, Krook, is a powerful grotesque; so is +Quilp; but in the story Quilp only means Quilp; Krook means Chancery. +Rick Carstone is a kind and tragic figure, like Sidney Carton; but +Sidney Carton only means the tragedy of human nature; Rick Carstone +means the tragedy of Chancery. Little Jo dies pathetically like Little +Paul; but for the death of Little Paul we can only blame Dickens; for +the death of Little Jo we blame Chancery. Thus the artistic unity of the +book, compared to all the author's earlier novels, is satisfying, almost +suffocating. There is the _motif_, and again the _motif_. Almost +everything is calculated to assert and re-assert the savage morality of +Dickens's protest against a particular social evil. The whole theme is +that which another Englishman as jovial as Dickens defined shortly and +finally as the law's delay. The fog of the first chapter never lifts. + +In this twilight he traced wonderful shapes. Those people who fancy that +Dickens was a mere clown; that he could not describe anything delicate +or deadly in the human character,--those who fancy this are mostly +people whose position is explicable in many easy ways. The vast majority +of the fastidious critics have, in the quite strict and solid sense of +the words, never read Dickens at all; hence their opposition is due to +and inspired by a hearty innocence which will certainly make them +enthusiastic Dickensians if they ever, by some accident, happen to read +him. In other cases it is due to a certain habit of reading books under +the eye of a conventional critic, admiring what we expect to admire, +regretting what we are told to regret, waiting for Mr. Bumble to admire +him, waiting for Little Nell to despise her. Yet again, of course, it is +sometimes due to that basest of all artistic indulgences (certainly far +baser than the pleasure of absinthe or the pleasure of opium), the +pleasure of appreciating works of art which ordinary men cannot +appreciate. Surely the vilest point of human vanity is exactly that; to +ask to be admired for admiring what your admirers do not admire. But +whatever be the reason, whether rude or subtle, which has prevented any +particular man from personally admiring Dickens, there is in connection +with a book like _Bleak House_ something that may be called a solid and +impressive challenge. Let anyone who thinks that Dickens could not +describe the semi-tones and the abrupt instincts of real human nature +simply take the trouble to read the stretch of chapters which detail the +way in which Carstone's mind grew gradually morbid about his chances in +Chancery. Let him note the manner in which the mere masculinity of +Carstone is caught; how as he grows more mad he grows more logical, nay, +more rational. Good women who love him come to him, and point out the +fact that Jarndyce is a good man, a fact to them solid like an object of +the senses. In answer he asks them to understand his position. He does +not say this; he does not say that. He only urges that Jarndyce may have +become cynical in the affair in the same sense that he himself may have +become cynical in the affair. He is always a man; that is to say, he is +always unanswerable, always wrong. The passionate certainty of the woman +beats itself like battering waves against the thin smooth wall of his +insane consistency. I repeat: let any one who thinks that Dickens was a +gross and indelicate artist read that part of the book. If Dickens had +been the clumsy journalist that such people represent, he never could +have written such an episode at all. A clumsy journalist would have +made Rick Carstone in his mad career cast off Esther and Ada and the +others. The great artist knew better. He knew that even if all the good +in a man is dying, the last sense that dies is the sense that knows a +good woman from a bad; it is like the scent of a noble hound. + +The clumsy journalist would have made Rick Carstone turn on John +Jarndyce with an explosion of hatred, as of one who had made an +exposure--who had found out what low people call "a false friend" in +what they call "his true colours." The great artist knew better; he knew +that a good man going wrong tries to salve his soul to the last with the +sense of generosity and intellectual justice. He will try to love his +enemy if only out of mere love of himself. As the wolf dies fighting, +the good man gone wrong dies arguing. This is what constitutes the true +and real tragedy of Richard Carstone. It is strictly the one and only +great tragedy that Dickens wrote. It is like the tragedy of Hamlet. The +others are not tragedies because they deal almost with dead men. The +tragedy of old Dorrit is merely the sad spectacle of a dotard dragged +about Europe in his last childhood. The tragedy of Steerforth is only +that of one who dies suddenly; the tragedy of old Dombey only that of +one who was dead all the time. But Rick is a real tragedy, for he is +still alive when the quicksand sucks him down. + +It is impossible to avoid putting in the first place this pall of smoke +which Dickens has deliberately spread over the story. It is quite true +that the country underneath is clear enough to contain any number of +unconscious comedians or of merry monsters such as he was in the custom +of introducing into the carnival of his tales. But he meant us to take +the smoky atmosphere seriously. Charles Dickens, who was, like all men +who are really funny about funny things, horribly serious about serious +things, certainly meant us to read this story in terms of his protest +and his insurrection against the emptiness and arrogance of law, against +the folly and the pride of judges. Everything else that there is in this +story entered into it through the unconscious or accidental energy of +his genius, which broke in at every gap. But it was the tragedy of +Richard Carstone that he meant, not the comedy of Harold Skimpole. He +could not help being amusing; but he meant to be depressing. + +Another case might be taken as testing the greater seriousness of this +tale. The passages about Mrs. Jellyby and her philanthropic schemes show +Dickens at his best in his old and more familiar satiric manner. But in +the midst of the Jellyby pandemonium, which is in itself described with +the same _abandon_ and irrelevance as the boarding-house of Mrs. Todgers +or the travelling theatre of Mr. Crummles, the elder Dickens introduced +another piece of pure truth and even tenderness. I mean the account of +Caddy Jellyby. If Carstone is a truly masculine study of how a man goes +wrong, Caddy is a perfectly feminine study of how a girl goes right. +Nowhere else perhaps in fiction, and certainly nowhere else in Dickens, +is the mere female paradox so well epitomised, the unjust use of words +covering so much capacity for a justice of ultimate estimate; the +seeming irresponsibility in language concealing such a fixed and +pitiless sense of responsibility about things; the air of being always +at daggers-drawn with her own kindred, yet the confession of incurable +kinship implied in pride and shame; and, above all, that thirst for +order and beauty as for something physical; that strange female power of +hating ugliness and waste as good men can only hate sin and bad men +virtue. Every touch in her is true, from her first bewildering outbursts +of hating people because she likes them, down to the sudden quietude and +good sense which announces that she has slipped into her natural place +as a woman. Miss Clare is a figure-head, Miss Summerson in some ways a +failure; but Miss Caddy Jellyby is by far the greatest, the most human, +and the most really dignified of all the heroines of Dickens. + +With one or two exceptions, all the effects in this story are of this +somewhat quieter kind, though none of them are so subtly successful as +Rick Carstone and Caddy. Harold Skimpole begins as a sketch drawn with a +pencil almost as airy and fanciful as his own. The humour of the earlier +scenes is delightful--the scenes in which Skimpole looks on at other +people paying his debts with the air of a kindly outsider, and suggests +in formless legal phraseology that they might "sign something" or "make +over something," or the scene in which he tries to explain the +advantages of accepting everything to the apoplectic Mr. Boythorn. But +it was one of the defects of Dickens as a novelist that his characters +always became coarser and clumsier as they passed through the practical +events of a story, and this would necessarily be so with Skimpole, whose +position was conceivable even to himself only on the assumption that he +was a mere spectator of life. Poor Skimpole only asked to be kept out +of the business of this world, and Dickens ought to have kept him out of +the business of _Bleak House_. By the end of the tale he has brought +Skimpole to doing acts of mere low villainy. This altogether spoils the +ironical daintiness of the original notion. Skimpole was meant to end +with a note of interrogation. As it is, he ends with a big, black, +unmistakable blot. Speaking purely artistically, we may say that this is +as great a collapse or vulgarisation as if Richard Carstone had turned +into a common blackguard and wife-beater, or Caddy Jellyby into a comic +and illiterate landlady. Upon the whole it may, I think, be said that +the character of Skimpole is rather a piece of brilliant moralising than +of pure observation or creation. Dickens had a singularly just mind. He +was wild in his caricatures, but very sane in his impressions. Many of +his books were devoted, and this book is partly devoted, to a +denunciation of aristocracy--of the idle class that lives easily upon +the toil of nations. But he was fairer than many modern revolutionists, +and he insisted on satirising also those who prey on society not in the +name of rank or law, but in the name of intellect and beauty. Sir +Leicester Dedlock and Mr. Harold Skimpole are alike in accepting with a +royal unconsciousness the anomaly and evil of their position. But the +idleness and insolence of the aristocrat is human and humble compared to +the idleness and insolence of the artist. + +With the exception of a few fine freaks, such as Turveydrop and +Chadband, all the figures in this book are touched more delicately, even +more faintly, than is common with Dickens. But if the figures are +touched more faintly, it is partly because they are figures in a +fog--the fog of Chancery. Dickens meant that twilight to be oppressive; +for it was the symbol of oppression. Deliberately he did not dispel the +darkness at the end of this book, as he does dispel it at the end of +most of his books. Pickwick gets out of the Fleet Prison; Carstone never +gets out of Chancery but by death. This tyranny, Dickens said, shall not +be lifted by the light subterfuge of a fiction. This tyranny shall never +be lifted till all Englishmen lift it together. + + + + +CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND + + +There are works of great authors manifestly inferior to their typical +work which are yet necessary to their fame and their figure in the +world. It is not difficult to recall examples of them. No one, for +instance, would talk of Scott's _Tales of a Grandfather_ as indicating +the power that produced _Kenilworth_ and _Guy Mannering_. Nevertheless, +without this chance minor compilation we should not really have the key +of Scott. Without this one insignificant book we should not see his +significance. For the truth was that Scott loved history more than +romance, because he was so constituted as to find it more romantic than +romance. He preferred the deeds of Wallace and Douglas to those of +Marmion and Ivanhoe. Therefore his garrulous gossip of old times, his +rambles in dead centuries, give us the real material and impulse of all +his work; they represent the quarry in which he dug and the food on +which he fed. Almost alone among novelists Scott actually preferred +those parts of his historical novels which he had not invented himself. +He exults when he can boast in an eager note that he has stolen some +saying from history. Thus _The Tales of a Grandfather_, though small, is +in some sense the frame of all the Waverley novels. We realise that all +Scott's novels are tales of a grandfather. + +What has been said here about Scott might be said in a less degree +about Thackeray's _Four Georges_. Though standing higher among his works +than _The Tales of a Grandfather_ among Scott's they are not his works +of genius; yet they seem in some way to surround, supplement, and +explain such works. Without the _Four Georges_ we should know less of +the link that bound Thackeray to the beginning and to the end of the +eighteenth century; thence we should have known less of Colonel Esmond +and also less of Lord Steyne. To these two examples I have given of the +slight historical experiments of two novelists a third has to be added. +The third great master of English fiction whose glory fills the +nineteenth century also produced a small experiment in the +popularisation of history. It is separated from the other two partly by +a great difference of merit but partly also by an utter difference of +tone and outlook. We seem to hear it suddenly as in the first words +spoken by a new voice, a voice gay, colloquial, and impatient. Scott and +Thackeray were tenderly attached to the past; Dickens (in his +consciousness at any rate) was impatient with everything, but especially +impatient with the past. + +A collection of the works of Dickens would be incomplete in an essential +as well as a literal sense without his _Child's History of England_. It +may not be important as a contribution to history, but it is important +as a contribution to biography; as a contribution to the character and +the career of the man who wrote it, a typical man of his time. That he +had made no personal historical researches, that he had no special +historical learning, that he had not had, in truth, even anything that +could be called a good education, all this only accentuates not the +merit but at least the importance of the book. For here we may read in +plain popular language, written by a man whose genius for popular +exposition has never been surpassed among men, a brief account of the +origin and meaning of England as it seemed to the average Englishman of +that age. When subtler views of our history, some more false and some +more true than his, have become popular, or at least well known, when in +the near future Carlylean or Catholic or Marxian views of history have +spread themselves among the reading public, this book will always remain +as a bright and brisk summary of the cock-sure, healthy-minded, +essentially manly and essentially ungentlemanly view of history which +characterised the Radicals of that particular Radical era. The history +tells us nothing about the periods that it talks about; but it tells us +a great deal about the period that it does not talk about; the period in +which it was written. It is in no sense a history of England from the +Roman invasion; but it is certainly one of the documents which will +contribute to a history of England in the nineteenth century. + +Of the actual nature of its philosophical and technical limitations it +is, I suppose, unnecessary to speak. They all resolve themselves into +one fault common in the modern world, and certainly characteristic of +historians much more learned and pretentious than Dickens. That fault +consists simply in ignoring or underrating the variety of strange evils +and unique dangers in the world. The Radicals of the nineteenth century +were engaged, and most righteously engaged, in dealing with one +particular problem of human civilisation; they were shifting and +apportioning more equally a load of custom that had really become +unmeaning, often accidental, and nearly always unfair. Thus, for +instance, a fierce and fighting penal code, which had been perfectly +natural when the robbers were as strong as the Government, had become in +more ordered times nothing but a base and bloody habit. Thus again +Church powers and dues, which had been human when every man felt the +Church as the best part of himself, were mere mean privileges when the +nation was full of sects and full of freethinkers. This clearing away of +external symbols that no longer symbolised anything was an honourable +and needful work; but it was so difficult that to the men engaged in it +it blocked up the perspective and filled the sky, so that they slid into +a very natural mental mistake which coloured all their views of history. +They supposed that this particular problem on which they were engaged +was the one problem upon which all mankind had always been engaged. They +got it into their heads that breaking away from a dead past was the +perpetual process of humanity. The truth is obviously that humanity has +found itself in many difficulties very different from that. Sometimes +the best business of an age is to resist some alien invasion; sometimes +to preach practical self-control in a world too self-indulgent and +diffused; sometimes to prevent the growth in the State of great new +private enterprises that would poison or oppress it. Above all it may +sometimes happen that the highest task of a thinking citizen may be to +do the exact opposite of the work which the Radicals had to do. It may +be his highest duty to cling on to every scrap of the past that he can +find, if he feels that the ground is giving way beneath him and sinking +into mere savagery and forgetfulness of all human culture. This was +exactly the position of all thinking men in what we call the dark ages, +say from the sixth to the tenth century. The cheap progressive view of +history can never make head or tail of that epoch; it was an epoch +upside down. We think of the old things as barbaric and the new things +as enlightened. In that age all the enlightened things were old; all +the barbaric and brutally ignorant things were new and up to date. +Republicanism was a fading legend; despotism was a new and successful +experiment. Christianity was not only better than the clans that +rebelled against it; Christianity was more rationalistic than they were. +When men looked back they saw progress and reason; when they looked +forward they saw shapeless tradition and tribal terror. Touching