With a rule and
a pair of scales, and the multiplication table always in his pocket,
sir, ready to weigh and measure any parcel of human nature,
and tell you exactly what it comes to.
a pair of scales, and the multiplication table always in his pocket,
sir, ready to weigh and measure any parcel of human nature,
and tell you exactly what it comes to.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v06 to v10 - Cal to Fro
It
is true that he could not be called in the narrow sense a literary
writer, that he made no literary mosaic, and few allusions to the
literature of the world. Is it not probable that he had the art to
assimilate his material? For it is impossible that any writer could
pour out such a great flood about the world and human nature with-
out refreshing his own mind at the great fountains of literature.
And when we turn to such a tale as 'The Tale of Two Cities,' we
are conscious of the vast amount of reading and study he must have
done in order to give us such a true and vivid picture of the Revo-
lutionary period.
It has been said that Dickens did not write good English, that he
could not draw a lady or a gentleman, that he often makes ear-marks
and personal peculiarities stand for character, that he is sometimes
turgid when he would be impressive, sometimes stilted when he
would be fine, that his sentiment is often false and worked up, that
his attempts at tragedy are melodramatic, and that sometimes his
comedy comes near being farcical. His whole literary attitude has
been compared to his boyish fondness for striking apparel.
There is some truth in all these criticisms, though they do not
occur spontaneously to a fresh reader while he is under the spell of
Dickens, nor were they much brought forward when he was creating
a new school and setting a fashion for an admiring world. His
style, which is quite a part of this singular man, can easily be pulled
in pieces and condemned, and it is not a safe one to imitate. No
doubt he wrought for effects, for he was a magician, and used exag-
geration in high lights and low lights on his crowded canvas. Say
what you will of all these defects, of his lack of classic literary train-
ing, of his tendency to melodrama, of his tricks of style, even of a
ray of lime-light here and there, it remains that he is a great power,
a tremendous force in modern life; half an hour of him is worth a
lifetime of his self-conscious analyzers, and the world is a more
cheerful and sympathetic world because of the loving and lovable
presence in it of Charles Dickens.
A sketch of his life and writings, necessarily much condensed for
use here, has been furnished by Mr. Laurence Hutton.
## p. 4627 (#421) ###########################################
CHARLES DICKENS
4627
THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF DICKENS
BY LAURENCE HUTTON
C
HARLES DICKENS was born at Landport in Portsea, on the 7th of
February, 1812. His childhood was a very unhappy one. He
describes himself in one of his essays as "a very queer, small
boy," and his biographer tells us that he was very sickly as well as
very small.
He had little schooling, and numberless hard knocks,
and rough and toilsome was the first quarter of his journey through
life. Many of the passages in 'David Copperfield' are literally true
pictures of his own early experiences, and much of that work may
be accepted as autobiographical. He was fond of putting himself
and his own people into his books, and of drawing his scenes and
his characters from real life, sometimes only slightly disguised. Tra-
dition says that he built both Mr. Micawber and Mr. Turveydrop out
of his own father; that Mrs. Nickleby was based upon his own
mother; and that his wife, who was the Dora of 'Copperfield' in the
beginning of their married life, became in later years the Flora of
'Little Dorrit. ' The elder Dickens had unquestionably some of the
traits ascribed to the unpractical friend of Copperfield's youth, and
something of the cruel self-indulgence and pompous deportment of
the dancing-master in Bleak House. ' And it was during his father's
imprisonment for debt when the son was but a youth, that Dickens
got his intimate knowledge of the Marshalsea, and of the heart-
breaking existence of its inmates. Some years before 'Copperfield'
was written, he described in a fragment of actual autobiography,
quoted by Forster, the following scene:-
"My father was waiting for me in the lodge [of the Debtor's Prison]; and
we went up to his room, on the top story but one, and cried very much.
And he told me, I remember, to take warning by the Marshalsea, and to
observe that if a man had twenty pounds a year, and spent nineteen pounds
nineteen shillings and sixpence, he would be happy; but that a shilling spent
the other way would make him wretched. "
In these chambers Dickens afterwards put Mr. Dorrit. And while
the father remained in confinement, the son lived for a time in a
back attic in Lant Street, Borough, which was to become the home
of the eccentric Robert Sawyer, and the scene of a famous supper
party given to do honor to Mr. Pickwick "and the other chaps. "
"If a man wishes to abstract himself from the world, to remove
himself from the reach of temptation, to place himself beyond the
possibility of any inducement to look out of the window, he should
by all means go to Lant Street. " Lant Street still exists, as Mr. Pick-
wick found it, and as Dickens knew it between 1822 and 1824. He
## p. 4628 (#422) ###########################################
4628
CHARLES DICKENS
had numerous lodgings, alone and with his family, during those hard
times; all of them of the same miserable, wretched character; and it
is interesting to know that the original of Mrs. Pipchin was his land-
lady in Camden Town, and that the original of the Marchioness
waited on the elder Dickens during his stay in the Marshalsea.
The story of the unhappy drudgery of the young Copperfield is
the story of the young Dickens without exaggeration.
"No words can express the secret agony of my soul as I sunk into this
companionship," he wrote in 1845 or 1846,- «compared these every-day asso-
ciates with those of my happier childhood, and felt my early hopes of grow-
ing up to be a learned and distinguished man crushed in my breast. The
deep remembrance of the sense I had of being utterly neglected and hope-
less; of the shame I felt in my position; of the misery it was to my young
heart to believe that, day by day, what I had learned, and thought, and
delighted in, and raised my fancy and my emulation up by, was passing
away from me, never to be brought back any more, cannot be written. My
whole nature was so penetrated with the grief and humiliation of such con-
siderations, that even now, famous and caressed and happy, I often forget,
in my dreams, that I have a dear wife and children; even that I am a man;
and I wander desolately back to that time of my life. "
In the course of a few years, happily, the cloud lifted; and in 1831,
when Dickens was a youth of nineteen, we find him beginning life as
a reporting journalist. He wrote occasional "pieces" for the maga-
zines, and some faint hope of growing up to be a distinguished and
learned man rose again, no doubt, in his breast. N. P. Willis met
him one day in 1835, when, as Willis expresses it, Dickens was a
"paragraphist" for the London Morning Chronicle. The "paragraph-
ist," according to Willis, was lodging in the most crowded part of
Holborn, in an uncarpeted and bleak-looking room, with a deal table,
two or three chairs, and a few books. It was up a long flight of
stairs, this room; and its occupant "was dressed very much as he has
since described Dick Swiveller-minus the swell look. His hair was
cropped close to his head, his clothes were scant, though jauntily cut;
and after exchanging a ragged office coat for a shabby blue, he stood
by the door collarless and buttoned up, the very personification, I
thought, of a close sailer to the wind.
Not long after this
Macrone sent me the sheets of 'Sketches by Boz,' with a note saying
they were by the gentleman [Dickens] who went with us to Newgate.
I read the book with amazement at the genius displayed in it; and
in my note of reply assured Macrone that I thought his fortune was
made, as a publisher, if he could monopolize the author. " This pic-
ture is very graphic. But it must be accepted with a grain of salt.
The Sketches by Boz, Illustrative of Every-Day Life and Every-
Day People,' Dickens's first printed book, appeared in 1835. A further
·
## p. 4629 (#423) ###########################################
CHARLES DICKENS
4629
series of papers, bearing the same title, was published the next year.
"Boz" was the nickname he had bestowed upon his younger brother
Augustus, in honor of the Moses of the Vicar of Wakefield. ' The
word, pronounced through the nose, became "Boses," afterwards
shortened to "Boz," which, said Dickens, "was a very familiar house-
hold word to me long before I was an author. And so I came to
adopt it. " The sketches, the character of which is explained in their
sub-title, were regarded as unusually clever things of their kind.
They attracted at once great attention in England, and established
the fact that a new star had risen in the firmament of British letters.
Dickens was married on the 2d of April, 1836, to Miss Catherine
Hogarth, just a week after he had published the first shilling number
of The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club: Edited by Boz. '
The work appeared in book form the next year. Its success was phe-
nomenal, and it brought to its author not only fame but a fixed sum
per annum, which is better. It assured his comfort in the present and
in the future, and it wiped out all the care and troubles of his past.
It was in itself the result of an accident. Messrs. Chapman and Hall,
attracted by the popularity of the Sketches, proposed to their author
a series of monthly articles to illustrate certain pictures of a comic
character by Robert Seymour, an artist in their employment. Dickens
assented, upon the condition that "the plates were to be so modified
that they would arise naturally out of the text. " And so between
them Mr. Pickwick was born, although under the saddest of circum-
stances; for only a single number had appeared when Seymour died
by his own hand. Hablot K. Browne succeeded him, signing the name
of "Phiz"; and with "Boz" was "Phiz" long associated in other
prosperous ventures. Mr. Pickwick is a benevolent, tender-hearted
elderly gentleman, who, as the president of a club organized "for the
purpose of investigating the source of the Hampstead ponds," jour-
neys about England in all directions with three companions, to whom
he acts as guide, philosopher, and friend. He is an amiable old
goose, and his companions are equally verdant and unsophisticated;
but since 1837 they have been as famous as any men in fiction. The
story is a long one, the pages are crowded with incidents and with
characters. It is disconnected, often exaggerated, much of it is as
improbable as it is impossible, but it has made the world laugh for
sixty years now; and it still holds its own unique place in the hearts
of men.
From this period the pen of Dickens was never idle for forty-three
years. 'Pickwick' was succeeded by 'Oliver Twist,' begun in Bent-
ley's Magazine in January, 1837, and printed in book form in 1838.
