“This fellow,” said Mr. Carker to Polly, giving him a gentle shake, “is your son, eh, ma’am?”“Yes, sir,” sobbed Polly, with a courtesy; “yes, sir.”“A bad son, I am afraid?” said Mr. Carker.“Never a bad son to me, sir,” returned Polly.“To whom, then?” demanded Mr. Carker.“He has been a little wild, sir,” replied Polly, checking the baby, who was making convulsive efforts with his arms and legs to launch himself on Biler, through the ambient air, “and has gone with wrong companions; but I hope he has seen the misery of that, sir, and will do well again.”When Mr. Carker had concluded his visit, as he made his way among the crowding children to the door, Rob retreated on his mother, and took her and the baby in the same repentant hug.“I’ll try hard, dear mother, now. Upon my soul I will!” said Rob.“Oh, do, my dear boy! I am sure you will, for our sakes and your own!” cried Polly, kissing him. “But you’re coming back to speak to me, when you have seen the gentleman away?”“I don’t know, mother.” Rob hesitated, and looked down. “Father—when’s he coming home?”“Not till two o’clock to-morrow morning.”“I’ll come back, mother, dear!” cried Rob. And passing through the shrill cry of his brothers and sisters in reception of this promise, he followed Mr. Carker out.“What!” said Mr. Carker, who had heard this. “You have a bad father, have you?”“No, sir!” returned Rob, amazed. “There ain’t a better nor a kinder father going than mine is.”“Why don’t you want to see him, then?” asked his patron.“There’s such a difference between a father and a mother, sir,” said Rob, after faltering for a moment. “He couldn’t hardly believe yet that I was going to do better—though I know he’d try to; but a mother—shealways believes what’s good, sir; at least I know my mother does, God bless her!”
“This fellow,” said Mr. Carker to Polly, giving him a gentle shake, “is your son, eh, ma’am?”
“Yes, sir,” sobbed Polly, with a courtesy; “yes, sir.”
“A bad son, I am afraid?” said Mr. Carker.
“Never a bad son to me, sir,” returned Polly.
“To whom, then?” demanded Mr. Carker.
“He has been a little wild, sir,” replied Polly, checking the baby, who was making convulsive efforts with his arms and legs to launch himself on Biler, through the ambient air, “and has gone with wrong companions; but I hope he has seen the misery of that, sir, and will do well again.”
When Mr. Carker had concluded his visit, as he made his way among the crowding children to the door, Rob retreated on his mother, and took her and the baby in the same repentant hug.
“I’ll try hard, dear mother, now. Upon my soul I will!” said Rob.
“Oh, do, my dear boy! I am sure you will, for our sakes and your own!” cried Polly, kissing him. “But you’re coming back to speak to me, when you have seen the gentleman away?”
“I don’t know, mother.” Rob hesitated, and looked down. “Father—when’s he coming home?”
“Not till two o’clock to-morrow morning.”
“I’ll come back, mother, dear!” cried Rob. And passing through the shrill cry of his brothers and sisters in reception of this promise, he followed Mr. Carker out.
“What!” said Mr. Carker, who had heard this. “You have a bad father, have you?”
“No, sir!” returned Rob, amazed. “There ain’t a better nor a kinder father going than mine is.”
“Why don’t you want to see him, then?” asked his patron.
“There’s such a difference between a father and a mother, sir,” said Rob, after faltering for a moment. “He couldn’t hardly believe yet that I was going to do better—though I know he’d try to; but a mother—shealways believes what’s good, sir; at least I know my mother does, God bless her!”
It was not the fault of his home that Biler went astray.
Nor did Dickens fail to give a picture for the fathers too. Mr. Toodle was a workman on a train, and great was the joy in the family when father came home.
“Polly, my gal,” said Mr. Toodle, with a young Toodle on each knee and two more making tea for him, and plenty more scattered about—Mr. Toodle was never outof children, but always kept a good supply on hand—“you ain’t seen our Biler lately, have you?”“No,” replied Polly, “but he’s almost certain to look in to-night. It’s his right evening, and he’s very regular.”“I suppose,” said Mr. Toodle, relishing his meal infinitely, “as our Biler is a-doin’ now about as well as a boycando, eh, Polly?”“Oh! he’s a-doing beautiful!” responded Polly.“He ain’t got to be at all secretlike—has he, Polly?” inquired Mr. Toodle.“No!” said Mrs. Toodle plumply.“I’m glad he ain’t got to be at all secretlike, Polly,” observed Mr. Toodle in his slow and measured way, and shovelling in his bread and butter with a clasp knife, as if he were stoking himself, “because that don’t look well; do it, Polly?”“Why, of course, it don’t, father. How can you ask?”“You see, my boys and gals,” said Mr. Toodle, looking round upon his family, “wotever you’re up to in a honest way, it’s my opinion as you can’t do better than be open. If you find yourselves in cuttings or in tunnels, don’t you play no secret games. Keep your whistles going, and let’s know where you are.”The rising Toodles set up a shrill murmur, expressive of their resolution to profit by the paternal advice.“But what makes you say this along of Rob, father?” asked his wife anxiously.“Polly, old ’ooman,” said Mr. Toodle, “I don’t know as I said it partickler along o’ Rob, I’m sure. I starts light with Rob only; I comes to a branch; I takes on what I finds there; and a whole train of ideas gets coupled on to him afore I knows where I am, or where they comes from. What a Junction a man’s thoughts is,” said Mr. Toodle, “to be sure!”This profound reflection Mr. Toodle washed down with a pint mug of tea, and proceeded to solidify with a great weight of bread and butter; charging his young daughters meanwhile to keep plenty of hot water in the pot, as he was uncommon dry, and should take the indefinite quantity of “a sight of mugs” before his thirst was appeased.
“Polly, my gal,” said Mr. Toodle, with a young Toodle on each knee and two more making tea for him, and plenty more scattered about—Mr. Toodle was never outof children, but always kept a good supply on hand—“you ain’t seen our Biler lately, have you?”
“No,” replied Polly, “but he’s almost certain to look in to-night. It’s his right evening, and he’s very regular.”
“I suppose,” said Mr. Toodle, relishing his meal infinitely, “as our Biler is a-doin’ now about as well as a boycando, eh, Polly?”
“Oh! he’s a-doing beautiful!” responded Polly.
“He ain’t got to be at all secretlike—has he, Polly?” inquired Mr. Toodle.
“No!” said Mrs. Toodle plumply.
“I’m glad he ain’t got to be at all secretlike, Polly,” observed Mr. Toodle in his slow and measured way, and shovelling in his bread and butter with a clasp knife, as if he were stoking himself, “because that don’t look well; do it, Polly?”
“Why, of course, it don’t, father. How can you ask?”
“You see, my boys and gals,” said Mr. Toodle, looking round upon his family, “wotever you’re up to in a honest way, it’s my opinion as you can’t do better than be open. If you find yourselves in cuttings or in tunnels, don’t you play no secret games. Keep your whistles going, and let’s know where you are.”
The rising Toodles set up a shrill murmur, expressive of their resolution to profit by the paternal advice.
“But what makes you say this along of Rob, father?” asked his wife anxiously.
“Polly, old ’ooman,” said Mr. Toodle, “I don’t know as I said it partickler along o’ Rob, I’m sure. I starts light with Rob only; I comes to a branch; I takes on what I finds there; and a whole train of ideas gets coupled on to him afore I knows where I am, or where they comes from. What a Junction a man’s thoughts is,” said Mr. Toodle, “to be sure!”
