at home is not inferior to its diffusive energy abroad. The phrase
‘household book’ has, when applied to the works of Mr. Dickens, a
peculiar propriety. There is no contemporary English writer, whose works
are read so generally through the whole house, who can give pleasure
to the servants as well as to the mistress, to the children as well as
to the master. Mr. Thackeray without doubt exercises a more potent and
plastic fascination within his sphere, but that sphere is limited. It is
restricted to that part of the middle class which gazes inquisitively
at the ‘Vanity Fair’ world. The delicate touches of our great satirist
have, for such readers, not only the charm of wit, but likewise the
interest of valuable information; he tells them of the topics which they
want to know. But below this class there is another and far larger,
which is incapable of comprehending the idling world, or of appreciating
the accuracy of delineations drawn from it,—which would not know the
difference between a picture of Grosvenor Square by Mr. Thackeray and the
picture of it in a Minerva-Press novel,—which only cares for or knows of
its own multifarious, industrial, fig-selling world,—and over these also
Mr. Dickens has power.
It cannot be amiss to take this opportunity of investigating, even
slightly, the causes of so great a popularity. And if, in the course of
our article, we may seem to be ready with over-refining criticism, or to
be unduly captious with theoretical objections, we hope not to forget
that so great and so diffused an influence is a _datum_ for literary
investigation,—that books which have been thus _tried_ upon mankind and
have thus succeeded, must be books of immense genius,—and that it is
our duty as critics to explain, as far as we can, the nature and the
limits of that genius, but never for one moment to deny or question its
existence.
Men of genius may be divided into regular and irregular. Certain minds,
the moment we think of them, suggest to us the ideas of symmetry and
proportion. Plato’s name, for example, calls up at once the impression
of something ordered, measured, and settled: it is the exact contrary of
everything eccentric, immature, or undeveloped. The opinions of such a
mind are often erroneous, and some of them may, from change of time, of
intellectual _data_, or from chance, seem not to be quite worthy of it;
but the mode in which those opinions are expressed, and (as far as we can
make it out) the mode in which they are framed, affect us, as we have
said, with a sensation of symmetricalness. It is not very easy to define
exactly to what peculiar internal characteristic this external effect is
due: the feeling is distinct, but the cause is obscure; it lies hid in
the peculiar constitution of great minds, and we should not wonder that
it is not very easy either to conceive or to describe. On the whole,
however, the effect seems to be produced by a peculiar proportionateness,
in each instance, of the mind to the tasks which it undertakes, amid
which we see it, and by which we measure it. Thus we feel that the powers
and tendencies of Plato’s mind and nature were more fit than those of any
other philosopher for the due consideration and exposition of the highest
problems of philosophy, of the doubts and difficulties which concern man
as man. His genius was adapted to its element; any change would mar the
delicacy of the thought, or the polished accuracy of the expression. The
weapon was fitted to its aim. Every instance of proportionateness does
not, however, lead us to attribute this peculiar symmetry to the whole
mind we are observing. The powers must not only be suited to the task
undertaken, but the task itself must also be suited to a human being,
and employ all the marvellous faculties with which he is endowed. The
neat perfection of such a mind as Talleyrand’s is the antithesis to the
symmetry of genius; the niceties neither of diplomacy nor of conversation
give scope to the entire powers of a great nature. We may lay down as the
condition of a regular or symmetrical genius, that it should have the
exact combination of powers suited to graceful and easy success in an
exercise of mind great enough to task the whole intellectual nature.
On the other hand, men of irregular or unsymmetrical genius are eminent
either for some one or some few peculiarities of mind, have possibly
special defects on other sides of their intellectual nature, at any rate
want what the scientific men of the present day would call the _definite
proportion_ of faculties and qualities suited to the exact work they
have in hand. The foundation of many criticisms of Shakespeare is, that
he is deficient in this peculiar proportion. His overteeming imagination
gives at times, and not unfrequently, a great feeling of irregularity:
there seems to be confusion. We have the tall trees of the forest,
the majestic creations of the highest genius; but we have, besides,
a bushy second growth, an obtrusion of secondary images and fancies,
which prevent our taking an exact measure of such grandeur. We have not
the sensation of intense simplicity, which must probably accompany the
highest conceivable greatness. Such is also the basis of Mr. Hallam’s
criticism on Shakespeare’s language, which Mr. Arnold has lately revived.