It is the story of the progress of a parish boy, and it is sad and
serious in its character. The hero was born and brought up in a
## p. 4630 (#424) ###########################################
4630
CHARLES DICKENS
workhouse. He was starved and ill-treated; but he always retained
his innocence and his purity of mind. He fell among thieves,- Bill
and Nancy Sykes, Fagin and the Artful Dodger, to whom much pow-
erful description is devoted, but he triumphed in the end. The life
of the very poor and of the very degraded among the people of Eng-
land during the latter end of the first half of the nineteenth century
is admirably portrayed; and for the first time in their existence the
British blackguards of both sexes were exhibited in fiction, clad in
all their instincts of low brutality, and without that glamour of
attractive romance which the earlier writers had given to Jack Shep-
pard, to Jonathan Wild, or to Moll Flanders.
Two dramatic compositions by Dickens, neither of them adding
very much to his reputation, appeared in 1836, to wit:-'The Stran-
ger Gentleman, A Comic Burletta in Three Acts'; and 'The Village
Coquette,' a comic opera in two acts. They were presented upon
the stage towards the close of that year, with fair success.
In 1838 Dickens edited the Memoirs of Joseph Grimaldi, a cele-
brated clown. His share in the composition of this work was com-
paratively small, and consisted of a Preface, dated February of that
year. It was followed by 'Sketches of Young Gentlemen,' and by
'The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby,' both published in
1839. To this latter he signed his name, Charles Dickens, dropping
from that period the pseudonym of "Boz. " The titular hero is the
son of a poor country gentleman. He makes his own way in the
world as the usher of a Yorkshire school, as an actor in a traveling
troupe, and as the clerk and finally the partner in a prosperous
mercantile house in London. Smike, his pupil; Crummles, his theat-
rical manager; Ninetta Crummles, the Infant Phenomenon of the
company, Newman Noggs, the clerk of his uncle Ralph Nickleby,
the Cheeryble Brothers, his employers, are among the most success-
ful and charming of Dickens's earlier creations. "Mr. Squeers and
his school," he says, << were faint and feeble pictures of an existing
reality, purposely subdued and kept down lest they should be deemed
impossible. " That such establishments ceased to exist in reality in
England after the appearance of 'Nickleby,' is proof enough of the
good his pictures did in this and in many other ways.
In 1840-1841 appeared 'Master Humphrey's Clock,' comprising the
two stories of The Old Curiosity Shop' and 'Barnaby Rudge,' which
were subsequently printed separately. The story of Little Nell, the
gentle, lovable inmate of the Curiosity Shop, is one of the most sad
and tender tales in fiction, and Dickens himself confessed that he
was almost heart-broken when she died. Her path was crossed by
Quilp, a cunning and malicious dwarf of hideous appearance, who
consumed hard-boiled eggs, shells and all, for his breakfast; ate his
## p. 4631 (#425) ###########################################
CHARLES DICKENS
4631
prawns with their heads and their tails on, drank scalding hot tea,
and performed so many horrifying acts that one almost doubted that
he was human; and by Christopher Nubbles, a shock-headed, sham-
bling, awkward, devoted lad, the only element of cheerfulness that
ever came into her life. In this book appear Richard Swiveller and
his Marchioness, Sampson and Sarah Brass and Mrs. Jarley, who to
be appreciated must be seen and known, as Dickens has drawn them,
at full length.
Barnaby Rudge was a half-witted lad, who, not knowing what he
did, joined the Gordon rioters-the scenes are laid in the "No
Popery» times of 1779-because he was permitted to carry a flag
and to wear a blue ribbon. The history of that exciting period of
English semi-political, semi-religious excitement is graphically set
down. Prominent figures in the book are Grip the raven, whose cry
was "I'm a devil," "Never say die"; and Miss Dolly Varden, the
blooming daughter of the Clerkenwell locksmith, who has given her
name to the modern feminine costume of the Watteauesque style.
The literary results of Dickens's first visit to the United States, in
1842, when he was thirty years of age, were 'American Notes, for
General Circulation'; published in that year, and containing portions
of 'Martin Chuzzlewit,' which appeared in 1844. His observations in
the 'Notes' upon the new country and its inhabitants gave great
offense to the American people, and were perhaps not in the best
taste. He saw the crude and ridiculous side of his hosts, he empha-
sized their faults, while he paid little attention to their virtues; and
his criticisms and strictures rankled in the sensitive American mind
for many years.
Martin Chuzzlewit, the hero of the novel bearing his name, spent
some time in the western half-settled portion of America, with Mark
Tapley, his light-hearted, optimistic friend and companion. The pic-
tures of the morals and the manners of the men and women with
whom the emigrants were brought into contact were anything but
flattering, and they served to widen the temporary breach between
Dickens and his many admirers in the United States. The English
scenes of 'Chuzzlewit' are very powerfully drawn. Tom and Ruth
Pinch, Pecksniff, Sarah Gamp, and Betsey Prig are among the lead-
ing characters in the work.
In 1843 appeared the 'Christmas Carol,' the first and perhaps the
best of that series of tales of peace and good-will, with which, at
the Christmas time, the name of Dickens is so pleasantly and famil-
iarly associated. It was followed by The Chimes' in 1844, by The
Cricket on the Hearth' in 1845, by The Haunted Man' in 1848, all
the work of Dickens himself; and by other productions written by
Dickens in collaboration with other men. Concerning these holiday
## p. 4632 (#426) ###########################################
4632
CHARLES DICKENS
stories, some unknown writer said in the public press at the time of
Dickens's death:-"He has not only pleased us— - he has softened the
hearts of a whole generation. He made charity fashionable; he
awakened pity in the hearts of sixty millions of people. He made a
whole generation keep Christmas with acts of helpfulness to the
poor; and every barefooted boy and girl in the streets of England
and America to-day fares a little better, gets fewer cuffs and more
pudding, because Charles Dickens wrote. "
In 1846 he produced his 'Pictures from Italy'; 'The Battle of Life,
A Love Story,' and began in periodical form his 'Dealings with the
Firm of Dombey and Son, Wholesale, Retail, and for Exportation,'
published in book form in 1847. Here we have the pathetic story of
Little Paul, the tragic fate of Carker, the amusing episode of Jack
Bunsby with his designing widow, and the devotion of Susan Nipper,
Mr. Toots, Captain Cuttle, and Sol Gills to the gentle, patient, lov-
able Florence.
On the 'Personal History of David Copperfield,' published in 1850,
and of Dickens's share in its plot, something has already been said
here. It is perhaps the most popular of all his productions, con-
taining as it does Mr. Dick, the Peggottys, the Micawbers, the Heeps,
Betsey Trotwood, Steerforth, Tommy Traddles, Dora, Agnes, and
Little Em'ly, in all of whom the world has been so deeply interested
for so many years.
'A Child's History of England' and 'Bleak House' saw the light
in 1853. The romance was written as a protest and a warning
against the law's delays, as exhibited in the Court of Chancery; and
it contains the tragedy of Sir Leicester and Lady Dedlock, and the
short but touching story of Poor Jo.
'Hard Times,' a tale in one volume, was printed in 1854. It
introduces the Gradgrind family.
'Little Dorrit' appeared in 1857. In this book he returns to the
Debtor's Prison of Micawber and of his own father. Little Dorrit
herself was "the child of the Marshalsea," in which she was born
and brought up; and the whole story is an appeal against the injus-
tice of depriving of personal liberty those who cannot pay their
bills, or meet their notes, however small. Its prominent characters
are the Clennams, mother and son, the Meagleses, Flintwinch, Sir
Decimus Tite Barnacle, Rigaud and Little Cavalletto.
'A Tale of Two Cities,' a remarkable departure for Dickens, and
unlike any of his other works, was the book of the year 1859. It is
conceded, even by those who are not counted among the admirers of
its author, to be a most vivid and correct picture of Paris during the
time of the Revolution, when the guillotine was the king of France.
Its central figure, Sydney Carton, one of the most heroic characters
## p. 4633 (#427) ###########################################
CHARLES DICKENS
4633
in romance, gives his life to restore his friend to the girl whom they
both love.
< The Uncommercial Traveller,' a number of sketches and stories
originally published in his weekly journal All the Year Round, ap-
peared in 1860. They were supplemented in 1868 by another volume
bearing the same title, and containing eleven other papers collected
from the same periodical.
'Great Expectations,' 1861, like 'Copperfield,' is the story of a boy's
childhood told by the boy himself, but by a boy with feelings, sen-
timents, and experiences very different from those of the earlier
work. The plot is not altogether a cheerful one, but many of the
characters are original and charming; notably Joe Gargery, Jaggles,
Wemmick, the exceedingly eccentric Miss Havisham, and the very
amiable and simple Biddy.
'Somebody's Luggage,' 1862; 'Mrs. Lirriper's Lodgings,' 1863;
'Mrs. Lirriper's Legacy,' 1864; Dr. Marigold's Prescription,' 1865;
'Mugby Junction,' 1866; and 'No Thoroughfare,' 1867,- Christmas
stories, all of them,- were written by Dickens in collaboration with
other writers.
'Our Mutual Friend,' the last completed work of Dickens, was
printed in 1865. Mr. Boffin, the Golden Dustman with the great
heart, Silas Wegg, Mr. Venus, the Riderhoods, Jenny Wren, the
Podsnaps, the Veneerings, Betty Higden, Mrs. Wilfer, and the "Boo-
fer Lady," are as fresh and as original as are any of his creations,
and show no trace of the coming disaster.
Before the completion of 'The Mystery of Edwin Drood' Dickens
died at his home, Gadshill Place, literally in harness, and without
warning, on the 9th of June, 1870.
But six numbers of this last work appeared, in periodical form. .
Its author left no notes of what was to follow, and the Mystery has
never been solved. Mr. Charles Collins, Dickens's son-in-law, however,
in a private letter to Mr. Augustin Daly of New York, who had pro-
posed to dramatize the tale, gave some general outline of the scheme
for Edwin Drood. ' "The titular character," he said, «< was never to
reappear, he having been murdered by Jasper. The girl Rosa, not
having been really attached to Edwin, was not to lament his loss
very long, and was, I believe, to admit the sailor, Mr. Tartar, to
supply his place. It was intended that Jasper should urge on the
search after Edwin, and the pursuit of the murderer, thus endeavor-
ing to divert suspicion from himself, the real murderer.
