CHARLES DICKENS--BOY AND MAN
The best way to understand Charles Dickens is to learn to know him
first when he was a boy. Odd though it may sound, we can actually
become acquainted with the boy Charles Dickens. David Copperfield,
at least in the beginning of his story, is a close delineation of the
writer's own boyhood. David's feelings, and many of the happenings
of his youth, are the feelings and the happenings which made Charles
Dickens the boy and the man that he was.
While this is true, it is true at the same time that we should use
caution lest we read into a story more than the author intends us to
find either about himself or of other people. Human beings are so
wonderfully and strangely made that no mortal, no matter how hard he
tries, can ever draw a perfectly true or a perfectly just picture of
anyone. Some quality always escapes analysis, and each person living
now, or who ever has lived, remains himself only. Dickens drew a
wonderful picture of himself in David Copperfield. This is one
reason why we love David and understand him so well. Yet David
Copperfield is not exactly Charles Dickens. We can scarcely believe
for one thing that David ever could have written as well about
Charles as Charles has written about David.
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When Dickens was a boy of ten he was sent to work in a blacking
warehouse by his father who was at that time in a debtors' prison.
People, when Dickens was a boy, were sometimes left in prison for a
long time if they could not pay their debts. Years afterwards,
Dickens wrote of the secret agony of his soul while he worked at
covering blacking bottles and of how he longed for companions, boys
of his own age. Indeed, so unhappy were his recollections that when
he was grown-up he mentioned these years to one person only, John
Forster, the friend who wrote his biography; to remember this part of
his life always gave him great pain.
Charles Dickens was born at Portsmouth, Hampshire, England, February
7th, 1812. Life in the Dickens family was not settled or stable.
They moved frequently, and were always more or less uncertain as to
the future. The father, as has been said, at one time was in a
debtors' prison, and the family, including Charles, became familiar
with the strange life of The Marshalsea which is described with
exactitude in more than one of Dickens' novels, but especially in
_Little Dorrit_. At other times, and even in the Marshalsea, life
for the Dickens family was interesting, even exciting. Charles was
unhappy because of the work to which he was put, and because he saw
clearly, although he was only a little fellow, that he was losing the
chance of obtaining an education. He was, however, an
extraordinarily observant lad and read with passionate absorption all
the books that he could find. Pictures of the strange people he met
and of the queer things they {11} did remained with him throughout
his life, and from this material gathered in his youth he fashioned
his great novels.
He had dreams of what he would be and of what he would do. The
family lived for a number of years in Chatham, his father being a
clerk in the navy pay-office at the dockyard, and he used to see,
when he was walking with his father in the neighbouring country, a
house called Gadshill Place. He planned then that some day he would
own that house. It was in 1856 that he became the owner of Gadshill
when he was forty-four years old, a considerable achievement for the
boy of ten who had washed and re-covered blacking bottles. But many
greater achievements than this were brought about by the genius of
Charles Dickens.
All his life these youthful days were lived over again in his stories
and in his own memory. To a not inconsiderable extent they influence
us, too, because of the novels which Dickens wrote. The roads of
Kent, where he went walking when they lived in Chatham, are the great
roads of his novels. The characters he wrote about were created from
traits and habits which he had observed in people known by the boy
Charles Dickens. The unjust laws and cruel customs against which he
fought so powerful a battle were those whose victims had excited his
pity long before he had grown up.
When the family fortunes were brighter, Charles Dickens went to
school again for a couple of years. But from the time he was
fifteen, he earned his own living. He began as a clerk or {12}
office boy. Later, he studied shorthand, and entered the reporters'
gallery of the House of Commons when he was nineteen. He began to
write articles and sketches soon afterwards. His first book,
_Sketches by Boz_, was published when he was twenty-four. In the
same year, he married Catherine Hogarth, the eldest daughter of
George Hogarth, a fellow writer on _The Morning Chronicle_, who had
been kind to him.
From this year, 1836, until his death in 1870, he wrote a series of
novels and stories with extraordinary speed and diligence. He
travelled much, but never ceased writing. He gave many public
readings from his own works. He visited the United States and Canada
in 1842, and in 1867-68 gave readings in the eastern cities of the
United States. Wherever he went he was received with acclaim, and he
was at all times an object of public attention. His gifts were
great, but no one who follows the story of his life can help being
struck by his extraordinary capacity for hard work. All his life he
laboured more assiduously than any ordinary person can work; and when
he stopped writing, with one of his novels unfinished, he was, as far
as we can tell, still in the enjoyment of almost undiminished powers
as a writer.
Dickens had been a sickly boy, often ill and suffering. As soon as
he could be put to stand on a chair, so young was he, he had given
childish recitations and sung childish songs for the entertainment of
his father's and mother's friends. He was, in effect, as a child
somewhat spoiled by too much attention. Throughout his mature life
he {13} lived at white heat; ordinary quiet days had no attraction
for him. He was inclined to think that people treated him unjustly.
In truth, one is reluctantly compelled to admit that Dickens was
over-sensitive and somewhat quarrelsome. These are, perhaps, the
only faults, certainly the main faults, in his character. It can be
said with justice, however, that he was continually under strain and
pressure from overwork; he was, as well, excitable by temperament.
One of the best brief descriptions of Dickens' appearance is by Leigh
Hunt. "What a face is his to meet in a drawing room! It has the
life and soul in it of fifty human beings." He lived with an
intensity which it is scarcely possible for less intense people to
understand. He gave his wonderful vitality without stint to the
writing of his books. When he finished _David Copperfield_ his life
had been so absorbed in its characters that he wrote "I seem to be
sending some part of myself into the Shadowy World." Thackeray said
of _A Christmas Carol_, "It seems to me a national benefit..."
Dickens was generous in his praise of the work of other writers, and
deeply grateful for any kindness shown himself, no matter how slight
the benefit was. He quarrelled, one may say, with America as well as
with some of his friends and contemporaries, but years afterwards he
wrote in a postscript to a later edition of _Martin Chuzzlewit_ a
warm tribute to the magnanimity of the country. His married life was
not altogether happy. But in Forster's _Life_, there is a story that
his daughters Mary and Kate having taken pains to teach him the steps
of the polka so {14} that he might dance it at their brother's
birthday party, Dickens, waking in the middle of the night before the
party, was afraid that he had forgotten the proper steps, and
immediately got up out of bed to practise them.
Two of his characters, Wilkins Micawber and Mr. Dorritt, are drawn,
to some extent at least, from the character of his father; Mrs.
Nickleby is said to be a portrait of his mother. It can at least be
conceded that Mr. Micawber and Mrs. Nickleby are among the greatest
characters ever created by Dickens. Apparently he had no unkind
intention; still, one would rather that he had denied himself the use
of this material. He was attached to his father and mother and took
pleasure in providing for their older years. He bought them a house
a mile from the town of Exeter and looked after the furnishing of the
house himself.
His feeling for his children was deeply rooted in his heart. It
expressed itself in numberless ways, never more plainly than in a
letter to his youngest son written on the eve of the boy's leaving to
join his brother in Australia. (Forster's _Life of Charles Dickens_,
Book xi, Part iii).
Dickens' popularity can hardly be over-estimated. There is a story
that while _Dombey and Son_ was being published in monthly parts, a
man who kept a snuff shop in London and had as well a number of
lodgers, read aloud the month's instalment on the first Monday of
every month at a tea. Only those who paid for the tea shared in it,
but all the lodgers could listen to the story. The incident affords
a striking picture of the power Dickens had over all kinds of people.
Recent reminiscences {15} by one of Dickens' sons tell of how when he
was walking once with his father along the broad walk at the Zoo in
London, they met a little girl running ahead of her father and
mother; when she saw who it was she ran back crying, "Oh, mummy!
mummy! it is Charles Dickens." Dickens was greatly pleased.
He made for everyone who lived with him a life of constant gaiety and
variety. Well-known and celebrated people shared this entertainment.
His heart was passionately attached to the cause of the poor and
oppressed. He had unfailing belief in human nature, and was hopeful
of everyone and everything. A well-known statesman who lived in
Queen Victoria's youth once said at a private dinner at which Dickens
was present, "Nothing is ever so good as it is thought." Dickens at
once answered him, "And nothing so bad." We remember that few
opportunities came to him. His great career was the result of his
own exertions. There was no one at all to help him when he was
young. We think with pride and admiration of his great achievements,
and we love him for his affectionate nature and goodness of heart.
No one can read Dickens' novels without learning what his character
was, ardent, generous and loving. He was a great novelist and a
great benefactor.
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