‘His expression is often faulty,’ because his illustrative imagination,
somewhat predominating over his other faculties, diffuses about the main
expression a supplement of minor metaphors which sometimes distract the
comprehension, and almost always deprive his style of the charm that
arises from undeviating directness. Doubtless this is an instance of the
very highest kind of irregular genius, in which all the powers exist in
the mind in a very high, and almost all of them in the very highest
measure, but in which from a slight excess in a single one, the charm
of proportion is lessened. The most ordinary cases of irregular genius
are those in which single faculties are abnormally developed, and call
off the attention from all the rest of the mind by their prominence and
activity. Literature, as the ‘fragment of fragments,’ is so full of the
fragments of such minds that it is needless to specify instances.
Possibly it may be laid down that one of two elements is essential to a
symmetrical mind. It is evident that such a mind must either apply itself
to that which is theoretical or that which is practical, to the world of
abstraction or to the world of objects and realities. In the former case
the deductive understanding, which masters first principles, and makes
deductions from them, the thin ether of the intellect,—the ‘mind itself
by itself,’—must evidently assume a great prominence. To attempt to
comprehend principles without it, is to try to swim without arms, or to
fly without wings. Accordingly, in the mind of Plato, and in others like
him, the abstract and deducing understanding fills a great place; the
imagination seems a kind of eye to descry its data; the artistic instinct
an arranging impulse, which sets in order its inferences and conclusions.
On the other hand, if a symmetrical mind busy itself with the active
side of human life, with the world of concrete men and real things, its
principal quality will be a practical sagacity, which forms with ease a
distinct view and just appreciation of all the mingled objects that the
world presents,—which allots to each its own place, and its intrinsic and
appropriate rank. Possibly no mind gives such an idea of this sort of
symmetry as Chaucer’s. Every thing in it seems in its place. A healthy
sagacious man of the world has gone through the world; he loves it, and
knows it; he dwells on it with a fond appreciation; every object of the
old life of ‘merry England’ seems to fall into its precise niche in his
ordered and symmetrical comprehension. The _Prologue to the Canterbury
Tales_ is in itself a series of memorial tablets to mediæval society;
each class has its tomb, and each its apt inscription. A man without
such an apprehensive and broad sagacity must fail in every extensive
delineation of various life; he might attempt to describe what he did not
penetrate, or if by a rare discretion he avoided that mistake, his works
would want the _binding element_; he would be deficient in that distinct
sense of relation and combination which is necessary for the depiction
of the whole of life, which gives to it unity at first, and imparts to
it a mass in the memory ever afterwards. And eminence in one or other of
these marking faculties,—either in the deductive abstract intellect, or
the practical seeing sagacity,—seems essential to the mental constitution
of a symmetrical genius, at least in man. There are, after all, but two
principal all-important spheres in human life—thought and action; and we
can hardly conceive of a masculine mind symmetrically developed, which
did not evince its symmetry by an evident perfection in one or other of
those pursuits, which did not leave the trace of its distinct reflection
upon the one, or of its large insight upon the other of them. Possibly
it may be thought that in the sphere of pure art there may be room for
a symmetrical development different from these; but it will perhaps be
found, on examination of such cases, either that under peculiar and
appropriate disguises one of these great qualities is present, or that
the apparent symmetry is the narrow perfection of a limited nature, which
may be most excellent in itself, as in the stricter form of sacred art,
but which, as we explained, is quite opposed to that broad perfection of
the thinking being, to which we have applied the name of the symmetry of
genius.
