Chapter 2
Dickens left Liverpool, on his voyage across the Atlantic, in the “Britannia” steam-packet, Captain Hewett, on the 3rd of January, 1842. At Boston, Hartford, and New York, he was received with ovations (Washington Irving on one occasion presiding at a banquet held in his honour), until he was obliged to decline any further appearance in public. During this first visit to America, he made three long and eloquent speeches, which are all given in this volume _in extenso_. In each of these he referred in an earnest way to the great question of International Copyright, urging upon his Transatlantic friends the necessity of doing right and justice in this matter. He returned to England in the month of June, and a few weeks afterwards addressed the following circular letter to all the principal English authors:—
“1, DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, York Gate, Regent’s Park, “7_th_ _July_, 1842.
“You may perhaps be aware that, during my stay in America, I lost no opportunity of endeavouring to awaken the public mind to a sense of the unjust and iniquitous state of the law in that country, in reference to the wholesale piracy of British works. Having been successful in making the subject one of general discussion in the United States, I carried to Washington, for presentation to Congress by Mr. Clay, a petition from the whole body of American authors, earnestly praying for the enactment of an International Copyright Law. It was signed by Mr. Washington Irving, Mr. Prescott, Mr. Cooper, and every man who has distinguished himself in the literature of America; and has since been referred to a Select Committee of the House of Representatives. To counteract any effect which might be produced by that petition, a meeting was held in Boston—which, you will remember, is the seat and stronghold of Learning and Letters in the United States—at which a memorial against any change in the existing state of things in this respect was agreed to, with but one dissentient voice. This document, which, incredible as it may appear to you, was actually forwarded to Congress and received, deliberately stated that if English authors were invested with any control over the re-publication of their own books, it would be no longer possible for American editors to alter and adapt them (as they do now) to the American taste! This memorial was, without loss of time, replied to by Mr. Prescott, who commented, with the natural indignation of a gentleman, and a man of letters, upon its extraordinary dishonesty. I am satisfied that this brief mention of its tone and spirit is sufficient to impress you with the conviction that it becomes all those who are in any way connected with the literature of England, to take that high stand, to which the nature of their pursuits, and the extent of their sphere of usefulness, justly entitle them, to discourage the upholders of such doctrines by every means in their power, and to hold themselves aloof from the remotest participation in a system, from which the moral sense and honourable feeling of all just men must instinctively recoil.
“For myself, I have resolved that I will never from this time enter into any negotiation with any person for the transmission across the Atlantic of early proofs of anything I may write, and that I will forego all profit derivable from such a source. I do not venture to urge this line of proceeding upon you, but I would beg to suggest, and to lay great stress upon the necessity of observing one other course of action, to which I cannot too emphatically call your attention. The persons who exert themselves to mislead the American public on this question, to put down its discussion, and to suppress and distort the truth in reference to it in every possible way, are (as you may easily suppose) those who have a strong interest in the existing system of piracy and plunder: inasmuch as, so long as it continues, they can gain a very comfortable living out of the brains of other men, while they would find it very difficult to earn bread by the exercise of their own. These are the editors and proprietors of newspapers almost exclusively devoted to the re-publication of popular English works. They are, for the most part, men of very low attainments, and of more than indifferent reputation; and I have frequently seen them, in the same sheet in which they boast of the rapid sale of many thousand copies of an English reprint, coarsely and insolently attacking the author of that very book, and heaping scurrility and slander upon his head. I would therefore entreat you, in the name of the honourable pursuit with which you are so intimately connected, never to hold correspondence with any of these men, and never to negotiate with them for the sale of early proofs of any work over which you have control, but to treat on all occasions with some respectable American publishing house, and with such an establishment only. Our common interest in this subject, and my advocacy of it, single-handed, on every occasion that has presented itself during my absence from Europe, form my excuse for addressing you.
“I am, &c., “CHARLES DICKENS.”
By his “American Notes,” and by some of the scenes in “Martin Chuzzlewit,” Dickens gave for a time great offence to the Americans, though he only satirised some of their foibles (with just a spice of piquante exaggeration), as he had ours at home. Let the reader hear what two candid Americans have recently written on this subject:—
“The ‘American Notes’ are weak, and unworthy of their author; but the American sketches in ‘Martin Chuzzlewit’ are among the cleverest and truest things he has ever written. The satire was richly deserved, well applied, and has done a great deal of good. To claim that it was mere burlesque and exaggeration, is sheer nonsense, and it is highly disingenuous to deny the existence of the absurdities upon which it was founded. Moreover, the popular implication that there is really nothing now in the country justly to provoke a smile—to urge with so much complacency that we have changed all that—argues the continued existence of not a little of the same thin-skinned tetchiness, the same inability ‘to see ourselves as others see us,’ which made us so legitimate a target before.”