As to any-
thing further, it would be purely conjectural. "
Besides this immense amount of admirable work, Dickens founded,
conducted, and edited two successful periodicals, Household Words,
established in March 1850, and followed by All the Year Round,.
## p. 4634 (#428) ###########################################
4634
CHARLES DICKENS
beginning in April 1859. To these he contributed many sketches and
stories. He began public readings in London in 1858; and con-
tinued them with great profit to himself, and with great satisfaction
to immense audiences, for upwards of twelve years. He appeared in
all the leading cities of Great Britain; and he was enormously popu-
lar as a reader in America during his second and last visit in 1868.
As an after-dinner and occasional speaker Dickens was rarely
equaled; and as an actor upon the amateur stage, in plays of his
own composition, he was inimitable.
Of his attempts at verse, 'The Ivy Green' is the only one that
is held in remembrance.
A strong argument in favor of what may be called "the staying
qualities of Dickens is the fact that his characters, even in a muti-
lated, unsatisfactory form, have held the stage for half a century or
more, and still have power to attract and move great audiences,
wherever is spoken the language in which he wrote. The dramatiza-
tion of the novel is universally and justly regarded as the most
ephemeral and worthless of dramatic production; and the novels of
Dickens, on account of their length, of the great number of figures
he introduces, of the variety and occasional exaggeration of his dia-
logues and his situations, have been peculiarly difficult of adaptation
to theatrical purposes. Nevertheless the world laughed and cried
over Micawber, Captain Cuttle, Dan'l Peggotty, and Caleb Plummer,
behind the footlights, years after Dolly Spanker, Aminadab Sleek,
Timothy Toodles, Alfred Evelyn, and Geoffrey Dalk, their contempo-
raries in the standard and legitimate drama, created solely and par-
ticularly for dramatic representation, were absolutely forgotten. And
Sir Henry Irving, sixty years after the production of 'Pickwick,' drew
great crowds to see his Alfred Jingle, while that picturesque and
ingenious swindler Robert Macaire, Jingle's once famous and familiar
confrère in plausible rascality, was never seen on the boards, except
as he was burlesqued and caricatured in comic opera.
It is pretty safe to say-and not in a Pickwickian sense that
Pecksniff will live almost as long as hypocrisy lasts; that Heep will
not be forgotten while mock humility exists; that Mr. Dick will go
down to posterity arm-in-arm with Charles the First, whom he could
not avoid in his memorial; that Barkis will be quoted until men cease
to be willin'. And so long as cheap, rough coats cover faith, charity,
and honest hearts, the world will remember that Captain Cuttle and
the Peggottys were so clad.
Раш
Hilto
m
-
## p. 4635 (#429) ###########################################
CHARLES DICKENS
4635
THE ONE THING NEEDFUL
From Hard Times'
"Now
ow what I want is Facts. Teach these boys and girls
nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant
nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only
form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else
will ever be of any service to them. This is the principle on
which I bring up my own children, and this is the principle on
which I bring up these children. Stick to Facts, sir! "
The scene was a plain, bare, monotonous vault of a school-
room, and the speaker's square forefinger emphasized his observa-
tions by underscoring every sentence with a line on the school-
master's sleeve. The emphasis was helped by the speaker's
square wall of a forehead, which had his eyebrows for its base,
while his eyes found commodious cellarage in two dark caves,
overshadowed by the wall. The emphasis was helped by the
speaker's mouth, which was wide, thin, and hard set. The em-
phasis was helped by the speaker's voice, which was inflexible,
dry, and dictatorial. The emphasis was helped by the speaker's
hair, which bristled on the skirts of his bald head, a plantation of
firs to keep the wind from its shining surface, all covered with
knobs, like the crust of a plum pie, as if the head had scarcely
warehouse-room for the hard facts stored inside. The speaker's
obstinate carriage, square coat, square legs, square shoulders,-
nay, his very neckcloth, trained to take him by the throat with
an unaccommodating grasp like a stubborn fact, as it was,-all
helped the emphasis.
"In this life we want nothing but Facts, sir; nothing but
Facts! "
The speaker, and the schoolmaster, and the third grown per-
son present, all backed a little, and swept with their eyes the in-
clined plane of little vessels then and there arranged in order,
ready to have imperial gallons of facts poured into them until
they were full to the brim.
THOMAS GRADGRIND, sir. A man of realities. A man of facts
and calculations. A man who proceeds upon the principle that
two and two are four, and nothing over, and who is not to be
talked into allowing for anything over. Thomas Gradgrind, sir,
## p. 4636 (#430) ###########################################
4636
CHARLES DICKENS
- peremptorily Thomas,-Thomas Gradgrind.
With a rule and
a pair of scales, and the multiplication table always in his pocket,
sir, ready to weigh and measure any parcel of human nature,
and tell you exactly what it comes to. It is a mere question of
figures, a case of simple arithmetic. You might hope to get
some other nonsensical belief into the head of George Gradgrind,
or Augustus Gradgrind, or John Gradgrind, or Joseph Gradgrind
(all supposititious, non-existent persons), but into the head of
Thomas Gradgrind-no, sir!
In such terms Mr. Gradgrind always mentally introduced him-
self, whether to his private circle of acquaintance, or to the pub-
lic in general. In such terms, no doubt, substituting the words
"boys and girls," for "sir," Thomas Gradgrind now presented
Thomas Gradgrind to the little pitchers before him, who were to
be filled so full of facts.
Indeed, as he eagerly sparkled at them from the cellarage
before mentioned, he seemed a kind of cannon loaded to the
muzzle with facts, and prepared to blow them clean out of the
regions of childhood at one discharge. He seemed a galvanizing
apparatus, too, charged with a grim mechanical substitute for
the tender young imaginations that were to be stormed away.
"Girl number twenty," said Mr. Gradgrind, squarely pointing
with his square forefinger; "I don't know that girl. Who is that
girl? "
"Sissy Jupe, sir," explained number twenty, blushing, stand-
ing up, and courtesying.
"Sissy is not a name," said Mr. Gradgrind. "Don't call
yourself Sissy. Call yourself Cecilia. "
"It's father as calls me Sissy, sir," returned the young girl
in a trembling voice, and with another courtesy.
"Then he has no business to do it," said Mr. Gradgrind.
"Tell him he mustn't. Cecilia Jupe. Let me see. What is
your father? »
"He belongs to the horse-riding, if you please, sir. "
Mr. Gradgrind frowned, and waved off the objectionable call-
ing with his hand.
"We don't want to know anything about that here. You
mustn't tell us about that here. Your father breaks horses,
don't he? "
"If you please, sir, when they can get any to break, they do
break horses in the ring, sir. "
## p. 4637 (#431) ###########################################
CHARLES DICKENS
4637
"You mustn't tell us about the ring here. Very well, then.
Describe your father as a horsebreaker. He doctors sick horses,
I dare say? "
"Oh yes, sir. "
"Very well, then. He is a veterinary surgeon, a farrier, and
horsebreaker. Give me your definition of a horse. "
(Sissy Jupe thrown into the greatest alarm by this demand. )
«< Girl number twenty unable to define a horse! " said Mr.
Gradgrind, for the general behoof of all the little pitchers.
"Girl number twenty possessed of no facts in reference to one
of the commonest of animals! Some boy's definition of a horse.
Bitzer, yours. "
The square finger, moving here and there, lighted suddenly
on Bitzer, perhaps because he chanced to sit in the same ray of
sunlight which, darting in at one of the bare windows of the
intensely whitewashed room, irradiated Sissy. For the boys and
girls sat on the face of the inclined plane in two compact bodies,
divided up the centre by a narrow interval; and Sissy, being at
the corner of a row on the sunny side, came in for the begin-
ning of a sunbeam, of which Bitzer, being at the corner of a row
on the other side, a few rows in advance, caught the end. But
whereas the girl was so dark-eyed and dark-haired that she
seemed to receive a deeper and more lustrous color from the sun
when it shone upon her, the boy was so light-eyed and light-
haired that the selfsame rays appeared to draw out of him what
little color he ever possessed. His cold eyes would hardly have
been eyes, but for the short ends of lashes which, by bringing
them into immediate contrast with something paler than them-
selves, expressed their form. His short-cropped hair might have
been a mere continuation of the sandy freckles on his forehead
and face. His skin was so unwholesomely deficient in the natural
tinge, that he looked as though if he were cut he would bleed
white.
"Bitzer," said Thomas Gradgrind.
"Quadruped. Graminivorous. Forty teeth; namely, twenty-
four grinders, four eye-teeth, and twelve incisive. Sheds coat in
the spring; in marshy countries, sheds hoofs, too. Hoofs hard,
but requiring to be shod with iron. Age known
mouth. " Thus (and much more) Bitzer.
by marks in
horse. "
"Your definition of a
## p. 4638 (#432) ###########################################
4638
CHARLES DICKENS
"Now, girl number twenty," said Mr. Gradgrind, "you know
what a horse is. "
She courtesied again, and would have blushed deeper, if she
could have blushed deeper than she had blushed all this time.
Bitzer, after rapidly blinking at Thomas Gradgrind with both
eyes at once, and so catching the light upon his quivering ends
of lashes that they looked like the antennæ of busy insects, put
his knuckles to his freckled forehead, and sat down again.
The third gentleman now stepped forth. A mighty man at
cutting and drying, he was; a government officer; in his way
(and in most other people's too), a professed pugilist; always in
training, always with a system to force down the general throat
like a bolus, always to be heard of at the bar of his little
Public-office, ready to fight all England. To continue in fistic
phraseology, he had a genius for coming up to the scratch,
wherever and whatever it was, and proving himself an ugly cus-
tomer. He would go in and damage any subject whatever with
his right, follow up with his left, stop, exchange, counter, bore
his opponent (he always fought All England) to the ropes, and
fall upon him neatly. He was certain to knock the wind out
of common-sense, and render that unlucky adversary deaf to the
call of time. And he had it in charge from high authority to
bring about the great public-office Millennium, when Commis-
sioners should reign upon earth.
