CHAPTER III

WHAT DICKENS DID FOR HUMANITY

Dickens from his childhood seems to have had a strong desire to leave the world a better place for other people than he had found it for himself. We can trace this feeling in his youth and through his manhood. It runs in his novels like a great tide of impulse and energy. "These things should not happen" he seems to cry to the world. "Come, let us unite against injustice and heartlessness in public and private dealing, against public and private wrong of every description. Let us banish bad customs from the earth, so that it may be a fairer, brighter, happier place."

One of his novels_ A Tale of Two Cities_ is a story of the French Revolution. The story shows that, in common with the rest of the world then living, Dickens' outlook on life had been powerfully affected by the French Revolution, as our world to-day has been vastly changed by the Great War. The watch words of the French Revolution were Liberty, Fraternity, Equality. They rang like bells to waken all men's hearts against injustice; their echoes are ringing still. During the Revolution which began in 1789, a little more than twenty years before Dickens was born, and in the years following the Revolution, there were terrible excesses of cruelty, murder and bloodshed {17} by the revolutionists. But the spirit of revolt against wrong was in men's minds everywhere. In every country change and revolution were impending, either violent change and revolution with bloodshed, or silent change and a peaceful revolution. In Great Britain, it appears reasonably certain that the works of Dickens had much to do with preventing a violent revolution. Well-to-do people read these books, and their minds became more kindly to their fellowmen. They were eager to help the poor and oppressed. The poor and unfortunate read Dickens' stories and were filled with the spirit of brotherhood to everyone, to the rich as well as to those who were poor as they themselves were poor. Dickens showed, not that the poor were unhappy, but that they were unjustly and harshly treated. The living spirit of happiness and of Christmas is found in the house of the Cratchits. The Cratchits are poor, but they are wonderfully happy. People in many other countries as well as England rushed to the help of the poor because of the happiness of the Cratchit family. Tiny Tim and his crutch touched the heart of the world, and the heart of the world was made the better for it. We still are made better by the story of the Cratchits. Above all, Dickens' novels overflow, not only with tenderness and indignation against wrong and cruelty, but with abounding good temper and inexhaustible mirth. It has been said that danger of a violent revolution in Great Britain was swept away by the gales of good-tempered and hearty laughter which seized upon thousands of people who were reading these great stories. It was a {18} splendid achievement for any novelist, or for any man or woman. To help to bring about a peaceful revolution, instead of one in which blood is shed, is a claim that can be made on behalf of few people in the history of the world.

Dickens is generally given credit for having secured for the world a number of much needed reforms. There is no doubt that Dickens had a great deal to do with promoting these reforms. But it is the glory of the age in which he lived that many people were working to make wrong conditions right. What Dickens succeeded in doing, possibly in a greater degree than anyone else at that time, was to produce in a great multitude of people the spirit which is willing, more than willing, very desirous, to make wrong right.

An English poet who was born about a half century before Dickens, (Dickens' dates are 1812-1870; William Blake's dates are 1757-1827) wrote lines which embody wonderfully this passion for helping other people who need help. It is a passion which happily belongs to our own age. Who can tell how many people now living carry about in their hearts the resolution expressed in one of Blake's verses?

I will not cease from mental fight, Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand, Till we have built Jerusalem In England's green and pleasant land.

Jerusalem, of course, means heaven. The Lord's Prayer says, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

You had better learn by heart this verse written {19} by William Blake, for you will often want to remember it, and to help to build Jerusalem in your own country, wherever that country is.

Charles Dickens has other claims to greatness, but surely none so compelling as the fact that the spirit of his novels is the aspiring, tender, loving spirit of humanity.

It is interesting to know the names of the special reforms for which Dickens worked. These were to change the customs of the law courts so that there should be less delay and greater simplicity in securing redress for hardship, and to improve the character of the men appointed to the bench; to change the Poor Laws, and especially to improve their administration; to change and improve greatly the schools which existed at that time; and to bring about a reformation in the administration of prisons. Finally, he wished to have the nation provide common means of decency and health in the dwellings of the poor, so that fever and consumption should not forever be let loose on God's creatures. These are almost Dickens' own words. All these conditions have been so vastly improved that we who are living to-day can hardly realize how much we have for which to be thankful. But there are still in the world wrongs to right and conditions to improve.

Dickens was a great novelist, but he was not a perfect novelist. It is easy to find defects in the books that he wrote, defects of style, faults in the plans of his novels and in the delineation of his characters. But in spite of these defects, his novels are great novels. It is possible that Dickens' characters are more true to life than we have {20} thought they were. He may be one of the greatest delineators of English character in the history of literature. Can you not imagine Sam Weller, and Mark Tapley, yes, and Tom Pinch, and Ham Peggotty, Tupman, Winkle and Snodgrass, fighting in the trenches in France and Flanders, with bravery, jokes and indomitable perseverance, while Boffin, Mr. Pickwick, Miss Betsey Trotwood and Susan Nipper are busy with work at home? One of the best ways, and certainly one of the most delightful ways, to study the character and the genius of the people of England is to read the novels of Charles Dickens.

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