Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens Part 9

Of all the instances of this there is none stranger than the case of d.i.c.kens. It should be pondered very carefully by those who reproach Christianity with having been easily corrupted into a system of superst.i.tions. 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 d.i.c.kens. 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 d.i.c.kens. The spirit of d.i.c.kens has been in the world about sixty years; and already it is a superst.i.tion. 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 d.i.c.kens. 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 d.i.c.kens 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 d.i.c.kens 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 b.u.mble in defence of b.u.mbledom; people allude playfully to Mrs. Jellyby while agitating for Borrioboola Gha.

The very things which d.i.c.kens tried to destroy are preserved as relics of him. The very houses he wished to pull down are propped up as monuments of d.i.c.kens. We wish to preserve everything of him, except his perilous public spirit.

This antiquarian att.i.tude towards d.i.c.kens 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, d.i.c.kens 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 wors.h.i.+p of d.i.c.kens has many more innocent manifestations. One of them is that which takes advantage of the fact that d.i.c.kens 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 d.i.c.kens, 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 d.i.c.kens, though not the eternal d.i.c.kens 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 d.i.c.kens's opinion about flogging for garrotters, and altered it afterwards. Any one might have come to d.i.c.kens'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, d.i.c.kens 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