"Very well," said this gentleman, briskly smiling, and fold-
ing his arms. "That's a horse. Now, let me ask you girls
and boys, Would you paper a room with representations of
horses ? »
After a pause one-half of the children cried in chorus, "Yes,
sir! " Upon which the other half, seeing in the gentleman's face
that Yes was wrong, cried out in chorus, "No, sir! "
custom is in these examinations.
as the
"Of course, No. Why wouldn't you? "
A pause.
One corpulent slow boy, with a wheezy manner of
breathing, ventured the answer, Because he wouldn't paper a
room at all, but would paint it.
"You must paper it," said the gentleman, rather warmly.
"You must paper it," said Thomas Gradgrind, "whether you
like it or not. Don't tell us you wouldn't paper it. What do
you mean, boy? "
## p. 4639 (#433) ###########################################
CHARLES DICKENS
4639
"I'll explain to you, then," said the gentleman, after another
and dismal pause, "why you wouldn't paper a room with repre-
sentations of horses. Do you ever see horses walking up and
down the sides of rooms in reality-in fact?
- in fact? Do you? "
"Yes, sir! " from one-half. "No, sir! " from the other.
"Of course no," said the gentleman, with an indignant look
at the wrong half. "Why, then, you are not to see anywhere
what you don't see in fact; you are not to have anywhere what
you don't have in fact. What is called Taste is only another
name for Fact. "
Thomas Gradgrind nodded his approbation.
"This is a new principle, a discovery, a great discovery," said
the gentleman. "Now, I'll try you again.
"Now, I'll try you again. Suppose you were
going to carpet a room. Would you use a carpet having a rep-
resentation of flowers upon it? "
There being a general conviction by this time that "No, sir! »
was always the right answer to this gentleman, the chorus of
No was very strong. Only a few feeble stragglers said Yes;
among them Sissy Jupe.
"Girl number twenty," said the gentleman, smiling in the
calm strength of knowledge.
Sissy blushed, and stood up.
"So you would carpet your room or your husband's room,
if you were
a grown woman, and had a husband-with repre-
sentations of flowers, would you? " said the gentleman. "Why
would you? "
"If you please, sir, I am very fond of flowers," returned the
girl.
-
"And is that why you would put tables and chairs upon
them, and have people walking over them with heavy boots? "
"It wouldn't hurt them, sir. They wouldn't crush and wither,
if you please, sir. They would be the pictures of what was very
pretty and pleasant, and I would fancy-
>>>
"Ay, ay, ay! But you mustn't fancy," cried the gentleman,
quite elated by coming so happily to his point. "That's it!
are never to fancy. "
You
"You are not, Cecilia Jupe," Thomas Gradgrind solemnly
repeated, "to do anything of that kind. "
And "Fact, fact,
"Fact, fact, fact! " said the gentleman.
fact! " repeated Thomas Gradgrind.
## p. 4640 (#434) ###########################################
4640
CHARLES DICKENS
"You are to be in all things regulated and governed," said
the gentleman, "by fact. We hope to have, before long, a board
of fact, composed of commissioners of fact, who will force the
people to be a people of fact, and of nothing but fact. You
must discard the word Fancy altogether. You have nothing to
do with it. You are not to have in any object of use or orna-
ment what would be a contradiction in fact. You don't walk
upon flowers in fact; you cannot be allowed to walk upon flowers
in carpets.
You don't find that foreign birds and butterflies come
and perch upon your crockery; you cannot be permitted to paint
foreign birds and butterflies upon your crockery. You never
meet with quadrupeds going up and down walls; you must not
have quadrupeds represented upon walls. You must use," said
the gentleman, "for all these purposes, combinations and modi-
fications (in primary colors) of mathematical figures, which are
susceptible of proof and demonstration. This is the new discov-
ery. This is fact. This is taste. "
The girl courtesied, and sat down. She was very young, and
she looked as if she were frightened by the matter-of-fact pros-
pect the world afforded.
"Now, if Mr. M'Choakumchild," said the gentleman, "will
proceed to give his first lesson here, Mr. Gradgrind, I shall be
happy, at your request, to observe his mode of procedure. "
Mr. Gradgrind was much obliged. "Mr. M'Choakumchild, we
only wait for you.
So Mr. M'Choakumchild began in his best manner. He and
some one hundred and forty other schoolmasters had been lately
turned at the same time, in the same factory, on the same prin-
ciples, like so many pianoforte legs. He had been put through
an immense variety of paces, and had answered volumes of head-
breaking questions. Orthography, etymology, syntax, and prosody,
biography, astronomy, geography, and general cosmography, the
sciences of compound proportion, algebra, land-surveying and
leveling, vocal music, and drawing from models, were all at the
ends of his ten chilled fingers. He had worked his stony way
into her Majesty's most Honorable Privy Council's Schedule B,
and had taken the bloom off the higher branches of mathematics
and physical science, French, German, Latin, and Greek. He
knew all about all the Water Sheds of all the world (whatever
they are), and all the histories of all the peoples, and all the
## p. 4641 (#435) ###########################################
CHARLES DICKENS
4641
names of all the rivers and mountains, and all the productions,
manners, and customs of all the countries, and all their bounda-
ries and bearings on the two-and-thirty points of the compass.
Ah, rather overdone, M'Choakumchild. If he had only learned a
little less, how infinitely better he might have taught much
more!
He went to work in this preparatory lesson not unlike Mor-
giana in the 'Forty Thieves': looking into all the vessels ranged
before him, one after another, to see what they contained. Say,
good M'Choakumchild. When from thy boiling store thou shalt
fill each jar brim-full, by-and-by, dost thou think that thou wilt.
always kill outright the robber Fancy lurking within-or some-
times only maim him and distort him!
THE BOY AT MUGBY
From Mugby Junction'
AM the boy at Mugby. That's about what I am.
I
You don't know what I mean? What a pity! But I think
you do.
I think you must. Look here. I am the Boy at
what is called The Refreshment Room at Mugby Junction, and
what's proudest boast is, that it never yet refreshed a mortal
being.
Up in a corner of the Down Refreshment Room at Mugby
Junction, in the height of twenty-seven cross draughts (I've often
counted 'em while they brush the First Class hair twenty-seven
ways), behind the bottles, among the glasses, bounded on the
nor'west by the beer, stood pretty far to the right of a metallic
object that's at times the tea-urn and at times the soup-tureen,
according to the nature of the last twang imparted to its contents,
which are the same groundwork, fended off from the traveler by
a barrier of stale sponge-cakes erected atop of the counter, and
lastly exposed sideways to the glare of Our Missis's eye-you
ask a Boy so sitiwated, next time you stop in a hurry at Mugby,
for anything to drink; you take particular notice that he'll try
to seem not to hear you, that he'll appear in a absent manner
to survey the Line through a transparent medium composed of
your head and body, and that he won't serve you as long as you
can possibly bear it.
That's me.
VIII-201
## p. 4642 (#436) ###########################################
4642
CHARLES DICKENS
What a lark it is! We are the Model Establishment, we are,
at Mugby. Other Refreshment Rooms send their imperfect young
ladies up to be finished off by our Missis. For some of the
young ladies, when they're new to the business, come into it
mild! Ah! Our Missis, she soon takes that out of 'em. Why,
I originally come into the business meek myself. But Our
Missis, she soon took that out of me.
What a delightful lark it is! I look upon us Refreshmenters
as ockipying the only proudly independent footing on the Line.
There's Papers, for instance,- my honorable friend, if he will
allow me to call him so,-him as belongs to Smith's bookstall.
Why, he no more dares to be up to our Refreshmenting games
than he dares to jump atop of a locomotive with her steam at
full pressure, and cut away upon her alone, driving himself, at
limited-mail speed. Papers, he'd get his head punched at every
compartment, first, second, and third, the whole length of a
train, if he was to ventur' to imitate my demeanor. It's the
same with the porters, the same with the guards, the same with
the ticket clerks, the same the whole way up to the secretary,
traffic manager, or very chairman. There ain't a one among 'em
on the nobly independent footing we are. Did you ever catch
one of them, when you wanted anything of him, making a sys-
tem of surveying the Line through a transparent medium com-
posed of your head and body? I should hope not.
You should see our Bandolining Room at Mugby Junction.
It's led to by the door behind the counter, which you'll notice
usually stands ajar, and it's the room where Our Missis and our
young ladies Bandolines their hair. You should see 'em at it,
betwixt trains, Bandolining away, as if they was anointing them-
selves for the combat. When you're telegraphed you should see
their noses all agoing up with scorn, as if it was a part of the
working of the same Cooke and Wheatstone electrical machinery.
You should hear Our Missis give the word, "Here comes the
Beast to be Fed! " and then you should see 'em indignantly
skipping across the Line, from the Up to the Down, or Wicer
Warsaw, and begin to pitch the stale pastry into the plates, and
chuck the sawdust sangwiches under the glass covers, and get
out the-ha, ha, ha! - the Sherry,-O my eye, my eye! - for
your Refreshment.
It's only in the Isle of the Brave and Land of the Free (by
which of course I mean to say Britannia) that Refreshmenting
## p. 4643 (#437) ###########################################
CHARLES DICKENS
4643
is so effective, so 'olesome, so constitutional a check upon the
public. There was a foreigner, which having politely, with his
hat off, beseeched our young ladies and Our Missis for "a leetel
gloss hoff prarndee," and having had the Line surveyed through
him by all, and no other acknowledgment, was a-proceeding at
last to help himself, as seems to be the custom in his own coun-
try, when Our Missis, with her hair almost a-coming un-Bando-
lined with rage, and her eyes omitting sparks, flew at him,
cotched the decanter out of his hand, and said, "Put it down!
