In gauging fathomless deeps with his little mean excise rod, and in staggering over the universe with his rusty stiff-legged compasses, he had meant to do great things. Within the limits of his short tether he had tumbled about, annihilating the flowers of existence with greater singleness of purpose than many of the blatant personages whose company he kept.
In gauging fathomless deeps with his little mean excise rod, and in staggering over the universe with his rusty stiff-legged compasses, he had meant to do great things. Within the limits of his short tether he had tumbled about, annihilating the flowers of existence with greater singleness of purpose than many of the blatant personages whose company he kept.
A careful study of what Louisa said to her father will show that Dickens had made a profound study of Froebel’s philosophy of the feelings and the imagination which is now the dominating theory of psychology, and that he clearly understood what Wordsworth meant when he wrote:
“Whose heart the holy forms of young imagination had kept pure.”
Sissy Jupe failed utterly to satisfy Mr. M’Choakumchild at school. She could not remember facts and dates. She could not be crammed successfully, and she had a very dense head for figures. “She actually burst into tears when required (by the mental process) to name immediately the cost of two hundred and forty-seven muslin caps at fourteen pence halfpenny,” so Mr. Gradgrind told her she would have to leave school.
“I can not disguise from you, Jupe,” said Mr. Gradgrind, knitting his brow, “that the result of your probationthere has disappointed me—has greatly disappointed me. You have not acquired, under Mr. and Mrs. M’Choakumchild, anything like that amount of exact knowledge which I look for. You are extremely deficient in your facts. Your acquaintance with figures is very limited. You are altogether backward, and below the mark.”“I am sorry, sir,” she returned; “but I know it is quite true. Yet I have tried hard, sir.”“Yes,” said Mr. Gradgrind, “yes, I believe you have tried hard; I have observed you, and I can find no fault in that respect.”“Thank you, sir. I have thought sometimes”—Sissy very timid here—“that perhaps I tried to learn too much, and that if I had asked to be allowed to try a little less, I might have——”“No, Jupe, no,” said Mr. Gradgrind, shaking his head in his profoundest and most eminently practical way. “No. The course you pursued, you pursued according to the system—the system—and there is no more to be said about it. I can only suppose that the circumstances of your early life were too unfavourable to the development of your reasoning powers, and that we began too late. Still, as I have said already, I am disappointed.”“I wish I could have made a better acknowledgment, sir, of your kindness to a poor forlorn girl who had no claim upon you, and of your protection of her.”“Don’t shed tears,” said Mr. Gradgrind. “Don’t shed tears. I don’t complain of you. You are an affectionate, earnest, good young woman, and—and we must make that do.”
“I can not disguise from you, Jupe,” said Mr. Gradgrind, knitting his brow, “that the result of your probationthere has disappointed me—has greatly disappointed me. You have not acquired, under Mr. and Mrs. M’Choakumchild, anything like that amount of exact knowledge which I look for. You are extremely deficient in your facts. Your acquaintance with figures is very limited. You are altogether backward, and below the mark.”
“I am sorry, sir,” she returned; “but I know it is quite true. Yet I have tried hard, sir.”
“Yes,” said Mr. Gradgrind, “yes, I believe you have tried hard; I have observed you, and I can find no fault in that respect.”
“Thank you, sir. I have thought sometimes”—Sissy very timid here—“that perhaps I tried to learn too much, and that if I had asked to be allowed to try a little less, I might have——”
“No, Jupe, no,” said Mr. Gradgrind, shaking his head in his profoundest and most eminently practical way. “No. The course you pursued, you pursued according to the system—the system—and there is no more to be said about it. I can only suppose that the circumstances of your early life were too unfavourable to the development of your reasoning powers, and that we began too late. Still, as I have said already, I am disappointed.”
“I wish I could have made a better acknowledgment, sir, of your kindness to a poor forlorn girl who had no claim upon you, and of your protection of her.”
“Don’t shed tears,” said Mr. Gradgrind. “Don’t shed tears. I don’t complain of you. You are an affectionate, earnest, good young woman, and—and we must make that do.”
How blind a man must become when his faith in a system or a philosophy can make him estimate fact storing so much and character forming so little! Sissy could not learn facts, therefore Mr. Gradgrind mourned. The fact that she was “affectionate, earnest, good,” was only a trifling matter—a very poor substitute for brilliant acquirements in dates and facts and mental arithmetic.
Sissy became, however, the good angel of the Gradgrind household. She helped Louisa back to a partial hope and sweetness; she gave the younger children, with Mr. Gradgrind’s permission, the real childhood of freedom and imagination, which the older children had lostforever; she brightened the lives even of Mrs. and Mr. Gradgrind, and she helped to save Tom from the disgrace of his crime.
The closing picture of the book, one of the most beautiful Dickens ever painted, tells the story of Sissy’s future:
But happy Sissy’s happy children loving her; all children loving her; she, grown learned in childish lore; thinking no innocent and pretty fancy ever to be despised; trying hard to know her humbler fellow-creatures, and to beautify their lives of machinery and reality with those imaginative graces and delights, without which the heart of infancy will wither up, the sturdiest physical manhood will be morally stark death, and the plainest national prosperity figures can show will be the Writing on the Wall—she holding this course as part of no fantastic vow, or bond, or brotherhood, or sisterhood, or pledge, or covenant, or fancy dress, or fancy fair; but simply as a duty to be done. Did Louisa see these things of herself? These things were to be!Dear reader! It rests with you and me whether, in our two fields of action, similar things shall be or not. Let them be! We shall sit with lighter bosoms on the hearth, to see the ashes of our fires turn gray and cold.
But happy Sissy’s happy children loving her; all children loving her; she, grown learned in childish lore; thinking no innocent and pretty fancy ever to be despised; trying hard to know her humbler fellow-creatures, and to beautify their lives of machinery and reality with those imaginative graces and delights, without which the heart of infancy will wither up, the sturdiest physical manhood will be morally stark death, and the plainest national prosperity figures can show will be the Writing on the Wall—she holding this course as part of no fantastic vow, or bond, or brotherhood, or sisterhood, or pledge, or covenant, or fancy dress, or fancy fair; but simply as a duty to be done. Did Louisa see these things of herself? These things were to be!
Dear reader! It rests with you and me whether, in our two fields of action, similar things shall be or not. Let them be! We shall sit with lighter bosoms on the hearth, to see the ashes of our fires turn gray and cold.
And the educational Gradgrinds of the present time sneer at Dickens because he puts the early training of a circus above the early training of a Christian home like Mr. Gradgrind’s. “The logical consequence of such reasoning,” they say, “would be that all children should be trained in circuses.”
Oh, no! Dickens did not recommend a circus as a good place to train children. But he did believe that even a circus is a thousand times better than a so-called Christian home for the true and complete development of a child, if in the circus the child is free and happy, and is allowed full play for her imagination, and is not arrested in her development by rote storing of facts and too early drill in arithmetic, and has the rich productive love of even one parent, and has blessed opportunities for loving service for her pets and her friends; and if in the so-called Christian home she is robbed of these privileges even in the name of religion.