This profound reflection Mr. Toodle washed down with a pint mug of tea, and proceeded to solidify with a great weight of bread and butter; charging his young daughters meanwhile to keep plenty of hot water in the pot, as he was uncommon dry, and should take the indefinite quantity of “a sight of mugs” before his thirst was appeased.
And as the jolly old fellow ate his supper he was surrounded by all his smaller children, some on his knees, and others under his arms, and all getting bites of breadand butter and sups of tea in turn, although they had had their own supper before he came home.
Dickens did not wish to teach that such relationships should exist between parents and children in the homes of the labouring classes only. He used Toodle and his family as representing one extreme of society, as at present constituted, in sharp contrast with Mr. Dombey’s family at the other extreme. How happy the one home with barely enough to secure the necessaries of life! how miserable the other with unlimited wealth! And the best things in the Toodle home were the children, and the love and unconventional freedom between them and their parents. With such a feeling of community and love in all homes, and with schools of a proper character, the children will be trained for higher, and progressively advancing manhood and womanhood.
David Copperfield’s training was not all coercive and degrading. Before the Murdstones came to blight his young life he had joy and sympathy to stimulate all that was good in him. His mother and Peggotty were kind and true. The three had perfect faith in each other. They formed a blessed unity. “The memory of his lessons in those happy days recalled no feeling of disgust or reluctance. On the contrary, he seemed to have walked along a path of flowers, and to have been cheered by the gentleness of his mother’s voice and manner all the way.”
Again, after the Murdstone interval of terror and cruelty, David was kindly treated and well trained by his aunt. Her relationship toward him throughout his whole youth is well presented in her parting words, as she left him at Mr. Wickfield’s house, where he was to live while at Doctor Strong’s school.
She told me that everything would be arranged for me by Mr. Wickfield, and that I should want for nothing, and gave me the kindest words and the best advice.“Trot,” said my aunt in conclusion, “be a credit to yourself, to me, and Mr. Dick, and Heaven be with you!”I was greatly overcome, and could only thank her again and again, and send my love to Mr. Dick.“Never,” said my aunt, “be mean in anything; neverbe false; never be cruel. Avoid these three vices, Trot, and I can always be hopeful of you.”
She told me that everything would be arranged for me by Mr. Wickfield, and that I should want for nothing, and gave me the kindest words and the best advice.
“Trot,” said my aunt in conclusion, “be a credit to yourself, to me, and Mr. Dick, and Heaven be with you!”
I was greatly overcome, and could only thank her again and again, and send my love to Mr. Dick.
“Never,” said my aunt, “be mean in anything; neverbe false; never be cruel. Avoid these three vices, Trot, and I can always be hopeful of you.”
In Mr. Wickfield’s home and in Doctor Strong’s school he had ideal conditions of development. He received respectful consideration, fatherly interest, wise counsel, and generous hospitality from Mr. Wickfield. With Agnes he had the most delightful relationship of sympathetic and stimulating friendship. There is no better influence in the life of a boy opening into young manhood than the true friendship of a girl of the character of Agnes.
In Doctor Strong’s school David met with the best conditions of good training yet revealed by the “new education.”
The boys were taught politeness, courtesy, and consideration for the feelings of others in Doctor Strong’s school.
About five-and-twenty boys were studiously engaged at their books when we went in, but they rose to give the Doctor good morning, and remained standing when they saw Mr. Wickfield and me.“A new boy, young gentlemen,” said the Doctor; “Trotwood Copperfield.”One Adams, who was the head boy, then stepped out of his place and welcomed me. He looked like a young clergyman, in his white cravat, but he was very affable and good-humoured; and he showed me my place, and presented me to the masters in a gentlemanly way that would have put me at my ease if anything could.
About five-and-twenty boys were studiously engaged at their books when we went in, but they rose to give the Doctor good morning, and remained standing when they saw Mr. Wickfield and me.
“A new boy, young gentlemen,” said the Doctor; “Trotwood Copperfield.”
One Adams, who was the head boy, then stepped out of his place and welcomed me. He looked like a young clergyman, in his white cravat, but he was very affable and good-humoured; and he showed me my place, and presented me to the masters in a gentlemanly way that would have put me at my ease if anything could.
Physical education received due attention at Doctor Strong’s school. “We had noble games out of doors.” These outdoor sports have done more than anything else to develop the strength and energy of the British character. Thoughtful educators everywhere recognise the value of play in the development of the physical, the intellectual, and the spiritual nature as taught by Froebel. The love of play has been one of the distinctive elements of the British people.
Doctor Strong’s personal influence was good. “He was the idol of the whole school.” He was not coercive nor restrictive; he was an inspiration to effort and tomanliness of conduct. “He was the kindest of men,” full of sympathy with boyhood and with individual boys. “He had a simple faith in him that might have touched the stone hearts of the very urns upon the wall.” Mr. Wickfield told David that he feared some of the boys might take advantage of his kindness and faith, but boys do not abuse the confidence of such teachers. “He appealed in everything to the honour and good faith of the boys, and avowed his intention to rely on the possession of these qualities unless they proved themselves unworthy.” David says this “worked wonders.” He had no spies in schoolroom or grounds. He trusted his boys in a frank, unconventional way, and they proved themselves worthy of trust. In such an atmosphere a boy grows to be reliable. He does not need to be hypocritical or false. “The boys all became warmly attached to the school—I am sure I did for one, and I never knew, in all my time, of any other boy being otherwise—and learned with a good will, desiring to do it credit.”
They had independent self-activity. “We had plenty of liberty.” Without this no child can reach his best growth. The boys did not abuse their privilege. They respected themselves more because they had liberty. “As I remember, we were well spoken of in the town, and rarely did any disgrace, by our appearance or manner, to the reputation of Doctor Strong and Doctor Strong’s boys.”
The community ideal was wrought into the lives of the boys by their experience in this model school. “We all felt that we had a part in the management of the place, and in sustaining its character and dignity.” The highest work of schools, colleges, and universities is to fill the lives of men and women with the apperceptive centres of the community ideal. Christian community can not be made clear by books or teaching or sermons unless its foundations are laid by experience, by “sharing in the management” of the conditions of the life of the boy, or girl, or student. Froebel pleaded for a college and university education in which students should “share in the management.” Dickens applied this high ideal.
There is another most important element in Doctor Strong’s influence. He was not “a human barrel organ,” like Mr. Feeder, “playing a little list of Greek and Latin tunes over and over again without any variation.” He was an original investigator. He was preparing a dictionary of Greek roots. He was not merely an accumulator of knowledge as it had been prepared by some one else. He was not a mere canal through which knowledge slowly flowed through artificial channels, nor a marsh in which knowledge had become confused and stagnant, nor a dead sea into which knowledge flowed, but from which there was no outlet. He was a fresh fountain from which knowledge came clear and pure. So the boys gained knowledge readily from him, but, far beyond knowledge, they learned incidentally the habit of work, and were filled with the desire to add to the store of knowledge as a basis for the progressive evolution of humanity.
What a farce it is to say that Dickens was not conscious of the pedagogic value of his work. He had great facility in learning, but he was also a hard student. No one could have written so much and so wisely about education unless he had studied carefully the thought of the most advanced educators.
David’s aunt had the wisdom to try to develop in him the characteristics of excellence that were lacking in his parents. This is a thought that is slowly making its way in the minds of educators.
