CHAPTER I
SOME OF DICKENS' NOVELS AND CHARACTERS
It is an odd reflection how silent a book may seem when it is waiting on a shelf to be read. But once its covers are opened, and our eyes follow the lines of print for page after page, voices speak, people that we had not known before become familiar to us or old friends give us greeting; thoughts, knowledge, events, pass from the silent pages into our minds. Some books possess this property of rich and glowing life in a high degree. No books surely have it more abundantly than the novels of Charles Dickens.
Here are scores of friends for us, playmates, companions. If anyone has a fit of loneliness, or should anyone be looking for change and variety, let him open one of Dickens' novels. Which one will he choose first? A boy or girl is well advised who takes, shall we say, _David Copperfield_ or _Pickwick Papers_. One or the other will make an excellent beginning. Having read one, or both, it is unlikely that the reader will refrain from adding five, six, seven, eight, or even twelve more novels by Dickens to the list of books he is happy to remember having read.
What are the names of Dickens' other better known novels? _Nicholas Nickleby_, _Oliver Twist_, _The Old Curiosity Shop_, _Barnaby Rudge_, _Martin {4} Chuzzlewit_, _Dombey and Son_, _Bleak House_, _Little Dorrit_, _A Tale of Two Cities_, _Great Expectations_, _Our Mutual Friend_. But still we must add the Christmas books, for no one, old or young, should lose the benefit of having read _A Christmas Carol_. And there is also the unfinished novel _Edwin Drood_, probably more talked of still than any other story of a mystery, new or old. It is nearly sixty years since Dickens left the story incomplete, but how gladly many people still would discover the secret ending that the great novelist had planned in his mind.
Once read, Dickens' novels cling to the memory. The characters he made inhabit this world of ours as substantially, it seems, as people do who have been born not from imagination merely. As lately as the spring of 1928 a London hotel, the Adelphi, changed owners. In a brief history of the place a list of persons was given who had visited it, ending with the remark that Mr. Pickwick had had his first dinner there after being released from prison. The other people mentioned were what we describe as historical characters. Mr. Pickwick, although thousands of people know him so well that if they met him on the street they could not possibly fail to recognize him, is the miraculous product of Dickens' imagination. If you have not read _Pickwick Papers_, in a few hours you too may know Mr. Pickwick, and he will be for you also a lifetime friend.
When we read these stories for the first time, we must be prepared to become acquainted with Dickens' characters much in the same way as we meet strangers in everyday life. His people are {5} odd, exuberant, amusing, extravagant; they are too strange to be true, we may say to ourselves. But as we read on, we come to know them so well that the oddness and queerness seem to wear off. We look into their hearts and forget to be surprised by their extraordinary looks and characteristics. Sam Weller is odd, but he is the most delightful, amusing young man on his own, once boots at the White Hart Inn. Like Mr. Pickwick, Sam lives in _Pickwick Papers_. No one could imagine a better Sam Weller than Dickens' creation, for the simple reason that to make a better Sam Weller is impossible.
It is a great, a glorious adventure to sit out of doors in summer, or in a warm, quiet room in winter, and read one of Dickens' novels. What happenings, what delightful, absorbing people, what a stir of life, what laughter, gaiety, bravery, what wonderful meetings with high and low fortune!
The world of Dickens' novels is a world of coaching days, of old English roads and inns, of feasts and conviviality; a sporting world, often hard and cruel, in which existed bad old customs against which Dickens fought with all his might; a boisterous world of strange adventures, great friendships, and measureless laughter. These books are crowded with people, diverting and friendly, grotesque and menacing, or grotesque outside but with golden hearts hidden behind the queer exteriors, loving people, heartless people, beautiful people, brave, true friends, friends of everybody.
