“David Copperfield” and “Henry Esmond” are perhaps the best illustrations extant of the advantages of the autobiographical method in fiction, which, whatever may be its drawbacks, is better fitted than any other to subjective description. It is said that the true function of the painter is to reproduce things on the canvas, not as they are, but as they appear to the person observing them. In like manner it is often the function of the novelist’s art to describe the world, not as it is, but as it appears to some particular person; and there is no better way to do this than by an autobiography. The artistic truth of the picture will appear, when the reader says to himself, “How often that thing looked just so to me!” Of course the estimate of the truth of this sort of a picture will vary with the personal temperament of the reader, but I think most young readers will find an instant bond of sympathy between David Copperfield and themselves.
At the time I first read it, as a college student, I think no work of fiction had ever attracted me so greatly. There seemed to be much in it which corresponded with my own feelings and experiences,and I still think that those parts of the book that deal with childhood, youth, and early manhood are very true to nature. David’s description of the home at Blunderstone where he was born, of the church, of the fowls in the yard and the fears that they occasioned, of his joy in the house that was made out of a boat on the sand, of his resentment at the tyranny of his stepfather, of his school-boy fancies, of his hero-worship of the brilliant Steerforth,—in short, his general way of looking at the world is so exactly like that of the ordinary healthy boy under similar circumstances that these parts of the book are, in the highest and best sense of the word, very realistic.
But as a whole the work has no such convincing power over me to-day as it had when I first read it. Some of the characters, indeed, like little Miss Mowcher, Barkis, and Mr. Creakle, seem more like puppets and less like real persons than they did. Many of them seem to carry about with them a sort of trade-mark, to certify to their genuineness,—Heep’s “humility,” for instance, Murdstone’s “firmness,” or Littimer’s “respectability”; or perhaps the test of identity is a formula, like “thinking of the old ’un” of Mrs. Gummidge, or “waiting for something to turn up” of Micawber. In many cases the picture is a caricature rather than a real portrait, and yet it has the advantage of the caricature, that it sets forth in bold relief the leading feature and fixes itself forever in the memory.
There is little to say about the story, for it is known to all. Practically three or four stories are woven into one. There is the story of David himself, a boy who, after a comfortable childhood with his young widowed mother and her old house servant Peggotty, falls under the tyranny of a stepfather and his sister, and is sent to be beaten and abused at Creakle’s school, and when his mother dies is put out to a miserable and hopeless existence at the dismal counting-house of Murdstone and Grinby. He runs away, and in absolute destitution betakes himself to the home of Betsey Trotwood, an aunt whom he has never seen, but with whom he finds a refuge. Then follows the description (one of the best chapters in the book) of his school days at Canterbury; his devotion to Miss Shepherd; his romantic adoration of Miss Larkins, who marries an elderly hopgrower; his disastrous fight with a butcher. He is then articled to Mr. Spenlow, of Doctor’s Commons, to become a proctor, and falls in love with Dora, Spenlow’s daughter, an affectionate, foolish little creature, whom he marries. He wins a reputation as an author, and after the death of his “child-wife,” and a period of travel, finally weds Agnes Wickfield, who has always loved him, and who, ever since his school days at Canterbury, has been the guardian spirit of his life.
Intertwined with this story is that of the family of Mr. Peggotty, the brother of David’s old nurse, who lives in the boat on the sand at Yarmouth,with his nephew Ham, and Em’ly, his adopted child, a beautiful creature, who is betrayed by David’s friend Steerforth, with whom she elopes on the eve of her marriage to Ham, and who afterwards abandons her. An affecting picture is given of the honest Mr. Peggotty seeking his poor child through the world; of her final return, and of the great storm and shipwreck, in which Steerforth goes down, and Ham loses his life in a vain attempt at rescue.
Another strand in the cord of this remarkable story is that of Micawber and his family, with whom Copperfield becomes a lodger during his gloomy days at Murdstone and Grinby’s,—a man who, after various misfortunes, including poverty, jail, and a wretched life in which he is made the tool of the hypocritical Uriah Heep, is finally sent to Australia on the same vessel with Mr. Peggotty and Emily, and begins a career of ultimate prosperity.