If this classification of men of genius be admitted, there can be no
hesitation in assigning to Mr. Dickens his place in it. His genius
is essentially irregular and unsymmetrical. Hardly any English
writer perhaps is much more so. His style is an example of it. It is
descriptive, racy, and flowing; it is instinct with new imagery and
singular illustration; but it does not indicate that due proportion of
the faculties to one another which is a beauty in itself, and which
cannot help diffusing beauty over every happy word and moulded clause. We
may choose an illustration at random. The following graphic description
will do:
‘If Lord George Gordon had appeared in the eyes of Mr. Willet,
overnight, a nobleman of somewhat quaint and odd exterior,
the impression was confirmed this morning, and increased a
hundredfold. Sitting bolt upright upon his bony steed, with
his long, straight hair dangling about his face and fluttering
in the wind; his limbs all angular and rigid, his elbows stuck
out on either side ungracefully, and his whole frame jogged and
shaken at every motion of his horse’s feet; a more grotesque
or more ungainly figure can hardly be conceived. In lieu of
whip, he carried in his hand a great gold-headed cane, as
large as any footman carries in these days; and his various
modes of holding this unwieldy weapon—now upright before his
face like the sabre of a horse-soldier, now over his shoulder
like a musket, now between his finger and thumb, but always
in some uncouth and awkward fashion—contributed in no small
degree to the absurdity of his appearance. Stiff, lank, and
solemn, dressed in an unusual manner, and ostentatiously
exhibiting—whether by design or accident—all his peculiarities
of carriage, gesture, and conduct, all the qualities, natural
and artificial, in which he differed from other men, he might
have moved the sternest looker-on to laughter, and fully
provoked the smiles and whispered jests which greeted his
departure from the Maypole Inn.
‘Quite unconscious, however, of the effect he produced, he
trotted on beside his secretary, talking to himself nearly all
the way, until they came within a mile or two of London, when
now and then some passenger went by who knew him by sight, and
pointed him out to some one else, and perhaps stood looking
after him, or cried in jest or earnest as it might be, “Hurrah,
Geordie! No Popery!” At which he would gravely pull off his
hat, and bow. When they reached the town and rode along the
streets, these notices became more frequent; some laughed, some
hissed, some turned their heads and smiled, some wondered who
he was, some ran along the pavement by his side and cheered.
When this happened in a crush of carts and chairs and coaches,
he would make a dead stop, and pulling off his hat, cry,
“Gentlemen, No Popery!” to which the gentlemen would respond
with lusty voices, and with three times three; and then, on he
would go again with a score or so of the raggedest, following
at his horse’s heels, and shouting till their throats were
parched.
‘The old ladies too—there were a great many old ladies in the
streets, and these all knew him. Some of them—not those of the
highest rank, but such as sold fruit from baskets and carried
burdens—clapped their shrivelled hands, and raised a weazen,
piping, shrill “Hurrah, my lord.” Others waved their hands or
handkerchiefs, or shook their fans or parasols, or threw up
windows, and called in haste to those within, to come and see.
All these marks of popular esteem he received with profound
gravity and respect; bowing very low, and so frequently that
his hat was more off his head than on; and looking up at the
houses as he passed along, with the air of one who was making a
public entry, and yet was not puffed-up or proud.’
No one would think of citing such a passage as this, as exemplifying the
proportioned beauty of finished writing; it is not the writing of an
evenly developed or of a highly cultured mind; it abounds in jolts and
odd turns; it is full of singular twists and needless complexities: but,
on the other hand, no one can deny its great and peculiar merit. It is an
odd style, and it is very odd how much you read it. It is the overflow of
a copious mind, though not the chastened expression of an harmonious one.