We have already spoken of Mr. Pickwick and {6} Sam Weller, his man or valet. Mr. Pickwick's benevolence, his goodness of heart, innocence and simplicity make us love him more and more as the story unfolds. Sam's wit and audacity, his extraordinary good humour and high spirits, his devotion to Mr. Pickwick, his independence and self-reliance, make Sam so real that he seems never far away. He is always only round the corner of our minds and will appear jauntily as soon as we think of him. In the one book, _Pickwick Papers_, there are a dozen other characters only less wonderful than these two. Would anyone prove at once how diverting and delightful such a book can be, let him read of Christmas at Dingley Dell in chapter 28, or the Adventure at the Great White Horse Inn, chapter 22, or the trial of Bardell against Pickwick, chapter 34, or for natural feeling simply expressed the lines in which Tony Weller, Sam's father, tells of Mrs. Weller's death in chapter 52, or the downfall of Mr. Stiggins, in the same chapter, or, in the last chapter of all, of Sam's devotion to Mr. Pickwick.
Striking characters of a like description are to be found in all Dickens' novels. _David Copperfield_ is probably the richest of all, in this respect, although one can easily imagine a dispute amongst the warm admirers of Dickens as to which novel is pre-eminent in the possession of immortal characters. Those who love _David Copperfield_ best can scarcely discuss the book with detachment; it belongs, as it were, to such a reader's own special family life. The novel holds a wonderful company of people: David himself, Peggotty, her brother and nephew, Little Em'ly, {7} Mrs. Gummidge, Miss Betsey Trotwood, Steerforth, Traddles, the magnificent Wilkins Micawber and Mrs. Micawber, Uriah Heep, Miss Mowcher, Mr. Spenlow, Dora, and many, many others. _David Copperfield_ was Dickens' own favourite among his books.
In _Nicholas Nickleby_ is the infamous school, Dotheboys Hall, and Wackford Squeers, the schoolmaster. Dickens' crusades for reform will be considered in another chapter. But Mrs. Nickleby is one of the most memorable of Dickens' foolish characters. Surely no other writer has achieved so many delineations of the silly person, masterpieces touched with an unerring hand. Yet, and this point is perhaps the crown of Dickens' genius, these foolish characters of his often reveal, before the novels to which they belong are ended, some nobility of character, some goodness of heart, some greatness in conduct or of nature which makes us bow before them as belonging to the highest ranks of human nature. Toots in _Dombey and Son_ is a very foolish person, but Toots saying goodbye to Florence Dombey shows a chivalry comparable with that of Sir Philip Sidney.
Dick Swiveller and the Marchioness belong to _The Old Curiosity Shop_. Barnaby Rudge and his raven Grip are easily found. Mr. Pecksniff, Sairey Gamp and Betsey Prig, terrible examples of hypocrisy and heartlessness, are from _Martin Chuzslewit_. But the same book has loveable Tom Pinch and indomitable Mark Tapley, the champion of courage and good cheer in adversity. Tiny Tim and Bob Cratchit live forever in _A Christmas {8} Carol_. Paul and Florence, Captain Cuttle, Susan Nipper, Mr. Toots, Cousin Feenix, belong to the crowded pages of _Dombey and Son_. _Bleak House_ is a wonderful story; if one chooses Caddy Jellyby from its pages it is not because a dozen other characters are not as interesting. In _Great Expectations_ the boyhood of Pip is marvellously portrayed. Anyone who has read _Our Mutual Friend_ can never forget Mr. and Mrs. Boffin, or Lizzie Hexam, or the R. Wilfer family, or Silas Wegg, or Mr. Venus, or the dolls' dressmaker, Jenny Wren, or Johnny the orphan, and Mrs. Betty Higden and Sloppy.
It is a point not to be overlooked that Dickens takes his characters from any occupation, but preferably, it would seem, from the humblest. Goodness of heart, wit, humour, gaiety, stout-heartedness, are proved by him to exist in the most depressing circumstances. His heroes and heroines do not wear crowns or jewels. They are not specially learned, and they are rarely wealthy or beautiful, but they are good company, light-hearted, and kind-hearted. Love, faithfulness, self-sacrifice, purity, sincerity, courage and cheerfulness shine out from his pages so brightly and so engagingly that we cannot but long to join the company of those who travel the same road.
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