“But what I want you to be, Trot,” resumed my aunt—“I don’t mean physically, but morally; you are very well physically—is a firm fellow. A fine firm fellow, with a will of your own. With resolution,” said my aunt, shaking her cap at me, and clinching her hand. “With determination. With character, Trot—with strength of character that is not to be influenced, except on good reason, by anybody, or by anything. That’s what I want you to be. That’s what your father and mother might both have been, Heaven knows, and been the better for it.”I intimated that I hoped I should be what she described.“That you may begin, in a small way, to have a reliance upon yourself, and to act for yourself,” said my aunt, “I shall send you upon your trip alone.”In pursuance of my aunt’s kind scheme, I was shortly afterward fitted out with a handsome purse of money and a portmanteau, and tenderly dismissed upon my expedition. At parting, my aunt gave me some good advice and a good many kisses; and said that as her object was that I should look about me, and should think a little, she would recommend me to stay a few days in London, if I liked it, either on my way down into Suffolk, or in coming back. In a word, I was at liberty to do as I would for three weeks or a month; and no other conditions were imposed upon my freedom than the before-mentioned thinking and looking about me, and a pledge to write three times a week and faithfully report myself.
“But what I want you to be, Trot,” resumed my aunt—“I don’t mean physically, but morally; you are very well physically—is a firm fellow. A fine firm fellow, with a will of your own. With resolution,” said my aunt, shaking her cap at me, and clinching her hand. “With determination. With character, Trot—with strength of character that is not to be influenced, except on good reason, by anybody, or by anything. That’s what I want you to be. That’s what your father and mother might both have been, Heaven knows, and been the better for it.”
I intimated that I hoped I should be what she described.
“That you may begin, in a small way, to have a reliance upon yourself, and to act for yourself,” said my aunt, “I shall send you upon your trip alone.”
In pursuance of my aunt’s kind scheme, I was shortly afterward fitted out with a handsome purse of money and a portmanteau, and tenderly dismissed upon my expedition. At parting, my aunt gave me some good advice and a good many kisses; and said that as her object was that I should look about me, and should think a little, she would recommend me to stay a few days in London, if I liked it, either on my way down into Suffolk, or in coming back. In a word, I was at liberty to do as I would for three weeks or a month; and no other conditions were imposed upon my freedom than the before-mentioned thinking and looking about me, and a pledge to write three times a week and faithfully report myself.
Betsy Trotwood may safely be taken as a model in dealing with boys during the adolescent period, and with young men just about to start in the real work of life.
Dickens puts into the words of David Copperfield a statement of the elements of character which he regarded as most essential to success in life, and which he would take pains to develop by the training in homes and schools.
I will only add to what I have already written of my perseverance at this time of my life, and of a patient and continuous energy which then began to be matured within me, and which I know to be the strong part of my character, if it have any strength at all, that there, on looking back, I find the source of my success. I have been very fortunate in worldly matters; many men have worked much harder, and not succeeded half so well; but I never could have done what I have done without the habits of punctuality, order, and diligence, without the determination to concentrate myself on one object at a time, no matter how quickly its successor should come upon its heels, which I then formed. My meaning simply is, that whatever I have tried to do in life, I have tried with all my heart to do well; that whatever I have devoted myself to, I have devoted myself to completely; that, in great aims and in small, I have always been thoroughly in earnest. I have never believed it possible that any natural or improved ability can claim immunity from the companionship of the steady, plain, hard-working qualities, and hope to gain its end. There is no such thing as such fulfilment on this earth. Some happy talent, and some fortunateopportunity, may form the two sides of the ladder on which some men mount, but the rounds of that ladder must be made of stuff to stand wear and tear; and there is no substitute for thoroughgoing, ardent, and sincere earnestness. Never to put one hand to anything on which I could throw my whole self and never to affect depreciation of my work, whatever it was, I find, now, to have been my golden rules.
I will only add to what I have already written of my perseverance at this time of my life, and of a patient and continuous energy which then began to be matured within me, and which I know to be the strong part of my character, if it have any strength at all, that there, on looking back, I find the source of my success. I have been very fortunate in worldly matters; many men have worked much harder, and not succeeded half so well; but I never could have done what I have done without the habits of punctuality, order, and diligence, without the determination to concentrate myself on one object at a time, no matter how quickly its successor should come upon its heels, which I then formed. My meaning simply is, that whatever I have tried to do in life, I have tried with all my heart to do well; that whatever I have devoted myself to, I have devoted myself to completely; that, in great aims and in small, I have always been thoroughly in earnest. I have never believed it possible that any natural or improved ability can claim immunity from the companionship of the steady, plain, hard-working qualities, and hope to gain its end. There is no such thing as such fulfilment on this earth. Some happy talent, and some fortunateopportunity, may form the two sides of the ladder on which some men mount, but the rounds of that ladder must be made of stuff to stand wear and tear; and there is no substitute for thoroughgoing, ardent, and sincere earnestness. Never to put one hand to anything on which I could throw my whole self and never to affect depreciation of my work, whatever it was, I find, now, to have been my golden rules.
Bleak House, which is so rich in illustrations of bad training, contains little direct teaching regarding the proper training of children.
The value of a doll in the training of a girl is shown in Esther’s early experience. The doll had a real personal relationship to her. She made it her confidant, and in various ways gave it a distinct personal standing. She could pour out to it the joys and sorrows of her heart more fully than to any real person. The doll was an outlet for the pent-up emotions that were checked in their flow by the adults with whom she was associated. A doll is more than a mere plaything to a child; or perhaps it would be more exact to say play with a doll means much more than most people believe. Dickens was able to sympathize with even a little girl.
Esther says:
I can remember, when I was a very little girl indeed, I used to say to my doll, when we were alone together, “Now, Dolly, I am not clever, you know very well, and you must be patient with me, like a dear!” And so she used to sit propped up in a great armchair, with her beautiful complexion and rosy lips, staring at me—or not so much at me, I think, as at nothing—while I busily stitched away, and told her every one of my secrets.My dear old doll! I was such a shy little thing that I seldom dared to open my lips, and never dared to open my heart, to anybody else. It almost makes me cry to think what a relief it used to be to me, when I came home from school of a day, to run upstairs to my room, and say “Oh you dear faithful Dolly, I knew you would be expecting me!” and then to sit down on the floor, leaning on the elbow of her great chair, and tell her all I had noticed since we parted. I had always rather a noticing way—not a quick way, oh, no!—a silent way of noticingwhat passed before me, and thinking I should like to understand it better. I have not by any means a quick understanding. When I love a person very tenderly indeed, it seems to brighten.
I can remember, when I was a very little girl indeed, I used to say to my doll, when we were alone together, “Now, Dolly, I am not clever, you know very well, and you must be patient with me, like a dear!” And so she used to sit propped up in a great armchair, with her beautiful complexion and rosy lips, staring at me—or not so much at me, I think, as at nothing—while I busily stitched away, and told her every one of my secrets.
My dear old doll! I was such a shy little thing that I seldom dared to open my lips, and never dared to open my heart, to anybody else. It almost makes me cry to think what a relief it used to be to me, when I came home from school of a day, to run upstairs to my room, and say “Oh you dear faithful Dolly, I knew you would be expecting me!” and then to sit down on the floor, leaning on the elbow of her great chair, and tell her all I had noticed since we parted. I had always rather a noticing way—not a quick way, oh, no!—a silent way of noticingwhat passed before me, and thinking I should like to understand it better. I have not by any means a quick understanding. When I love a person very tenderly indeed, it seems to brighten.