Sissy had a blessed, free childhood. She lived in her own imaginary world most of the time; she had the deep love of her kind-hearted father and of Merrylegs, the dog; she read poetry and fairy tales; she attended to her father’s needs; she had many opportunities to show her love in loving service for Merrylegs and her father; and she was not dwarfed by fact cramming and formal drill. Her chances of reaching a true womanhood were excellent, and when she got the opportunity for the revelation of character, she had character to reveal, and her character developed in its revelation for the benefit and happiness of others. Hers was the true Christian training after all. Homes and schools with such training are centres of great power.
One of the strongest pleas ever made for the cultivation of the imagination, “the fancies and affections,” and for the teaching of literature, art, and music in the schools was given in Hard Times, which is an industrial as well as an educational story. Indeed, Dickens saw that the true solution of industrial questions was the proper training of the race. No attack on the meanness of utilitarianism and no exposition of its terrible dangers could be more incisive and philosophical than the following wonderful sentences:
Utilitarian economists, skeletons of schoolmasters, commissioners of fact, genteel and used-up infidels, gabblers of many little dog’s-eared creeds, the poor you will have always with you. Cultivate in them, while there is yet time, the utmost graces of the fancies and affections, to adorn their lives so much in need of ornament; or, in the moment of your triumph, when romance is utterly driven out of their souls, and they and a bare existence stand face to face, Reality will take a wolfish turn, and make an end of you!
Utilitarian economists, skeletons of schoolmasters, commissioners of fact, genteel and used-up infidels, gabblers of many little dog’s-eared creeds, the poor you will have always with you. Cultivate in them, while there is yet time, the utmost graces of the fancies and affections, to adorn their lives so much in need of ornament; or, in the moment of your triumph, when romance is utterly driven out of their souls, and they and a bare existence stand face to face, Reality will take a wolfish turn, and make an end of you!
Altogether Hard Times is one of the most remarkable educational books ever written.
Dickens made a plea for mental refreshment and recreation for the working classes in Nobody’s Story, similar to that made in Hard Times:
The workingman appealed to the Bigwig family, and said: “We are a labouring people, and I have a glimmeringsuspicion in me that labouring people of whatever condition were made—by a higher intelligence than yours, as I poorly understand it—to be in need of mental refreshment and recreation. See what we fall into, when we rest without it. Come! Amuse me harmlessly, show me something, give me an escape!”
The workingman appealed to the Bigwig family, and said: “We are a labouring people, and I have a glimmeringsuspicion in me that labouring people of whatever condition were made—by a higher intelligence than yours, as I poorly understand it—to be in need of mental refreshment and recreation. See what we fall into, when we rest without it. Come! Amuse me harmlessly, show me something, give me an escape!”
Beautiful Lizzie Hexam, one of the latest and highest creations of Dickens, longed to read, but she did not learn to do so because her father objected so bitterly, and she wished to avoid everything that would weaken the bond of love between them, lest she might lose her influence for good over him.
Her brother Charley said to her:
“You said you couldn’t read a book, Lizzie. Your library of books is the hollow down by the flare, I think.”“I should be very glad to be able to read real books. I feel my want of learning very much, Charley. But I should feel it much more, if I didn’t know it to be a tie between me and father.”
“You said you couldn’t read a book, Lizzie. Your library of books is the hollow down by the flare, I think.”
“I should be very glad to be able to read real books. I feel my want of learning very much, Charley. But I should feel it much more, if I didn’t know it to be a tie between me and father.”
Dickens was revealing the strange fact that at first many poor and ignorant parents strenuously objected to their children being educated; and he was at the same time showing that great character growth could take place even without the power to read. Lizzie’s self-sacrifice for her father and Charley was a true revelation of the divinity in her nature. Though she had not read books, she had read a great deal by her imagination from “the hollow down by the flare.”
As Dickens grew older he saw more clearly the value of the dreaming of childhood while awake, of the deep reveries into which young people often fall, and ought to fall, so that they become oblivious to their environment, and sweep through the universe in strange imaginings, that after all are very real. He was fond of drawing pictures of young people giving free rein to their imaginations, unchecked by intermeddling adulthood, while they watched the glowing fire, or the ashes falling away from the dying coals. Lizzie’s library from which she got her culture was in “the hollow down by the flare.”
Crippled little Jenny Wren, the doll’s dressmaker, said to Lizzie Hexam one day, when Eugene Wrayburn was visiting them:
“I wonder how it happens that when I am work, work, working here, all alone in the summer time, I smell flowers.”“As a commonplace individual, I should say,” Eugene suggested languidly—for he was growing weary of the person of the house—“that you smell flowers because youdosmell flowers.”“No, I don’t,” said the little creature, resting one arm upon the elbow of her chair, resting her chin upon that hand, and looking vacantly before her; “this is not a flowery neighbourhood. It’s anything but that. And yet, as I sit at work, I smell miles of flowers. I smell roses till I think I see the rose leaves lying in heaps, bushels, on the floor. I smell fallen leaves till I put down my hand—so—and expect to make them rustle. I smell the white and the pink May in the hedges, and all sorts of flowers that I never was among. For I have seen very few flowers indeed in my life.”“Pleasant fancies to have, Jennie dear!” said her friend, with a glance toward Eugene as if she would have asked him whether they were given the child in compensation for her losses.“So I think, Lizzie, when they come to me. And the birds I hear! Oh!” cried the little creature, holding out her hand and looking upward, “how they sing!”
“I wonder how it happens that when I am work, work, working here, all alone in the summer time, I smell flowers.”
“As a commonplace individual, I should say,” Eugene suggested languidly—for he was growing weary of the person of the house—“that you smell flowers because youdosmell flowers.”
“No, I don’t,” said the little creature, resting one arm upon the elbow of her chair, resting her chin upon that hand, and looking vacantly before her; “this is not a flowery neighbourhood. It’s anything but that. And yet, as I sit at work, I smell miles of flowers. I smell roses till I think I see the rose leaves lying in heaps, bushels, on the floor. I smell fallen leaves till I put down my hand—so—and expect to make them rustle. I smell the white and the pink May in the hedges, and all sorts of flowers that I never was among. For I have seen very few flowers indeed in my life.”
“Pleasant fancies to have, Jennie dear!” said her friend, with a glance toward Eugene as if she would have asked him whether they were given the child in compensation for her losses.
“So I think, Lizzie, when they come to me. And the birds I hear! Oh!” cried the little creature, holding out her hand and looking upward, “how they sing!”
How life in any stage might be filled with richness and joy, if imaginations were stored with apperceptive elements and allowed to reconstruct the universe in our fancies! How truly real our fancies might become!
In A Child’s Dream of a Star Dickens gives an exquisite picture of the influence of imagination in spiritual evolution.