“As for certain American portraits painted in Martin Chuzzlewit,” says an American lady, {24} “I should as soon think of objecting to them as I should think of objecting to any other discovery in natural history. To deny the existence of Elijah Pogram, Jefferson Brick, Colonel Diver, Mrs. Hominy, and Miss Codger, is to deny facts somewhat exaggerated, that are patent to any keen observer who has ever travelled through the United States. The character of Elijah Pogram is so well known as to constantly figure in the world of illustration; and we can well afford to laugh at foibles of native growth when Mr. Dickens devotes the greater part of this same novel to the exposition of English vice and selfishness.”
The following letter, referring to Martin Chuzzlewit, which was then in course of publication, was addressed by Mr. Dickens to a friend in January, 1844:—
“Devonshire Terrace, “_January_ 2_d_, 1844.
MY DEAR SIR,
“THAT is a very horrible case you tell me of. I would to God I could get at the parental heart of —, in which event I would so scarify it, that he should writhe again. But if I were to put such a father as he into a book, all the fathers going (and especially the bad ones) would hold up their hands and protest against the unnatural caricature. I find that a great many people (particularly those who might have sat for the character) consider even Mr. Pecksniff a grotesque impossibility, and Mrs. Nickleby herself, sitting bodily before me in a solid chair, once asked me whether I really believed there ever was such a woman.
“So — reviewing his own case, would not believe in Jonas Chuzzlewit. ‘I like Oliver Twist,’ says —, ‘for I am fond of children. But the book is unnatural, for who would think of being cruel to poor little Oliver Twist!’
“Nevertheless I will bear the dog in my mind, and if I can hit him between the eyes so that he shall stagger more than you or I have done this Christmas under the combined effects of punch and turkey, I will.
“Thank you cordially for your note. Excuse this scrap of paper. I thought it was a whole sheet until I turned it over.
“My dear Sir, “Faithfully yours, “CHARLES DICKENS.”
To a collection of Sketches and Tales by a Working Man, published in 1844, {26} Charles Dickens was induced to contribute a preface, from which we select the following passages:—
“I do not recommend it as a book of surpassing originality or transcendent merit . . . I do not claim to have discovered, in humble life, an extraordinary and brilliant genius. I cannot charge mankind in general with having entered into a conspiracy to neglect the author of this volume, or to leave him pining in obscurity. I have not the smallest intention of comparing him with Burns, the exciseman; or with Bloomfield, the shoemaker; or with Ebenezer Elliott, the worker in iron; or with James Hogg, the shepherd. I see no reason to be hot, or bitter, or lowering, or sarcastic, or indignant, or fierce, or sour, or sharp, in his behalf. I have nothing to rail at; nothing to exalt; nothing to flourish in the face of a stony-hearted world; and have but a very short and simple story to tell.
“John Overs is, as is set forth in the title-page, a working man. A man who earns his weekly wages (or who did when he was strong enough) by plying of the hammer, plane, and chisel. He became known to me nearly six years ago, when he sent me some songs, appropriate to the different months of the year, with a letter, stating under what circumstances they had been composed, and in what manner he was occupied from morning until night. I was just then relinquishing the conduct of a monthly periodical, {27} or I would gladly have published them. As it was, I returned them to him, with a private expression of the interest I felt in such productions. They were afterwards accepted, with much readiness and consideration, by Mr. Tait, of Edinburgh, and were printed in his Magazine.
“Finding, after some further correspondence with my new friend, that his authorship had not ceased with his verses, but that he still occupied his leisure moments in writing, I took occasion to remonstrate with him seriously against his pursuing that course. I told him, his persistence in his new calling made me uneasy; and I advised him to abandon it as strongly as I could.
“In answer to this dissuasion of mine, he wrote me as manly and straightforward, but withal, as modest a letter, as ever I read in my life. He explained to me how limited his ambition was: soaring no higher than the establishment of his wife in some light business, and the better education of his children. He set before me the difference between his evening and holiday studies, such as they were; and the having no better resource than an ale-house or a skittle-ground. He told me how every small addition to his stock of knowledge made his Sunday walks the pleasanter, the hedge-flowers sweeter, everything more full of interest and meaning to him.
* * * * *
“He is very ill; the faintest shadow of the man who came into my little study for the first time, half-a-dozen years ago, after the correspondence I have mentioned. He has been very ill for a long period; his disease is a severe and wasting affection of the lungs, which has incapacitated him these many months for every kind of occupation. ‘If I could only do a hard day’s work,’ he said to me the other day, ‘how happy I should be.’
“Having these papers by him, amongst others, he bethought himself that, if he could get a bookseller to purchase them for publication in a volume, they would enable him to make some temporary provision for his sick wife, and very young family. We talked the matter over together, and that it might be easier of accomplishment I promised him that I would write an introduction to his book.
“I would to Heaven that I could do him better service! I would to Heaven it were an introduction to a long, and vigorous, and useful life! But Hope will not trim his lamp the less brightly for him and his, because of this impulse to their struggling fortunes, and trust me, reader, they deserve her light, and need it sorely.
“He has inscribed this book to one {28} whose skill will help him, under Providence, in all that human skill can do. {29} To one who never could have recognised in any potentate on earth a higher claim to constant kindness and attention than he has recognized in him. * * * *”
The beautiful series of Christmas stories, with which during the last fifteen years the public have become so familiar, was commenced by Mr. Dickens in December, 1843, with _A Christmas Carol in Prose_, illustrated by John Leech. What Jeffrey, what Sydney Smith, what Jerrold, what Thackeray thought and wrote about this little story is well known. “Blessings on your kind heart, my dear Dickens,” wrote Jeffrey, “and may it always be as full and as light as it is kind, and a fountain of goodness to all within reach of its beatings. We are all charmed with your Carol; chiefly, I think, for the genuine goodness which breathes all through it, and is the true inspiring angel by which its genius has been awakened. The whole scene of the Cratchits is like the dream of a beneficent angel, in spite of its broad reality, and little Tiny Tim in life and in death almost as sweet and touching as Nelly. You may be sure you have done more good, and not only fastened more kindly feelings, but prompted more positive acts of benevolence by this little publication than can be traced to all the pulpits and confessionals since Christmas, 1842.”
“It is the work,” writes Thackeray, {30} “of the master of all the English humourists now alive; the young man who came and took his place calmly at the head of the whole tribe, and who has kept it. Think of all we owe Mr. Dickens since those half-dozen years, the store of happy hours that he has made us pass, the kindly and pleasant companions whom he has introduced to us; the harmless laughter, the generous wit, the frank, manly, human love which he has taught us to feel! Every month of those years has brought us some kind token from this delightful genius. His books may have lost in art, perhaps, but could we afford to wait? Since the days when the _Spectator_ was produced by a man of kindred mind and temper, what books have appeared that have taken so affectionate a hold of the English public as these?
“Who can listen to objections regarding such a book as this? It seems to me a national benefit, and to every man or woman who reads it a personal kindness. The last two people I heard speak of it were women; neither knew the other, or the author, and both said by way of criticism, ‘God bless him!’ * * * As for Tiny Tim, there is a certain passage in the book regarding that young gentleman about which a man should hardly venture to speak in print or in public, any more than he would of any other affections of his private heart. There is not a reader in England but that little creature will be a bond of union between the author and him; and he will say of Charles Dickens, as the woman just now, ‘God bless him!’ What a feeling is this for a writer to be able to inspire, and what a reward to reap.”
During six years did Mr. Dickens continue to issue at Christmas these little volumes: “A Christmas Carol” (December, 1843); “The Chimes” (December, 1844); “The Cricket on the Hearth” (December, 1845); “The Battle of Life” (December, 1846); “The Haunted Man and the Ghost’s Bargain” (December, 1848). {31}
Christmas stories are now grown so much the fashion that, whenever the season of holly and mistletoe comes round they greet us at every turn, forcing themselves upon our notice through every species of whimsical and enticing embellishment. Why is it that, amidst such a satiety of novelties we turn again and again, with an interest as keen as ever, to a perusal of the pages where little Dot Peerybingle chirps as brightly as the cricket on her own hearth, where Trotty Veck listens to the voices of the chimes, striving to comprehend what it is they say to him, and where old Scrooge’s heart is softened by his ghostly visitants? It is because Charles Dickens has made such a study of that human nature we all possess in common that he is able to strike with a practised hand upon the chords of our hearts, and draw forth harmony that vibrates from soul to soul.
It is not, however, our intention here, to follow Mr. Dickens through the whole of his long and honourable literary career, far less to undertake the superfluous task of extolling the numerous and brilliant list of writings that have followed each other in rapid and welcome succession from his indefatigable pen. All that remains for us to do now, is to notice briefly two very grave charges that have been made against the general tendency of his writings, and to bring forward some evidence in refutation of them.
These two charges are, 1, a wilful perversion of facts in describing the political and social condition of our time; 2, an irreverence for and ridicule of sacred things and persons, which (say the objectors) infuses a subtle poison through the whole of his works, and unsettles the belief of the young. We shall take these charges one at a time.
In some of his later novels, such as “Bleak House,” and “Little Dorrit,” in which he has endeavoured to grapple with the great social and political problems of the age, certain critics have accused him of exaggeration, and even of a wilful perversion of facts. Against their opinion we are pleased to be able to set that of so good an authority as the author of “Modern Painters:”—
“The essential value and truth of Dickens’s writings,” says Mr. Ruskin, “have been unwisely lost sight of by many thoughtful persons, merely because he presents his truth with some colour of caricature. Unwisely, because Dickens’s caricature, though often gross, is never mistaken. Allowing for his manner of telling them, the things he tells us are always true. I wish that he could think it right to limit his brilliant exaggeration to works written only for public amusement; and when he takes up a subject of high national importance, such as that which he handled in ‘Hard Times,’ that he would use severer and more accurate analysis. The usefulness of that work (to my mind, in several respects the greatest he has written,) is with many persons seriously diminished, because Mr. Bounderby is a dramatic monster, instead of a characteristic example of a worldly master; and Stephen Blackpool a dramatic perfection, instead of a characteristic example of an honest workman. But let us not lose the use of Dickens’s wit and insight because he chooses to speak in a circle of stage fire. He is entirely right in his main drift and purpose in every book he has written; and all of them, but especially ‘Hard Times,’ should be studied with close and earnest care by persons interested in social questions. They will find much that is partial, and, because partial, apparently unjust; but if they examine all the evidence on the other side, which Dickens seems to overlook, it will appear, after all their trouble, that his view was the finally right one, grossly and sharply told.” {33}
Secondly, Mr. Dickens is accused of an irreverence for, and unseemly ridicule of, sacred things. Any attentive reader of Dickens will have observed that he is not much in the habit of quoting from, or alluding to the writings of others; but that when he does quote or allude, it is in the great majority of cases from or to the Holy Scriptures. {34} Occasionally we come upon a reference to Shakespeare; now and then we meet with one from Swift, or Scott, or Byron; but these occur so seldom, that it may be said, once for all, that the source from which Mr. Dickens is usually in the habit of making quotations, is the Bible only. It is very interesting to find that so many of Mr. Dickens’s characters are represented as being in the habit either of regularly reading and studying the Bible, or of having it read to them by some one else.
“I ain’t much of a hand at reading writing-hand,” said Betty Higden, “though I can read my Bible and most print.” Little Nell was in the constant habit of taking the Bible with her to read while in her quiet and lonely retreat in the old church, after all her long and weary wanderings were past. In the happy time which Oliver Twist spent with Mrs. Maylie and Rose, he used to read, in the evenings, a chapter or two from the Bible, which he had been studying all the week, and in the performance of which duty he felt more proud and pleased than if he had been the clergyman himself. There was Sarah, in the “Sketches by Boz,” who regularly read the Bible to her old mistress; and in the touching sketch of “Our Next-door Neighbour” in the same book, we find the mother of the sick boy engaged in reading the Bible to him when the visitor called and interrupted her. This incident reminds us of the poor Chancery prisoner in the Fleet, who, when on his death-bed calmly waiting the release which would set him free for ever, had the Bible read to him by an old man in a cobbler’s apron. One of David Copperfield’s earliest recollections was of a certain Sunday evening, when his mother read aloud to him and Peggotty the story of Our Saviour raising Lazarus from the dead. So deep an impression did the story make upon the boy, taken in connexion with all that had been lately told him about his father’s funeral, that he requested to be carried up to his bed-room, from the windows of which he could see the quiet churchyard with the dead all lying in their graves at rest below the solemn moon. Pip, too, in “Great Expectations,” was not only in the habit of reading the Bible to the convict under sentence of death, but of praying with him as well; and Esther Summerson tells us how she used to come downstairs every evening at nine o’clock to read the Bible to her god-mother.