When on her lonely birthday she had been told by her godmother that a shadow hung over her life she says:
I went up to my room, and crept to bed, and laid my doll’s cheek against mine wet with tears; and holding that solitary friend upon my bosom cried myself to sleep.Dear, dear, to think how much time we passed alone together afterward, and how often I repeated to the doll the story of my birthday, and confided to her that I would try, as hard as ever I could, to repair the fault I had been born with (of which I confessedly felt guilty and yet innocent), and would strive as I grew up to be industrious, contented, and kind-hearted, and to do some good to some one, and win some love to myself if I could.
I went up to my room, and crept to bed, and laid my doll’s cheek against mine wet with tears; and holding that solitary friend upon my bosom cried myself to sleep.
Dear, dear, to think how much time we passed alone together afterward, and how often I repeated to the doll the story of my birthday, and confided to her that I would try, as hard as ever I could, to repair the fault I had been born with (of which I confessedly felt guilty and yet innocent), and would strive as I grew up to be industrious, contented, and kind-hearted, and to do some good to some one, and win some love to myself if I could.
Mr. Jarndyce emphasized the opinion of David Copperfield when he gave advice to Richard Carstone:
“Trust in nothing but in Providence and your own efforts. Never separate the two, like the heathen wagoner. Constancy in love is a good thing; but it means nothing, and is nothing, without constancy in every kind of effort. If you had the abilities of all the great men, past and present, you could do nothing well without sincerely meaning it and setting about it. If you entertain the supposition that any real success, in great things or in small, ever was or could be, ever will or can be, wrested from fortune by fits and starts, leave that wrong idea here.”
“Trust in nothing but in Providence and your own efforts. Never separate the two, like the heathen wagoner. Constancy in love is a good thing; but it means nothing, and is nothing, without constancy in every kind of effort. If you had the abilities of all the great men, past and present, you could do nothing well without sincerely meaning it and setting about it. If you entertain the supposition that any real success, in great things or in small, ever was or could be, ever will or can be, wrested from fortune by fits and starts, leave that wrong idea here.”
Mr. George gave Woolwich Bagnet kindly counsel regarding his duty to his mother:
“The time will come, my boy,” pursues the trooper, “when this hair of your mother’s will be gray, and this forehead all crossed and recrossed with wrinkles—and a fine old lady she’ll be then. Take care, while you are young, that you can think in those days, ‘Inever whitened a hair of her dear head—Inever marked a sorrowful line in her face!’ For of all the many things that you can think of when you are a man, you had better havethatby you, Woolwich!”
“The time will come, my boy,” pursues the trooper, “when this hair of your mother’s will be gray, and this forehead all crossed and recrossed with wrinkles—and a fine old lady she’ll be then. Take care, while you are young, that you can think in those days, ‘Inever whitened a hair of her dear head—Inever marked a sorrowful line in her face!’ For of all the many things that you can think of when you are a man, you had better havethatby you, Woolwich!”
Mr. Meagles in Little Dorrit, good, kind Mr. Meagles, explained why Little Dorrit, amid all her trials and all her difficulties, had grown to be so true a woman, loved by so many people.
If she had constantly thought of herself, and settled with herself that everybody visited this place upon her, turned it against her, and cast it at her, she would have led an irritable and probably a useless existence. Yet I have heard tell, Tattycoram, that her young life has been one of active resignation, goodness, and noble service. Shall I tell you what I consider those eyes of hers that were here just now, to have always looked at, to get that expression?“Yes, if you please, sir.”“Duty, Tattycoram. Begin it early, and do it well; and there is no antecedent to it, in any origin or station, that will tell against us with the Almighty, or with ourselves.”
If she had constantly thought of herself, and settled with herself that everybody visited this place upon her, turned it against her, and cast it at her, she would have led an irritable and probably a useless existence. Yet I have heard tell, Tattycoram, that her young life has been one of active resignation, goodness, and noble service. Shall I tell you what I consider those eyes of hers that were here just now, to have always looked at, to get that expression?
“Yes, if you please, sir.”
“Duty, Tattycoram. Begin it early, and do it well; and there is no antecedent to it, in any origin or station, that will tell against us with the Almighty, or with ourselves.”
Although Mr. Pocket was not able to manage his own household and family, chiefly owing to the hopeless incompetence of Mrs. Pocket, he was an excellent teacher, and knew how to treat his pupils. Pip found him a most satisfactory guide.
He advised my attending certain places in London for the acquisition of such mere rudiments as I wanted, and my investing him with the functions of explainer and director of all my studies. He hoped that with intelligent assistance I should meet with little to discourage me, and should soon be able to dispense with any aid but his. Through his way of saying this, and much more to similar purpose, he placed himself on confidential terms with me in an admirable manner: and I may state at once that he was always so zealous and honourable in fulfilling his compact with me that he made me zealous and honourable in fulfilling mine with him. If he had shown indifference as a master, I had no doubt I should have returned the compliment as a pupil; he gave me no such excuse, and each of us did the other justice.
He advised my attending certain places in London for the acquisition of such mere rudiments as I wanted, and my investing him with the functions of explainer and director of all my studies. He hoped that with intelligent assistance I should meet with little to discourage me, and should soon be able to dispense with any aid but his. Through his way of saying this, and much more to similar purpose, he placed himself on confidential terms with me in an admirable manner: and I may state at once that he was always so zealous and honourable in fulfilling his compact with me that he made me zealous and honourable in fulfilling mine with him. If he had shown indifference as a master, I had no doubt I should have returned the compliment as a pupil; he gave me no such excuse, and each of us did the other justice.
In Our Mutual Friend Betty Higden and Mrs. Boffin are given as true types of the proper spirit of adulthood toward childhood. Betty, poor as she was, wept at thethought of parting from Johnny, and Mrs. Boffin said to her:
“If you trust the dear child to me he shall have the best of homes, the best of care, the best of education, the best of friends. Please God, I will be a true good mother to him!”
“If you trust the dear child to me he shall have the best of homes, the best of care, the best of education, the best of friends. Please God, I will be a true good mother to him!”
Jemmy Lirriper had an ideal training in many ways. He had freedom and love, and his imagination and individuality were developed as fully as Mrs. Lirriper and the Major could secure these desirable results. His boyish personality received respectful consideration. The Major’s method of revealing mathematical conceptions and processes, while it did not fully reveal Froebel’s processes in reaching the same results (even the great mathematicians have been slow in doing that), was much in advance of the pedagogy of his time, and it shows the spirit in which Dickens would have the child treated, and this is much more important than mathematics.