such +an age it is obvious that all our modern terms describing reform or +conservation are foolish and beside the mark. The Conservative was then +the only possible reformer. If a man did not strengthen the remains of +Roman order and the root of Roman Christianity, he was simply helping +the world to roll downhill into ruin and idiotcy. Remember all these +evident historical truths and then turn to the account given by +Charles Dickens of that great man, St. Dunstan. It is not that the +pert cockney tone of the abuse is irritating to the nerves: it is that +he has got the whole hang of the thing wrong. His head is full of the +nineteenth-century situation; that a priest imposing discipline is a +person somehow blocking the way to equality and light. Whereas the +point about such a man as Dunstan was that nobody in the place except he +cared a button about equality or light: and that he was defending what +was left of them against the young and growing power of darkness and +division and caste. + +Nevertheless the case against such books as this is commonly stated +wrong. The fault of Dickens is not (as is often said) that he "applies +the same moral standard to all ages." Every sane man must do that: a +moral standard must remain the same or it is not a moral standard. If we +call St. Anthony of Padua a good man, we must mean what we mean when we +call Huxley a good man, or else there is no sense in using the word +"good." The fault of the Dickens school of popular history lies, not in +the application of a plain rule of right and wrong to all circumstances, +but in ignorance of the circumstances to which it was applied. It is not +that they wrongly enforce the fixed principle that life should be saved; +it is that they take a fire-engine to a shipwreck and a lifeboat to a +house on fire. The business of a good man in Dickens's time was to bring +justice up to date. The business of a good man in Dunstan's time was to +toil to ensure the survival of any justice at all. + +And Dickens, through being a living and fighting man of his own time, +kept the health of his own heart, and so saw many truths with a single +eye: truths that were spoilt for subtler eyes. He was much more really +right than Carlyle; immeasurably more right than Froude. He was more +right precisely because he applied plain human morals to all facts as he +saw them. Carlyle really had a vague idea that in coarse and cruel +times it was right to be coarse and cruel; that tyranny was excusable in +the twelfth century: as if the twelfth century did not denounce tyrants +as much or more than any other. Carlyle, in fact, fancied that Rufus was +the right sort of man; a view which was not only not shared by Anselm, +but was probably not shared by Rufus. In this connection, or rather in +connection with the other case of Froude, it is worth while to take +another figure from Dickens's history, which illustrates the other and +better side of the facile and popular method. Sheer ignorance of the +environment made him wrong about Dunstan. But sheer instinct and good +moral tradition made him right, for instance, about Henry VIII.; right +where Froude is wildly wrong. Dickens's imagination could not re-picture +an age where learning and liberty were dying rather than being born: but +Henry VIII. lived in a time of expanding knowledge and unrest; a time +therefore somewhat like the Victorian. And Dickens in his childish but +robust way does perceive the main point about him: that he was a wicked +man. He misses all the fine shades, of course; he makes him every kind +of wicked man at once. He leaves out the serious interests of the man: +his strange but real concern for theology; his love of certain legal and +moral forms; his half-unconscious patriotism. But he sees the solid bulk +of definite badness simply because it was there; and Froude cannot see +it at all; because Froude followed Carlyle and played tricks with the +eternal conscience. Henry VIII. _was_ "a blot of blood and grease upon +the history of England." For he was the embodiment of the Devil in the +Renascence, that wild worship of mere pleasure and scorn, which with its +pictures and its palaces has enriched and ruined the world. + +The time will soon come when the mere common-sense of Dickens, like the +mere common-sense of Macaulay (though his was poisoned by learning and +Whig politics), will appear to give a plainer and therefore truer +picture of the mass of history than the mystical perversity of a man of +genius writing only out of his own temperament, like Carlyle or Taine. +If a man has a new theory of ethics there is one thing he must not be +allowed to do. Let him give laws on Sinai, let him dictate a Bible, let +him fill the world with cathedrals if he can. But he must not be allowed +to write a history of England; or a history of any country. All history +was conducted on ordinary morality: with his extraordinary morality he +is certain to read it all askew. Thus Carlyle tries to write of the +Middle Ages with a bias against humility and mercy; that is, with a bias +against the whole theoretic morality of the Middle Ages. The result is +that he turns into a mere turmoil of arrogant German savages what was +really the most complete and logical, if not the highest, of human +civilisations. Historically speaking, it is better to be Dickens than to +be this; better to be ignorant, provincial, slap-dash, seeing only the +passing moment, but in that moment, to be true to eternal things. + +It must be remembered, of course, that Dickens deliberately offers this +only as a "child's" history of England. That is, he only professes to be +able to teach history as any father of a little boy of five professes to +be able to teach him history. And although the history of England would +certainly be taught very differently (as regards the actual criticism of +events and men) in a family with a wider culture or with another +religion, the general method would be the same. For the general method +is quite right. This black-and-white history of heroes and villains; +this history full of pugnacious ethics and of nothing else, is the right +kind of history for children. I have often wondered how the scientific +Marxians and the believers in "the materialist view of history" will +ever manage to teach their dreary economic generalisations to children: +but I suppose they will have no children. Dickens's history will always +be popular with the young; almost as popular as Dickens's novels, and +for the same reason: because it is full of moralising. Science and art +without morality are not dangerous in the sense commonly supposed. They +are not dangerous like a fire, but dangerous like a fog. A fire is +dangerous in its brightness; a fog in its dulness; and thought without +morals is merely dull, like a fog. The fog seems to be creeping up the +street; putting out lamp after lamp. But this cockney lamp-post which +the children love is still crowned with its flame; and when the fathers +have forgotten ethics, their babies will turn and teach them. + + + + +HARD TIMES + + +I have heard that in some debating clubs there is a rule that the +members may discuss anything except religion and politics. I cannot +imagine what they do discuss; but it is quite evident that they have +ruled out the only two subjects which are either important or amusing. +The thing is a part of a certain modern tendency to avoid things because +they lead to warmth; whereas, obviously, we ought, even in a social +sense, to seek those things specially. The warmth of the discussion is +as much a part of hospitality as the warmth of the fire. And it is +singularly suggestive that in English literature the two things have +died together. The very people who would blame Dickens for his +sentimental hospitality are the very people who would also blame him for +his narrow political conviction. The very people who would mock him for +his narrow radicalism are those who would mock him for his broad +fireside. Real conviction and real charity are much nearer than people +suppose. Dickens was capable of loving all men; but he refused to love +all opinions. The modern humanitarian can love all opinions, but he +cannot love all men; he seems, sometimes, in the ecstasy of his +humanitarianism, even to hate them all. He can love all opinions, +including the opinion that men are unlovable. + +In feeling Dickens as a lover we must never forget him as a fighter, and +a fighter for a creed; but indeed there is no other kind of fighter. The +geniality which he spread over all his creations was geniality spread +from one centre, from one flaming peak. He was willing to excuse Mr. +Micawber for being extravagant; but Dickens and Dickens's doctrine were +strictly to decide how far he was to be excused. He was willing to like +Mr. Twemlow in spite of his snobbishness, but Dickens and Dickens's +doctrine were alone to be judges of how far he was snobbish. There was +never a more didactic writer: hence there was never one more amusing. He +had no mean modern notion of keeping the moral doubtful. He would have +regarded this as a mere piece of slovenliness, like leaving the last +page illegible. + +Everywhere in Dickens's work these angles of his absolute opinion stood +up out of the confusion of his general kindness, just as sharp and +splintered peaks stand up out of the soft confusion of the forests. +Dickens is always generous, he is generally kind-hearted, he is often +sentimental, he is sometimes intolerably maudlin; but you never know +when you will not come upon one of the convictions of Dickens; and when +you do come upon it you do know it. It is as hard and as high as any +precipice or peak of the mountains. The highest and hardest of these +peaks is _Hard Times_. + +It is here more than anywhere else that the sternness of Dickens emerges +as separate from his softness; it is here, most obviously, so to speak, +that his bones stick out. There are indeed many other books of his which +are written better and written in a sadder tone. _Great Expectations_ is +melancholy in a sense; but it is doubtful of everything, even of its +own melancholy. _The Tale of Two Cities_ is a great tragedy, but it is +still a sentimental tragedy. It is a great drama, but it is still a +melodrama. But this tale of _Hard Times_ is in some way harsher than all +these. For it is the expression of a righteous indignation which cannot +condescend to humour and which cannot even condescend to pathos. Twenty +times we have taken Dickens's hand and it has been sometimes hot with +revelry and sometimes weak with weariness; but this time we start a +little, for it is inhumanly cold; and then we realise that we have +touched his gauntlet of steel. + +One cannot express the real value of this book without being irrelevant. +It is true that one cannot express the real value of anything without +being irrelevant. If we take a thing frivolously we can take it +separately, but the moment we take a thing seriously, if it were only an +old umbrella, it is obvious that that umbrella opens above us into the +immensity of the whole universe. But there are rather particular reasons +why the value of the book called _Hard Times_ should be referred back to +great historic and theoretic matters with which it may appear +superficially to have little or nothing to do. The chief reason can +perhaps be stated thus--that English politics had for more than a +hundred years been getting into more and more of a hopeless tangle (a +tangle which, of course, has since become even worse) and that Dickens +did in some extraordinary way see what was wrong, even if he did not see +what was right. + +The Liberalism which Dickens and nearly all of his contemporaries +professed had begun in the American and the French Revolutions. Almost +all modern English criticism upon those revolutions has been vitiated +by the assumption that those revolutions burst upon a world which was +unprepared for their ideas--a world ignorant of the possibility of such +ideas. Somewhat the same mistake is made by those who suggest that +Christianity was adopted by a world incapable of criticising it; whereas +obviously it was adopted by a world that was tired of criticising +everything. The vital mistake that is made about the French Revolution +is merely this--that everyone talks about it as the introduction of a +new idea. It was not the introduction of a new idea; there are no new +ideas. Or if there are new ideas, they would not cause the least +irritation if they were introduced into political society; because the +world having never got used to them there would be no mass of men ready +to fight for them at a moment's notice. That which was irritating about +the French Revolution was this--that it was not the introduction of a +new ideal, but the practical fulfilment of an old one. From the time of +the first fairy tales men had always believed ideally in equality; they +had always thought that something ought to be done, if anything could be +done, to redress the balance between Cinderella and the ugly sisters. +The irritating thing about the French was not that they said this ought +to be done; everybody said that. The irritating thing about the French +was that they did it. They proposed to carry out into a positive scheme +what had been the vision of humanity; and humanity was naturally +annoyed. The kings of Europe did not make war upon the Revolution +because it was a blasphemy, but because it was a copy-book maxim which +had been just too accurately copied. It was a platitude which they had +always held in theory unexpectedly put into practice. The tyrants did +not hate democracy because it was a paradox; they hated it because it +was a truism which seemed in some danger of coming true. + +Now it happens to be hugely important to have this right view of the +Revolution in considering its political effects upon England. For the +English, being a deeply and indeed excessively romantic people, could +never be quite content with this quality of cold and bald obviousness +about the republican formula. The republican formula was merely +this--that the State must consist of its citizens ruling equally, +however unequally they may do anything else. In their capacity of +members of the State they are all equally interested in its +preservation. But the English soon began to be romantically restless +about this eternal truism; they were perpetually trying to turn it into +something else, into something more picturesque--progress perhaps, or +anarchy. At last they turned it into the highly exciting and highly +unsound system of politics, which was known as the Manchester School, +and which was expressed with a sort of logical flightiness, more +excusable in literature, by Mr. Herbert Spencer. Of course Danton or +Washington or any of the original republicans would have thought these +people were mad. They would never have admitted for a moment that the +State must not interfere with commerce or competition; they would merely +have insisted that if the State did interfere, it must really be the +State--that is, the whole people. But the distance between the common +sense of Danton and the mere ecstasy of Herbert Spencer marks the +English way of colouring and altering the revolutionary idea. The +English people as a body went blind, as the saying is, for interpreting +democracy entirely in terms of liberty. They said in substance that if +they had more and more liberty it did not matter whether they had any +equality or any fraternity. But this was violating the sacred trinity of +true politics; they confounded the persons and they divided the +substance. + +Now the really odd thing about England in the nineteenth century is +this--that there was one Englishman who happened to keep his head. The +men who lost their heads lost highly scientific and philosophical heads; +they were great cosmic systematisers like Spencer, great social +philosophers like Bentham, great practical politicians like Bright, +great political economists like Mill. The man who kept his head kept a +head full of fantastic nonsense; he was a writer of rowdy farces, a +demagogue of fiction, a man without education in any serious sense +whatever, a man whose whole business was to turn ordinary cockneys into +extraordinary caricatures. Yet when all these other children of the +revolution went wrong he, by a mystical something in his bones, went +right. He knew nothing of the Revolution; yet he struck the note of it. +He returned to the original sentimental commonplace upon which it is +forever founded, as the Church is founded on a rock. In an England gone +mad about a minor theory he reasserted the original idea--the idea that +no one in the State must be too weak to influence the State. + +This man was Dickens. He did this work much more genuinely than it was +done by Carlyle or Ruskin; for they were simply Tories making out a +romantic case for the return of Toryism. But Dickens was a real Liberal +demanding the return of real Liberalism. Dickens was there to remind +people that England had rubbed out two words of the revolutionary motto, +had left only Liberty and destroyed Equality and Fraternity. In this +book, _Hard Times_, he specially champions equality. In all his books he +champions fraternity. + +The atmosphere of this book and what it stands for can be very +adequately conveyed in the note on the book by Lord Macaulay, who may +stand as a very good example of the spirit of England in those years of +eager emancipation and expanding wealth--the years in which Liberalism +was turned from an omnipotent truth to a weak scientific system. +Macaulay's private comment on _Hard Times_ runs, "One or two passages of +exquisite pathos and the rest sullen Socialism." That is not an unfair +and certainly not a specially hostile criticism, but it exactly shows +how the book struck those people who were mad on political liberty and +dead about everything else. Macaulay mistook for a new formula called +Socialism what was, in truth, only the old formula called political +democracy. He and his Whigs had so thoroughly mauled and modified the +original idea of Rousseau or Jefferson that when they saw it again they +positively thought that it was something quite new and eccentric. But +the truth was that Dickens was not a Socialist, but an unspoilt Liberal; +he was