But the story is interesting not so much on account of the plot as of the people who are in it, and the human interest which runs through the whole.
In addition to the naturalness of Copperfield’s own feelings, there are other characters that are very true to life. That of his eccentric aunt, Betsey Trotwood, is perhaps a little overdrawn at first, in her interview with the doctor on the occasion of David’s birth, but afterwards her warmth of heart, frankness, and the strong good sense which underlie her rude behavior and eccentricities, the combination of strength and weaknessin her nature, call to my own mind at every step one whom I have intimately known and greatly loved. There is something immensely refreshing, for instance, in her outbreak at the slimy Uriah Heep:
“‘If you’re an eel, sir, conduct yourself like one. If you’re a man, control your limbs, sir. Good God!’ said my aunt, with great indignation, ‘I’m not going to be serpentined and corkscrewed out of my senses!’”
“‘If you’re an eel, sir, conduct yourself like one. If you’re a man, control your limbs, sir. Good God!’ said my aunt, with great indignation, ‘I’m not going to be serpentined and corkscrewed out of my senses!’”
Her noble conduct in concealing what she believed to be the defalcation of her old friend Mr. Wickfield is equally characteristic:
“‘And at last he took the blame upon himself,’ added my aunt, ‘and wrote me a mad letter, charging himself with robbery and wrong unheard of; upon which I paid him a visit early one morning, called for a candle, burned the letter, and told him if he ever could right me and himself to do it, and if he could not, to keep his own counsel for his daughter’s sake.’”
“‘And at last he took the blame upon himself,’ added my aunt, ‘and wrote me a mad letter, charging himself with robbery and wrong unheard of; upon which I paid him a visit early one morning, called for a candle, burned the letter, and told him if he ever could right me and himself to do it, and if he could not, to keep his own counsel for his daughter’s sake.’”
The “umble,” pious, and vindictive scoundrel, Uriah Heep, has been a type of whining hypocrisy. The description of him as Copperfield first saw him is remarkable:
“A red-haired person, a youth of fifteen, as I take it now, but looking much older; whose hair was cropped as close as the closest stubble, who had hardly any eyebrows and no eyelashes, and eyes of a red brown, so unsheltered and unshaded that I remember wondering how he went to sleep. He was high-shouldered and bony,dressed in decent black, with a white wisp of a neckcloth buttoned up to the throat, and had a long, lank, skeleton hand, which particularly attracted my attention as he stood at the pony’s head, rubbing his chin and looking up at us in the chaise.”
“A red-haired person, a youth of fifteen, as I take it now, but looking much older; whose hair was cropped as close as the closest stubble, who had hardly any eyebrows and no eyelashes, and eyes of a red brown, so unsheltered and unshaded that I remember wondering how he went to sleep. He was high-shouldered and bony,dressed in decent black, with a white wisp of a neckcloth buttoned up to the throat, and had a long, lank, skeleton hand, which particularly attracted my attention as he stood at the pony’s head, rubbing his chin and looking up at us in the chaise.”
On the whole, perhaps Heep’s character is rather a grotesque than a reality. Everywhere he inspires us with unutterable aversion. He worms himself into the secrets of Wickfield, his employer, takes advantage of his weakness for drink, and finally gets possession of much of his property. Afterwards, in the prison scene, he is equally true to his snaky nature, and becomes an edifying and pious pattern of the products of prison reform.
The quiet, respectful, and respectable Littimer, Steerforth’s serving-man, who seemed to be always saying to the awestruck David, “You are young, sir; you are very young,”—and who afterwards became his master’s tool in the disgraceful intrigue with Em’ly, will find many a counterpart in actual life. There are some of us who in our youth have felt similar awe in the presence of such a domestic.
Perhaps the most charming chapters in the book are those which describe the courting, the marriage, and the disastrous housekeeping of David and his child-wife, Dora, in which the little dog Jip plays such a conspicuous part. They are a pair of precious young noodles; yet the love-making, in spite of its absurdity, is so absolutely natural, and the foolish Dora so utterly affectionate,up to the pathetic scene of her death, that the incidents awaken a very strong sympathy.
Mr. Micawber, of course, is an exaggeration; but how many men have we known who possessed some of his essential traits,—his stilted diction, his sudden alternations of supreme joy and utter despair, his mania for letter-writing, his visionary hopes and schemes in the midst of his distresses? How perfect in its way is the final newspaper account of the public dinner in Australia given in his honor!
Mr. Peggotty’s search through the world for Little Em’ly seems to me now greatly overstrained, though I did not think so when I first read it. There is a very true touch in the description of the old Mrs. Gummidge, who had always been querulous and complaining until great sorrow fell upon the household, when she became at once helpful, considerate, and cheerful in comforting the distress of others. We have all seen examples of this kind of transformation.
Dickens has done mankind a service by portraying the dignity of simple things and the delicacy and nobility of character that often lie beneath a rough exterior, among those whom Lincoln used to call “the plain people,” of whom Lincoln was himself perhaps the most illustrious type. What could be nobler and in its essential character more gentlemanly than the behavior of Mr. Peggotty and Ham after the betrayal of Little Em’ly; what more delicate than Peggotty’sappreciation of Em’ly’s feeling toward him?
“‘She would go to the world’s furdest end if she could once see me again, and she would fly to the world’s furdest end to keep from seeing me. For tho’ she ain’t no call to doubt my love—and doen’t—and doen’t—but there’s shame steps in and keeps betwixt us.’”
“‘She would go to the world’s furdest end if she could once see me again, and she would fly to the world’s furdest end to keep from seeing me. For tho’ she ain’t no call to doubt my love—and doen’t—and doen’t—but there’s shame steps in and keeps betwixt us.’”
Dickens’s style is often intensely vivid—for instance, in his description of a London fog in “Bleak House”; of the burning Marseilles sun in “Little Dorrit”; of the storm and shipwreck in “David Copperfield”;—all fine instances of word-painting. Yet the crudities are many and glaring, there is very little finish, and sometimes the diction is commonplace.
But there are occasional passages of extraordinary beauty, due possibly not so much to the style as the sentiment and the things described. Witness the following, where David describes his feelings when he had taken refuge with his aunt in her cottage at Dover, after his escape from Murdstone and Grinby’s:
“The room was a pleasant one, at the top of the house, overlooking the sea, on which the moon was shining brilliantly. After I had said my prayers, and my candle had burnt out, I remember how I still sat looking at the moonlight on the water, as if I could hope to read my fortunes in it, as in a bright book; or to see my mother with her child, coming from Heaven along that shining path, to look upon me as she had looked when I last saw her sweet face. I remember how the solemn feeling with which at length I turned my eyes away, yielded to the sensation of gratitude and rest with which the sight of thewhite-curtained bed—and how much more the lying softly down upon it, nestling in the snow-white sheets—inspired. I remember how I thought of all the solitary places under the night sky where I had slept, and how I prayed that I never might be houseless any more, and never might forget the houseless. I remember how I seemed to float, then, down the melancholy glory of that track upon the sea, away into the world of dreams.”
“The room was a pleasant one, at the top of the house, overlooking the sea, on which the moon was shining brilliantly. After I had said my prayers, and my candle had burnt out, I remember how I still sat looking at the moonlight on the water, as if I could hope to read my fortunes in it, as in a bright book; or to see my mother with her child, coming from Heaven along that shining path, to look upon me as she had looked when I last saw her sweet face. I remember how the solemn feeling with which at length I turned my eyes away, yielded to the sensation of gratitude and rest with which the sight of thewhite-curtained bed—and how much more the lying softly down upon it, nestling in the snow-white sheets—inspired. I remember how I thought of all the solitary places under the night sky where I had slept, and how I prayed that I never might be houseless any more, and never might forget the houseless. I remember how I seemed to float, then, down the melancholy glory of that track upon the sea, away into the world of dreams.”
“David Copperfield” may not be the supreme work of fiction which some of us once fancied it, but it touches the heart very closely. It dignifies humble life and common things, makes us better friends with the world, and awakens those human traits which work for kindness and goodwill toward all mankind.