Mrs. Lirriper tells the story:
My dear, the system upon which the Major commenced, and, as I may say, perfected Jemmy’s learning when he was so small that if the dear was on the other side of the table you had to look under it instead of over it to see him with his mother’s own bright hair in beautiful curls, is a thing that ought to be known to the Throne and Lords and Commons, and then might obtain some promotion for the Major, which he well deserves, and would be none the worse for (speaking between friends, L. S. D-ically). When the Major first undertook his learning he says to me:“I’m going, Madam,” he says, “to make our child a Calculating Boy.”“Major,” I says, “you terrify me, and may do the pet a permanent injury you would never forgive yourself.”“Madam,” says the Major, “I would regret if this fine mind was not early cultivated. But mark me, Madam,” says the Major, holding up his forefinger, “cultivated on a principle that will make it a delight.”“Major,” I says, “I will be candid with you and tell you openly that if ever I find the dear child fall off in his appetite I shall know it is his calculations, and shall puta stop to them at two minutes’ notice. Or if I find them mounting to his head,” I says, “or striking anyways cold to his stomach or leading to anything approaching flabbiness in his legs, the result will be the same, but, Major, you are a clever man and have seen much, and you love the child and are his own godfather, and if you feel a confidence in trying, try.”“Spoken, Madam,” says the Major, “like Emma Lirriper. All I have to ask, Madam, is that you will leave my godson and myself to make a week or two’s preparations for surprising you, and that you will give leave to have up and down any small articles not actually in use that I may require from the kitchen.”“From the kitchen, Major!” I says, half feeling as if he had a mind to cook the child.“From the kitchen,” says the Major, and smiles and swells, and at the same time looks taller.So I passed my word, and the Major and the dear boy were shut up together for half an hour at a time through a certain while, and never could I hear anything going on betwixt them but talking and laughing and Jemmy clapping his hands and screaming out numbers, so I says to myself “It has not harmed him yet,” nor could I, on examining the dear find any signs of it anywhere about him, which was likewise a great relief. At last one day Jemmy brings me a card in joke in the Major’s neat writing “The Messrs. Jemmy Jackman,” for we had given him the Major’s other name too, “request the honour of Mrs. Lirriper’s company at the Jackman Institution in the front parlour this evening at five, military time, to witness a few slight feats of elementary arithmetic.” And, if you’ll believe me, there in the front parlour at five punctually to the moment was the Major behind the Pembroke table with both leaves up and a lot of things from the kitchen tidily set out on old newspapers spread atop of it, and there was the Mite stood up on a chair, with his rosy cheeks flushing and his eyes sparkling clusters of diamonds.“Now, Gran,” says he, “oo tit down and don’t oo touch ler poople”—for he saw with every one of those diamonds of his that I was going to give him a squeeze.“Very well, sir,” I says, “I am obedient in this good company, I am sure.” And I sits down in the easy-chair that was put for me, shaking my sides.But picture my admiration when the Major, going on almost as quick as if he was conjuring, sets out all the articles he names, and says, “Three saucepans, an Italian iron, a hand bell, a toasting fork, a nutmeg grater, four potlids, a spice box, two egg cups, and a chopping board—how many?” and when that Mite instantly cries “Tifteen, tut down tive and carry ler ’topping board,” and then claps his hands, draws up his legs, and dances on his chair!My dear, with the same astonishing ease and correctness, him and the Major added up the tables, chairs, and sofy, the picters, fender and fire irons, their own selves, me and the cat, and the eyes in Miss Wozenham’s head, and whenever the sum was done Young Roses and Diamonds claps his hands and draws up his legs and dances on his chair.The pride of the Major! (“Here’sa mind, Ma’am!” he says to me behind his hand.)Then he says aloud, “We now come to the next elementary rule—which is called——”“Umtraction!” cries Jemmy.“Right,” says the Major. “We have here a toasting fork, a potato in its natural state, two potlids, one egg-cup, a wooden spoon, and two skewers, from which it is necessary, for commercial purposes, to subtract a sprat gridiron, a small pickle jar, two lemons, one pepper castor, a black-beetle trap, and a knob of the dresser drawer—what remains?”“Toatin fork!” cries Jemmy.“In numbers, how many?” says the Major.“One!” cries Jemmy.(“Here’sa boy, Ma’am!” says the Major to me, behind his hand.)“We now approach the next elementary rule—which is entitled——”“Tickleication,” cries Jemmy.“Correct,” says the Major.But, my dear, to relate to you in detail the way in which they multiplied fourteen sticks of firewood by two bits of ginger and a larding needle, or divided pretty well everything else there was on the table by the heater of the Italian iron and a chamber candlestick, and got a lemon over, would make my head spin round and round and round, as it did at the time. So I says, “If you’llexcuse my addressing the chair, Professor Jackman, I think the period of the lecture has now arrived when it becomes necessary that I should take a good hug of this young scholar.” Upon which Jemmy calls out from his station on the chair, “Gran, oo open oor arms and me’ll make a ’pring into ’em.” So I opened my arms to him, as I had opened my sorrowful heart when his poor young mother lay a-dying, and he had his jump and we had a good long hug together, and the Major, prouder than any peacock, says to me behind his hand, “You need not let him know it, Madam” (which I certainly need not, for the Major was quite audible), “but he is a boy!”
My dear, the system upon which the Major commenced, and, as I may say, perfected Jemmy’s learning when he was so small that if the dear was on the other side of the table you had to look under it instead of over it to see him with his mother’s own bright hair in beautiful curls, is a thing that ought to be known to the Throne and Lords and Commons, and then might obtain some promotion for the Major, which he well deserves, and would be none the worse for (speaking between friends, L. S. D-ically). When the Major first undertook his learning he says to me:
“I’m going, Madam,” he says, “to make our child a Calculating Boy.”
“Major,” I says, “you terrify me, and may do the pet a permanent injury you would never forgive yourself.”
“Madam,” says the Major, “I would regret if this fine mind was not early cultivated. But mark me, Madam,” says the Major, holding up his forefinger, “cultivated on a principle that will make it a delight.”
“Major,” I says, “I will be candid with you and tell you openly that if ever I find the dear child fall off in his appetite I shall know it is his calculations, and shall puta stop to them at two minutes’ notice. Or if I find them mounting to his head,” I says, “or striking anyways cold to his stomach or leading to anything approaching flabbiness in his legs, the result will be the same, but, Major, you are a clever man and have seen much, and you love the child and are his own godfather, and if you feel a confidence in trying, try.”
“Spoken, Madam,” says the Major, “like Emma Lirriper. All I have to ask, Madam, is that you will leave my godson and myself to make a week or two’s preparations for surprising you, and that you will give leave to have up and down any small articles not actually in use that I may require from the kitchen.”
“From the kitchen, Major!” I says, half feeling as if he had a mind to cook the child.
“From the kitchen,” says the Major, and smiles and swells, and at the same time looks taller.
So I passed my word, and the Major and the dear boy were shut up together for half an hour at a time through a certain while, and never could I hear anything going on betwixt them but talking and laughing and Jemmy clapping his hands and screaming out numbers, so I says to myself “It has not harmed him yet,” nor could I, on examining the dear find any signs of it anywhere about him, which was likewise a great relief. At last one day Jemmy brings me a card in joke in the Major’s neat writing “The Messrs. Jemmy Jackman,” for we had given him the Major’s other name too, “request the honour of Mrs. Lirriper’s company at the Jackman Institution in the front parlour this evening at five, military time, to witness a few slight feats of elementary arithmetic.” And, if you’ll believe me, there in the front parlour at five punctually to the moment was the Major behind the Pembroke table with both leaves up and a lot of things from the kitchen tidily set out on old newspapers spread atop of it, and there was the Mite stood up on a chair, with his rosy cheeks flushing and his eyes sparkling clusters of diamonds.
“Now, Gran,” says he, “oo tit down and don’t oo touch ler poople”—for he saw with every one of those diamonds of his that I was going to give him a squeeze.
“Very well, sir,” I says, “I am obedient in this good company, I am sure.” And I sits down in the easy-chair that was put for me, shaking my sides.
But picture my admiration when the Major, going on almost as quick as if he was conjuring, sets out all the articles he names, and says, “Three saucepans, an Italian iron, a hand bell, a toasting fork, a nutmeg grater, four potlids, a spice box, two egg cups, and a chopping board—how many?” and when that Mite instantly cries “Tifteen, tut down tive and carry ler ’topping board,” and then claps his hands, draws up his legs, and dances on his chair!