not sullen; nay, rather, he had remained strangely hopeful. They +called him a sullen Socialist only to disguise their astonishment at +finding still loose about the London streets a happy republican. + +Dickens is the one living link between the old kindness and the new, +between the good will of the past and the good works of the future. He +links May Day with Bank Holiday, and he does it almost alone. All the +men around him, great and good as they were, were in comparison +puritanical, and never so puritanical as when they were also atheistic. +He is a sort of solitary pipe down which pours to the twentieth century +the original river of Merry England. And although this _Hard Times_ is, +as its name implies, the hardest of his works, although there is less in +it perhaps than in any of the others of the _abandon_ and the buffoonery +of Dickens, this only emphasises the more clearly the fact that he stood +almost alone for a more humane and hilarious view of democracy. None of +his great and much more highly-educated contemporaries could help him in +this. Carlyle was as gloomy on the one side as Herbert Spencer on the +other. He protested against the commercial oppression simply and solely +because it was not only an oppression but a depression. And this protest +of his was made specially in the case of the book before us. It may be +bitter, but it was a protest against bitterness. It may be dark, but it +is the darkness of the subject and not of the author. He is by his own +account dealing with hard times, but not with a hard eternity, not with +a hard philosophy of the universe. Nevertheless, this is the one place +in his work where he does not make us remember human happiness by +example as well as by precept. This is, as I have said, not the saddest, +but certainly the harshest of his stories. It is perhaps the only place +where Dickens, in defending happiness, for a moment forgets to be +happy. + +He describes Bounderby and Gradgrind with a degree of grimness and +sombre hatred very different from the half affectionate derision which +he directed against the old tyrants or humbugs of the earlier nineteenth +century--the pompous Dedlock or the fatuous Nupkins, the grotesque +Bumble or the inane Tigg. In those old books his very abuse was +benignant; in _Hard Times_ even his sympathy is hard. And the reason is +again to be found in the political facts of the century. Dickens could +be half genial with the older generation of oppressors because it was a +dying generation. It was evident, or at least it seemed evident then, +that Nupkins could not go on much longer making up the law of England to +suit himself; that Sir Leicester Dedlock could not go on much longer +being kind to his tenants as if they were dogs and cats. And some of +these evils the nineteenth century did really eliminate or improve. For +the first half of the century Dickens and all his friends were justified +in feeling that the chains were falling from mankind. At any rate, the +chains did fall from Mr. Rouncewell the Iron-master. And when they fell +from him he picked them up and put them upon the poor. + + [Illustration: Charles Dickens, 1858 + From a black and white drawing by Baughiet.] + + + + +LITTLE DORRIT + + +_Little Dorrit_ stands in Dickens's life chiefly as a signal of how far +he went down the road of realism, of sadness, and of what is called +modernity. True, it was by no means the best of the books of his later +period; some even think it the worst. _Great Expectations_ is certainly +the best of the later novels; some even think it the best of all the +novels. Nor is it the novel most concerned with strictly recent +problems; that title must be given to _Hard Times_. Nor again is it the +most finely finished or well constructed of the later books; that claim +can be probably made for _Edwin Drood_. By a queer verbal paradox the +most carefully finished of his later tales is the tale that is not +finished at all. In form, indeed, the book bears a superficial +resemblance to those earlier works by which the young Dickens had set +the whole world laughing long ago. Much of the story refers to a remote +time early in the nineteenth century; much of it was actually recalled +and copied from the life of Dickens's father in the old Marshalsea +prison. Also the narrative has something of the form, or rather absence +of form, which belonged to _Nicholas Nickleby_ or _Martin Chuzzlewit_. +It has something of the old air of being a string of disconnected +adventures, like a boy's book about bears and Indians. The Dorrits go +wandering for no particular reason on the Continent of Europe, just as +young Martin Chuzzlewit went wandering for no particular reason on the +continent of America. The story of _Little Dorrit_ stops and lingers at +the doors of the Circumlocution Office much in the same way that the +story of Samuel Pickwick stops and lingers in the political excitement +of Eatanswill. The villain, Blandois, is a very stagey villain indeed; +quite as stagey as Ralph Nickleby or the mysterious Monk. The secret of +the dark house of Clennam is a very silly secret; quite as silly as the +secret of Ralph Nickleby or the secret of Monk. Yet all these external +similarities between _Little Dorrit_ and the earliest books, all this +loose, melodramatic quality, only serves to make more obvious and +startling the fact that some change has come over the soul of Dickens. +_Hard Times_ is harsh; but then _Hard Times_ is a social pamphlet; +perhaps it is only harsh as a social pamphlet must be harsh. _Bleak +House_ is a little sombre; but then _Bleak House_ is almost a detective +story; perhaps it is only sombre in the sense that a detective story +must be sombre. _A Tale of Two Cities_ is a tragedy; but then _A Tale of +Two Cities_ is a tale of the French Revolution; perhaps it is only a +tragedy because the French Revolution was a tragedy. _The Mystery of +Edwin Drood_ is dark; but then the mystery of anybody must be dark. In +all these other cases of the later books an artistic reason can be +given--a reason of theme or of construction for the slight sadness that +seems to cling to them. But exactly because _Little Dorrit_ is a mere +Dickens novel, it shows that something must somehow have happened to +Dickens himself. Even in resuming his old liberty, he cannot resume his +old hilarity. He can re-create the anarchy, but not the revelry. + +It so happens that this strange difference between the new and the old +mode of Dickens can be symbolised and stated in one separate and simple +contrast. Dickens's father had been a prisoner in a debtors' prison, and +Dickens's works contain two pictures partly suggested by the personality +of that prisoner. Mr. Micawber is one picture of him. Mr. Dorrit is +another. This truth is almost incredible, but it is the truth. The +joyful Micawber, whose very despair was exultant, and the desolate +Dorrit, whose very pride was pitiful, were the same man. The valiant +Micawber and the nervous, shaking Dorrit were the same man. The defiant +Micawber and the snobbish, essentially obsequious Dorrit were the same +man. I do not mean of course that either of the pictures was an exact +copy of anybody. The whole Dickens genius consisted of taking hints and +turning them into human beings. As he took twenty real persons and +turned them into one fictitious person, so he took one real person and +turned him into twenty fictitious persons. This quality would suggest +one character, that quality would suggest another. But in this case, at +any rate, he did take one real person and turn him into two. And what is +more, he turned him into two persons who seem to be quite opposite +persons. To ordinary readers of Dickens, to say that Micawber and Dorrit +had in any sense the same original, will appear unexpected and wild. No +conceivable connection between the two would ever have occurred to +anybody who had read Dickens with simple and superficial enjoyment, as +all good literature ought to be read. It will seem to them just as +silly as saying that the Fat Boy and Mr. Alfred Jingle were both copied +from the same character. It will seem as insane as saying that the +character of Smike and the character of Major Bagstock were both copied +from Dickens's father. Yet it is an unquestionable historical fact that +Micawber and Dorrit were both copied from Dickens's father, in the only +sense that any figures in good literature are ever copied from anything +or anybody. Dickens did get the main idea of Micawber from his father; +and that idea is that a poor man is not conquered by the world. And +Dickens did get the main idea of Dorrit from his father; and that idea +is that a poor man may be conquered by the world. I shall take the +opportunity of discussing, in a moment, which of these ideas is true. +Doubtless old John Dickens included both the gay and the sad moral; most +men do. My only purpose here is to point out that Dickens drew the gay +moral in 1849, and the sad moral in 1857. + +There must have been some real sadness at this time creeping like a +cloud over Dickens himself. It is nothing that a man dwells on the +darkness of dark things; all healthy men do that. It is when he dwells +on the darkness of bright things that we have reason to fear some +disease of the emotions. There must really have been some depression +when a man can only see the sad side of flowers or the sad side of +holidays or the sad side of wine. And there must be some depression of +an uncommonly dark and genuine character when a man has reached such a +point that he can see only the sad side of Mr. Wilkins Micawber. + +Yet this is in reality what had happened to Dickens about this time. +Staring at Wilkins Micawber he could see only the weakness and the +tragedy that was made possible by his indifference, his indulgence, and +his bravado. He had already indeed been slightly moved towards this +study of the feebleness and ruin of the old epicurean type with which he +had once sympathised, the type of Bob Sawyer or Dick Swiveller. He had +already attacked the evil of it in _Bleak House_ in the character of +Harold Skimpole, with its essentially cowardly carelessness and its +highly selfish communism. Nevertheless, as I have said before, it must +have been no small degree of actual melancholia which led Dickens to +look for a lesson of disaster and slavery in the very same career from +which he had once taught lessons of continual recuperation and a kind of +fantastic freedom. There must have been at this time some melancholy +behind the writings. There must have existed on this earth at the time +that portent and paradox--a somewhat depressed Dickens. + +Perhaps it was a reminiscence of that metaphorical proverb which tells +us that "truth lies at the bottom of a well." Perhaps these people +thought that the only way to find truth in the well was to drown +oneself. But on whatever thin theoretic basis, the type and period of +George Gissing did certainly consider that Dickens, so far as he went, +was all the worse for the optimism of the story of Micawber; hence it is +not unnatural that they should think him all the better for the +comparative pessimism of the story of _Little Dorrit_. The very things +in the tale that would naturally displease the ordinary admirers of +Dickens, are the things which would naturally please a man like George +Gissing. There are many of these things, but one of them emerges +pre-eminent and unmistakable. This is the fact that when all is said and +done the main business of the story of _Little Dorrit_ is to describe +the victory of circumstances over a soul. The circumstances are the +financial ruin and long imprisonment of Edward Dorrit; the soul is +Edward Dorrit himself. Let it be granted that the circumstances are +exceptional and oppressive, are denounced as exceptional and oppressive, +are finally exploded and overthrown; still, they are circumstances. Let +it be granted that the soul is that of a man perhaps weak in any case +and retaining many merits to the last, still it is a soul. Let it be +granted, above all, that the admission that such spiritual tragedies do +occur does not decrease by so much as an iota our faith in the validity +of any spiritual struggle. For example, Stevenson has made a study of +the breakdown of a good man's character under a burden for which he is +not to blame, in the tragedy of Henry Durie in _The Master of +Ballantrae_. Yet he has added, in the mouth of Mackellar, the exact +common sense and good theology of the matter, saying "It matters not a +jot; for he that is to pass judgment upon the records of our life is the +same that formed us in frailty." Let us concede then all this, and the +fact remains that the study of the slow demoralisation of a man through +mere misfortune was not a study congenial to Dickens, not in accordance +with his original inspiration, not connected in any manner with the +special thing that he had to say. In a word, the thing is not quite a +part of himself; and he was not quite himself when he did it. + +He was still quite a young man; his depression did not come from age. +In fact, as far as I know, mere depression never does come from mere +age. Age can pass into a beautiful reverie. Age can pass into a sort of +beautiful idiocy. But I do not think that the actual decline and close +of our ordinary vitality brings with it any particular heaviness of the +spirits. The spirits of the old do not as a rule seem to become more and +more ponderous until they sink into the earth. Rather the spirits of the +old seem to grow lighter and lighter until they float away like +thistledown. Wherever there is the definite phenomenon called +depression, it commonly means that something else has been closer to us +than so normal a thing as death. There has been disease, bodily or +mental, or there has been sin, or there has been some struggle or +effort, breaking past the ordinary boundaries of human custom. In the +case of Dickens there had been two things that are not of the routine of +a wholesome human life; there had been the quarrel with his wife, and +there had been the strain of incessant and exaggerated intellectual +labour. He had not an easy time; and on top of that (or perhaps rather +at the bottom of it) he had not an easy nature. Not only did his life +necessitate work, but his character necessitated worry about work; and +that combination is always one which is very dangerous to the +temperament which is exposed to it. The only people who ought to be +allowed to work are the people who are able to shirk. The only people +who ought to be allowed to worry are the people who have nothing to +worry about. When the two are combined, as they were in Dickens, you are +very likely to have at least one collapse. _Little Dorrit_ is a very +interesting, sincere, and fascinating book. But for all that, I fancy +it is the one collapse. + +The complete proof of this depression may be difficult to advance; +because it will be urged, and entirely with reason, that the actual +examples of it are artistic and appropriate. Dickens, the Gissing school +will say, was here pointing out certain sad truths of psychology; can +any one say that he ought not to point them out? That may be; in any +case, to explain depression is not to remove it. But the instances of +this more sombre quality of which I have spoken are not very hard to +find. The thing can easily be seen by comparing a book like _Little +Dorrit_ with a book like _David Copperfield_. David Copperfield and +Arthur Clennam have both been brought up in unhappy homes, under bitter +guardians and a black, disheartening religion. It is the whole point of +David Copperfield that he has broken out of a Calvinistic tyranny which +he cannot forgive. But it is the whole point of Arthur Clennam that he +has not broken out of the Calvinistic tyranny, but is still under its +shadow. Copperfield has come from a gloomy childhood; Clennam, though +forty years old, is still in a gloomy childhood. When David meets the +Murdstones again it is to defy them with the health and hilarious anger +that go with his happy delirium about Dora. But when Clennam re-enters +his sepulchral house there is a weight upon his soul which makes it +impossible for him to answer, with any spirit, the morbidities of his +mother, or even the grotesque interferences of Mr. Flintwinch. This is +only another example of the same quality which makes the Dickens of +_Little Dorrit_ insist on the degradation of the debtor, while the +Dickens of _David Copperfield_ insisted on his splendid +irresponsibility, his essential emancipation. Imprisonments passed over +Micawber like summer clouds. But the imprisonment in _Little Dorrit_ is +like a complete natural climate and environment; it has positively +modified the shapes and functions of the animals that dwell in it. A +horrible thing has happened to Dickens; he has almost become an +Evolutionist. Worse still, in studying the Calvinism of Mrs. Clennam's +house, he has almost become a Calvinist. He half believes (as do some of +the modern scientists) that there is really such a thing as "a child of +wrath," that a man on whom such an early shadow had fallen could never +shake it off. For ancient Calvinism and modern Evolutionism are +essentially the same things. They are both ingenious logical blasphemies +against the dignity and liberty of the human soul. + +The workmanship of the book in detail is often extremely good. The one +passage in the older and heartier Dickens manner (I mean the description +of the Circumlocution Office) is beyond praise. It is a complete picture +of the way England is actually governed at this moment. The very core of +our politics is expressed in the light and easy young Barnacle who told +Clennam with a kindly frankness that he, Clennam, would "never go on +with it." Dickens hit the mark so that the bell rang when he made all +the lower officials, who were cads, tell Clennam coldly that his claim +was absurd, until the last official, who is a gentleman, tells him +genially that the whole business is absurd. Even here, perhaps, there is +something more than the old exuberant derision of Dickens; there is a +touch of experience that verges on scepticism. Everywhere else, +certainly, there is the note which I have called Calvinistic; especially +in the predestined passion of Tattycoram or the incurable cruelty of +Miss Wade. Even Little Dorrit herself had, we are told, one stain from +her prison experience; and it is spoken of like a bodily stain; like +something that cannot be washed away. + +There is no denying that this is Dickens's dark moment. It adds +enormously to the value of his general view of life that such a dark +moment came. He did what all the heroes and all the really happy men +have done; he descended into Hell. Nor is it irreverent to continue the +quotation from the Creed, for in the next book he was to write he was to +break out of all these dreams of fate and failure, and with his highest +voice to speak of the triumph of the weak of this world. His next book +was to leave us saying, as Sydney Carton mounted the scaffold, words +which, splendid in themselves, have never been so splendidly quoted--"I +am the Resurrection and the Life; whoso believeth in Me though he be +dead yet he shall live." In Sydney Carton at least, Dickens shows none +of that dreary submission to the environment of the irrevocable that had +for an instant lain on him like a cloud. On this occasion he sees with +the old heroic clearness that to be a failure may be one step to being a +saint. On the third day he rose again from the dead. + + [Illustration: Charles Dickens, 1859 + From an oil painting by W. P. Frith, R.A.] + + + + +A TALE OF TWO CITIES + + +As an example of Dickens's literary work, _A Tale of Two Cities_ is not +wrongly named. It is his most typical contact with the civic ideals of +Europe. All his other tales have been tales of one city. He was in +spirit a Cockney; though that title has been quite unreasonably twisted +to mean a cad. By the old sound and proverbial test a Cockney was a man +born within the sound of Bow bells. That is, he was a man born within +the immediate appeal of high civilisation and of eternal religion. +Shakespeare, in the heart of his fantastic forest, turns with a splendid +suddenness to the Cockney ideal as being the true one after all. For a +jest, for a reaction, for an idle summer love or still idler summer +hatred, it is well to wander away into the bewildering forest of Arden. +It is well that those who are sick with love or sick with the absence of +love, those who weary of the folly of courts or weary yet more of their +wisdom, it is natural that these should trail away into the twinkling +twilight of the woods. Yet it is here that Shakespeare makes one of his +most arresting and startling assertions of the truth. Here is one of +those rare and tremendous moments of which one may say that there is a +stage direction, "Enter Shakespeare." He has admitted that for men weary +of courts, for men sick of cities, the wood is the wisest place, and he +has praised it with his purest lyric ecstasy. But when a man enters +suddenly upon that celestial picnic, a man who is not sick of cities, +but sick of hunger, a man who is not weary of courts, but weary of +walking, then Shakespeare lets through his own voice with a shattering +sincerity and cries the praise of practical human civilisation: + + If ever you have looked on better days, + If ever you have sat at good men's feasts, + If ever been where bells have knolled to church, + If ever from your eyelids wiped a tear + Or know what 'tis to pity and be pitied. + +There is nothing finer even in Shakespeare than that conception of the +circle of rich men all pretending to rough it in the country, and the +one really hungry man entering, sword in hand, and praising the city. +"If ever been where bells have knolled to church"; if you have ever been +within sound of Bow bells; if you have ever been happy and haughty +enough to call yourself a Cockney. + +We must remember this distinction always in the case of Dickens. Dickens +is the great Cockney, at once tragic and comic, who enters abruptly upon +the Arcadian banquet of the aesthetics and says, "Forbear and eat no +more," and tells them that they shall not eat "until necessity be +served." If there was one thing he would have favoured instinctively it +would have been the spreading of the town as meaning the spreading of +civilisation. And we should (I hope) all favour the spreading of the +town if it did mean the spreading of civilisation. The objection to the +spreading of the modern Manchester or Birmingham suburb is simply that +such a suburb is much more barbaric than any village in Europe could +ever conceivably be. And again, if there is anything that Dickens would +have definitely hated it is that general treatment of nature as a +dramatic spectacle, a piece of scene-painting which has become the +common mark of the culture of our wealthier classes. Despite many fine +pictures of natural scenery, especially along the English roadsides, he +was upon the whole emphatically on the side of the town. He was on the +side of bricks and mortar. He was a citizen; and, after all, a citizen +means a man of the city. His strength was, after all, in the fact that +he was a man of the city. But, after all, his weakness, his calamitous +weakness, was that he was a man of one city. + +For all practical purposes he had never been outside such places as +Chatham and London. He did indeed travel on the Continent; but surely no +man's travel was ever so superficial as his. He was more superficial +than the smallest and commonest tourist. He went about Europe on stilts; +he never touched the ground. There is one good test and one only of +whether a man has travelled to any profit in Europe. An Englishman is, +as such, a European, and as he approaches the central splendours of +Europe he ought to feel that he is coming home. If he does not feel at +home he had much better have stopped at home. England is a real home; +London is a real home; and all the essential feelings of adventure or +the picturesque can easily be gained by going out at night upon the +flats of Essex or the cloven hills of Surrey. Your visit to Europe is +useless unless it gives you the sense of an exile returning. Your first +sight of Rome is futile unless you feel that you have seen it before. +Thus useless and thus futile were the foreign experiments and the +continental raids of Dickens. He enjoyed them as he would have enjoyed, +as a boy, a scamper out of Chatham into some strange meadows, as he +would have enjoyed, when a grown man, a steam in a police boat out into +the fens to the far east of London. But he was the Cockney venturing +far; he was not the European coming home. He is still the splendid +Cockney Orlando of whom I spoke above; he cannot but suppose that any +strange men, being happy in some pastoral way, are mysterious foreign +scoundrels. Dickens's real speech to the lazy and laughing civilisation +of Southern Europe would really have run in the Shakespearian words: + + but whoe'er you be + Who in this desert inaccessible, + Under the shade of melancholy boughs + Lose and neglect the creeping hours of time. + If ever you have looked on better things, + If ever been where bells have knolled to church. + +If, in short, you have ever had the advantage of being born within the +sound of Bow bells. Dickens could not really conceive that there was any +other city but his own. + +It is necessary thus to insist that Dickens never understood the +Continent, because only thus can we appreciate the really remarkable +thing he did in _A Tale of Two Cities_. It is necessary to feel, first +of all, the fact that to him London was the centre of the universe. He +did not understand at all the real sense in which Paris is the capital +of Europe. He had never realised that all roads lead to Rome. He had +never felt (as an Englishman can feel) that he was an Athenian before he +was a Londoner. Yet with everything against him he did this astonishing +thing. He wrote a book about two cities, one of which he understood; the +other he did not understand. And his description of the city he did not +know is almost better than his description of the city he did know. This +is the entrance of the unquestionable thing about Dickens; the thing +called genius; the thing which every one has to talk about directly and +distinctly because no one knows what it is. For a plain word (as for +instance the word fool) always covers an infinite mystery. + +_A Tale of Two Cities_ is one of the more tragic tints of the later life +of Dickens. It might be said that he grew sadder as he grew older; but +this would be false, for two reasons. First, a man never or hardly ever +does grow sad as he grows old; on the contrary, the most melancholy +young lovers can be found forty years afterwards chuckling over their +port wine. And second, Dickens never did grow old, even in a physical +sense. What weariness did appear in him appeared in the prime of life; +it was due not to age but to overwork, and his exaggerative way of doing +everything. To call Dickens a victim of elderly disenchantment would be +as absurd as to say the same of Keats. Such fatigue as there was, was +due not to the slowing down of his blood, but rather to its unremitting +rapidity. He was not wearied by his age; rather he was wearied by his +youth. And though _A Tale of Two Cities_ is full of sadness, it is full +also of enthusiasm; that pathos is a young pathos rather than an old +one. Yet there is one circumstance which does render important the fact +that _A Tale of Two Cities_ is one of the later works of Dickens. This +fact is the fact of his dependence upon another of the great writers of +the Victorian era. And it is in connection with this that we can best +see the truth of which I have been speaking; the truth that his actual +ignorance of France went with amazing intuitive perception of the truth +about it. It is here that he has most clearly the plain mark of the man +of genius; that he can understand what he does not understand. + +Dickens was inspired to the study of the French Revolution and to the +writing of a romance about it by the example and influence of Carlyle. +Thomas Carlyle undoubtedly rediscovered for Englishmen the revolution +that was at the back of all their policies and reforms. It is an +entertaining side joke that the French Revolution should have been +discovered for Britons by the only British writer who did not really +believe in it. Nevertheless, the most authoritative and the most recent +critics on that great renaissance agree in considering Carlyle's work +one of the most searching and detailed power. Carlyle had read a great +deal about the French Revolution. Dickens had read nothing at all, +except Carlyle. Carlyle was a man who collected his ideas by the careful +collation of documents and the verification of references. Dickens was a +man who collected his ideas from loose hints in the streets, and those +always the same streets; as I have said, he was the citizen of one city. +Carlyle was in his way learned; Dickens was in every way ignorant. +Dickens was an Englishman cut off from France; Carlyle was a Scotsman, +historically connected with France. And yet, when all this is said and +certified, Dickens is more right than Carlyle. Dickens's French +Revolution is probably more like the real French Revolution than +Carlyle's. It is difficult, if not impossible, to state the grounds of +this strong conviction. One can only talk of it by employing that +excellent method which Cardinal Newman employed when he spoke of the +"notes" of Catholicism. There were certain "notes" of the Revolution. +One note of the Revolution was the thing which silly people call +optimism, and sensible people call high spirits. Carlyle could never +quite get it, because with all his spiritual energy he had no high +spirits. That is why he preferred prose to poetry. He could understand +rhetoric; for rhetoric means singing with an object. But he could not +understand lyrics; for the lyric means singing without an object; as +every one does when he is happy. Now for all its blood and its black +guillotines, the French Revolution was full of mere high spirits. Nay, +it was full of happiness. This actual lilt and levity Carlyle never +really found in the Revolution, because he could not find it in himself. +Dickens knew less of the Revolution, but he had more of it. When Dickens +attacked abuses, he battered them down with exactly that sort of cheery +and quite one-sided satisfaction with which the French mob battered down +the Bastille. Dickens utterly and innocently believed in certain things; +he would, I think, have drawn the sword for them. Carlyle half believed +in half a hundred things; he was at once more of a mystic and more of a +sceptic. Carlyle was the perfect type of the grumbling servant; the old +grumbling servant of the aristocratic comedies. He followed the +aristocracy, but he growled as he followed. He was obedient without +being servile, just as Caleb Balderstone was obedient without being +servile. But Dickens was the type of the man who might really have +rebelled instead of grumbling. He might have gone out into the street +and fought, like the man who took the Bastille. It is somewhat +nationally significant that when we talk of the man in the street it +means a figure silent, slouching, and even feeble. When the French speak +of the man in the street, it means danger in the street. + +No one can fail to notice this deep difference between Dickens and the +Carlyle whom he avowedly copied. Splendid and symbolic as are Carlyle's +scenes of the French Revolution, we have in reading them a curious sense +that everything is happening at night. In Dickens even massacre happens +by daylight. Carlyle always assumes that because things were tragedies +therefore the men who did them felt tragic. Dickens knows that the man +who works the worst tragedies is the man who feels comic; as for +example, Mr. Quilp. The French Revolution was a much simpler world than +Carlyle could understand; for Carlyle was subtle and not simple. Dickens +could understand it, for he was simple and not subtle. He understood +that plain rage against plain political injustice; he understood again +that obvious vindictiveness and that obvious brutality which followed. +"Cruelty and the abuse of absolute power," he told an American +slave-owner, "are two of the bad passions of human nature." Carlyle was +quite incapable of rising to the height of that uplifted common-sense. +He must always find something mystical about the cruelty of the French +Revolution. The effect was equally bad whether he found it mystically +bad and called the thing anarchy, or whether he found it mystically good +and called it the rule of the strong. In both cases he could not +understand the common-sense justice or the common-sense vengeance of +Dickens and the French Revolution. + +Yet Dickens has in this book given a perfect and final touch to this +whole conception of mere rebellion and mere human nature. Carlyle had +written the story of the French Revolution and had made the story a mere +tragedy. Dickens writes the story about the French Revolution, and does +not make the Revolution itself the tragedy at all. Dickens knows that an +outbreak is seldom a tragedy; generally it is the avoidance of a +tragedy. All the real tragedies are silent. Men fight each other with +furious cries, because men fight each other with chivalry and an +unchangeable sense of brotherhood. But trees fight each other in utter +stillness; because they fight each other cruelly and without quarter. In +this book, as in history, the guillotine is not the calamity, but rather +the solution of the calamity. The sin of Sydney Carton is a sin of +habit, not of revolution. His gloom is the gloom of London, not the +gloom of Paris. + + [Illustration: Charles Dickens, Circa 1860 + Photograph by J. & C. Watkins.] + + + + +GREAT EXPECTATIONS + + +_Great Expectations_, which was written in the afternoon of Dickens's +life and fame, has a quality of serene irony and even sadness, which +puts it quite alone among his other works. At no time could Dickens +possibly be called cynical, he had too much vitality; but relatively to +the other books this book is cynical; but it has the soft and gentle +cynicism of old age, not the hard cynicism of youth. To be a young cynic +is to be a young brute; but Dickens, who had been so perfectly romantic +and sentimental in his youth, could afford to admit this touch of doubt +into the mixed experience of his middle age. At no time could any books +by Dickens have been called Thackerayan. Both of the two men were too +great for that. But relatively to the other Dickensian productions this +book may be called Thackerayan. It is a study in human weakness and the +slow human surrender. It describes how easily a free lad of fresh and +decent instincts can be made to care more for rank and pride and the +degrees of our stratified society than for old affection and for honour. +It is an extra chapter to _The Book of Snobs_. + +The best way of stating the change which this book marks in Dickens can +be put in one phrase. In this book for the first time the hero +disappears. The hero had descended to Dickens by a long line which +begins with the gods, nay, perhaps if one may say so, which begins with +God. First comes Deity and then the image of Deity; first comes the god +and then the demi-god, the Hercules who labours and conquers before he +receives his heavenly crown. That idea, with continual mystery and +modification, has continued behind all romantic tales; the demi-god +became the hero of paganism; the hero of paganism became the +knight-errant of Christianity; the knight-errant who wandered and was +foiled before he triumphed became the hero of the later prose romance, +the romance in which the hero had to fight a duel with the villain but +always survived, in which the hero drove desperate horses through the +night in order to rescue the heroine, but always rescued her. + +This heroic modern hero, this demi-god in a top-hat, may be said to +reach his supreme moment and typical example about the time when Dickens +was writing that thundering and thrilling and highly unlikely scene in +_Nicholas Nickleby_, the scene where Nicholas hopelessly denounces the +atrocious Gride in his hour of grinning triumph, and a thud upon the +floor above tells them that the heroine's tyrannical father has died +just in time to set her free. That is the apotheosis of the pure heroic +as