I won't allow that!
is true that he could not be called in the narrow sense a literary
writer, that he made no literary mosaic, and few allusions to the
literature of the world. Is it not probable that he had the art to
assimilate his material? For it is impossible that any writer could
pour out such a great flood about the world and human nature with-
out refreshing his own mind at the great fountains of literature.
And when we turn to such a tale as 'The Tale of Two Cities,' we
are conscious of the vast amount of reading and study he must have
done in order to give us such a true and vivid picture of the Revo-
lutionary period.
It has been said that Dickens did not write good English, that he
could not draw a lady or a gentleman, that he often makes ear-marks
and personal peculiarities stand for character, that he is sometimes
turgid when he would be impressive, sometimes stilted when he
would be fine, that his sentiment is often false and worked up, that
his attempts at tragedy are melodramatic, and that sometimes his
comedy comes near being farcical. His whole literary attitude has
been compared to his boyish fondness for striking apparel.
There is some truth in all these criticisms, though they do not
occur spontaneously to a fresh reader while he is under the spell of
Dickens, nor were they much brought forward when he was creating
a new school and setting a fashion for an admiring world. His
style, which is quite a part of this singular man, can easily be pulled
in pieces and condemned, and it is not a safe one to imitate. No
doubt he wrought for effects, for he was a magician, and used exag-
geration in high lights and low lights on his crowded canvas. Say
what you will of all these defects, of his lack of classic literary train-
ing, of his tendency to melodrama, of his tricks of style, even of a
ray of lime-light here and there, it remains that he is a great power,
a tremendous force in modern life; half an hour of him is worth a
lifetime of his self-conscious analyzers, and the world is a more
cheerful and sympathetic world because of the loving and lovable
presence in it of Charles Dickens.
A sketch of his life and writings, necessarily much condensed for
use here, has been furnished by Mr. Laurence Hutton.
## p. 4627 (#421) ###########################################
CHARLES DICKENS
4627
THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF DICKENS
BY LAURENCE HUTTON
C
HARLES DICKENS was born at Landport in Portsea, on the 7th of
February, 1812. His childhood was a very unhappy one. He
describes himself in one of his essays as "a very queer, small
boy," and his biographer tells us that he was very sickly as well as
very small.
He had little schooling, and numberless hard knocks,
and rough and toilsome was the first quarter of his journey through
life. Many of the passages in 'David Copperfield' are literally true
pictures of his own early experiences, and much of that work may
be accepted as autobiographical. He was fond of putting himself
and his own people into his books, and of drawing his scenes and
his characters from real life, sometimes only slightly disguised. Tra-
dition says that he built both Mr. Micawber and Mr. Turveydrop out
of his own father; that Mrs. Nickleby was based upon his own
mother; and that his wife, who was the Dora of 'Copperfield' in the
beginning of their married life, became in later years the Flora of
'Little Dorrit. ' The elder Dickens had unquestionably some of the
traits ascribed to the unpractical friend of Copperfield's youth, and
something of the cruel self-indulgence and pompous deportment of
the dancing-master in Bleak House. ' And it was during his father's
imprisonment for debt when the son was but a youth, that Dickens
got his intimate knowledge of the Marshalsea, and of the heart-
breaking existence of its inmates. Some years before 'Copperfield'
was written, he described in a fragment of actual autobiography,
quoted by Forster, the following scene:-
"My father was waiting for me in the lodge [of the Debtor's Prison]; and
we went up to his room, on the top story but one, and cried very much.
And he told me, I remember, to take warning by the Marshalsea, and to
observe that if a man had twenty pounds a year, and spent nineteen pounds
nineteen shillings and sixpence, he would be happy; but that a shilling spent
the other way would make him wretched. "
In these chambers Dickens afterwards put Mr. Dorrit. And while
the father remained in confinement, the son lived for a time in a
back attic in Lant Street, Borough, which was to become the home
of the eccentric Robert Sawyer, and the scene of a famous supper
party given to do honor to Mr. Pickwick "and the other chaps. "
"If a man wishes to abstract himself from the world, to remove
himself from the reach of temptation, to place himself beyond the
possibility of any inducement to look out of the window, he should
by all means go to Lant Street. " Lant Street still exists, as Mr. Pick-
wick found it, and as Dickens knew it between 1822 and 1824. He
## p. 4628 (#422) ###########################################
4628
CHARLES DICKENS
had numerous lodgings, alone and with his family, during those hard
times; all of them of the same miserable, wretched character; and it
is interesting to know that the original of Mrs. Pipchin was his land-
lady in Camden Town, and that the original of the Marchioness
waited on the elder Dickens during his stay in the Marshalsea.
The story of the unhappy drudgery of the young Copperfield is
the story of the young Dickens without exaggeration.
"No words can express the secret agony of my soul as I sunk into this
companionship," he wrote in 1845 or 1846,- «compared these every-day asso-
ciates with those of my happier childhood, and felt my early hopes of grow-
ing up to be a learned and distinguished man crushed in my breast. The
deep remembrance of the sense I had of being utterly neglected and hope-
less; of the shame I felt in my position; of the misery it was to my young
heart to believe that, day by day, what I had learned, and thought, and
delighted in, and raised my fancy and my emulation up by, was passing
away from me, never to be brought back any more, cannot be written. My
whole nature was so penetrated with the grief and humiliation of such con-
siderations, that even now, famous and caressed and happy, I often forget,
in my dreams, that I have a dear wife and children; even that I am a man;
and I wander desolately back to that time of my life. "
In the course of a few years, happily, the cloud lifted; and in 1831,
when Dickens was a youth of nineteen, we find him beginning life as
a reporting journalist. He wrote occasional "pieces" for the maga-
zines, and some faint hope of growing up to be a distinguished and
learned man rose again, no doubt, in his breast. N. P. Willis met
him one day in 1835, when, as Willis expresses it, Dickens was a
"paragraphist" for the London Morning Chronicle. The "paragraph-
ist," according to Willis, was lodging in the most crowded part of
Holborn, in an uncarpeted and bleak-looking room, with a deal table,
two or three chairs, and a few books. It was up a long flight of
stairs, this room; and its occupant "was dressed very much as he has
since described Dick Swiveller-minus the swell look. His hair was
cropped close to his head, his clothes were scant, though jauntily cut;
and after exchanging a ragged office coat for a shabby blue, he stood
by the door collarless and buttoned up, the very personification, I
thought, of a close sailer to the wind.
Not long after this
Macrone sent me the sheets of 'Sketches by Boz,' with a note saying
they were by the gentleman [Dickens] who went with us to Newgate.
I read the book with amazement at the genius displayed in it; and
in my note of reply assured Macrone that I thought his fortune was
made, as a publisher, if he could monopolize the author. " This pic-
ture is very graphic. But it must be accepted with a grain of salt.
The Sketches by Boz, Illustrative of Every-Day Life and Every-
Day People,' Dickens's first printed book, appeared in 1835. A further
·
## p. 4629 (#423) ###########################################
CHARLES DICKENS
4629
series of papers, bearing the same title, was published the next year.
"Boz" was the nickname he had bestowed upon his younger brother
Augustus, in honor of the Moses of the Vicar of Wakefield. ' The
word, pronounced through the nose, became "Boses," afterwards
shortened to "Boz," which, said Dickens, "was a very familiar house-
hold word to me long before I was an author. And so I came to
adopt it. " The sketches, the character of which is explained in their
sub-title, were regarded as unusually clever things of their kind.
They attracted at once great attention in England, and established
the fact that a new star had risen in the firmament of British letters.
Dickens was married on the 2d of April, 1836, to Miss Catherine
Hogarth, just a week after he had published the first shilling number
of The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club: Edited by Boz. '
The work appeared in book form the next year. Its success was phe-
nomenal, and it brought to its author not only fame but a fixed sum
per annum, which is better. It assured his comfort in the present and
in the future, and it wiped out all the care and troubles of his past.
It was in itself the result of an accident. Messrs. Chapman and Hall,
attracted by the popularity of the Sketches, proposed to their author
a series of monthly articles to illustrate certain pictures of a comic
character by Robert Seymour, an artist in their employment. Dickens
assented, upon the condition that "the plates were to be so modified
that they would arise naturally out of the text. " And so between
them Mr. Pickwick was born, although under the saddest of circum-
stances; for only a single number had appeared when Seymour died
by his own hand. Hablot K. Browne succeeded him, signing the name
of "Phiz"; and with "Boz" was "Phiz" long associated in other
prosperous ventures. Mr. Pickwick is a benevolent, tender-hearted
elderly gentleman, who, as the president of a club organized "for the
purpose of investigating the source of the Hampstead ponds," jour-
neys about England in all directions with three companions, to whom
he acts as guide, philosopher, and friend. He is an amiable old
goose, and his companions are equally verdant and unsophisticated;
but since 1837 they have been as famous as any men in fiction. The
story is a long one, the pages are crowded with incidents and with
characters. It is disconnected, often exaggerated, much of it is as
improbable as it is impossible, but it has made the world laugh for
sixty years now; and it still holds its own unique place in the hearts
of men.
From this period the pen of Dickens was never idle for forty-three
years. 'Pickwick' was succeeded by 'Oliver Twist,' begun in Bent-
ley's Magazine in January, 1837, and printed in book form in 1838.
It is the story of the progress of a parish boy, and it is sad and
serious in its character. The hero was born and brought up in a
## p. 4630 (#424) ###########################################
4630
CHARLES DICKENS
workhouse. He was starved and ill-treated; but he always retained
his innocence and his purity of mind. He fell among thieves,- Bill
and Nancy Sykes, Fagin and the Artful Dodger, to whom much pow-
erful description is devoted, but he triumphed in the end. The life
of the very poor and of the very degraded among the people of Eng-
land during the latter end of the first half of the nineteenth century
is admirably portrayed; and for the first time in their existence the
British blackguards of both sexes were exhibited in fiction, clad in
all their instincts of low brutality, and without that glamour of
attractive romance which the earlier writers had given to Jack Shep-
pard, to Jonathan Wild, or to Moll Flanders.