The same quality characterises the matter of his works. His range is
very varied. He has attempted to describe every kind of scene in English
life, from quite the lowest to almost the highest. He has not endeavoured
to secure success by confining himself to a single path, nor wearied
the public with repetitions of the subjects by the delineation of which
he originally obtained fame. In his earlier works he never writes long
without saying something well; something which no other man would have
said; but even in them it is the characteristic of his power that it
is apt to fail him at once; from masterly strength we pass without
interval to almost infantine weakness,—something like disgust succeeds
in a moment to an extreme admiration. Such is the natural fate of an
unequal mind employing itself on a vast and variegated subject. In
writing on the ‘Waverley Novels,’ we ventured to make a division of
novels into the ubiquitous,—it would have been perhaps better to say
the miscellaneous,—and the sentimental: the first, as its name implies,
busying itself with the whole of human life, the second restricting
itself within a peculiar and limited theme. Mr. Dickens’s novels are
all of the former class. They aim to delineate nearly all that part of
our national life which can be delineated,—at least, within the limits
which social morality prescribes to social art; but you cannot read
his delineation of any part without being struck with its singular
incompleteness. An artist once said of the best work of another artist,
‘Yes, it is a pretty patch.’ If we might venture on the phrase, we should
say that Mr. Dickens’s pictures are graphic scraps; his best books are
compilations of them.
The truth is, that Mr. Dickens wholly wants the two elements which we
have spoken of, as one or other requisite for a symmetrical genius. He
is utterly deficient in the faculty of reasoning. ‘Mamma, what shall
I think about?’ said the small girl. ‘My dear, don’t think,’ was the
old-fashioned reply. We do not allege that in the strict theory of
education this was a correct reply; modern writers think otherwise;
but we wish some one would say it to Mr. Dickens. He is often troubled
with the idea that he must reflect, and his reflections are perhaps the
worst reading in the world. There is a sentimental confusion about them;
we never find the consecutive precision of mature theory, or the cold
distinctness of clear thought. Vivid facts stand out in his imagination;
and a fresh illustrative style brings them home to the imagination of
his readers; but his continuous philosophy utterly fails in the attempt
to harmonise them,—to educe a theory or elaborate a precept from them.
Of his social thinking we shall have a few words to say in detail; his
didactic humour is very unfortunate: no writer is less fitted for an
excursion to the imperative mood. At present, we only say, what is so
obvious as scarcely to need saying, that his abstract understanding is so
far inferior to his picturesque imagination as to give even to his best
works the sense of jar and incompleteness, and to deprive them altogether
of the crystalline finish which is characteristic of the clear and
cultured understanding.
Nor has Mr. Dickens the easy and various sagacity which, as has been
said, gives a unity to all which it touches. He has, indeed, a quality
which is near allied to it in appearance. His shrewdness in some things,
especially in traits and small things, is wonderful. His works are
full of acute remarks on petty doings, and well exemplify the telling
power of minute circumstantiality. But the minor species of perceptive
sharpness is so different from diffused sagacity, that the two scarcely
ever are to be found in the same mind. There is nothing less like the
great lawyer, acquainted with broad principles and applying them with
distinct deduction, than the attorney’s clerk who catches at small points
like a dog biting at flies. ‘Over-sharpness’ in the student is the most
unpromising symptom of the logical jurist. You must not ask a horse in
blinkers for a large view of a landscape. In the same way, a detective
ingenuity in microscopic detail is of all mental qualities most unlike
the broad sagacity by which the great painters of human affairs have
unintentionally stamped the mark of unity on their productions. They show
by their treatment of each case that they understand the whole of life;
the special delineator of fragments and points shows that he understands
them only. In one respect the defect is more striking in Mr. Dickens than
in any other novelist of the present day. The most remarkable deficiency
in modern fiction is its omission of the business of life, of all those
countless occupations, pursuits, and callings in which most men live and
move, and by which they have their being. In most novels money _grows_.
You have no idea of the toil, the patience, and the wearing anxiety by
which men of action provide for the day, and lay up for the future,
and support those that are given into their care. Mr. Dickens is not
chargeable with this omission. He perpetually deals with the pecuniary
part of life. Almost all his characters have determined occupations, of
which he is apt to talk even at too much length. When he rises from the
toiling to the luxurious classes, his genius in most cases deserts him.
The delicate refinement and discriminating taste of the idling orders
are not in his way; he knows the dry arches of London Bridge better than
Belgravia. He excels in inventories of poor furniture, and is learned in
pawnbrokers’ tickets. But, although his creative power lives and works
among the middle class and industrial section of English society, he has
never painted the highest part of their daily intellectual life. He made,
indeed, an attempt to paint specimens of the apt and able man of business
in _Nicholas Nickleby_; but the Messrs. Cheeryble are among the stupidest
of his characters. He forgot that breadth of platitude is rather
different from breadth of sagacity. His delineations of middle-class
life have in consequence a harshness and meanness which do not belong to
that life in reality. He omits the relieving element. He describes the
figs which are sold, but not the talent which sells figs well. And it is
the same want of diffused sagacity in his own nature which has made his
pictures of life so odd and disjointed, and which has deprived them of
symmetry and unity.
The _bizarrerie_ of Mr. Dickens’s genius is rendered more remarkable by
the inordinate measure of his special excellences. The first of these is
his power of observation in detail. We have heard,—we do not know whether
correctly or incorrectly,—that he can go down a crowded street, and tell
you all that is in it, what each shop was, what the grocer’s name was,
how many scraps of orange-peel there were on the pavement. His works give
you exactly the same idea. The amount of detail which there is in them is
something amazing,—to an ordinary writer something incredible. There are
single pages containing telling _minutiæ_, which other people would have
thought enough for a volume. Nor is his sensibility to external objects,
though omnivorous, insensible to the artistic effect of each. There are
scarcely anywhere such pictures of London as he draws. No writer has
equally comprehended the artistic material which is given by its extent,
its aggregation of different elements, its mouldiness, its brilliancy.
Nor does his genius—though, from some idiosyncrasy of mind or accident of
external situation, it is more especially directed to City life—at all
stop at the Citywall. He is especially at home in the picturesque and
obvious parts of country life, particularly in the comfortable and (so to
say) mouldering portion of it. The following is an instance; if not the
best that could be cited, still one of the best:—
‘They arranged to proceed upon their journey next evening, as a
stage-wagon, which travelled for some distance on the same road
as they must take, would stop at the inn to change horses, and
the driver for a small gratuity would give Nell a place inside.
A bargain was soon struck when the wagon came; and in due time
it rolled away; with the child comfortably bestowed among the
softer packages, her grandfather and the schoolmaster walking
on beside the driver, and the landlady and all the good folks
of the inn screaming out their good wishes and farewells.
‘What a soothing, luxurious, drowsy way of travelling, to lie
inside that slowly-moving mountain, listening to the tinkling
of the horses’ bells, the occasional smacking of the carter’s
whip, the smooth rolling of the great broad wheels, the rattle
of the harness, the cheery goodnights of passing travellers
jogging past on little short-stepped horses—all made pleasantly
indistinct by the thick awning, which seemed made for lazy
listening under, till one fell asleep! The very going to sleep,
still with an indistinct idea, as the head jogged to and fro
upon the pillow, of moving onward with no trouble or fatigue,
and hearing all these sounds like dreamy music, lulling to the
senses—and the slow waking up, and finding one’s self staring
out through the breezy curtain half-opened in the front, far up
into the cold bright sky with its countless stars, and downward
at the driver’s lantern dancing on like its namesake Jack of
the swamps and marshes, and sideways at the dark grim trees,
and forward at the long bare road rising up, up, up, until it
stopped abruptly at a sharp high ridge as if there were no more
road, and all beyond was sky—and the stopping at the inn to
bait, and being helped out, and going into a room with fire
and candles and winking very much, and being agreeably reminded
that the night was cold, and anxious for very comfort’s sake to
think it colder than it was! What a delicious journey was that
journey in the wagon!