Dickens found it, and as Dickens in some sense continued it. It may +be that it does not appear with quite so much unmistakable youth, +beauty, valour, and virtue as it does in Nicholas Nickleby. Walter Gay +is a simpler and more careless hero, but when he is doing any of the +business of the story he is purely heroic. Kit Nubbles is a humbler +hero, but he is a hero; when he is good he is very good. Even David +Copperfield, who confesses to boyish tremors and boyish evasions in his +account of his boyhood, acts the strict stiff part of the chivalrous +gentleman in all the active and determining scenes of the tale. But +_Great Expectations_ may be called, like _Vanity Fair_, a novel without +a hero. Almost all Thackeray's novels except Esmond are novels without a +hero, but only one of Dickens's novels can be so described. I do not +mean that it is a novel without a _jeune premier_, a young man to make +love; _Pickwick_ is that and _Oliver Twist_, and, perhaps, _The Old +Curiosity Shop_. I mean that it is a novel without a hero in the same +far deeper and more deadly sense in which _Pendennis_ is also a novel +without a hero. I mean that it is a novel which aims chiefly at showing +that the hero is unheroic. + +All such phrases as these must appear of course to overstate the case. +Pip is a much more delightful person than Nicholas Nickleby. Or to take +a stronger case for the purpose of our argument, Pip is a much more +delightful person than Sydney Carton. Still the fact remains. Most of +Nicholas Nickleby's personal actions are meant to show that he is +heroic. Most of Pip's actions are meant to show that he is not heroic. +The study of Sydney Carton is meant to indicate that with all his vices +Sydney Carton was a hero. The study of Pip is meant to indicate that +with all his virtues Pip was a snob. The motive of the literary +explanation is different. Pip and Pendennis are meant to show how +circumstances can corrupt men. Sam Weller and Hercules are meant to show +how heroes can subdue circumstances. + +This is the preliminary view of the book which is necessary if we are +to regard it as a real and separate fact in the life of Dickens. Dickens +had many moods because he was an artist; but he had one great mood, +because he was a great artist. Any real difference therefore from the +general drift, or rather (I apologise to Dickens) the general drive of +his creation is very important. This is the one place in his work in +which he does, I will not say feel like Thackeray, far less think like +Thackeray, less still write like Thackeray, but this is the one of his +works in which he understands Thackeray. He puts himself in some sense +in the same place; he considers mankind at somewhat the same angle as +mankind is considered in one of the sociable and sarcastic novels of +Thackeray. When he deals with Pip he sets out not to show his strength +like the strength of Hercules, but to show his weakness like the +weakness of Pendennis. When he sets out to describe Pip's great +expectation he does not set out, as in a fairytale, with the idea that +these great expectations will be fulfilled; he sets out from the first +with the idea that these great expectations will be disappointing. We +might very well, as I have remarked elsewhere, apply to all Dickens's +books the title _Great Expectations_. All his books are full of an airy +and yet ardent expectation of everything; of the next person who shall +happen to speak, of the next chimney that shall happen to smoke, of the +next event, of the next ecstasy; of the next fulfilment of any eager +human fancy. All his books might be called _Great Expectations_. But the +only book to which he gave the name of _Great Expectations_ was the only +book in which the expectation was never realised. It was so with the +whole of that splendid and unconscious generation to which he belonged. +The whole glory of that old English middle class was that it was +unconscious; its excellence was entirely in that, that it was the +culture of the nation, and that it did not know it. If Dickens had ever +known that he was optimistic, he would have ceased to be happy. + +It is necessary to make this first point clear: that in _Great +Expectations_ Dickens was really trying to be a quiet, a detached, and +even a cynical observer of human life. Dickens was trying to be +Thackeray. And the final and startling triumph of Dickens is this: that +even to this moderate and modern story, he gives an incomparable energy +which is not moderate and which is not modern. He is trying to be +reasonable; but in spite of himself he is inspired. He is trying to be +detailed, but in spite of himself he is gigantic. Compared to the rest +of Dickens this is Thackeray; but compared to the whole of Thackeray we +can only say in supreme praise of it that it is Dickens. + +Take, for example, the one question of snobbishness. Dickens has +achieved admirably the description of the doubts and vanities of the +wretched Pip as he walks down the street in his new gentlemanly clothes, +the clothes of which he is so proud and so ashamed. Nothing could be so +exquisitely human, nothing especially could be so exquisitely masculine +as that combination of self-love and self-assertion and even insolence +with a naked and helpless sensibility to the slightest breath of +ridicule. Pip thinks himself better than every one else, and yet anybody +can snub him; that is the everlasting male, and perhaps the everlasting +gentleman. Dickens has described perfectly this quivering and +defenceless dignity. Dickens has described perfectly how ill-armed it is +against the coarse humour of real humanity--the real humanity which +Dickens loved, but which idealists and philanthropists do not love, the +humanity of cabmen and costermongers and men singing in a third-class +carriage; the humanity of Trabb's boy. In describing Pip's weakness +Dickens is as true and as delicate as Thackeray. But Thackeray might +have been easily as true and as delicate as Dickens. This quick and +quiet eye for the tremors of mankind is a thing which Dickens possessed, +but which others possessed also. George Eliot or Thackeray could have +described the weakness of Pip. Exactly what George Eliot and Thackeray +could not have described was the vigour of Trabb's boy. There would have +been admirable humour and observation in their accounts of that +intolerable urchin. Thackeray would have given us little light touches +of Trabb's boy, absolutely true to the quality and colour of the humour, +just as in his novels of the eighteenth century, the glimpses of Steele +or Bolingbroke or Doctor Johnson are exactly and perfectly true to the +colour and quality of their humour. George Eliot in her earlier books +would have given us shrewd authentic scraps of the real dialect of +Trabb's boy, just as she gave us shrewd and authentic scraps of the real +talk in a Midland country town. In her later books she would have given +us highly rationalistic explanations of Trabb's boy; which we should not +have read. But exactly what they could never have given, and exactly +what Dickens does give, is the _bounce_ of Trabb's boy. It is the real +unconquerable rush and energy in a character which was the supreme and +quite indescribable greatness of Dickens. He conquered by rushes; he +attacked in masses; he carried things at the spear point in a charge of +spears; he was the Rupert of Fiction. The thing about any figure of +Dickens, about Sam Weller or Dick Swiveller, or Micawber, or Bagstock, +or Trabb's boy,--the thing about each one of these persons is that he +cannot be exhausted. A Dickens character hits you first on the nose and +then in the waistcoat, and then in the eye and then in the waistcoat +again, with the blinding rapidity of some battering engine. The scene in +which Trabb's boy continually overtakes Pip in order to reel and stagger +as at a first encounter is a thing quite within the real competence of +such a character; it might have been suggested by Thackeray, or George +Eliot, or any realist. But the point with Dickens is that there is a +rush in the boy's rushings; the writer and the reader rush with him. +They start with him, they stare with him, they stagger with him, they +share an inexpressible vitality in the air which emanates from this +violent and capering satirist. Trabb's boy is among other things a boy; +he has a physical rapture in hurling himself like a boomerang and in +bouncing to the sky like a ball. It is just exactly in describing this +quality that Dickens is Dickens and that no one else comes near him. No +one feels in his bones that Felix Holt was strong as he feels in his +bones that little Quilp was strong. No one can feel that even Rawdon +Crawley's splendid smack across the face of Lord Steyne is quite so +living and life-giving as the "kick after kick" which old Mr. Weller +dealt the dancing and quivering Stiggins as he drove him towards the +trough. This quality, whether expressed intellectually or physically, +is the profoundly popular and eternal quality in Dickens; it is the +thing that no one else could do. This quality is the quality which has +always given its continuous power and poetry to the common people +everywhere. It is life; it is the joy of life felt by those who have +nothing else but life. It is the thing that all aristocrats have always +hated and dreaded in the people. And it is the thing which poor Pip +really hates and dreads in Trabb's boy. + +A great man of letters or any great artist is symbolic without knowing +it. The things he describes are types because they are truths. +Shakespeare may, or may not, have ever put it to himself that Richard +the Second was a philosophical symbol; but all good criticism must +necessarily see him so. It may be a reasonable question whether the +artist should be allegorical. There can be no doubt among sane men that +the critic should be allegorical. Spenser may have lost by being less +realistic than Fielding. But any good criticism of _Tom Jones_ must be +as mystical as the _Faery Queen_. Hence it is unavoidable in speaking of +a fine book like _Great Expectations_ that we should give even to its +unpretentious and realistic figures a certain massive mysticism. Pip is +Pip, but he is also the well-meaning snob. And this is even more true of +those two great figures in the tale which stand for the English +democracy. For, indeed, the first and last word upon the English +democracy is said in Joe Gargery and Trabb's boy. The actual English +populace, as distinct from the French populace or the Scotch or Irish +populace, may be said to lie between those two types. The first is the +poor man who does not assert himself at all, and the second is the poor +man who asserts himself entirely with the weapon of sarcasm. The only +way in which the English now ever rise in revolution is under the symbol +and leadership of Trabb's boy. What pikes and shillelahs were to the +Irish populace, what guns and barricades were to the French populace, +that chaff is to the English populace. It is their weapon, the use of +which they really understand. It is the one way in which they can make a +rich man feel uncomfortable, and they use it very justifiably for all it +is worth. If they do not cut off the heads of tyrants at least they +sometimes do their best to make the tyrants lose their heads. The gutter +boys of the great towns carry the art of personal criticism to so rich +and delicate a degree that some well-dressed persons when they walk past +a file of them feel as if they were walking past a row of omniscient +critics or judges with a power of life and death. Here and there only is +some ordinary human custom, some natural human pleasure suppressed in +deference to the fastidiousness of the rich. But all the rich tremble +before the fastidiousness of the poor. + +Of the other type of democracy it is far more difficult to speak. It is +always hard to speak of good things or good people, for in satisfying +the soul they take away a certain spur to speech. Dickens was often +called a sentimentalist. In one sense he sometimes was a sentimentalist. +But if sentimentalism be held to mean something artificial or +theatrical, then in the core and reality of his character Dickens was +the very reverse of a sentimentalist. He seriously and definitely loved +goodness. To see sincerity and charity satisfied him like a meal. What +some critics call his love of sweet stuff is really his love of plain +beef and bread. Sometimes one is tempted to wish that in the long +Dickens dinner the sweet courses could be left out; but this does not +make the whole banquet other than a banquet singularly solid and simple. +The critics complain of the sweet things, but not because they are so +strong as to like simple things. They complain of the sweet things +because they are so sophisticated as to like sour things; their tongues +are tainted with the bitterness of absinthe. Yet because of the very +simplicity of Dickens's moral tastes it is impossible to speak +adequately of them; and Joe Gargery must stand as he stands in the book, +a thing too obvious to be understood. But this may be said of him in one +of his minor aspects, that he stands for a certain long-suffering in the +English poor, a certain weary patience and politeness which almost +breaks the heart. One cannot help wondering whether that great mass of +silent virtue will ever achieve anything on this earth. + + + + +OUR MUTUAL FRIEND + + +_Our Mutual Friend_ marks a happy return to the earlier manner of +Dickens at the end of Dickens's life. One might call it a sort of Indian +summer of his farce. Those who most truly love Dickens love the earlier +Dickens; and any return to his farce must be welcomed, like a young man +come back from the dead. In this book indeed he does not merely return +to his farce; he returns in a manner to his vulgarity. It is the old +democratic and even uneducated Dickens who is writing here. The very +title is illiterate. Any priggish pupil teacher could tell Dickens that +there is no such phrase in English as "our mutual friend." Any one could +tell Dickens that "our mutual friend" means "our reciprocal friend," and +that "our reciprocal friend" means nothing. If he had only had all the +solemn advantages of academic learning (the absence of which in him was +lamented by the _Quarterly Review_), he would have known better. He +would have known that the correct phrase for a man known to two people +is "our common friend." But if one calls one's friend a common friend, +even that phrase is open to misunderstanding. + +I dwell with a gloomy pleasure on this mistake in the very title of the +book because I, for one, am not pleased to see Dickens gradually +absorbed by modern culture and good manners. Dickens, by class and +genius, belonged to the kind of people who do talk about a "mutual +friend"; and for that class there is a very great deal to be said. These +two things can at least be said--that this class does understand the +meaning of the word "friend" and the meaning of the word "mutual." I +know that for some long time before he had been slowly and subtly sucked +into the whirlpool of the fashionable views of later England. I know +that in _Bleak House_ he treats the aristocracy far more tenderly than +he treats them in _David Copperfield_. I know that in _A Tale of Two +Cities_, having come under the influence of Carlyle, he treats +revolution as strange and weird, whereas under the influence of Cobbett +he would have treated it as obvious and reasonable. I know that in _The +Mystery of Edwin Drood_ he not only praised the Minor Canon of +Cloisterham at the expense of the dissenting demagogue, Honeythunder; I +know that he even took the last and most disastrous step in the modern +English reaction. While blaming the old Cloisterham monks (who were +democratic), he praised the old-world peace that they had left behind +them--an old-world peace which is simply one of the last amusements of +aristocracy. The modern rich feel quite at home with the dead monks. +They would have felt anything but comfortable with the live ones. I +know, in short, how the simple democracy of Dickens was gradually dimmed +by the decay and reaction of the middle of the nineteenth century. I +know that he fell into some of the bad habits of aristocratic +sentimentalism. I know that he used the word "gentleman" as meaning good +man. But all this only adds to the unholy joy with which I realise that +the very title of one of his best books was a vulgarism. It is pleasant +to contemplate this last unconscious knock in the eye for the gentility +with which Dickens was half impressed. Dickens is the old self-made man; +you may take him or leave him. He has its disadvantages and its merits. +No university man would have written the title; no university man could +have written the book. + +If it were a mere matter of the accident of a name it would not be worth +while thus to dwell on it, even as a preface. But the title is in this +respect typical of the tale. The novel called _Our Mutual Friend_ is in +many ways a real reaction towards the earlier Dickens manner. I have +remarked that _Little Dorrit_ was a reversion to the form of the first +books, but not to their spirit; _Our Mutual Friend_ is a reversion to +the spirit as well as the form. Compare, for instance, the public +figures that make a background in each book. Mr. Merdle is a commercial +man having no great connection with the plot; similarly Mr. Podsnap is a +commercial man having no great connection with the plot. This is +altogether in the spirit of the earlier books; the whole point of an +early Dickens novel was to have as many people as possible entirely +unconnected with the plot. But exactly because both studies are +irrelevant, the contrast between them can be more clearly perceived. +Dickens goes out of his way to describe Merdle; and it is a gloomy +description. But Dickens goes out of his way to describe Podsnap, and it +is a happy and hilarious description. It recalls the days when he hunted +great game; when he went out of his way to entrap such adorable monsters +as Mr. Pecksniff or Mr. Vincent Crummles. With these wild beings we +never bother about the cause of their coming. Such guests in a story +may be uninvited, but they are never _de trop_. They earn their night's +lodging