Two dramatic compositions by Dickens, neither of them adding
very much to his reputation, appeared in 1836, to wit:-'The Stran-
ger Gentleman, A Comic Burletta in Three Acts'; and 'The Village
Coquette,' a comic opera in two acts. They were presented upon
the stage towards the close of that year, with fair success.
In 1838 Dickens edited the Memoirs of Joseph Grimaldi, a cele-
brated clown. His share in the composition of this work was com-
paratively small, and consisted of a Preface, dated February of that
year. It was followed by 'Sketches of Young Gentlemen,' and by
'The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby,' both published in
1839. To this latter he signed his name, Charles Dickens, dropping
from that period the pseudonym of "Boz. " The titular hero is the
son of a poor country gentleman. He makes his own way in the
world as the usher of a Yorkshire school, as an actor in a traveling
troupe, and as the clerk and finally the partner in a prosperous
mercantile house in London. Smike, his pupil; Crummles, his theat-
rical manager; Ninetta Crummles, the Infant Phenomenon of the
company, Newman Noggs, the clerk of his uncle Ralph Nickleby,
the Cheeryble Brothers, his employers, are among the most success-
ful and charming of Dickens's earlier creations. "Mr. Squeers and
his school," he says, << were faint and feeble pictures of an existing
reality, purposely subdued and kept down lest they should be deemed
impossible. " That such establishments ceased to exist in reality in
England after the appearance of 'Nickleby,' is proof enough of the
good his pictures did in this and in many other ways.
In 1840-1841 appeared 'Master Humphrey's Clock,' comprising the
two stories of The Old Curiosity Shop' and 'Barnaby Rudge,' which
were subsequently printed separately. The story of Little Nell, the
gentle, lovable inmate of the Curiosity Shop, is one of the most sad
and tender tales in fiction, and Dickens himself confessed that he
was almost heart-broken when she died. Her path was crossed by
Quilp, a cunning and malicious dwarf of hideous appearance, who
consumed hard-boiled eggs, shells and all, for his breakfast; ate his
## p. 4631 (#425) ###########################################
CHARLES DICKENS
4631
prawns with their heads and their tails on, drank scalding hot tea,
and performed so many horrifying acts that one almost doubted that
he was human; and by Christopher Nubbles, a shock-headed, sham-
bling, awkward, devoted lad, the only element of cheerfulness that
ever came into her life. In this book appear Richard Swiveller and
his Marchioness, Sampson and Sarah Brass and Mrs. Jarley, who to
be appreciated must be seen and known, as Dickens has drawn them,
at full length.
Barnaby Rudge was a half-witted lad, who, not knowing what he
did, joined the Gordon rioters-the scenes are laid in the "No
Popery» times of 1779-because he was permitted to carry a flag
and to wear a blue ribbon. The history of that exciting period of
English semi-political, semi-religious excitement is graphically set
down. Prominent figures in the book are Grip the raven, whose cry
was "I'm a devil," "Never say die"; and Miss Dolly Varden, the
blooming daughter of the Clerkenwell locksmith, who has given her
name to the modern feminine costume of the Watteauesque style.
The literary results of Dickens's first visit to the United States, in
1842, when he was thirty years of age, were 'American Notes, for
General Circulation'; published in that year, and containing portions
of 'Martin Chuzzlewit,' which appeared in 1844. His observations in
the 'Notes' upon the new country and its inhabitants gave great
offense to the American people, and were perhaps not in the best
taste. He saw the crude and ridiculous side of his hosts, he empha-
sized their faults, while he paid little attention to their virtues; and
his criticisms and strictures rankled in the sensitive American mind
for many years.
Martin Chuzzlewit, the hero of the novel bearing his name, spent
some time in the western half-settled portion of America, with Mark
Tapley, his light-hearted, optimistic friend and companion. The pic-
tures of the morals and the manners of the men and women with
whom the emigrants were brought into contact were anything but
flattering, and they served to widen the temporary breach between
Dickens and his many admirers in the United States. The English
scenes of 'Chuzzlewit' are very powerfully drawn. Tom and Ruth
Pinch, Pecksniff, Sarah Gamp, and Betsey Prig are among the lead-
ing characters in the work.
In 1843 appeared the 'Christmas Carol,' the first and perhaps the
best of that series of tales of peace and good-will, with which, at
the Christmas time, the name of Dickens is so pleasantly and famil-
iarly associated. It was followed by The Chimes' in 1844, by The
Cricket on the Hearth' in 1845, by The Haunted Man' in 1848, all
the work of Dickens himself; and by other productions written by
Dickens in collaboration with other men. Concerning these holiday
## p. 4632 (#426) ###########################################
4632
CHARLES DICKENS
stories, some unknown writer said in the public press at the time of
Dickens's death:-"He has not only pleased us— - he has softened the
hearts of a whole generation. He made charity fashionable; he
awakened pity in the hearts of sixty millions of people. He made a
whole generation keep Christmas with acts of helpfulness to the
poor; and every barefooted boy and girl in the streets of England
and America to-day fares a little better, gets fewer cuffs and more
pudding, because Charles Dickens wrote. "
In 1846 he produced his 'Pictures from Italy'; 'The Battle of Life,
A Love Story,' and began in periodical form his 'Dealings with the
Firm of Dombey and Son, Wholesale, Retail, and for Exportation,'
published in book form in 1847. Here we have the pathetic story of
Little Paul, the tragic fate of Carker, the amusing episode of Jack
Bunsby with his designing widow, and the devotion of Susan Nipper,
Mr. Toots, Captain Cuttle, and Sol Gills to the gentle, patient, lov-
able Florence.
On the 'Personal History of David Copperfield,' published in 1850,
and of Dickens's share in its plot, something has already been said
here. It is perhaps the most popular of all his productions, con-
taining as it does Mr. Dick, the Peggottys, the Micawbers, the Heeps,
Betsey Trotwood, Steerforth, Tommy Traddles, Dora, Agnes, and
Little Em'ly, in all of whom the world has been so deeply interested
for so many years.
'A Child's History of England' and 'Bleak House' saw the light
in 1853. The romance was written as a protest and a warning
against the law's delays, as exhibited in the Court of Chancery; and
it contains the tragedy of Sir Leicester and Lady Dedlock, and the
short but touching story of Poor Jo.
'Hard Times,' a tale in one volume, was printed in 1854. It
introduces the Gradgrind family.
'Little Dorrit' appeared in 1857. In this book he returns to the
Debtor's Prison of Micawber and of his own father. Little Dorrit
herself was "the child of the Marshalsea," in which she was born
and brought up; and the whole story is an appeal against the injus-
tice of depriving of personal liberty those who cannot pay their
bills, or meet their notes, however small. Its prominent characters
are the Clennams, mother and son, the Meagleses, Flintwinch, Sir
Decimus Tite Barnacle, Rigaud and Little Cavalletto.
'A Tale of Two Cities,' a remarkable departure for Dickens, and
unlike any of his other works, was the book of the year 1859. It is
conceded, even by those who are not counted among the admirers of
its author, to be a most vivid and correct picture of Paris during the
time of the Revolution, when the guillotine was the king of France.
Its central figure, Sydney Carton, one of the most heroic characters
## p. 4633 (#427) ###########################################
CHARLES DICKENS
4633
in romance, gives his life to restore his friend to the girl whom they
both love.
< The Uncommercial Traveller,' a number of sketches and stories
originally published in his weekly journal All the Year Round, ap-
peared in 1860. They were supplemented in 1868 by another volume
bearing the same title, and containing eleven other papers collected
from the same periodical.
'Great Expectations,' 1861, like 'Copperfield,' is the story of a boy's
childhood told by the boy himself, but by a boy with feelings, sen-
timents, and experiences very different from those of the earlier
work. The plot is not altogether a cheerful one, but many of the
characters are original and charming; notably Joe Gargery, Jaggles,
Wemmick, the exceedingly eccentric Miss Havisham, and the very
amiable and simple Biddy.
'Somebody's Luggage,' 1862; 'Mrs. Lirriper's Lodgings,' 1863;
'Mrs. Lirriper's Legacy,' 1864; Dr. Marigold's Prescription,' 1865;
'Mugby Junction,' 1866; and 'No Thoroughfare,' 1867,- Christmas
stories, all of them,- were written by Dickens in collaboration with
other writers.
'Our Mutual Friend,' the last completed work of Dickens, was
printed in 1865. Mr. Boffin, the Golden Dustman with the great
heart, Silas Wegg, Mr. Venus, the Riderhoods, Jenny Wren, the
Podsnaps, the Veneerings, Betty Higden, Mrs. Wilfer, and the "Boo-
fer Lady," are as fresh and as original as are any of his creations,
and show no trace of the coming disaster.
Before the completion of 'The Mystery of Edwin Drood' Dickens
died at his home, Gadshill Place, literally in harness, and without
warning, on the 9th of June, 1870.
But six numbers of this last work appeared, in periodical form. .
Its author left no notes of what was to follow, and the Mystery has
never been solved. Mr. Charles Collins, Dickens's son-in-law, however,
in a private letter to Mr. Augustin Daly of New York, who had pro-
posed to dramatize the tale, gave some general outline of the scheme
for Edwin Drood. ' "The titular character," he said, «< was never to
reappear, he having been murdered by Jasper. The girl Rosa, not
having been really attached to Edwin, was not to lament his loss
very long, and was, I believe, to admit the sailor, Mr. Tartar, to
supply his place. It was intended that Jasper should urge on the
search after Edwin, and the pursuit of the murderer, thus endeavor-
ing to divert suspicion from himself, the real murderer.