My dear, with the same astonishing ease and correctness, him and the Major added up the tables, chairs, and sofy, the picters, fender and fire irons, their own selves, me and the cat, and the eyes in Miss Wozenham’s head, and whenever the sum was done Young Roses and Diamonds claps his hands and draws up his legs and dances on his chair.
The pride of the Major! (“Here’sa mind, Ma’am!” he says to me behind his hand.)
Then he says aloud, “We now come to the next elementary rule—which is called——”
“Umtraction!” cries Jemmy.
“Right,” says the Major. “We have here a toasting fork, a potato in its natural state, two potlids, one egg-cup, a wooden spoon, and two skewers, from which it is necessary, for commercial purposes, to subtract a sprat gridiron, a small pickle jar, two lemons, one pepper castor, a black-beetle trap, and a knob of the dresser drawer—what remains?”
“Toatin fork!” cries Jemmy.
“In numbers, how many?” says the Major.
“One!” cries Jemmy.
(“Here’sa boy, Ma’am!” says the Major to me, behind his hand.)
“We now approach the next elementary rule—which is entitled——”
“Tickleication,” cries Jemmy.
“Correct,” says the Major.
But, my dear, to relate to you in detail the way in which they multiplied fourteen sticks of firewood by two bits of ginger and a larding needle, or divided pretty well everything else there was on the table by the heater of the Italian iron and a chamber candlestick, and got a lemon over, would make my head spin round and round and round, as it did at the time. So I says, “If you’llexcuse my addressing the chair, Professor Jackman, I think the period of the lecture has now arrived when it becomes necessary that I should take a good hug of this young scholar.” Upon which Jemmy calls out from his station on the chair, “Gran, oo open oor arms and me’ll make a ’pring into ’em.” So I opened my arms to him, as I had opened my sorrowful heart when his poor young mother lay a-dying, and he had his jump and we had a good long hug together, and the Major, prouder than any peacock, says to me behind his hand, “You need not let him know it, Madam” (which I certainly need not, for the Major was quite audible), “but he is a boy!”
Doctor Marigold’s training of the little deaf-mute girl and “Old Cheeseman’s” treatment of children are revelations of the mature ideals of Dickens regarding the proper attitude of adulthood toward childhood.
COMMUNITY.
While the opinions of Dickens on the subject of community may not seem very advanced to some of the most progressive men and women of the present, they were much ahead of his own time, and they are beyond the practice of our time.
I have had my share of sorrows—more than the common lot, perhaps, but I have borne them ill. I have broken where I should have bent; and have mused and brooded, when my spirit should have mixed with all God’s great creation. The men who learn endurance are they who call the whole world brother. I have turnedfromthe world, and I pay the penalty.
I have had my share of sorrows—more than the common lot, perhaps, but I have borne them ill. I have broken where I should have bent; and have mused and brooded, when my spirit should have mixed with all God’s great creation. The men who learn endurance are they who call the whole world brother. I have turnedfromthe world, and I pay the penalty.
Thus spoke Mr. Haredale to Edward Chester, in Barnaby Rudge.
No one who has lived since the time of Dickens could write a more striking statement of the responsibility of every man for his brother, and of the terrific consequences of neglect of the duties of brotherhood both to him who is neglected and to him who neglects, than Dickens wrote in Dombey and Son. There is no phase of sociology that has stepped beyond the position taken by Dickens in the following selection:
Was Mr. Dombey’s master vice, that ruled him so inexorably, an unnatural characteristic? It might be worth while, sometimes to inquire what Nature is, and how men work to change her, and whether, in the enforced distortions so produced, it is not natural to be unnatural. Coop any son or daughter of our mighty mother within narrow range, and bind the prisoner to one idea, and foster it by servile worship of it on the part of the few timid ordesigning people standing round, and what is Nature to the willing captive who has never risen up upon the wings of a free mind—drooping and useless soon—to see her in her comprehensive truth!Alas! are there so few things in the world about us most unnatural, and yet most natural in being so! Hear the magistrate or judge admonish the unnatural outcast of society; unnatural in brutal habits, unnatural in want of decency, unnatural in losing and confounding all distinctions between good and evil; unnatural in ignorance, in vice, in recklessness, in contumacy, in mind, in looks, in everything. But follow the good clergyman or doctor, who, with his life imperilled at every breath he draws, goes down into their dens, lying within the echoes of our carriage wheels and daily tread upon the pavement stones. Look round upon the world of odious sights—millions of immortal creatures have no other world on earth—at the lightest mention of which humanity revolts, and dainty delicacy living in the next street, stops her ears, and lisps, “I don’t believe it!” Breathe the polluted air, foul with every impurity that is poisonous to health and life; and have every sense conferred upon our race for its delight and happiness, offended, sickened, and disgusted, and made a channel by which misery and death alone can enter. Vainly attempt to think of any simple plant, or flower, or wholesome weed that, set in this fetid bed, could have its natural growth or put its little leaves off to the sun as God designed it. And then, calling up some ghastly child, with stunted form and wicked face, hold forth on its unnatural sinfulness, and lament its being so early far away from heaven—but think a little of its having been conceived, and born and bred, in hell!Those who study the physical sciences, and bring them to bear upon the health of man, tell us that if the noxious particles that rise from vitiated air were palpable to the sight, we should see them lowering in a dense black cloud above such haunts, and rolling slowly on to corrupt the better portions of a town. But if the moral pestilence that rises with them, and in the eternal laws of outraged nature, is inseparable from them, could be made discernible too, how terrible the revelation! Then should we see depravity, impiety, drunkenness, theft, murder, and a long train of nameless sins against the natural affections and repulsions of mankind, overhanging the devoted spots,and creeping on, to blight the innocent and spread contagion among the pure. Then should we see how the same poisoned fountains that flow into our hospitals and lazar houses, inundate the jails, and make the convict ships swim deep, and roll across the seas, and overrun vast continents with crime. Then should we stand appalled to know that where we generate disease to strike our children down and entail itself on unborn generations, there also we breed, by the same certain process, infancy that knows no innocence, youth without modesty or shame, maturity that is mature in nothing but in suffering and guilt, blasted old age that is a scandal on the form we bear. Unnatural humanity! When we shall gather grapes from thorns, and figs from thistles; when fields of grain shall spring up from the offal in the byways of our wicked cities, and roses bloom in the fat churchyards that they cherish; then we may look for natural humanity and find it growing from such seed.Oh, for a good spirit who would take the housetops off, with a more potent and benignant hand than the lame demon in the tale, and show a Christian people what dark shapes issue from amidst their homes, to swell the retinue of the destroying angel as he moves forth among them! For only one night’s view of the pale phantoms rising from the scenes of our too long neglect; and from the thick and sullen air where vice and fever propagate together, raining the tremendous and social retributions which are ever pouring down, and ever coming thicker! Bright and blessed the morning that should rise on such a night; for men, delayed no more by stumbling-blocks of their own making, which are but specks of dust upon the path between them and eternity, would then apply themselves, like creatures of one common origin, owing one duty to the father of one family, and tending to one common end to make the world a better place!Not the less bright and blessed would that day be for rousing some who never have looked out upon the world of human life around them to a knowledge of their own relation to it, and for making them acquainted with a perversion of Nature in their own contracted sympathies and estimates; as great and yet as natural in its development when once begun as the lowest degradation known.