in any tale by being so uproariously amusing; like little Tommy +Tucker in the legend, they sing for their supper. This is really the +marked truth about _Our Mutual Friend_, as a stage in the singular +latter career of Dickens. It is like the leaping up and flaming of a +slowly dying fire. The best things in the book are in the old best +manner of the author. They have that great Dickens quality of being +something which is pure farce and yet which is not superficial; an +unfathomable farce--a farce that goes down to the roots of the universe. +The highest compliment that can ever be paid to the humour of Dickens is +paid when some lady says, with the sudden sincerity of her sex, that it +is "too silly." The phrase is really a perfectly sound and acute +criticism. Humour does consist in being too silly, in passing the +borderland, in breaking through the floor of sense and falling into some +starry abyss of nonsense far below our ordinary human life. This "too +silly" quality is really present in _Our Mutual Friend_. It is present +in _Our Mutual Friend_ just as it is present in _Pickwick_, or _Martin +Chuzzlewit_; just as it is not present in _Little Dorrit_ or in _Hard +Times_. Many tests might be employed. One is the pleasure in purely +physical jokes--jokes about the body. The general dislike which every +one felt for Mr. Stiggins's nose is of the same kind as the ardent +desire which Mr. Lammle felt for Mr. Fledgeby's nose. "Give me your +nose, Sir," said Mr. Lammle. That sentence alone would be enough to show +that the young Dickens had never died. + +The opening of a book goes for a great deal. The opening of _Our Mutual +Friend_ is much more instinctively energetic and light-hearted than that +of any of the other novels of his concluding period. Dickens had always +enough optimism to make his stories end well. He had not, in his later +years, always enough optimism to make them begin well. Even _Great +Expectations_, the saddest of his later books, ends well; it ends well +in spite of himself, who had intended it to end badly. But if we leave +the evident case of good endings and take the case of good beginnings, +we see how much _Our Mutual Friend_ stands out from among the other +novels of the evening or the end of Dickens. The tale of _Little Dorrit_ +begins in a prison. One of the prisoners is a villain, and his villainy +is as dreary as the prison; that might matter nothing. But the other +prisoner is vivacious, and even his vivacity is dreary. The first note +struck is sad. In the tale of _Edwin Drood_ the first scene is in an +opium den, suffocated with every sort of phantasy and falsehood. Nor is +it true that these openings are merely accidental; they really cast +their shadow over the tales. The people of _Little Dorrit_ begin in +prison; and it is the whole point of the book that people never get out +of prison. The story of _Edwin Drood_ begins amid the fumes of opium, +and it never gets out of the fumes of opium. The darkness of that +strange and horrible smoke is deliberately rolled over the whole story. +Dickens, in his later years, permitted more and more his story to take +the cue from its inception. All the more remarkable, therefore, is the +real jerk and spurt of good spirits with which he opens _Our Mutual +Friend_. It begins with a good piece of rowdy satire, wildly exaggerated +and extremely true. It belongs to the same class as the first chapter +of _Martin Chuzzlewit_, with its preposterous pedigree of the Chuzzlewit +family, or even the first chapter of _Pickwick_, with its immortal +imbecilities about the Theory of Tittlebats and Mr. Blotton of Aldgate. +Doubtless the early satiric chapter in _Our Mutual Friend_ is of a more +strategic and ingenious kind of satire than can be found in these early +and explosive parodies. Still, there is a quality common to both, and +that quality is the whole of Dickens. It is a quality difficult to +define--hence the whole difficulty of criticising Dickens. Perhaps it +can be best stated in two separate statements or as two separate +symptoms. The first is the mere fact that the reader rushes to read it. +The second is the mere fact that the writer rushed to write it. + +This beginning, which is like a burst of the old exuberant Dickens, is, +of course, the Veneering dinner-party. In its own way it is as good as +anything that Dickens ever did. There is the old faculty of managing a +crowd, of making character clash with character, that had made Dickens +not only the democrat but even the demagogue of fiction. For if it is +hard to manage a mob, it is hardest of all to manage a swell mob. The +particular kind of chaos that is created by the hospitality of a rich +upstart has perhaps never been so accurately and outrageously described. +Every touch about the thing is true; to this day any one can test it if +he goes to a dinner of this particular kind. How admirable, for +instance, is the description of the way in which all the guests ignored +the host; how the host and hostess peered and gaped for some stray +attention as if they had been a pair of poor relations. Again, how well, +as a matter of social colour, the distinctions between the type and +tone of the guests are made even in the matter of this unguestlike +insolence. How well Dickens distinguishes the ill-bred indifference of +Podsnap from the well-bred indifference of Mortimer Lightwood and Eugene +Wrayburn. How well he distinguishes the bad manners of the merchant from +the equally typical bad manners of the gentleman. Above all, how well he +catches the character of the creature who is really the master of all +these: the impenetrable male servant. Nowhere in literature is the truth +about servants better told. For that truth is simply this: that the +secret of aristocracy is hidden even from aristocrats. Servants, +butlers, footmen, are the high priests who have the real dispensation; +and even gentlemen are afraid of them. Dickens was never more right than +when he made the new people, the Veneerings, employ a butler who +despised not only them but all their guests and acquaintances. The +admirable person called the Analytical Chemist shows his perfection +particularly in the fact that he regards all the sham gentlemen and all +the real gentlemen with the same gloomy and incurable contempt. He +offers wine to the offensive Podsnap or the shrieking Tippins with a +melancholy sincerity and silence; but he offers his letter to the +aristocratic and unconscious Mortimer with the same sincerity and with +the same silence. It is a great pity that the Analytical Chemist only +occurs in two or three scenes of this excellent story. As far as I know, +he never really says a word from one end of the book to the other; but +he is one of the best characters in Dickens. + +Round the Veneering dinner-table are collected not indeed the best +characters in Dickens, but certainly the best characters in _Our Mutual +Friend_. Certainly one exception must be made. Fledgeby is unaccountably +absent. There was really no reason why he should not have been present +at a dinner-party given by the Veneerings and including the Lammles. His +money was at least more genuine than theirs. If he had been present the +party would really have included all that is important in _Our Mutual +Friend_. For indeed, outside Mr. Fledgeby and the people at the +dinner-party, there is something a little heavy and careless about the +story. Mr. Silas Wegg is really funny; and he serves the purpose of a +necessary villain in the plot. But his humour and his villainy seem to +have no particular connection with each other; when he is not scheming +he seems the last man likely to scheme. He is rather like one of +Dickens's agreeable Bohemians, a pleasant companion, a quoter of fine +verses. His villainy seems an artificial thing attached to him, like his +wooden leg. For while his villainy is supposed to be of a dull, mean, +and bitter sort (quite unlike, for instance, the uproarious villainy of +Quilp), his humour is of the sincere, flowing and lyric character, like +that of Dick Swiveller or Mr. Micawber. He tells Mr. Boffin that he will +drop into poetry in a friendly way. He does drop into it in a friendly +way; in much too really a friendly way to make him convincing as a mere +calculating knave. He and Mr. Venus are such natural and genuine +companions that one does not see why if Venus repents Wegg should not +repent too. In short, Wegg is a convenience for a plot and not a very +good plot at that. But if he is one of the blots on the business, he is +not the principal one. If the real degradation of Wegg is not very +convincing, it is at least immeasurably more convincing than the +pretended degradation of Boffin. The passage in which Boffin appears as +a sort of miser, and then afterwards explains that he only assumed the +character for reasons of his own, has something about it highly jerky +and unsatisfactory. The truth of the whole matter I think, almost +certainly, is that Dickens did not originally mean Boffin's lapse to be +fictitious. He originally meant Boffin really to be corrupted by wealth, +slowly to degenerate and as slowly to repent. But the story went too +quickly for this long, double, and difficult process; therefore Dickens +at the last moment made a sudden recovery possible by representing that +the whole business had been a trick. Consequently, this episode is not +an error merely in the sense that we may find many errors in a great +writer like Dickens; it is a mistake patched up with another mistake. It +is a case of that ossification which occurs round the healing of an +actual fracture; the story had broken down and been mended. + +If Dickens had fulfilled what was probably his original design, and +described the slow freezing of Boffin's soul in prosperity, I do not say +that he would have done the thing well. He was not good at describing +change in anybody, especially not good at describing a change for the +worse. The tendency of all his characters is upwards, like bubbles, +never downwards, like stones. But at least it would probably have been +more credible than the story as it stands; for the story as it stands is +actually less credible than any conceivable kind of moral ruin for +Boffin. Such a character as his--rough, simple and lumberingly +unconscious--might be more easily conceived as really sinking in +self-respect and honour than as keeping up, month after month, so +strained and inhuman a theatrical performance. To a good man (of that +particular type) it would be easier to be bad than to pretend to be bad. +It might have taken years to turn Noddy Boffin into a miser; but it +would have taken centuries to turn him into an actor. This unreality in +the later Boffin scenes makes the end of the story of John Harmon +somewhat more unimpressive perhaps than it might otherwise have been. +Upon no hypothesis, however, can he be made one of the more impressive +figures of Dickens. It is true that it is an unfair criticism to object, +as some have done, that Dickens does not succeed in disguising the +identity of John Harmon with John Rokesmith. Dickens never intended to +disguise it; the whole story would be mainly unintelligible and largely +uninteresting if it had been successfully disguised. But though John +Harmon or Rokesmith was never intended to be merely a man of mystery, it +is not quite so easy to say what he was intended to be. Bella is a +possible and pretty sketch. Mrs. Wilfer, her mother, is an entirely +impossible and entirely delightful one. Miss Podsnap is not only +excellent, she is to a healthy taste positively attractive; there is a +real suggestion in her of the fact that humility is akin to truth, even +when humility takes its more comic form of shyness. There is not in all +literature a more human _cri de coeur_ than that with which Georgiana +Podsnap receives the information that a young man has professed himself +to be attracted by her--"Oh what a Fool he must be!" + +Two other figures require praise, though they are in the more tragic +manner which Dickens touched from time to time in his later period. +Bradley Headstone is really a successful villain; so successful that he +fully captures our sympathies. Also there is something original in the +very conception. It was a new notion to add to the villains of fiction, +whose thoughts go quickly, this villain whose thoughts go slow but sure; +and it was a new notion to combine a deadly criminality not with high +life or the slums (the usual haunts for villains) but with the laborious +respectability of the lower, middle classes. The other good conception +is the boy, Bradley Headstone's pupil, with his dull, inexhaustible +egoism, his pert, unconscious cruelty, and the strict decorum and +incredible baseness of his views of life. It is singular that Dickens, +who was not only a radical and a social reformer, but one who would have +been particularly concerned to maintain the principle of modern popular +education, should nevertheless have seen so clearly this potential evil +in the mere educationalism of our time--the fact that merely educating +the democracy may easily mean setting to work to despoil it of all the +democratic virtues. It is better to be Lizzie Hexam and not know how to +read and write than to be Charlie Hexam and not know how to appreciate +Lizzie Hexam. It is not only necessary that the democracy should be +taught; it is also necessary that the democracy should be taught +democracy. Otherwise it will certainly fall a victim to that +snobbishness and system of worldly standards which is the most natural +and easy of all the forms of human corruption. This is one of the many +dangers which Dickens saw before it existed. Dickens was really a +prophet; far more of a prophet than Carlyle. + + [Illustration: Charles Dickens, 1868 + From a photograph by Gurney.] + + + + +EDWIN DROOD + + +_Pickwick_ was a work partly designed by others, but ultimately filled +up by Dickens. _Edwin Drood_, the last book, was a book designed by +Dickens, but ultimately filled up by others. The _Pickwick Papers_ +showed how much Dickens could make out of other people's suggestions; +_The Mystery of Edwin Drood_ shows how very little other people can make +out of Dickens's suggestions. + +Dickens was meant by Heaven to be the great melodramatist; so that even +his literary end was melodramatic. Something more seems hinted at in the +cutting short of _Edwin Drood_ by Dickens than the mere cutting short of +a good novel by a great man. It seems rather like the last taunt of some +elf, leaving the world, that it should be this story which is not ended, +this story which is only a story. The only one of Dickens's novels which +he did not finish was the only one that really needed finishing. He +never had but one thoroughly good plot to tell; and that he has only +told in heaven. This is what separates the case in question from any +parallel cases of novelists cut off in the act of creation. That great +novelist, for instance, with whom Dickens is constantly compared, died +also in the middle of _Denis Duval_. But any one can see in _Denis +Duval_ the qualities of the later work of Thackeray; the increasing +discursiveness, the increasing retrospective poetry, which had been in +part the charm and in part the failure of _Philip_ and _The Virginians_. +But to Dickens it was permitted to die at a dramatic moment and to leave +a dramatic mystery. Any Thackerayan could have completed the plot of +_Denis Duval_; except indeed that a really sympathetic Thackerayan might +have had some doubt as to whether there was any plot to complete. But +Dickens, having had far too little plot in his stories previously, had +far too much plot in the story he never told. Dickens dies in the act of +telling, not his tenth novel, but his first news of murder. He drops +down dead as he is in the act of denouncing the assassin. It is +permitted to Dickens, in short, to come to a literary end as strange as +his literary beginning. He began by completing the old romance of +travel. He ended by inventing the new detective story. + +It is as a detective story first and last that we have to consider _The +Mystery of Edwin Drood_. This does not mean, of course, that the details +are not often admirable in their swift and penetrating humour; to say +that of the book would be to say that Dickens did not write it. Nothing +could be truer, for instance, than the manner in which the dazed and +drunken dignity of Durdles illustrates a certain bitterness at the +bottom of the bewilderment of the poor. Nothing could be better than the +way in which the haughty and allusive conversation between Miss +Twinkleton and the landlady illustrates the maddening preference of some +females for skating upon thin social ice. There is an even better +example than these of the original humorous insight of Dickens; and one +not very often remarked, because of its brevity and its unimportance in +the narrative. But Dickens never did anything better than the short +account of Mr. Grewgious's dinner being brought from the tavern by two +waiters: "a stationary waiter," and "a flying waiter." The "flying +waiter" brought the food and the "stationary waiter" quarrelled with +him; the "flying waiter" brought glasses and the "stationary waiter" +looked through them. Finally, it will be remembered the "stationary +waiter" left the room, casting a glance which indicated "let it be +understood that all emoluments are mine, and that Nil is the reward of +this slave." Still, Dickens wrote the book as a detective story; he +wrote it as _The Mystery of Edwin Drood_. And alone, perhaps, among +detective-story writers, he never lived to destroy his mystery. Here +alone then among the Dickens novels it is necessary to speak of the plot +and of the plot alone. And when we speak of the plot it becomes +immediately necessary to speak of the two or three standing explanations +which celebrated critics have given of the plot. + +The story, so far as it was written by Dickens, can be read here. It +describes, as will be seen, the disappearance of the young architect +Edwin Drood after a night of festivity which was supposed to celebrate +his reconciliation with a temporary enemy, Neville Landless, and was +held at the house of his uncle John Jasper. Dickens continued the tale +long enough to