There was once a child, and he strolled about a good deal, and thought of a number of things. He had a sister, who was a child too, and his constant companion. These two used to wonder all day long. They wondered at the beauty of the flowers; they wondered at the height and blueness of the sky; they wondered at the depth of thebright water; they wondered at the goodness and the power of God who made the lovely world.They used to say to one another, sometimes, Supposing all the children upon earth were to die, would the flowers, and the water, and the sky be sorry? They believed they would be sorry. For, said they, the buds are the children of the flowers, and the little playful streams that gambol down the hillsides are the children of the water; and the smallest bright specks playing at hide and seek in the sky all night, must surely be the children of the stars; and they would all be grieved to see their playmates, the children of men, no more.There was one clear shining star that used to come out in the sky before the rest, near the church spire, above the graves. It was larger and more beautiful, they thought, than all the others, and every night they watched for it, standing hand in hand at a window. Whoever saw it first cried out, “I see the star!” And often they cried out both together, knowing so well when it would rise, and where. So they grew to be such friends with it, that, before lying down in their beds, they always looked out once again to bid it good night; and when they were turning round to sleep they used to say, “God bless the star!”But while she was still very young, oh very, very young, the sister drooped, and came to be so very weak that she could no longer stand in the window at night; and then the child looked sadly out by himself, and when he saw the star, turned round and said to the patient pale face on the bed, “I see the star!” and then a smile would come upon the face, and a little weak voice used to say, “God bless my brother and the star!”
There was once a child, and he strolled about a good deal, and thought of a number of things. He had a sister, who was a child too, and his constant companion. These two used to wonder all day long. They wondered at the beauty of the flowers; they wondered at the height and blueness of the sky; they wondered at the depth of thebright water; they wondered at the goodness and the power of God who made the lovely world.
They used to say to one another, sometimes, Supposing all the children upon earth were to die, would the flowers, and the water, and the sky be sorry? They believed they would be sorry. For, said they, the buds are the children of the flowers, and the little playful streams that gambol down the hillsides are the children of the water; and the smallest bright specks playing at hide and seek in the sky all night, must surely be the children of the stars; and they would all be grieved to see their playmates, the children of men, no more.
There was one clear shining star that used to come out in the sky before the rest, near the church spire, above the graves. It was larger and more beautiful, they thought, than all the others, and every night they watched for it, standing hand in hand at a window. Whoever saw it first cried out, “I see the star!” And often they cried out both together, knowing so well when it would rise, and where. So they grew to be such friends with it, that, before lying down in their beds, they always looked out once again to bid it good night; and when they were turning round to sleep they used to say, “God bless the star!”
But while she was still very young, oh very, very young, the sister drooped, and came to be so very weak that she could no longer stand in the window at night; and then the child looked sadly out by himself, and when he saw the star, turned round and said to the patient pale face on the bed, “I see the star!” and then a smile would come upon the face, and a little weak voice used to say, “God bless my brother and the star!”
Dickens had shown his recognition of the inestimable value of the imagination, and the importance of giving it free play and of doing everything possible to stimulate its activity by freedom, and story, and play, and literature, music, and art, but his description of Jemmy Jackman Lirriper’s training shows a keener appreciation than any of his other writings of the value of the child’s games in which personation is the leading characteristic; in which spools, or spoons, or blocks, or sticks are people or animals, with regular names and distinct characteristics and responsible duties, and in which chairs and tables andboxes are coaches, or steamboats, or railway trains. No friends are ever more real than those of the child’s creative imagination, with things to represent them; no rides ever give greater delight than those rides in trains that move only in the imaginations of the children, who construct them by placing the chairs in a row, and who act as engineers, conductors, and brakemen. Such games form the best elements out of which the child’s life power can be made, especially if the adulthood of his home sympathizes with him in his enterprises. They afford an outlet for his imaginative plans. In them he forms new worlds of his own, which are adapted to his stage of development, and in which he can be the creator and the centre of executive influence.
Jemmy Jackman Lirriper’s training was ideal in most of his home life, though he had no father or mother to love and guide him.
The miles and miles that me and the Major have travelled with Jemmy in the dusk between the lights are not to be calculated, Jemmy driving on the coach box, which is the Major’s brass-bound writing desk on the table, me inside in the easy-chair, and the Major Guard up behind with a brown-paper horn doing it really wonderful. I do assure you, my dear, that sometimes when I have taken a few winks in my place inside the coach and have come half awake by the flashing light of the fire and have heard that precious pet driving and the Major blowing up behind to have the change of horses ready when we got to the Inn, I have believed we were on the old North Road that my poor Lirriper knew so well. Then to see that child and the Major both wrapped up getting down to warm their feet and going stamping about and having glasses of ale out of the paper match boxes on the chimney piece, is to see the Major enjoying it fully as much as the child I am very sure, and it’s equal to any play when Coachee opens the coach door to look in at me inside and say “Wery ‘past that ’tage.—’Prightened old lady?”
The miles and miles that me and the Major have travelled with Jemmy in the dusk between the lights are not to be calculated, Jemmy driving on the coach box, which is the Major’s brass-bound writing desk on the table, me inside in the easy-chair, and the Major Guard up behind with a brown-paper horn doing it really wonderful. I do assure you, my dear, that sometimes when I have taken a few winks in my place inside the coach and have come half awake by the flashing light of the fire and have heard that precious pet driving and the Major blowing up behind to have the change of horses ready when we got to the Inn, I have believed we were on the old North Road that my poor Lirriper knew so well. Then to see that child and the Major both wrapped up getting down to warm their feet and going stamping about and having glasses of ale out of the paper match boxes on the chimney piece, is to see the Major enjoying it fully as much as the child I am very sure, and it’s equal to any play when Coachee opens the coach door to look in at me inside and say “Wery ‘past that ’tage.—’Prightened old lady?”
Such plays as Dickens here describes make one of the greatest differences between a real childhood and a barren childhood. The lack of opportunities for such perfect plays and such complete sympathy in their plays gives tothe faces of orphan children brought up in institutions the distinctive look which marks them everywhere, so that they can be easily recognised by experienced students of happy childhood.
But Jemmy’s make believe was not ruthlessly cut short with his early childhood. He continued his imaginative operations, or it might make it clearer to say his operative imaginations, after he went to school; and those beautiful old people, Mrs. Lirriper and Major Jackman, continued their interest, their real, perfectly sympathetic interest in his plans.
Neither should I tell you any news, my dear, in telling you that the Major is still a fixture in the Parlours quite as much so as the roof of the house, and that Jemmy is of boys the best and brightest, and has ever had kept from him the cruel story of his poor pretty young mother, Mrs. Edson, being deserted in the second floor and dying in my arms, fully believing that I am his born Gran and him an orphan; though what with engineering since he took a taste for it, and him and the Major making Locomotives out of parasols, broken iron pots, and cotton reels, and them absolutely a-getting off the line and falling over the table and injuring the passengers almost equal to the originals, it really is quite wonderful. And when I says to the Major, “Major, can’t you byanymeans give us a communication with the guard?” the Major says, quite huffy, “No, madam, it’s not to be done”; and when I says, “Why not?” the Major says, “That is between us who are in the Railway Interest, madam, and our friend, the Right Honourable Vice-President of the Board of Trade”; and if you’ll believe me, my dear, the Major wrote to Jemmy at School to consult him on the answer I should have before I could get even that amount of unsatisfactoriness out of the man, the reason being that when we first began with the little model and the working signals beautiful and perfect (being in general as wrong as the real), and when I says, laughing, “What appointment am I to hold in this undertaking, gentlemen?” Jemmy hugs me round the neck and tells me, dancing, “You shall be the Public, Gran,” and consequently they put upon me just as much as ever they like, and I sit a-growling in my easy-chair.My dear, whether it is that a grown man as clever asthe Major can not give half his heart and mind to anything—even a plaything—but must get into right down earnest with it, whether it is so or whether it is not so, I do not undertake to say; but Jemmy is far outdone by the serious and believing ways of the Major in the management of the United Grand Junction Lirriper and Jackman Great Norfolk Parlour Line, “for,” says my Jemmy with the sparkling eyes when it was christened, “we must have a whole mouthful of name, Gran, or our dear old Public”—and there the young rogue kissed me—“won’t stump up.” So the Public took the shares—ten at ninepence, and immediately when that was spent twelve Preference at one and sixpence—and they were all signed by Jemmy and countersigned by the Major, and between ourselves much better worth the money than some shares I have paid for in my time. In the same holidays the line was made and worked and opened and ran excursions and collisions and had burst its boilers and all sorts of accidents and offences all most regular, correct, and pretty. The sense of responsibility entertained by the Major as a military style of station master, my dear, starting the down train behind time and ringing one of those little bells that you buy with the little coal scuttles off the tray round the man’s neck in the street, did him honour; but noticing the Major of a night when he is writing out his monthly report to Jemmy at school of the state of the Rolling Stock and the Permanent Way, and all the rest of it (the whole kept upon the Major’s sideboard and dusted with his own hands every morning before varnishing his boots), I notice him as full of thought and care, as full can be, and frowning in a fearful manner; but, indeed, the Major does nothing by halves, as witness his great delight in going out surveying with Jemmy when he has Jemmy to go with, carrying a chain and a measuring tape, and driving I don’t know what improvements right through Westminster Abbey, and fully believed in the streets to be knocking everything upside down by Act of Parliament. As please Heaven will come to pass when Jemmy takes to that as a profession!
Neither should I tell you any news, my dear, in telling you that the Major is still a fixture in the Parlours quite as much so as the roof of the house, and that Jemmy is of boys the best and brightest, and has ever had kept from him the cruel story of his poor pretty young mother, Mrs. Edson, being deserted in the second floor and dying in my arms, fully believing that I am his born Gran and him an orphan; though what with engineering since he took a taste for it, and him and the Major making Locomotives out of parasols, broken iron pots, and cotton reels, and them absolutely a-getting off the line and falling over the table and injuring the passengers almost equal to the originals, it really is quite wonderful. And when I says to the Major, “Major, can’t you byanymeans give us a communication with the guard?” the Major says, quite huffy, “No, madam, it’s not to be done”; and when I says, “Why not?” the Major says, “That is between us who are in the Railway Interest, madam, and our friend, the Right Honourable Vice-President of the Board of Trade”; and if you’ll believe me, my dear, the Major wrote to Jemmy at School to consult him on the answer I should have before I could get even that amount of unsatisfactoriness out of the man, the reason being that when we first began with the little model and the working signals beautiful and perfect (being in general as wrong as the real), and when I says, laughing, “What appointment am I to hold in this undertaking, gentlemen?” Jemmy hugs me round the neck and tells me, dancing, “You shall be the Public, Gran,” and consequently they put upon me just as much as ever they like, and I sit a-growling in my easy-chair.
My dear, whether it is that a grown man as clever asthe Major can not give half his heart and mind to anything—even a plaything—but must get into right down earnest with it, whether it is so or whether it is not so, I do not undertake to say; but Jemmy is far outdone by the serious and believing ways of the Major in the management of the United Grand Junction Lirriper and Jackman Great Norfolk Parlour Line, “for,” says my Jemmy with the sparkling eyes when it was christened, “we must have a whole mouthful of name, Gran, or our dear old Public”—and there the young rogue kissed me—“won’t stump up.” So the Public took the shares—ten at ninepence, and immediately when that was spent twelve Preference at one and sixpence—and they were all signed by Jemmy and countersigned by the Major, and between ourselves much better worth the money than some shares I have paid for in my time. In the same holidays the line was made and worked and opened and ran excursions and collisions and had burst its boilers and all sorts of accidents and offences all most regular, correct, and pretty. The sense of responsibility entertained by the Major as a military style of station master, my dear, starting the down train behind time and ringing one of those little bells that you buy with the little coal scuttles off the tray round the man’s neck in the street, did him honour; but noticing the Major of a night when he is writing out his monthly report to Jemmy at school of the state of the Rolling Stock and the Permanent Way, and all the rest of it (the whole kept upon the Major’s sideboard and dusted with his own hands every morning before varnishing his boots), I notice him as full of thought and care, as full can be, and frowning in a fearful manner; but, indeed, the Major does nothing by halves, as witness his great delight in going out surveying with Jemmy when he has Jemmy to go with, carrying a chain and a measuring tape, and driving I don’t know what improvements right through Westminster Abbey, and fully believed in the streets to be knocking everything upside down by Act of Parliament. As please Heaven will come to pass when Jemmy takes to that as a profession!
The Major’s participation in the plans of Jemmy is a good illustration of the sympathy that Froebel and Dickens felt for childhood, a sympathywith, notfor, the child. It meant more than approval—it meant co-operation, partnership.
Some educators would criticise Dickens for allowing the Major to make the locomotives with parasols, broken pots, and cotton reels. They teach that Jemmy should have made these himself. Dickens was away beyond such a narrow view as this. The child at first has much more power to plan than to execute. To leave him to himself means the failure of his plans and the irritation of his temper. It is a terrible experience for a child to get the habit of failure. The wise adult will enter into partnership with the child to aid in carrying out the child’s plans. He will not even make suggestions of changes in plans when he sees how they might be improved. The plans and the leadership should be absolutely the child’s own. The adult should be an assistant, and that only, when skill is required beyond that possessed by the child—either when the mechanical work is too difficult for the child or when more than one person is needed to execute his plan.
The adult may sometimes lead the child indirectly to a change of plan, but he should not do it by direct suggestion. The joy is lost for the child when he becomes conscious of the adult as interfering even sympathetically with his own personality. There is a great deal of well-intentioned dwarfing of childhood.
The consciousness of partnership, of unity, of sympathetic co-operation, is the best result of such blessed work as the Major did with Jemmy in carrying out Jemmy’s plans. He is the child’s best friend who most wisely and most thoroughly develops his imagination as a basis for all intellectual strength and clearness, and for the highest spiritual growth. He is the wealthiest man who sees diamonds in the dewdrops and unsullied gold in the sunset tints.
David Copperfield tells the names of the wonderful books he found in his father’s blessed little room, and describes their influence upon his life.
They kept alive my fancy and my hope of something beyond that place and time—they and the Arabian Nights and the Tales of the Genii. It is curious to me how I could ever have consoled myself under my small troubles (which were great troubles to me) by impersonating myfavourite characters in them, as I did, and by putting Mr. and Miss Murdstone into all the bad ones, which I did, too. I have been Tom Jones—a child’s Tom Jones, a harmless creature—for a week together. I have sustained my own idea of Roderick Random for a month at a stretch, I verily believe.“Let us end with the Boy’s story,” said Mrs. Lirriper, “for the Boy’s story is the best that is ever told.”
They kept alive my fancy and my hope of something beyond that place and time—they and the Arabian Nights and the Tales of the Genii. It is curious to me how I could ever have consoled myself under my small troubles (which were great troubles to me) by impersonating myfavourite characters in them, as I did, and by putting Mr. and Miss Murdstone into all the bad ones, which I did, too. I have been Tom Jones—a child’s Tom Jones, a harmless creature—for a week together. I have sustained my own idea of Roderick Random for a month at a stretch, I verily believe.
“Let us end with the Boy’s story,” said Mrs. Lirriper, “for the Boy’s story is the best that is ever told.”
There are no other stories so enchanting, or so stimulating, as the stories that fill the imaginations of childhood.
SYMPATHY WITH CHILDHOOD.
The dominant element in Dickens’s character was sympathywithchildhood, not merely for it. He had the productive sympathy that feels and thinks from the child’s standpoint.
The illustration just given of Major Jackman’s co-operative sympathy with Jemmy Lirriper in the perfect carrying out of what to most people would have been only “the foolish ideas” of a child, as sincerely as if he had been executing commissions from the prime minister, is an excellent exemplification of the true ideal of sympathy in practice. The Major was not working for Jemmy’s amusement merely; he was a very active and genuinely interested partner with Jemmy. “Jemmy was far outdone by the serious and believing ways of the Major” in the imaginative plays which were the most real life of Jemmy. Such was the sympathy of Dickens with his own children; such sympathy he believed to be the most productive power in the teacher or child trainer for beneficent influence on the character of the child.
There is no other characteristic of his writings so marked as his broad sympathy with childhood. Sympathy was the origin of all he wrote against coercion in all its dread forms, of all he wrote about robbing children of a real childhood, about the dwarfing of individuality, about the strangling of the imagination, about improper nutrition, about all forms of neglect, and cruelty, and bad training. The more fully his nature is known the more deeply he is loved, because of his great love for the child.
From the beginning of his educational work his overflowing, practical sympathy is revealed.
He tells us in the preface to Nickleby that his study of the Yorkshire schools and his delineation of the character of Squeers resulted from a resolution formed in childhood, which he was led to form by seeing a boy “with a suppurated abscess caused by its being ripped open by his Yorkshire guide, philosopher, and friend with an inky penknife.”
The sympathy of Nicholas, and John Browdie, and the Cheeryble brothers with Smike and all suffering childhood are strong features of the book.
Dickens’s own sympathy has cleared his mind of many fogs that still linger in some minds regarding a parent’s rights in regard to his child, even though the parent has never recognised any of the child’s rights. The movement in favour of the recognition of the rights of children even against their parents began with Dickens. When Nicholas discovered that Smike was the son of his uncle, Ralph Nickleby, he went to consult brother Charles Cheeryble in regard to his duty under the circumstances.
He modestly, but firmly, expressed his hope that the good old gentleman would, under such circumstances as he described, hold him justified in adopting the extreme course of interfering between parent and child, and upholding the latter in his disobedience; even though his horror and dread of his father might seem, and would doubtless be represented, as a thing so repulsive and unnatural as to render those who countenanced him in it fit objects of general detestation and abhorrence.“So deeply rooted does this horror of the man appear to be,” said Nicholas, “that I can hardly believe he really is his son. Nature does not seem to have implanted in his breast one lingering feeling of affection for him, and surely she can never err.”“My dear sir,” replied brother Charles, “you fall into the very common mistake of charging upon Nature matters with which she has not had the smallest connection, and for which she is in no way responsible. Men talk of Nature as an abstract thing, and lose sight of what is natural while they do so. Here is a poor lad who has never felt a parent’s care, who has scarcely known anything all his life but suffering and sorrow, presented to a man who he is told is his father, and whose first act isto signify his intention of putting an end to his short term of happiness by consigning him to his old fate, and taking him from the only friend he has ever had—which is yourself. If Nature, in such a case, put into that lad’s breast but one secret prompting which urged him toward his father and away from you, she would be a liar and an idiot.”Nicholas was delighted to find that the old gentleman spoke so warmly, and in the hope that he might say something more to the same purpose, made no reply.“The same mistake presents itself to me, in one shape or other, at every turn,” said brother Charles. “Parents who never showed their love complain of want of natural affection in their children; children who never showed their duty complain of want of natural feeling in their parents; lawmakers who find both so miserable that their affections have never had enough of life’s sun to develop them are loud in their moralizings over parents and children too, and cry that the very ties of Nature are disregarded. Natural affections and instincts, my dear sir, are the most beautiful of the Almighty’s works, but, like other beautiful works of his, they must be reared and fostered, or it is as natural that they should be wholly obscured, and that new feelings should usurp their place, as it is that the sweetest productions of the earth, left untended, should be choked with weeds and briers. I wish we could be brought to consider this, and, remembering natural obligations a little more at the right time, talk about them a little less at the wrong one.”
He modestly, but firmly, expressed his hope that the good old gentleman would, under such circumstances as he described, hold him justified in adopting the extreme course of interfering between parent and child, and upholding the latter in his disobedience; even though his horror and dread of his father might seem, and would doubtless be represented, as a thing so repulsive and unnatural as to render those who countenanced him in it fit objects of general detestation and abhorrence.
“So deeply rooted does this horror of the man appear to be,” said Nicholas, “that I can hardly believe he really is his son. Nature does not seem to have implanted in his breast one lingering feeling of affection for him, and surely she can never err.”
“My dear sir,” replied brother Charles, “you fall into the very common mistake of charging upon Nature matters with which she has not had the smallest connection, and for which she is in no way responsible. Men talk of Nature as an abstract thing, and lose sight of what is natural while they do so. Here is a poor lad who has never felt a parent’s care, who has scarcely known anything all his life but suffering and sorrow, presented to a man who he is told is his father, and whose first act isto signify his intention of putting an end to his short term of happiness by consigning him to his old fate, and taking him from the only friend he has ever had—which is yourself. If Nature, in such a case, put into that lad’s breast but one secret prompting which urged him toward his father and away from you, she would be a liar and an idiot.”
Nicholas was delighted to find that the old gentleman spoke so warmly, and in the hope that he might say something more to the same purpose, made no reply.
“The same mistake presents itself to me, in one shape or other, at every turn,” said brother Charles. “Parents who never showed their love complain of want of natural affection in their children; children who never showed their duty complain of want of natural feeling in their parents; lawmakers who find both so miserable that their affections have never had enough of life’s sun to develop them are loud in their moralizings over parents and children too, and cry that the very ties of Nature are disregarded. Natural affections and instincts, my dear sir, are the most beautiful of the Almighty’s works, but, like other beautiful works of his, they must be reared and fostered, or it is as natural that they should be wholly obscured, and that new feelings should usurp their place, as it is that the sweetest productions of the earth, left untended, should be choked with weeds and briers. I wish we could be brought to consider this, and, remembering natural obligations a little more at the right time, talk about them a little less at the wrong one.”
It was chiefly to break the power of ignorant and cruel parenthood over suffering childhood that Ralph Nickleby was painted with such dark and repellent characteristics, and that poor Smike’s sufferings were detailed with such minuteness. The sympathy of the world was aroused against the one and in favour of the other, as a basis for the climax of thought which brother Charles expressed so truly and so forcefully.
The same thought was driven home by the complaint of Squeers about one of the boys in Dotheboys Hall.
“The juniorest Palmer said he wished he was in heaven. I really don’t know, I donotknow what’s to be done with that young fellow; he’s always a-wishingsomething horrid. He said once he wished he was a donkey, because then he wouldn’t have a father as didn’t love him! Pretty wicious that for a child of six!”
“The juniorest Palmer said he wished he was in heaven. I really don’t know, I donotknow what’s to be done with that young fellow; he’s always a-wishingsomething horrid. He said once he wished he was a donkey, because then he wouldn’t have a father as didn’t love him! Pretty wicious that for a child of six!”
It required the genius of Dickens to make such a clear picture of an unloving father.
Even before Nicholas Nickleby was written Dickens had revealed his sympathetic nature. Oliver Twist’s story was written to stir the hearts of his readers in favour of unfortunate children. What a contrast is made between the hardening effects of his treatment by Bumble and the “gentleman in the white waistcoat,” and the humanizing influence of Rose Maylie’s tear dropped on his cheek.
Surely no sensitive little boy ever submitted to more unsympathetic treatment than poor Oliver.
When little Oliver was taken before “the gentlemen” that evening, and informed that he was to go that night as general house lad to a coffin maker’s, and that if he complained of his situation, or ever came back to the parish again, he would be sent to sea, there to be drowned or knocked on the head, as the case might be, he evinced so little emotion that they by common consent pronounced him a hardened young rascal, and ordered Mr. Bumble to remove him forthwith.For some time Mr. Bumble drew Oliver along, without notice or remark; for the beadle carried his head very erect, as a beadle always should; and, it being a windy day, little Oliver was completely enshrouded by the skirts of Mr. Bumble’s coat as they blew open and disclosed to great advantage his flapped waistcoat and drab plush knee breeches. As they drew near to their destination, however, Mr. Bumble thought it expedient to look down and see that the boy was in good order for inspection by his new master: which he accordingly did, with a fit and becoming air of gracious patronage.“Oliver!” said Mr. Bumble.“Yes, sir,” replied Oliver in a low, tremulous voice.“Pull that cap off your eyes, and hold up your head, sir.”Although Oliver did as he was desired at once, and passed the back of his unoccupied hand briskly across his eyes, he left a tear in them when he looked up at his conductor. As Mr. Bumble gazed sternly upon him, it rolleddown his cheek. It was followed by another, and another. The child made a strong effort, but it was an unsuccessful one. Withdrawing his other hand from Mr. Bumble’s, he covered his face with both, and wept until the tears sprung out from between his chin and bony fingers.“Well!” exclaimed Mr. Bumble, stopping short, and darting at his little charge a look of intense malignity. “Well! Ofallthe ungratefullest and worst-disposed boys as ever I see, Oliver, you are the——”“No, no, sir,” sobbed Oliver, clinging to the hand which held the well-known cane; “no, no, sir; I will be good indeed; indeed, indeed I will, sir! I am a very little boy, sir; and it is so—so——”“So what?” inquired Mr. Bumble in amazement.“So lonely, sir! So very lonely!” cried the child. “Everybody hates me. Oh, sir, don’t, don’t, pray, be cross to me!” The child beat his hand upon his heart, and looked in his companion’s face with tears of real agony.
When little Oliver was taken before “the gentlemen” that evening, and informed that he was to go that night as general house lad to a coffin maker’s, and that if he complained of his situation, or ever came back to the parish again, he would be sent to sea, there to be drowned or knocked on the head, as the case might be, he evinced so little emotion that they by common consent pronounced him a hardened young rascal, and ordered Mr. Bumble to remove him forthwith.
For some time Mr. Bumble drew Oliver along, without notice or remark; for the beadle carried his head very erect, as a beadle always should; and, it being a windy day, little Oliver was completely enshrouded by the skirts of Mr. Bumble’s coat as they blew open and disclosed to great advantage his flapped waistcoat and drab plush knee breeches. As they drew near to their destination, however, Mr. Bumble thought it expedient to look down and see that the boy was in good order for inspection by his new master: which he accordingly did, with a fit and becoming air of gracious patronage.
“Oliver!” said Mr. Bumble.
“Yes, sir,” replied Oliver in a low, tremulous voice.
“Pull that cap off your eyes, and hold up your head, sir.”
Although Oliver did as he was desired at once, and passed the back of his unoccupied hand briskly across his eyes, he left a tear in them when he looked up at his conductor. As Mr. Bumble gazed sternly upon him, it rolleddown his cheek. It was followed by another, and another. The child made a strong effort, but it was an unsuccessful one. Withdrawing his other hand from Mr. Bumble’s, he covered his face with both, and wept until the tears sprung out from between his chin and bony fingers.
“Well!” exclaimed Mr. Bumble, stopping short, and darting at his little charge a look of intense malignity. “Well! Ofallthe ungratefullest and worst-disposed boys as ever I see, Oliver, you are the——”
“No, no, sir,” sobbed Oliver, clinging to the hand which held the well-known cane; “no, no, sir; I will be good indeed; indeed, indeed I will, sir! I am a very little boy, sir; and it is so—so——”
“So what?” inquired Mr. Bumble in amazement.
“So lonely, sir! So very lonely!” cried the child. “Everybody hates me. Oh, sir, don’t, don’t, pray, be cross to me!” The child beat his hand upon his heart, and looked in his companion’s face with tears of real agony.
The poor boy was put to bed by Sowerberry the first night. His master said, as they climbed the stairs:
“Your bed’s under the counter. You don’t mind sleeping among the coffins, I suppose? But it doesn’t much matter whether you do or don’t, for you can’t sleep anywhere else. Come, don’t keep me here all night!”
“Your bed’s under the counter. You don’t mind sleeping among the coffins, I suppose? But it doesn’t much matter whether you do or don’t, for you can’t sleep anywhere else. Come, don’t keep me here all night!”
Dickens pitied children for the terrors with which they were threatened, as Oliver was threatened by the board, and he pitied them also for the terrors that their imaginations brought to them at night. Sowerberry’s lack of sympathy was as great as Bumble’s. When one of his own children showed evidence of dread of retiring alone, Dickens sat upstairs with his family in the evenings afterward. He did not tell the child the reason, but she was saved from terror.
Oliver ran away from Sowerberry’s, and when passing the workhouse he peeped between the bars of the gate into the garden. A very little boy was there who came to the gate to say “Good-bye” to him. He had been one of Oliver’s little friends.
“Kiss me,” said the child, climbing up the low gate and flinging his little arms round Oliver’s neck: “Good-bye, dear! God bless you!”The blessing was from a young child’s lips, but it was the first that Oliver had ever heard invoked upon his head; and through the struggles and sufferings and troubles and changes of his after-life he never once forgot it.
“Kiss me,” said the child, climbing up the low gate and flinging his little arms round Oliver’s neck: “Good-bye, dear! God bless you!”
The blessing was from a young child’s lips, but it was the first that Oliver had ever heard invoked upon his head; and through the struggles and sufferings and troubles and changes of his after-life he never once forgot it.
When Oliver was taken to commit burglary by Bill Sykes, and was wounded and brought into the home he was assisting to rob, the good lady of the house sent for a doctor. The doctor dressed the arm, and when the boy fell asleep he brought Mrs. Maylie and Rose to see the criminal.
Rose sat down by Oliver’s bedside and gathered his hair from his face.
As she stooped over him her tears fell upon his forehead.The boy stirred and smiled in his sleep, as though these marks of pity and compassion had awakened some pleasant dream of a love and affection he had never known. Thus a strain of gentle music, or the rippling of water in a silent place, or the odour of a flower, or the mention of a familiar word, will sometimes call up sudden dim remembrances of scenes that never were in this life; which vanish like a breath; which some brief memory of a happier existence, long gone by, would seem to have awakened; which no voluntary exertion of the mind can ever recall.“What can this mean?” exclaimed the elder lady. “This poor child can never have been the pupil of robbers!”“Vice,” sighed the surgeon, replacing the curtain, “takes up her abode in many temples; and who can say that a fair outside shall not enshrine her?”“But at so early an age!” urged Rose.“My dear young lady,” rejoined the surgeon, mournfully shaking his head, “crime, like death, is not confined to the old and withered alone. The youngest and fairest are too often its chosen victims.”“But can you, oh, can you really believe that this delicate boy has been the voluntary associate of the worst outcasts of society?” said Rose.The surgeon shook his head in a manner which intimated that he feared it was very possible, and, observing that they might disturb the patient, led the way into an adjoining apartment.“But even if he has been wicked,” pursued Rose, “think how young he is; think that he may never have known a mother’s love, or the comfort of a home; that ill usage and blows, or the want of bread, may have driven him to herd with men who have forced him to guilt. Aunt, dear aunt, for mercy’s sake think of this, before you let them drag this sick child to a prison, which in any case must be the grave of all his chance of amendment. Oh! as you love me, and know that I have never felt the want of parents in your goodness and affection, but that I might have done so, and might have been equally helpless and unprotected with this poor child, have pity upon him before it is too late!”“My dear love,” said the elder lady, as she folded the weeping girl to her bosom, “do you think I would harm a hair of his head?”“Oh, no,” replied Rose eagerly.“No, surely,” said the old lady; “my days are drawing to their close, and may mercy be shown to me as I show it to others. What can I do to save him, sir?”
As she stooped over him her tears fell upon his forehead.
The boy stirred and smiled in his sleep, as though these marks of pity and compassion had awakened some pleasant dream of a love and affection he had never known. Thus a strain of gentle music, or the rippling of water in a silent place, or the odour of a flower, or the mention of a familiar word, will sometimes call up sudden dim remembrances of scenes that never were in this life; which vanish like a breath; which some brief memory of a happier existence, long gone by, would seem to have awakened; which no voluntary exertion of the mind can ever recall.
“What can this mean?” exclaimed the elder lady. “This poor child can never have been the pupil of robbers!”
“Vice,” sighed the surgeon, replacing the curtain, “takes up her abode in many temples; and who can say that a fair outside shall not enshrine her?”
“But at so early an age!” urged Rose.
“My dear young lady,” rejoined the surgeon, mournfully shaking his head, “crime, like death, is not confined to the old and withered alone. The youngest and fairest are too often its chosen victims.”
“But can you, oh, can you really believe that this delicate boy has been the voluntary associate of the worst outcasts of society?” said Rose.
The surgeon shook his head in a manner which intimated that he feared it was very possible, and, observing that they might disturb the patient, led the way into an adjoining apartment.
“But even if he has been wicked,” pursued Rose, “think how young he is; think that he may never have known a mother’s love, or the comfort of a home; that ill usage and blows, or the want of bread, may have driven him to herd with men who have forced him to guilt. Aunt, dear aunt, for mercy’s sake think of this, before you let them drag this sick child to a prison, which in any case must be the grave of all his chance of amendment. Oh! as you love me, and know that I have never felt the want of parents in your goodness and affection, but that I might have done so, and might have been equally helpless and unprotected with this poor child, have pity upon him before it is too late!”
“My dear love,” said the elder lady, as she folded the weeping girl to her bosom, “do you think I would harm a hair of his head?”
“Oh, no,” replied Rose eagerly.
“No, surely,” said the old lady; “my days are drawing to their close, and may mercy be shown to me as I show it to others. What can I do to save him, sir?”
Dickens used the doctor to rebuke the large class of people who are ever ready to believe the worst about a boy, and who are always looking for his depravity instead of searching for the divinity in him.
Rose’s plea for kind treatment for the boy, “even if he has been wicked,” was a new doctrine propounded by Dickens. The worst boys at home or in school need most sympathy. Mrs. Maylie’s attitude was in harmony with Christ’s teaching, but quite out of harmony with much that was called Christian practice at the time Dickens wrote Oliver Twist. He taught the doctrine that children were turned into evil ways and confirmed in them through lack of sympathy. Poor Nancy said to Rose Maylie:
“Lady,” cried the girl, sinking on her knees, “dear, sweet, angel lady, youarethe first that ever blessed me with such words as these; and if I had heard them years ago, they might have turned me from a life of sin and sorrow; but it is too late, it is too late!”
“Lady,” cried the girl, sinking on her knees, “dear, sweet, angel lady, youarethe first that ever blessed me with such words as these; and if I had heard them years ago, they might have turned me from a life of sin and sorrow; but it is too late, it is too late!”
In The Old Curiosity Shop Dickens gave a beautiful picture of a sympathetic teacher in Mr. Marton. His school was not well lighted or properly ventilated, the furniturewas poor, there was no apparatus except a dunce’s cap, a cane, and a ruler, his methods were old-fashioned, but he possessed the greatest qualification of a good teacher, deep sympathy with childhood. This was shown by the erasure of the blot from the sick boy’s writing; by his asking Nell to pray for the boy; by his appreciation of the boy’s love; by his hoping for his recovery against the unfavourable reports; by his favourable interpretation of the worst signs; by his absent-mindedness in school; by his giving the boys a half holiday because he could not teach; by his asking them to go away quietly so as not to disturb the sick scholar; by his saying “I’m glad they didn’t mind me” when the jolly boys went shouting away; by his telling the sick boy that the flowers missed him and were less gay on account of his absence; by his hanging the boy’s handkerchief out of the window at his request, as a token of his remembrance of the boys playing on the green; by the loving way in which he embraced the dying boy, and held his cold hand in his after he was dead, chafing it, as if he could bring back the life into it.
Dombey and Son is full of appeals for the tender sympathy of adulthood for childhood. The story of Florence Dombey longing for the one look of tenderness, the one word of kindly interest, the one sympathetic caress from her father, which never came to her during her childhood, is one of the most touching stories ever written. It was written to show that children in the most wealthy homes need sympathy as much as any other children, and that they are often most cruelly neglected by their parents.
Floy pleaded to be allowed to lay her face beside her baby brother’s because “she thought he loved her.”
The love that is given back in exchange for loving interest is shown by Paul’s loving gratitude to Floy for her interest in him, which led her to spend her pocket money in books, so that she might help him with his studies that confused him so.
And high was her reward, when one Saturday evening, as little Paul was sitting down as usual to “resume his studies,” she sat down by his side and showed him all thatwas rough made smooth, and all that was so dark made clear and plain, before him. It was nothing but a startled look in Paul’s wan face—a flush—a smile—and then a close embrace; but God knows how her heart leaped up at this rich payment for her trouble.“Oh, Floy,” cried her brother, “how I love you! How I love you, Floy!”“And I you, dear!”“Oh, I am sure, sure of that, Floy!”He said no more about it, but all that evening sat close by her, very quiet; and in the night he called out from his little room within hers, three or four times, that he loved her.
And high was her reward, when one Saturday evening, as little Paul was sitting down as usual to “resume his studies,” she sat down by his side and showed him all thatwas rough made smooth, and all that was so dark made clear and plain, before him. It was nothing but a startled look in Paul’s wan face—a flush—a smile—and then a close embrace; but God knows how her heart leaped up at this rich payment for her trouble.
“Oh, Floy,” cried her brother, “how I love you! How I love you, Floy!”
“And I you, dear!”
“Oh, I am sure, sure of that, Floy!”
He said no more about it, but all that evening sat close by her, very quiet; and in the night he called out from his little room within hers, three or four times, that he loved her.
There is no higher reward than that of the sympathetic teacher who for the first time lets light into a dark mind or heart.
The lady whom Florence overheard talking to her little orphaned niece about her father’s cruel coldness toward her truly said: “Not an orphan in the wide world can be so deserted as the child who is an outcast from a living parent’s care.”
As Dickens was one of the first to urge that children had rights, so he was one of the first to show that there had been altogether too much thought about the duty of children to parents, and too little about the duty of parents to children. Alice Marwood, one of the characters in Dombey and Son, said to Harriet Carker:
“You brought me here by force of gentleness and kindness, and made me human by woman’s looks and words and angel’s deeds; I have felt, lying here, that I should like you to know this. It might explain, I have thought, something that used to help to harden me. I had heard so much, in my wrongdoing, of my neglected duty, that I took up with the belief that duty had not been done to me, and that as the seed was sown the harvest grew.”
“You brought me here by force of gentleness and kindness, and made me human by woman’s looks and words and angel’s deeds; I have felt, lying here, that I should like you to know this. It might explain, I have thought, something that used to help to harden me. I had heard so much, in my wrongdoing, of my neglected duty, that I took up with the belief that duty had not been done to me, and that as the seed was sown the harvest grew.”
One other point in regard to sympathy was made in Dombey and Son, that a rough exterior may cover a sympathetic heart.
Long may it remain in this mixed world a point not easy of decision, which is the more beautiful evidence of the Almighty’s goodness: the delicate fingers that areformed for sensitiveness and sympathy of touch, and made to minister to pain and grief, or the rough, hard Captain Cuttle hand, that the heart teaches, guides, and softens in a moment!
Long may it remain in this mixed world a point not easy of decision, which is the more beautiful evidence of the Almighty’s goodness: the delicate fingers that areformed for sensitiveness and sympathy of touch, and made to minister to pain and grief, or the rough, hard Captain Cuttle hand, that the heart teaches, guides, and softens in a moment!
In the model school of Dickens Doctor Strong is said to have been “the idol of the whole school”; and David adds, “it must have been a badly composed school if he had been anything else, for he was the kindest of men.” Doctor Strong’s wife, who had been his pupil in early life, said:
“When I was very young, quite a little child, my first associations with knowledge of any kind were inseparable from a patient friend and teacher—the friend of my dead father—who was always dear to me. I can remember nothing that I know without remembering him. He stored my mind with its first treasures, and stamped his character upon them all. They never could have been, I think, as good as they have been to me, if I had taken them from any other hands.”
“When I was very young, quite a little child, my first associations with knowledge of any kind were inseparable from a patient friend and teacher—the friend of my dead father—who was always dear to me. I can remember nothing that I know without remembering him. He stored my mind with its first treasures, and stamped his character upon them all. They never could have been, I think, as good as they have been to me, if I had taken them from any other hands.”
David said, when telling the story of his first introduction to Mr. Murdstone:
“God help me, I might have been improved for my whole life, I might have been made another creature, perhaps, for life, by a kind word at that season. A word of encouragement and explanation, of pity for my childish ignorance, of welcome home, of reassurance to me that it was home, might have made me dutiful to him in my heart henceforth, instead of in my hypocritical outside, and might have made me respect instead of hate him.”
“God help me, I might have been improved for my whole life, I might have been made another creature, perhaps, for life, by a kind word at that season. A word of encouragement and explanation, of pity for my childish ignorance, of welcome home, of reassurance to me that it was home, might have made me dutiful to him in my heart henceforth, instead of in my hypocritical outside, and might have made me respect instead of hate him.”
In Bleak House Dickens gave in Esther the most perfect type of human sympathy, and by his pathetic pictures of poor Jo, Phil, the Jellyby children, the Pardiggle children, and others, stirred a great wave of feeling, which led to a recognition of the duty of adulthood to childhood, and taught the value of sympathy in the training of children.
Esther laid down a new law, revealed by Froebel, but given to the English world by Dickens in the weighty sentence, “My comprehension is quickened when my affection is.”
The lack of sympathy in adulthood is revealed for the condemnation of his readers in Mrs. Rachael’s parting from Esther.