As to any-
thing further, it would be purely conjectural. "
Besides this immense amount of admirable work, Dickens founded,
conducted, and edited two successful periodicals, Household Words,
established in March 1850, and followed by All the Year Round,.
## p. 4634 (#428) ###########################################
4634
CHARLES DICKENS
beginning in April 1859. To these he contributed many sketches and
stories. He began public readings in London in 1858; and con-
tinued them with great profit to himself, and with great satisfaction
to immense audiences, for upwards of twelve years. He appeared in
all the leading cities of Great Britain; and he was enormously popu-
lar as a reader in America during his second and last visit in 1868.
As an after-dinner and occasional speaker Dickens was rarely
equaled; and as an actor upon the amateur stage, in plays of his
own composition, he was inimitable.
Of his attempts at verse, 'The Ivy Green' is the only one that
is held in remembrance.
A strong argument in favor of what may be called "the staying
qualities of Dickens is the fact that his characters, even in a muti-
lated, unsatisfactory form, have held the stage for half a century or
more, and still have power to attract and move great audiences,
wherever is spoken the language in which he wrote. The dramatiza-
tion of the novel is universally and justly regarded as the most
ephemeral and worthless of dramatic production; and the novels of
Dickens, on account of their length, of the great number of figures
he introduces, of the variety and occasional exaggeration of his dia-
logues and his situations, have been peculiarly difficult of adaptation
to theatrical purposes. Nevertheless the world laughed and cried
over Micawber, Captain Cuttle, Dan'l Peggotty, and Caleb Plummer,
behind the footlights, years after Dolly Spanker, Aminadab Sleek,
Timothy Toodles, Alfred Evelyn, and Geoffrey Dalk, their contempo-
raries in the standard and legitimate drama, created solely and par-
ticularly for dramatic representation, were absolutely forgotten. And
Sir Henry Irving, sixty years after the production of 'Pickwick,' drew
great crowds to see his Alfred Jingle, while that picturesque and
ingenious swindler Robert Macaire, Jingle's once famous and familiar
confrère in plausible rascality, was never seen on the boards, except
as he was burlesqued and caricatured in comic opera.
It is pretty safe to say-and not in a Pickwickian sense that
Pecksniff will live almost as long as hypocrisy lasts; that Heep will
not be forgotten while mock humility exists; that Mr. Dick will go
down to posterity arm-in-arm with Charles the First, whom he could
not avoid in his memorial; that Barkis will be quoted until men cease
to be willin'. And so long as cheap, rough coats cover faith, charity,
and honest hearts, the world will remember that Captain Cuttle and
the Peggottys were so clad.
Раш
Hilto
m
-
## p. 4635 (#429) ###########################################
CHARLES DICKENS
4635
THE ONE THING NEEDFUL
From Hard Times'
"Now
ow what I want is Facts. Teach these boys and girls
nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant
nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only
form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else
will ever be of any service to them. This is the principle on
which I bring up my own children, and this is the principle on
which I bring up these children. Stick to Facts, sir! "
The scene was a plain, bare, monotonous vault of a school-
room, and the speaker's square forefinger emphasized his observa-
tions by underscoring every sentence with a line on the school-
master's sleeve. The emphasis was helped by the speaker's
square wall of a forehead, which had his eyebrows for its base,
while his eyes found commodious cellarage in two dark caves,
overshadowed by the wall. The emphasis was helped by the
speaker's mouth, which was wide, thin, and hard set. The em-
phasis was helped by the speaker's voice, which was inflexible,
dry, and dictatorial. The emphasis was helped by the speaker's
hair, which bristled on the skirts of his bald head, a plantation of
firs to keep the wind from its shining surface, all covered with
knobs, like the crust of a plum pie, as if the head had scarcely
warehouse-room for the hard facts stored inside. The speaker's
obstinate carriage, square coat, square legs, square shoulders,-
nay, his very neckcloth, trained to take him by the throat with
an unaccommodating grasp like a stubborn fact, as it was,-all
helped the emphasis.
"In this life we want nothing but Facts, sir; nothing but
Facts! "
The speaker, and the schoolmaster, and the third grown per-
son present, all backed a little, and swept with their eyes the in-
clined plane of little vessels then and there arranged in order,
ready to have imperial gallons of facts poured into them until
they were full to the brim.
THOMAS GRADGRIND, sir. A man of realities. A man of facts
and calculations. A man who proceeds upon the principle that
two and two are four, and nothing over, and who is not to be
talked into allowing for anything over. Thomas Gradgrind, sir,
## p. 4636 (#430) ###########################################
4636
CHARLES DICKENS
- peremptorily Thomas,-Thomas Gradgrind.
With a rule and
a pair of scales, and the multiplication table always in his pocket,
sir, ready to weigh and measure any parcel of human nature,
and tell you exactly what it comes to. It is a mere question of
figures, a case of simple arithmetic. You might hope to get
some other nonsensical belief into the head of George Gradgrind,
or Augustus Gradgrind, or John Gradgrind, or Joseph Gradgrind
(all supposititious, non-existent persons), but into the head of
Thomas Gradgrind-no, sir!
In such terms Mr. Gradgrind always mentally introduced him-
self, whether to his private circle of acquaintance, or to the pub-
lic in general. In such terms, no doubt, substituting the words
"boys and girls," for "sir," Thomas Gradgrind now presented
Thomas Gradgrind to the little pitchers before him, who were to
be filled so full of facts.
Indeed, as he eagerly sparkled at them from the cellarage
before mentioned, he seemed a kind of cannon loaded to the
muzzle with facts, and prepared to blow them clean out of the
regions of childhood at one discharge. He seemed a galvanizing
apparatus, too, charged with a grim mechanical substitute for
the tender young imaginations that were to be stormed away.
"Girl number twenty," said Mr. Gradgrind, squarely pointing
with his square forefinger; "I don't know that girl. Who is that
girl? "
"Sissy Jupe, sir," explained number twenty, blushing, stand-
ing up, and courtesying.
"Sissy is not a name," said Mr. Gradgrind. "Don't call
yourself Sissy. Call yourself Cecilia. "
"It's father as calls me Sissy, sir," returned the young girl
in a trembling voice, and with another courtesy.
"Then he has no business to do it," said Mr. Gradgrind.
"Tell him he mustn't. Cecilia Jupe. Let me see. What is
your father? »
"He belongs to the horse-riding, if you please, sir. "
Mr. Gradgrind frowned, and waved off the objectionable call-
ing with his hand.
"We don't want to know anything about that here. You
mustn't tell us about that here. Your father breaks horses,
don't he? "
"If you please, sir, when they can get any to break, they do
break horses in the ring, sir. "
## p. 4637 (#431) ###########################################
CHARLES DICKENS
4637
"You mustn't tell us about the ring here. Very well, then.
Describe your father as a horsebreaker. He doctors sick horses,
I dare say? "
"Oh yes, sir. "
"Very well, then. He is a veterinary surgeon, a farrier, and
horsebreaker. Give me your definition of a horse. "
(Sissy Jupe thrown into the greatest alarm by this demand. )
«< Girl number twenty unable to define a horse! " said Mr.
Gradgrind, for the general behoof of all the little pitchers.
"Girl number twenty possessed of no facts in reference to one
of the commonest of animals! Some boy's definition of a horse.
Bitzer, yours. "
The square finger, moving here and there, lighted suddenly
on Bitzer, perhaps because he chanced to sit in the same ray of
sunlight which, darting in at one of the bare windows of the
intensely whitewashed room, irradiated Sissy. For the boys and
girls sat on the face of the inclined plane in two compact bodies,
divided up the centre by a narrow interval; and Sissy, being at
the corner of a row on the sunny side, came in for the begin-
ning of a sunbeam, of which Bitzer, being at the corner of a row
on the other side, a few rows in advance, caught the end. But
whereas the girl was so dark-eyed and dark-haired that she
seemed to receive a deeper and more lustrous color from the sun
when it shone upon her, the boy was so light-eyed and light-
haired that the selfsame rays appeared to draw out of him what
little color he ever possessed. His cold eyes would hardly have
been eyes, but for the short ends of lashes which, by bringing
them into immediate contrast with something paler than them-
selves, expressed their form. His short-cropped hair might have
been a mere continuation of the sandy freckles on his forehead
and face. His skin was so unwholesomely deficient in the natural
tinge, that he looked as though if he were cut he would bleed
white.
"Bitzer," said Thomas Gradgrind.
"Quadruped. Graminivorous. Forty teeth; namely, twenty-
four grinders, four eye-teeth, and twelve incisive. Sheds coat in
the spring; in marshy countries, sheds hoofs, too. Hoofs hard,
but requiring to be shod with iron. Age known
mouth. " Thus (and much more) Bitzer.
by marks in
horse. "
"Your definition of a
## p. 4638 (#432) ###########################################
4638
CHARLES DICKENS
"Now, girl number twenty," said Mr. Gradgrind, "you know
what a horse is. "
She courtesied again, and would have blushed deeper, if she
could have blushed deeper than she had blushed all this time.
Bitzer, after rapidly blinking at Thomas Gradgrind with both
eyes at once, and so catching the light upon his quivering ends
of lashes that they looked like the antennæ of busy insects, put
his knuckles to his freckled forehead, and sat down again.
The third gentleman now stepped forth. A mighty man at
cutting and drying, he was; a government officer; in his way
(and in most other people's too), a professed pugilist; always in
training, always with a system to force down the general throat
like a bolus, always to be heard of at the bar of his little
Public-office, ready to fight all England. To continue in fistic
phraseology, he had a genius for coming up to the scratch,
wherever and whatever it was, and proving himself an ugly cus-
tomer. He would go in and damage any subject whatever with
his right, follow up with his left, stop, exchange, counter, bore
his opponent (he always fought All England) to the ropes, and
fall upon him neatly. He was certain to knock the wind out
of common-sense, and render that unlucky adversary deaf to the
call of time. And he had it in charge from high authority to
bring about the great public-office Millennium, when Commis-
sioners should reign upon earth.
"Very well," said this gentleman, briskly smiling, and fold-
ing his arms. "That's a horse. Now, let me ask you girls
and boys, Would you paper a room with representations of
horses ? »
After a pause one-half of the children cried in chorus, "Yes,
sir! " Upon which the other half, seeing in the gentleman's face
that Yes was wrong, cried out in chorus, "No, sir! "
custom is in these examinations.
as the
"Of course, No. Why wouldn't you? "
A pause.
One corpulent slow boy, with a wheezy manner of
breathing, ventured the answer, Because he wouldn't paper a
room at all, but would paint it.
"You must paper it," said the gentleman, rather warmly.
"You must paper it," said Thomas Gradgrind, "whether you
like it or not. Don't tell us you wouldn't paper it. What do
you mean, boy? "
## p. 4639 (#433) ###########################################
CHARLES DICKENS
4639
"I'll explain to you, then," said the gentleman, after another
and dismal pause, "why you wouldn't paper a room with repre-
sentations of horses. Do you ever see horses walking up and
down the sides of rooms in reality-in fact?
- in fact? Do you? "
"Yes, sir! " from one-half. "No, sir! " from the other.
"Of course no," said the gentleman, with an indignant look
at the wrong half. "Why, then, you are not to see anywhere
what you don't see in fact; you are not to have anywhere what
you don't have in fact. What is called Taste is only another
name for Fact. "
Thomas Gradgrind nodded his approbation.
"This is a new principle, a discovery, a great discovery," said
the gentleman. "Now, I'll try you again.
"Now, I'll try you again. Suppose you were
going to carpet a room. Would you use a carpet having a rep-
resentation of flowers upon it? "
There being a general conviction by this time that "No, sir! »
was always the right answer to this gentleman, the chorus of
No was very strong. Only a few feeble stragglers said Yes;
among them Sissy Jupe.
"Girl number twenty," said the gentleman, smiling in the
calm strength of knowledge.
Sissy blushed, and stood up.
"So you would carpet your room or your husband's room,
if you were
a grown woman, and had a husband-with repre-
sentations of flowers, would you? " said the gentleman. "Why
would you? "
"If you please, sir, I am very fond of flowers," returned the
girl.
-
"And is that why you would put tables and chairs upon
them, and have people walking over them with heavy boots? "
"It wouldn't hurt them, sir. They wouldn't crush and wither,
if you please, sir. They would be the pictures of what was very
pretty and pleasant, and I would fancy-
>>>
"Ay, ay, ay! But you mustn't fancy," cried the gentleman,
quite elated by coming so happily to his point. "That's it!
are never to fancy. "
You
"You are not, Cecilia Jupe," Thomas Gradgrind solemnly
repeated, "to do anything of that kind. "
And "Fact, fact,
"Fact, fact, fact! " said the gentleman.
fact! " repeated Thomas Gradgrind.
## p. 4640 (#434) ###########################################
4640
CHARLES DICKENS
"You are to be in all things regulated and governed," said
the gentleman, "by fact. We hope to have, before long, a board
of fact, composed of commissioners of fact, who will force the
people to be a people of fact, and of nothing but fact. You
must discard the word Fancy altogether. You have nothing to
do with it. You are not to have in any object of use or orna-
ment what would be a contradiction in fact. You don't walk
upon flowers in fact; you cannot be allowed to walk upon flowers
in carpets.
You don't find that foreign birds and butterflies come
and perch upon your crockery; you cannot be permitted to paint
foreign birds and butterflies upon your crockery. You never
meet with quadrupeds going up and down walls; you must not
have quadrupeds represented upon walls. You must use," said
the gentleman, "for all these purposes, combinations and modi-
fications (in primary colors) of mathematical figures, which are
susceptible of proof and demonstration. This is the new discov-
ery. This is fact. This is taste. "
The girl courtesied, and sat down. She was very young, and
she looked as if she were frightened by the matter-of-fact pros-
pect the world afforded.
"Now, if Mr. M'Choakumchild," said the gentleman, "will
proceed to give his first lesson here, Mr. Gradgrind, I shall be
happy, at your request, to observe his mode of procedure. "
Mr. Gradgrind was much obliged. "Mr. M'Choakumchild, we
only wait for you.
So Mr. M'Choakumchild began in his best manner. He and
some one hundred and forty other schoolmasters had been lately
turned at the same time, in the same factory, on the same prin-
ciples, like so many pianoforte legs. He had been put through
an immense variety of paces, and had answered volumes of head-
breaking questions. Orthography, etymology, syntax, and prosody,
biography, astronomy, geography, and general cosmography, the
sciences of compound proportion, algebra, land-surveying and
leveling, vocal music, and drawing from models, were all at the
ends of his ten chilled fingers. He had worked his stony way
into her Majesty's most Honorable Privy Council's Schedule B,
and had taken the bloom off the higher branches of mathematics
and physical science, French, German, Latin, and Greek. He
knew all about all the Water Sheds of all the world (whatever
they are), and all the histories of all the peoples, and all the
## p. 4641 (#435) ###########################################
CHARLES DICKENS
4641
names of all the rivers and mountains, and all the productions,
manners, and customs of all the countries, and all their bounda-
ries and bearings on the two-and-thirty points of the compass.
Ah, rather overdone, M'Choakumchild. If he had only learned a
little less, how infinitely better he might have taught much
more!
He went to work in this preparatory lesson not unlike Mor-
giana in the 'Forty Thieves': looking into all the vessels ranged
before him, one after another, to see what they contained. Say,
good M'Choakumchild. When from thy boiling store thou shalt
fill each jar brim-full, by-and-by, dost thou think that thou wilt.
always kill outright the robber Fancy lurking within-or some-
times only maim him and distort him!
THE BOY AT MUGBY
From Mugby Junction'
AM the boy at Mugby. That's about what I am.
I
You don't know what I mean? What a pity! But I think
you do.
I think you must. Look here. I am the Boy at
what is called The Refreshment Room at Mugby Junction, and
what's proudest boast is, that it never yet refreshed a mortal
being.
Up in a corner of the Down Refreshment Room at Mugby
Junction, in the height of twenty-seven cross draughts (I've often
counted 'em while they brush the First Class hair twenty-seven
ways), behind the bottles, among the glasses, bounded on the
nor'west by the beer, stood pretty far to the right of a metallic
object that's at times the tea-urn and at times the soup-tureen,
according to the nature of the last twang imparted to its contents,
which are the same groundwork, fended off from the traveler by
a barrier of stale sponge-cakes erected atop of the counter, and
lastly exposed sideways to the glare of Our Missis's eye-you
ask a Boy so sitiwated, next time you stop in a hurry at Mugby,
for anything to drink; you take particular notice that he'll try
to seem not to hear you, that he'll appear in a absent manner
to survey the Line through a transparent medium composed of
your head and body, and that he won't serve you as long as you
can possibly bear it.
That's me.
VIII-201
## p. 4642 (#436) ###########################################
4642
CHARLES DICKENS
What a lark it is! We are the Model Establishment, we are,
at Mugby. Other Refreshment Rooms send their imperfect young
ladies up to be finished off by our Missis. For some of the
young ladies, when they're new to the business, come into it
mild! Ah! Our Missis, she soon takes that out of 'em. Why,
I originally come into the business meek myself. But Our
Missis, she soon took that out of me.
What a delightful lark it is! I look upon us Refreshmenters
as ockipying the only proudly independent footing on the Line.
There's Papers, for instance,- my honorable friend, if he will
allow me to call him so,-him as belongs to Smith's bookstall.
Why, he no more dares to be up to our Refreshmenting games
than he dares to jump atop of a locomotive with her steam at
full pressure, and cut away upon her alone, driving himself, at
limited-mail speed. Papers, he'd get his head punched at every
compartment, first, second, and third, the whole length of a
train, if he was to ventur' to imitate my demeanor. It's the
same with the porters, the same with the guards, the same with
the ticket clerks, the same the whole way up to the secretary,
traffic manager, or very chairman. There ain't a one among 'em
on the nobly independent footing we are. Did you ever catch
one of them, when you wanted anything of him, making a sys-
tem of surveying the Line through a transparent medium com-
posed of your head and body? I should hope not.
You should see our Bandolining Room at Mugby Junction.
It's led to by the door behind the counter, which you'll notice
usually stands ajar, and it's the room where Our Missis and our
young ladies Bandolines their hair. You should see 'em at it,
betwixt trains, Bandolining away, as if they was anointing them-
selves for the combat. When you're telegraphed you should see
their noses all agoing up with scorn, as if it was a part of the
working of the same Cooke and Wheatstone electrical machinery.
You should hear Our Missis give the word, "Here comes the
Beast to be Fed! " and then you should see 'em indignantly
skipping across the Line, from the Up to the Down, or Wicer
Warsaw, and begin to pitch the stale pastry into the plates, and
chuck the sawdust sangwiches under the glass covers, and get
out the-ha, ha, ha! - the Sherry,-O my eye, my eye! - for
your Refreshment.
It's only in the Isle of the Brave and Land of the Free (by
which of course I mean to say Britannia) that Refreshmenting
## p. 4643 (#437) ###########################################
CHARLES DICKENS
4643
is so effective, so 'olesome, so constitutional a check upon the
public. There was a foreigner, which having politely, with his
hat off, beseeched our young ladies and Our Missis for "a leetel
gloss hoff prarndee," and having had the Line surveyed through
him by all, and no other acknowledgment, was a-proceeding at
last to help himself, as seems to be the custom in his own coun-
try, when Our Missis, with her hair almost a-coming un-Bando-
lined with rage, and her eyes omitting sparks, flew at him,
cotched the decanter out of his hand, and said, "Put it down!
I won't allow that!