Was Mr. Dombey’s master vice, that ruled him so inexorably, an unnatural characteristic? It might be worth while, sometimes to inquire what Nature is, and how men work to change her, and whether, in the enforced distortions so produced, it is not natural to be unnatural. Coop any son or daughter of our mighty mother within narrow range, and bind the prisoner to one idea, and foster it by servile worship of it on the part of the few timid ordesigning people standing round, and what is Nature to the willing captive who has never risen up upon the wings of a free mind—drooping and useless soon—to see her in her comprehensive truth!
Alas! are there so few things in the world about us most unnatural, and yet most natural in being so! Hear the magistrate or judge admonish the unnatural outcast of society; unnatural in brutal habits, unnatural in want of decency, unnatural in losing and confounding all distinctions between good and evil; unnatural in ignorance, in vice, in recklessness, in contumacy, in mind, in looks, in everything. But follow the good clergyman or doctor, who, with his life imperilled at every breath he draws, goes down into their dens, lying within the echoes of our carriage wheels and daily tread upon the pavement stones. Look round upon the world of odious sights—millions of immortal creatures have no other world on earth—at the lightest mention of which humanity revolts, and dainty delicacy living in the next street, stops her ears, and lisps, “I don’t believe it!” Breathe the polluted air, foul with every impurity that is poisonous to health and life; and have every sense conferred upon our race for its delight and happiness, offended, sickened, and disgusted, and made a channel by which misery and death alone can enter. Vainly attempt to think of any simple plant, or flower, or wholesome weed that, set in this fetid bed, could have its natural growth or put its little leaves off to the sun as God designed it. And then, calling up some ghastly child, with stunted form and wicked face, hold forth on its unnatural sinfulness, and lament its being so early far away from heaven—but think a little of its having been conceived, and born and bred, in hell!
Those who study the physical sciences, and bring them to bear upon the health of man, tell us that if the noxious particles that rise from vitiated air were palpable to the sight, we should see them lowering in a dense black cloud above such haunts, and rolling slowly on to corrupt the better portions of a town. But if the moral pestilence that rises with them, and in the eternal laws of outraged nature, is inseparable from them, could be made discernible too, how terrible the revelation! Then should we see depravity, impiety, drunkenness, theft, murder, and a long train of nameless sins against the natural affections and repulsions of mankind, overhanging the devoted spots,and creeping on, to blight the innocent and spread contagion among the pure. Then should we see how the same poisoned fountains that flow into our hospitals and lazar houses, inundate the jails, and make the convict ships swim deep, and roll across the seas, and overrun vast continents with crime. Then should we stand appalled to know that where we generate disease to strike our children down and entail itself on unborn generations, there also we breed, by the same certain process, infancy that knows no innocence, youth without modesty or shame, maturity that is mature in nothing but in suffering and guilt, blasted old age that is a scandal on the form we bear. Unnatural humanity! When we shall gather grapes from thorns, and figs from thistles; when fields of grain shall spring up from the offal in the byways of our wicked cities, and roses bloom in the fat churchyards that they cherish; then we may look for natural humanity and find it growing from such seed.
Oh, for a good spirit who would take the housetops off, with a more potent and benignant hand than the lame demon in the tale, and show a Christian people what dark shapes issue from amidst their homes, to swell the retinue of the destroying angel as he moves forth among them! For only one night’s view of the pale phantoms rising from the scenes of our too long neglect; and from the thick and sullen air where vice and fever propagate together, raining the tremendous and social retributions which are ever pouring down, and ever coming thicker! Bright and blessed the morning that should rise on such a night; for men, delayed no more by stumbling-blocks of their own making, which are but specks of dust upon the path between them and eternity, would then apply themselves, like creatures of one common origin, owing one duty to the father of one family, and tending to one common end to make the world a better place!
Not the less bright and blessed would that day be for rousing some who never have looked out upon the world of human life around them to a knowledge of their own relation to it, and for making them acquainted with a perversion of Nature in their own contracted sympathies and estimates; as great and yet as natural in its development when once begun as the lowest degradation known.
This selection is worth rereading. The most advanced thinkers will understand it best.
Dickens showed that he understood clearly that a man becomes marred and degraded by shutting the world out of his heart, even though the reason for the exclusion may in itself be good. Love is the highest of all sentiments, and Dickens used it in the case of Mr. Wickfield to show that even the tender love he had for his dead wife became a source of evil to him, when it made him cease to think of the sorrows of his fellows, and only of his own affliction. Either in joy or sorrow the benefit to the individual results from a deepening of his consciousness of unity with the whole of humanity. Mr. Wickfield said to David:
“Weak indulgence has ruined me. Indulgence in remembrance and indulgence in forgetfulness. My natural grief for my child’s mother turned to disease; my natural love for my child turned to disease. I have infected everything I touched. I have brought misery on what I dearly love, I know—Youknow! I thought it possible that I could truly love one creature in the world, and not love the rest; I thought it possible that I could truly mourn for one creature gone out of the world, and not have some part in the grief of all who mourned. Thus the lessons of my life have been perverted! I have preyed on my own morbid coward heart, and it has preyed on me. Sordid in my grief, sordid in my love, sordid in my miserable escape from the darker side of both, oh, see the ruin I am, and hate me, shun me!”
“Weak indulgence has ruined me. Indulgence in remembrance and indulgence in forgetfulness. My natural grief for my child’s mother turned to disease; my natural love for my child turned to disease. I have infected everything I touched. I have brought misery on what I dearly love, I know—Youknow! I thought it possible that I could truly love one creature in the world, and not love the rest; I thought it possible that I could truly mourn for one creature gone out of the world, and not have some part in the grief of all who mourned. Thus the lessons of my life have been perverted! I have preyed on my own morbid coward heart, and it has preyed on me. Sordid in my grief, sordid in my love, sordid in my miserable escape from the darker side of both, oh, see the ruin I am, and hate me, shun me!”
In Tom Tiddler’s Ground Dickens attacks the ideal that there may be merit in seclusion. Mr. Traveller visits the hermit who had become famous, and who was so vain on account of his dirt and simplicity of living, and he tells him some plain truths regarding himself and the duty of man to his fellow-men.
“Now,” said he, “that a man—even behind bars, in a blanket and a skewer—should tell me that he can see from day to day any orders or conditions of men, women, or children, who can by any possibility teach him that it is anything but the miserablist drivelling for a human creature to quarrel with his social nature—not to go so far as to say, to renounce his common human decency, for that is an extreme case, or who can teach him that he can inany wise separate himself from his kind and the habits of his kind, without becoming a deteriorated spectacle calculated to give the Devil (and perhaps the monkeys) pleasure—is something wonderful!”“You think yourself profoundly wise,” said the Hermit.“Bah,” returned Mr. Traveller, “there is little wisdom in knowing that every man must be up and doing, and that all mankind are made dependent on one another.“It is a moral impossibility,” continued Mr. Traveller, “that any son or daughter of Adam can stand on this ground that I put my foot on, or on any ground that mortal treads, and gainsay the healthy tenure on which we hold our existence.”“Which is,” sneered the Hermit, “according to you——”“Which is,” returned the Traveller, “according to Eternal Providence, that we must arise and wash our faces and do our gregarious work and act and react on each other, leaving only the idiot and the palsied to sit blinking in the corner.”
“Now,” said he, “that a man—even behind bars, in a blanket and a skewer—should tell me that he can see from day to day any orders or conditions of men, women, or children, who can by any possibility teach him that it is anything but the miserablist drivelling for a human creature to quarrel with his social nature—not to go so far as to say, to renounce his common human decency, for that is an extreme case, or who can teach him that he can inany wise separate himself from his kind and the habits of his kind, without becoming a deteriorated spectacle calculated to give the Devil (and perhaps the monkeys) pleasure—is something wonderful!”