explain or explode the first and most obvious of his +riddles. Long before the existing part terminates it has become evident +that Drood has been put away, not by his obvious opponent, Landless, but +by his uncle who professes for him an almost painful affection. The fact +that we all know this, however, ought not in fairness to blind us to +the fact that, considered as the first fraud in a detective story, it +has been, with great skill, at once suggested and concealed. Nothing, +for instance, could be cleverer as a piece of artistic mystery than the +fact that Jasper, the uncle, always kept his eyes fixed on Drood's face +with a dark and watchful tenderness; the thing is so told that at first +we really take it as only indicating something morbid in the affection; +it is only afterwards that the frightful fancy breaks upon us that it is +not morbid affection but morbid antagonism. This first mystery (which is +no longer a mystery) of Jasper's guilt, is only worth remarking because +it shows that Dickens meant and felt himself able to mask all his +batteries with real artistic strategy and artistic caution. The manner +of the unmasking of Jasper marks the manner and tone in which the whole +tale was to be told. Here we have not got to do with Dickens simply +giving himself away, as he gave himself away in _Pickwick_ or _The +Christmas Carol_. Not that one complains of his giving himself away; +there was no better gift. + +What was the mystery of Edwin Drood from Dickens's point of view we +shall never know, except perhaps from Dickens in heaven, and then he +will very likely have forgotten. But the mystery of Edwin Drood from our +point of view, from that of his critics, and those who have with some +courage (after his death) attempted to be his collaborators, is simply +this. There is no doubt that Jasper either murdered Drood or supposed +that he had murdered him. This certainty we have from the fact that it +is the whole point of a scene between Jasper and Drood's lawyer +Grewgious in which Jasper is struck down with remorse when he realises +that Drood has been killed (from his point of view) needlessly and +without profit. The only question is whether Jasper's remorse was as +needless as his murder. In other words the only question is whether, +while he certainly thought he had murdered Drood, he had really done it. +It need hardly be said that such a doubt would not have been raised for +nothing; gentlemen like Jasper do not as a rule waste good remorse +except upon successful crime. The origin of the doubt about the real +death of Drood is this. Towards the latter end of the existing chapters +there appears very abruptly, and with a quite ostentatious air of +mystery, a character called Datchery. He appears for the purpose of +spying upon Jasper and getting up some case against him; at any rate, if +he has not this purpose in the story he has no other earthly purpose in +it. He is an old gentleman of juvenile energy, with a habit of carrying +his hat in his hand even in the open air; which some have interpreted as +meaning that he feels the unaccustomed weight of a wig. Now there are +one or two people in the story who this person might possibly be. +Notably there is one person in the story who seems as if he were meant +to be something, but who hitherto has certainly been nothing; I mean +Bazzard, Mr. Grewgious's clerk, a sulky fellow interested in +theatricals, of whom an unnecessary fuss is made. There is also Mr. +Grewgious himself, and there is also another suggestion, so much more +startling that I shall have to deal with it later. + +For the moment, however, the point is this: That ingenious writer, Mr. +Proctor, started the highly plausible theory that this Datchery was +Drood himself, who had not really been killed. He adduced a most complex +and complete scheme covering nearly all the details; but the strongest +argument he had was rather one of general artistic effect. This argument +has been quite perfectly summed up by Mr. Andrew Lang in one sentence: +"If Edwin Drood is dead, there is not much mystery about him." This is +quite true; Dickens, when writing in so deliberate, nay, dark and +conspiratorial a manner, would surely have kept the death of Drood and +the guilt of Jasper hidden a little longer if the only real mystery had +been the guilt of Jasper and the death of Drood. It certainly seems +artistically more likely that there was a further mystery of Edwin +Drood; not the mystery that he was murdered, but the mystery that he was +not murdered. It is true indeed that Mr. Cumming Walters has a theory of +Datchery (to which I have already darkly alluded) a theory which is wild +enough to be the centre not only of any novel but of any harlequinade. +But the point is that even Mr. Cumming Walters's theory, though it makes +the mystery more extraordinary, does not make it any more of a mystery +of Edwin Drood. It should not have been called _The Mystery of Drood_, +but _The Mystery of Datchery_. This is the strongest case for Proctor; +if the story tells of Drood coming back as Datchery, the story does at +any rate fulfil the title upon its title-page. + +The principal objection to Proctor's theory is that there seems no +adequate reason why Jasper should not have murdered his nephew if he +wanted to. And there seems even less reason why Drood, if unsuccessfully +murdered, should not have raised the alarm. Happy young architects, +when nearly strangled by elderly organists, do not generally stroll away +and come back some time afterwards in a wig and with a false name. +Superficially it would seem almost as odd to find the murderer +investigating the origin of the murder, as to find the corpse +investigating it. To this problem two of the ablest literary critics of +our time, Mr. Andrew Lang and Mr. William Archer (both of them persuaded +generally of the Proctor theory) have especially addressed themselves. +Both have come to the same substantial conclusion; and I suspect that +they are right. They hold that Jasper (whose mania for opium is much +insisted on in the tale) had some sort of fit, or trance, or other +physical seizure as he was committing the crime so that he left it +unfinished; and they also hold that he had drugged Drood, so that Drood, +when he recovered from the attack, was doubtful about who had been his +assailant. This might really explain, if a little fancifully, his coming +back to the town in the character of a detective. He might think it due +to his uncle (whom he last remembered in a kind of murderous vision) to +make an independent investigation as to whether he was really guilty or +not. He might say, as Hamlet said of a vision equally terrifying, "I'll +have grounds more relative than this." In fairness it must be said that +there is something vaguely shaky about this theory; chiefly, I think, in +this respect; that there is a sort of farcical cheerfulness about +Datchery which does not seem altogether appropriate to a lad who ought +to be in an agony of doubt as to whether his best friend was or was not +his assassin. Still there are many such incongruities in Dickens; and +the explanation of Mr. Archer and Mr. Lang is an explanation. I do not +believe that any explanation as good can be given to account for the +tale being called _The Mystery of Edwin Drood_, if the tale practically +starts with his corpse. + +If Drood is really dead one cannot help feeling the story ought to end +where it does end, not by accident but by design. The murder is +explained. Jasper is ready to be hanged, and every one else in a decent +novel ought to be ready to be married. If there was to be much more of +anything, it must have been of anticlimax. Nevertheless there are +degrees of anticlimax. Some of the more obvious explanations of Datchery +are quite reasonable, but they are distinctly tame. For instance, +Datchery may be Bazzard; but it is not very exciting if he is; for we +know nothing about Bazzard and care less. Again, he might be Grewgious; +but there is something pointless about one grotesque character dressing +up as another grotesque character actually less amusing than himself. +Now, Mr. Cumming Walters has at least had the distinction of inventing a +theory which makes the story at least an interesting story, even if it +is not exactly the story that is promised on the cover of the book. The +obvious enemy of Drood, on whom suspicion first falls, the swarthy and +sulky Landless, has a sister even swarthier and, except for her queenly +dignity, even sulkier than he. This barbaric princess is evidently meant +to be (in a sombre way) in love with Crisparkle, the clergyman and +muscular Christian who represents the breezy element in the emotions of +the tale. Mr. Cumming Walters seriously maintains that it is this +barbaric princess who puts on a wig and dresses up as Mr. Datchery. He +urges his case with much ingenuity of detail. Helena Landless certainly +had a motive; to save her brother, who was accused falsely, by accusing +Jasper justly. She certainly had some of the faculties; it is +elaborately stated in the earlier part of her story that she was +accustomed as a child to dress up in male costume and run into the +wildest adventures. There may be something in Mr. Cumming Walters's +argument that the very flippancy of Datchery is the self-conscious +flippancy of a strong woman in such an odd situation; certainly there is +the same flippancy in Portia and in Rosalind. Nevertheless, I think, +there is one final objection to the theory; and that is simply this, +that it is comic. It is generally wrong to represent a great master of +the grotesque as being grotesque exactly where he does not intend to be. +And I am persuaded that if Dickens had really meant Helena to turn into +Datchery, he would have made her from the first in some way more light, +eccentric, and laughable; he would have made her at least as light and +laughable as Rosa. As it is, there is something strangely stiff and +incredible about the idea of a lady so dark and dignified dressing up as +a swaggering old gentleman in a blue coat and grey trousers. We might +almost as easily imagine Edith Dombey dressing up as Major Bagstock. We +might almost as easily imagine Rebecca in _Ivanhoe_ dressing up as Isaac +of York. + +Of course such a question can never really be settled precisely, because +it is the question not merely of a mystery but of a puzzle. For here the +detective novel differs from every other kind of novel. The ordinary +novelist desires to keep his readers to the point; the detective +novelist actually desires to keep his readers off the point. In the +first case, every touch must help to tell the reader what he means; in +the second case, most of the touches must conceal or even contradict +what he means. You are supposed to see and appreciate the smallest +gestures of a good actor; but you do not see all the gestures of a +conjuror, if he is a good conjuror. Hence, into the critical estimate of +such works as this, there is introduced a problem, an extra perplexity, +which does not exist in other cases. I mean the problem of the things +commonly called blinds. Some of the points which we pick out as +suggestive may have been put in as deceptive. Thus the whole conflict +between a critic with one theory, like Mr. Lang, and a critic with +another theory, like Mr. Cumming Walters, becomes eternal and a trifle +farcical. Mr. Walters says that all Mr. Lang's clues were blinds; Mr. +Lang says that all Mr. Walters's clues were blinds. Mr. Walters can say +that some passages seemed to show that Helena was Datchery; Mr. Lang can +reply that those passages were only meant to deceive simple people like +Mr. Walters into supposing that she was Datchery. Similarly Mr. Lang can +say that the return of Drood is foreshadowed; and Mr. Walters can reply +that it was foreshadowed because it was never meant to come off. There +seems no end to this insane process; anything that Dickens wrote may or +may not mean the opposite of what it says. Upon this principle I should +be very ready for one to declare that all the suggested Datcherys were +really blinds; merely because they can naturally be suggested. I would +undertake to maintain that Mr. Datchery is really Miss Twinkleton, who +has a mercenary interest in keeping Rosa Budd at her school. This +suggestion does not seem to me to be really much more humorous than Mr. +Cumming Walters's theory. Yet either may certainly be true. Dickens is +dead, and a number of splendid scenes and startling adventures have died +with him. Even if we get the right solution we shall not know that it is +right. The tale might have been, and yet it has not been. + +And I think there is no thought so much calculated to make one doubt +death itself, to feel that sublime doubt which has created all +religion--the doubt that found death incredible. Edwin Drood may or may +not have really died; but surely Dickens did not really die. Surely our +real detective liveth and shall appear in the latter days of the earth. +For a finished tale may give a man immortality in the light and literary +sense; but an unfinished tale suggests another immortality, more +essential and more strange. + + + + +MASTER HUMPHREY'S CLOCK + + +It is quite indispensable to include a criticism of _Master Humphrey's +Clock_ in any survey of Dickens, although it is not one of the books of +which his admirers would chiefly boast; although perhaps it is almost +the only one of which he would not have boasted himself. As a triumph of +Dickens, at least, it is not of great importance. But as a sample of +Dickens it happens to be of quite remarkable importance. The very fact +that it is for the most part somewhat more level and even monotonous +than most of his creations, makes us realise, as it were, against what +level and monotony those creations commonly stand out. This book is the +background of his mind. It is the basis and minimum of him which was +always there. Alone, of all written things, this shows how he felt when +he was not writing. Dickens might have written it in his sleep. That is +to say, it is written by a sluggish Dickens, a half automatic Dickens, a +dreaming and drifting Dickens; but still by the enduring Dickens. + +But this truth can only be made evident by beginning nearer to the root +of the matter. _Nicholas Nickleby_ had just completed, or, to speak more +strictly, confirmed, the popularity of the young author; wonderful as +_Pickwick_ was it might have been a nine days' wonder; _Oliver Twist_ +had been powerful but painful; it was _Nicholas Nickleby_ that proved +the man to be a great productive force of which one could ask more, of +which one could ask all things. His publishers, Chapman and Hall, seem +to have taken at about this point that step which sooner or later most +publishers do take with regard to a half successful man who is becoming +wholly successful. Instead of asking him for something, they asked him +for anything. They made him, so to speak, the editor of his own works. +And indeed it is literally as the editor of his own works that he next +appears; for the next thing to which he proposes to put his name is not +a novel, but for all practical purposes a magazine. Yet although it is a +magazine, it is a magazine entirely written by himself; the publishers, +in point of fact, wanted to create a kind of Dickens Miscellany, in a +much more literal sense than that in which we speak of a Bentley +Miscellany. Dickens was in no way disposed to dislike such a job; for +the more miscellaneous he was the more he enjoyed himself. And indeed +this early experiment of his bears a great deal of resemblance to those +later experiences in which he was the editor of two popular periodicals. +The editor of _Master Humphrey's Clock_ was a kind of type or precursor +of the editor of _Household Words_ and _All the Year Round_. There was +the same sense of absolute ease in an atmosphere of infinite gossip. +There was the same great advantage gained by a man of genius who wrote +best scrappily and by episodes. The omnipotence of the editor helped the +eccentricities of the author. He could excuse himself for all his own +shortcomings. He could begin a novel, get tired of it, and turn it into +a short story. He could begin a short story, get fond of it, and turn +it into a novel. Thus in the days of _Household Words_ he could begin a +big scheme of stories, such as _Somebody's Luggage_, or _Seven Poor +Travellers_, and after writing a tale or two toss the rest to his +colleagues. Thus, on the other hand, in the time of _Master Humphrey's +Clock_, he could begin one small adventure of Master Humphrey and find +himself unable to stop it. It is quite clear I think (though only from +moral evidence, which some call reading between the lines) that he +originally meant to tell many separate tales of Master Humphrey's +wanderings in London, only one of which, and that a short one, was to +have been concerned with a little girl going home. Fortunately for us +that little girl had a grandfather, and that grandfather had a curiosity +shop and also a nephew, and that nephew had an entirely irrelevant +friend whom men and angels called Richard Swiveller. Once having come +into the society of Swiveller it is not unnatural that Dickens stayed +there for a whole book. The essential point for us here, however, is +that _Master Humphrey's Clock_ was stopped by the size and energy of the +thing that had come of it. It died in childbirth. + +There is, however, another circumstance which, even in ordinary public +opinion, makes this miscellany important, besides the great novel that +came out of it. I mean that the ordinary reader can remember one great +thing about _Master Humphrey's Clock_, besides the fact that it was the +frame-work of _The Old Curiosity Shop_. He remembers that Mr. Pickwick +and the Wellers rise again from the dead. Dickens makes Samuel Pickwick +become a member of Master Humphrey's Clock Society; and he institutes a +parallel society in the kitchen under the name of Mr. Weller's Watch. + +Before we consider the question of whether Dickens was wise when he did +this, it is worth remarking how really odd it is that this is the only +place where he did it. Dickens, one would have thought, was the one man +who might naturally have introduced old characters into new stories. +Dickens, as a matter of fact, was almost the one man who never did it. +It would have seemed natural in him for a double reason; first, that his +characters were very valuable to him, and second that they were not very +valuable to his particular stories. They were dear to him, and they are +dear to us; but they really might as well have turned up (within reason) +in one environment as well as in another. We, I am sure, should be +delighted to meet Mr. Mantalini in the story of _Dombey and Son_. And he +certainly would not be much missed from the plot of Nicholas Nickleby. +"I am an affectionate father," said Dickens, "to all the children of my +fancy; but like many other parents I have in my heart of hearts a +favourite child; and his name is David Copperfield." Yet although his +heart must often have yearned backwards to the children of his fancy +whose tale was already told, yet he never touched one of them again even +with the point of his pen. The characters in _David Copperfield_, as in +all the others, were dead for him after he had done the book; if he +loved them as children, it was as dead and sanctified children. It is a +curious test of the strength and even reticence that underlay the +seeming exuberance of Dickens, that he never did yield at all to +exactly that indiscretion or act of sentimentalism which would seem most +natural to his emotions and his art. Or rather he never did yield to it +except here in this one case; the case of _Master Humphrey's Clock_. + +And it must be remembered that nearly everybody else did yield to it. +Especially did those writers who are commonly counted Dickens's +superiors in art and exactitude and closeness to connected reality. +Thackeray wallowed in it; Anthony Trollope lived on it. Those modern +artists who pride themselves most on the separation and unity of a work +of art have indulged in it often; thus, for instance, Stevenson gave a +glimpse of Alan Breck in _The Master of Ballantrae_, and meant to give a +glimpse of the Master of Ballantrae in another unwritten tale called +_The Rising Sun_. The habit of revising old characters is so strong in +Thackeray that _Vanity Fair_, _Pendennis_, _The Newcomes_, and _Philip_ +are in one sense all one novel. Certainly the reader sometimes forgets +which one of them he is reading. Afterwards he cannot remember whether +the best description of Lord Steyne's red whiskers or Mr. Wagg's rude +jokes occurred in _Vanity Fair_, or _Pendennis_; he cannot remember +whether his favourite dialogue between Mr. and Mrs. Pendennis occurred +in _The Newcomes_, or in _Philip_. Whenever two Thackeray characters in +two Thackeray novels could by any possibility have been contemporary, +Thackeray delights to connect them. He makes Major Pendennis nod to Dr. +Firmin, and Colonel Newcome ask Major Dobbin to dinner. Whenever two +characters could not possibly have been contemporary he goes out of his +way to make one the remote ancestor of the other. Thus he created the +great house of Warrington solely to connect a "blue-bearded" Bohemian +journalist with the blood of Henry Esmond. It is quite impossible to +conceive Dickens keeping up this elaborate connection between all his +characters and all his books, especially across the ages. It would give +us a kind of shock if we learnt from Dickens that Major Bagstock was the +nephew of Mr. Chester. Still less can we imagine Dickens carrying on an +almost systematic family chronicle as was in some sense done by +Trollope. There must be some reason for such a paradox; for in itself it +is a very curious one. The writers who wrote carefully were always +putting, as it were, after-words and appendices to their already +finished portraits; the man who did splendid and flamboyant but faulty +portraits never attempted to touch them up. Or rather (we may say again) +he attempted it once, and then he failed. + +The reason lay, I think, in the very genius of Dickens's creation. The +child he bore of his soul quitted him when his term was passed like a +veritable child born of the body. It was independent of him, as a child +is of its parents. It had become dead to him even in becoming alive. +When Thackeray studied Pendennis or Lord Steyne he was studying +something outside himself, and therefore something that might come +nearer and nearer. But when Dickens brought forth Sam Weller or Pickwick +he was creating something that had once been inside himself and +therefore when once created could only go further and further away. It +may seem a strange thing to say of such laughable characters and of so +lively an author, yet I say it quite seriously; I think it possible that +there arose between Dickens and his characters that strange and almost +supernatural shyness that arises often between parents and children; +because they are too close to each other to be open with each other. Too +much hot and high emotion had gone to the creation of one of his great +figures for it to be possible for him without embarrassment ever to +speak with it again. This is the thing which some fools call fickleness; +but which is not the death of feeling, but rather its dreadful +perpetuation; this shyness is the final seal of strong sentiment; this +coldness is an eternal constancy. + +This one case where Dickens broke through his rule was not such a +success as to tempt him in any case to try the thing again. + +There is weakness in the strict sense of the word in this particular +reappearance of Samuel Pickwick and Samuel Weller. In the original +_Pickwick Papers_ Dickens had with quite remarkable delicacy and +vividness contrived to suggest a certain fundamental sturdiness and +spirit in that corpulent and complacent old gentleman. Mr. Pickwick was +a mild man, a respectable man, a placid man; but he was very decidedly a +man. He could denounce his enemies and fight for his nightcap. He was +fat; but he had a backbone. In _Master Humphrey's Clock_ the backbone +seems somehow to be broken; his good nature seems limp instead of alert. +He gushes out of his good heart; instead of taking a good heart for +granted as a part of any decent gentleman's furniture as did the older +and stronger Pickwick. The truth is, I think, that Mr. Pickwick in +complete repose loses some part of the whole point of his existence. The +quality which makes the _Pickwick Papers_ one of the greatest of human +fairy tales is a quality which all the great fairy tales possess, and +which marks them out from most modern writing. A modern novelist +generally endeavours to make his story interesting, by making his hero +odd. The most typical modern books are those in which the central figure +is himself or herself an exception, a cripple, a courtesan, a lunatic, a +swindler, or a person of the most perverse temperament. Such stories, +for instance, are _Sir Richard Calmady_, _Dodo_, _Quisante_, _La Bete +Humaine_, even the _Egoist_. But in a fairy tale the boy sees all the +wonders of fairyland because he is an ordinary boy. In the same way Mr. +Samuel Pickwick sees an extraordinary England because he is an ordinary +old gentleman. He does not see things through the rosy spectacles of the +modern optimist or the green-smoked spectacles of the pessimist; he sees +it through the crystal glasses of his own innocence. One must see the +world clearly even in order to see its wildest poetry. One must see it +sanely even in order to see that it is insane. + +Mr. Pickwick, then, relieved against a background of heavy kindliness +and quiet club life does not seem to be quite the same heroic figure as +Mr. Pickwick relieved against a background of the fighting police +constables at Ipswich or the roaring mobs of Eatanswill. Of the +degeneration of the Wellers, though it has been commonly assumed by +critics, I am not so sure. Some of the things said in the humorous +assembly round Mr. Weller's Watch are really human and laughable and +altogether in the old manner. Especially, I think, the vague and awful +allusiveness of old Mr. Weller when he reminds his little grandson of +his delinquencies under the trope or figure of their being those of +another little boy, is really in the style both of the irony and the +domesticity of the poorer classes. Sam also says one or two things +really worthy of himself. We feel almost as if Sam were a living man, +and could not appear for an instant without being amusing. + +The other elements in the make-up of _Master Humphrey's Clock_ come +under the same paradox which I have applied to the whole work. Though +not very important in literature they are somehow quite important in +criticism. They show us better than anything else the whole unconscious +trend of Dickens, the stuff of which his very dreams were made. If he +had made up tales to amuse himself when half-awake (as I have no doubt +he did) they would be just such tales as these. They would have been +ghostly legends of the nooks and holes of London, echoes of old love and +laughter from the taverns or the Inns of Court. In a sense also one may +say that these tales are the great might-have-beens of Dickens. They are +chiefly designs which he fills up here slightly and unsatisfactorily, +but which he might have filled up with his own brightest and most +incredible colours. Nothing, for instance, could have been nearer to the +heart of Dickens than his great Gargantuan conception of Gog and Magog +telling London legends to each other all through the night. Those two +giants might have stood on either side of some new great city of his +invention, swarming with fanciful figures and noisy with new events. +But as it is, the two giants stand alone in a wilderness, guarding +either side of a gate that leads nowhere. + + + + +REPRINTED PIECES + + +Those abuses which are supposed to belong specially to religion belong +to all human institutions. They are not the sins of supernaturalism, but +the sins of nature. In this respect it is interesting to observe that +all the evils which our Rationalist or Protestant tradition associates +with the idolatrous veneration of sacred figures arises in the merely +human atmosphere of literature and history. Every extravagance of +hagiology can be found in hero-worship. Every folly alleged in the +worship of saints can be found in the worship of poets. There are those +who are honourably and intensely opposed to the atmosphere of religious +symbolism or religious archaeology. There are people who have a vague +idea that the worship of saints is worse than the imitation of sinners. +There are some, like a lady I once knew, who think that hagiology is the +scientific study of hags. But these slightly prejudiced persons +generally have idolatries and superstitions of their own, particularly +idolatries and superstitions in connection with celebrated people. Mr. +Stead preserves a pistol belonging to Oliver Cromwell in the office of +the _Review of Reviews_; and I am sure he worships it in his rare +moments of solitude and leisure. A man, who could not be induced to +believe in God by all the arguments of all the philosophers, professed +himself ready to believe if he could see it stated on a postcard in the +handwriting of Mr. Gladstone. Persons not otherwise noted for their +religious exercise have been known to procure and preserve portions of +the hair of Paderewski. Nay, by this time blasphemy itself is a sacred +tradition, and almost as much respect would be paid to the alleged +relics of an atheist as to the alleged relics of a god. If any one has a +fork that belonged to Voltaire, he could probably exchange it in the +open market for a knife that belonged to St. Theresa. + +Of all the instances of this there is none stranger than the case of +Dickens. It should be pondered very carefully by those who reproach +Christianity with having been easily corrupted into a system of +superstitions. If ever there was a message full of what modern people +call true Christianity, the direct appeal to the common heart, a faith +that was simple, a hope that was infinite, and a charity that was +omnivorous, if ever there came among men what they call the Christianity +of Christ, it was in the message of Dickens. Christianity has been in +the world nearly two thousand years, and it has not yet quite lost, its +enemies being judges, its first fire and charity; but friends and +enemies would agree that it was from the very first more detailed and +doctrinal than the spirit of Dickens. The spirit of Dickens has been in +the world about sixty years; and already it is a superstition. Already +it is loaded with relics. Already it is stiff with antiquity. + +Everything that can be said about the perversion of Christianity can be +said about the perversion of Dickens. It is said that Christ's words +are repeated by the very High Priests and Scribes whom He meant to +denounce. It is just as true that the jokes in _Pickwick_ are quoted +with delight by the very bigwigs of bench and bar whom Dickens wished to +make absurd and impossible. It is said that texts from Scripture are +constantly taken in vain by Judas and Herod, by Caiaphas and Annas. It +is just as true that texts from Dickens are rapturously quoted on all +our platforms by Podsnap and Honeythunder, by Pardiggle and Veneering, +by Tigg when he is forming a company, or Pott when he is founding a +newspaper. People joke about Bumble in defence of Bumbledom; people +allude playfully to Mrs. Jellyby while agitating for Borrioboola Gha. +The very things which Dickens tried to destroy are preserved as relics +of him. The very houses he wished to pull down are propped up as +monuments of Dickens. We wish to preserve everything of him, except his +perilous public spirit. + +This antiquarian attitude towards Dickens has many manifestations, some +of them somewhat ridiculous. I give one startling instance out of a +hundred of the irony remarked upon above. In his first important book, +Dickens lashed the loathsome corruption of our oligarchical politics, +their blaring servility and dirty diplomacy of bribes, under the name of +an imaginary town called Eatanswill. If Eatanswill, wherever it was, had +been burned to the ground by its indignant neighbours the day after the +exposure, it would have been not inappropriate. If it had been entirely +deserted by its inhabitants, if they had fled to hide themselves in +holes and caverns, one could have understood it. If it had been struck +by a thunderbolt out of heaven or outlawed by the whole human race, all +that would seem quite natural. What has really happened is this: that +two respectable towns in Suffolk are still disputing for the honour of +having been the original Eatanswill; as if two innocent hamlets each +claimed to be Gomorrah. I make no comment; the thing is beyond speech. + +But this strange sentimental and relic-hunting worship of Dickens has +many more innocent manifestations. One of them is that which takes +advantage of the fact that Dickens happened to be a journalist by trade. +It occupies itself therefore with hunting through papers and magazines +for unsigned articles which may possibly be proved to be his. Only a +little time ago one of these enthusiasts ran up to me, rubbing his +hands, and told me that he was sure he had found two and a half short +paragraphs in _All the Year Round_ which were certainly written by +Dickens, whom he called (I regret to say) the Master. Something of this +archaeological weakness must cling to all mere reprints of his minor +work. He was a great novelist; but he was also, among other things, a +good journalist and a good man. It is often necessary for a good +journalist to write bad literature. It is sometimes the first duty of a +good man to write it. Pot-boilers to my feeling are sacred things; but +they may well be secret as well as sacred, like the holy pot which it is +their purpose to boil. In the collection called _Reprinted Pieces_ there +are some, I think, which demand or deserve this apology. There are many +which fall below the level of his recognised books of fragments, such as +_The Sketches by Boz_, and _The Uncommercial Traveller_. Two or three +elements in the compilation, however, make it quite essential to any +solid appreciation of the author. + +Of these the first in importance is that which comes last in order. I +mean the three remarkable pamphlets upon the English Sunday, called +_Sunday under Three Heads_. Here, at least, we find the eternal Dickens, +though not the eternal Dickens of fiction. His other political and +sociological suggestions in this volume are so far unimportant that they +are incidental, and even personal. Any man might have formed Dickens's +opinion about flogging for garrotters, and altered it afterwards. Any +one might have come to Dickens's conclusion about model prisons, or to +any other conclusion equally reasonable and unimportant. These things +have no colour of the great man's character. But on the subject of the +English Sunday he does stand for his own philosophy. He stands for a +particular view, remote at present both from Liberals and Conservatives. +He was, in a conscious sense, the first of its spokesmen. He was in +every sense the last. + +In his appeal for the pleasures of the people, Dickens has remained +alone. The pleasures of the people have now no defender, Radical or +Tory. The Tories despise the people. The Radicals despise the pleasures. + + +THE END + + + +--------------------------------------------------------------+ + | Transcriber's Notes and Errata | + | | + | The Illustrations have been moved to between chapters. | + | | + | The following typographical errors have been corrected: | + | | + | |Error |Correction | | + | |a dupe and who was |a dupe who was | | + | |pyschology |psychology | | + | |Similiarly |Smilarly | | + | | + | The following words were found in both hyphenated and | + | un-hyphenated forms in the text. The numbers in parentheses | + | show the number of times each form occurred. | + | | + | |framework (3) |frame-work (1) | | + | |cocksure (2) |cock-sure (2) | | + | |Ironmaster (1) |Iron-master (2) | | + | |footprints (1) |foot-prints (1) | | + | |goodwill (1) |good-will (1) | | + | | + +--------------------------------------------------------------+ + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Appreciations and Criticisms of the +Works of Charles Dickens, by G. K. 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