“You think yourself profoundly wise,” said the Hermit.
“Bah,” returned Mr. Traveller, “there is little wisdom in knowing that every man must be up and doing, and that all mankind are made dependent on one another.
“It is a moral impossibility,” continued Mr. Traveller, “that any son or daughter of Adam can stand on this ground that I put my foot on, or on any ground that mortal treads, and gainsay the healthy tenure on which we hold our existence.”
“Which is,” sneered the Hermit, “according to you——”
“Which is,” returned the Traveller, “according to Eternal Providence, that we must arise and wash our faces and do our gregarious work and act and react on each other, leaving only the idiot and the palsied to sit blinking in the corner.”
Dickens saves Little Emily from her great sorrow, and lifts the load of “shame” from her heart by giving her the opportunity of helping to care for others.
But theer was some poor folks aboard as had illness among ’em, and she took care ofthem; and theer was the children in our company, and she took care ofthem; and so she got to be busy, and to be doing good, and that helped her.
But theer was some poor folks aboard as had illness among ’em, and she took care ofthem; and theer was the children in our company, and she took care ofthem; and so she got to be busy, and to be doing good, and that helped her.
And in the same great book he ridicules the misuse of the sacred word “society” by applying it to the sham and mockery of all that should be truly helpful and ennobling in the social intercourse of mankind.
Or perhaps thisisthe Desert of Sahara! for, though Julia has a stately house, and mighty company, and sumptuous dinners every day, I see no green growth near her; nothing that can ever come to fruit or flower. What Julia calls “society,” I see among it Mr. Jack Maldon, from his Patent Place, sneering at the hand that gave it to him, and speaking to me of the Doctor, as “so charmingly antique.”But when society is the name of such hollow gentlemen and ladies, Julia, and when its breeding is professed indifference to everything that can advance or can retard mankind, I think we must have lost ourselves in the same Desert of Sahara, and had better find the way out.
Or perhaps thisisthe Desert of Sahara! for, though Julia has a stately house, and mighty company, and sumptuous dinners every day, I see no green growth near her; nothing that can ever come to fruit or flower. What Julia calls “society,” I see among it Mr. Jack Maldon, from his Patent Place, sneering at the hand that gave it to him, and speaking to me of the Doctor, as “so charmingly antique.”
But when society is the name of such hollow gentlemen and ladies, Julia, and when its breeding is professed indifference to everything that can advance or can retard mankind, I think we must have lost ourselves in the same Desert of Sahara, and had better find the way out.
When he spoke of Little Dorrit as “inspired” he proceeded to say:
She was inspired to be something which was not what the rest were, and to be that something, different and laborious, for the sake of the rest. Inspired? Yes. Shall we speak of the inspiration of a poet or a priest, and not of the heart impelled by love and self-devotion to the lowliest work in the lowliest way of life!
She was inspired to be something which was not what the rest were, and to be that something, different and laborious, for the sake of the rest. Inspired? Yes. Shall we speak of the inspiration of a poet or a priest, and not of the heart impelled by love and self-devotion to the lowliest work in the lowliest way of life!
Dickens had reached the great conception that the duty of every individual is to add something by his life to the general good. That we should not leave the world as we found it; that our work is not done well if we spend our lives in digging among the richest treasures of the past and revealing them unselfishly to our fellow-men, but that each should make some existing thing or condition better, or reveal some new thought or principle, or plan, or process, so that humanity may climb more easily and more certainly from the mists and shadows to the higher glory of the clearer light.
Mr. Doyce had made an invention, but had met with almost insuperable difficulties in getting it before the people.
“It is much to be regretted,” said Clennam, “that you ever turned your thoughts that way, Mr. Doyce.”“True, sir, true, to a certain extent. But what is a man to do? If he has the misfortune to strike out something serviceable to the nation, he must follow where it leads him.”“Hadn’t he better let it go?” asked Clennam.“He can’t do it,” said Doyce, shaking his head, with a thoughtful smile. “It’s not put into his head to be buried. It’s put into his head to be made useful. You hold your life on the condition that to the last you shall struggle hard for it. Every man holds a discovery on the same terms.”“That is to say,” said Arthur, with a growing admirationof his quiet companion, “you are not fully discouraged even now?”“I have no right to be, if I am,” returned the other. “The thing is as true as it ever was.”
“It is much to be regretted,” said Clennam, “that you ever turned your thoughts that way, Mr. Doyce.”
“True, sir, true, to a certain extent. But what is a man to do? If he has the misfortune to strike out something serviceable to the nation, he must follow where it leads him.”
“Hadn’t he better let it go?” asked Clennam.
“He can’t do it,” said Doyce, shaking his head, with a thoughtful smile. “It’s not put into his head to be buried. It’s put into his head to be made useful. You hold your life on the condition that to the last you shall struggle hard for it. Every man holds a discovery on the same terms.”
“That is to say,” said Arthur, with a growing admirationof his quiet companion, “you are not fully discouraged even now?”
“I have no right to be, if I am,” returned the other. “The thing is as true as it ever was.”
Throughout his writings Dickens vigorously condemns the class distinctions that separate mankind into sections, and thus destroy the bond of unity and brotherhood that should exist between them.
Miss Monflathers, in Old Curiosity Shop, drew the line very definitely between genteel children and the children of the poor.
Mr. Dombey pompously consented to have the children of the poor educated, because “it is necessary that the inferior classes should continue to be taught to know their position.” Fancy using education to prevent the unity of men, when its highest function should be the revelation of community and the qualification of individuals for the functions of brotherhood.
In David Copperfield the pathetic side of the evil of class distinctions is shown by the appeals of Mr. Peggotty to Mrs. Steerforth that she would consent to her son’s marriage with Little Emily, and her indignant refusal to allow her son to do so.
In Bleak House Sir Leicester Dedlock was amazed at the audacity of Mr. Rouncewell’s democratic ideas, and his mind was filled with gloomy forebodings of the evil that such principles as those held by Mr. Rouncewell would work in the social organization as planned and fixed by the Dedlock class. These were his thoughts:
From the village school of Chesney Wold, intact as it is this minute, to the whole framework of society; from the whole framework of society, to the aforesaid framework receiving tremendous cracks in consequence of people (ironmasters, lead mistresses, and what not) not minding their catechism, and getting out of the station unto which they are called—necessarily and forever, according to Sir Leicester’s rapid logic, the first station in which they happen to find themselves; and from that, to their educating other people out oftheirstations, and so obliterating the landmarks, and opening the flood gates, and all the rest of it; this is the swift progress of the Dedlock mind.
From the village school of Chesney Wold, intact as it is this minute, to the whole framework of society; from the whole framework of society, to the aforesaid framework receiving tremendous cracks in consequence of people (ironmasters, lead mistresses, and what not) not minding their catechism, and getting out of the station unto which they are called—necessarily and forever, according to Sir Leicester’s rapid logic, the first station in which they happen to find themselves; and from that, to their educating other people out oftheirstations, and so obliterating the landmarks, and opening the flood gates, and all the rest of it; this is the swift progress of the Dedlock mind.
In American Notes, after describing at length the admirable co-operative arrangements, and the varied means of culture, amusement, and refinement enjoyed by the young women in the factories at Lowell, Mass., he says: