WHAT DICKENS DID FOR HUMANITY
Dickens from his childhood seems to have had a strong desire to leave
the world a better place for other people than he had found it for
himself. We can trace this feeling in his youth and through his
manhood. It runs in his novels like a great tide of impulse and
energy. "These things should not happen" he seems to cry to the
world. "Come, let us unite against injustice and heartlessness in
public and private dealing, against public and private wrong of every
description. Let us banish bad customs from the earth, so that it
may be a fairer, brighter, happier place."
One of his novels_ A Tale of Two Cities_ is a story of the French
Revolution. The story shows that, in common with the rest of the
world then living, Dickens' outlook on life had been powerfully
affected by the French Revolution, as our world to-day has been
vastly changed by the Great War. The watch words of the French
Revolution were Liberty, Fraternity, Equality. They rang like bells
to waken all men's hearts against injustice; their echoes are ringing
still. During the Revolution which began in 1789, a little more than
twenty years before Dickens was born, and in the years following the
Revolution, there were terrible excesses of cruelty, murder and
bloodshed {17} by the revolutionists. But the spirit of revolt
against wrong was in men's minds everywhere. In every country change
and revolution were impending, either violent change and revolution
with bloodshed, or silent change and a peaceful revolution. In Great
Britain, it appears reasonably certain that the works of Dickens had
much to do with preventing a violent revolution. Well-to-do people
read these books, and their minds became more kindly to their
fellowmen. They were eager to help the poor and oppressed. The poor
and unfortunate read Dickens' stories and were filled with the spirit
of brotherhood to everyone, to the rich as well as to those who were
poor as they themselves were poor. Dickens showed, not that the poor
were unhappy, but that they were unjustly and harshly treated. The
living spirit of happiness and of Christmas is found in the house of
the Cratchits. The Cratchits are poor, but they are wonderfully
happy. People in many other countries as well as England rushed to
the help of the poor because of the happiness of the Cratchit family.
Tiny Tim and his crutch touched the heart of the world, and the heart
of the world was made the better for it. We still are made better by
the story of the Cratchits. Above all, Dickens' novels overflow, not
only with tenderness and indignation against wrong and cruelty, but
with abounding good temper and inexhaustible mirth. It has been said
that danger of a violent revolution in Great Britain was swept away
by the gales of good-tempered and hearty laughter which seized upon
thousands of people who were reading these great stories. It was a
{18} splendid achievement for any novelist, or for any man or woman.
To help to bring about a peaceful revolution, instead of one in which
blood is shed, is a claim that can be made on behalf of few people in
the history of the world.
Dickens is generally given credit for having secured for the world a
number of much needed reforms. There is no doubt that Dickens had a
great deal to do with promoting these reforms. But it is the glory
of the age in which he lived that many people were working to make
wrong conditions right. What Dickens succeeded in doing, possibly in
a greater degree than anyone else at that time, was to produce in a
great multitude of people the spirit which is willing, more than
willing, very desirous, to make wrong right.
An English poet who was born about a half century before Dickens,
(Dickens' dates are 1812-1870; William Blake's dates are 1757-1827)
wrote lines which embody wonderfully this passion for helping other
people who need help. It is a passion which happily belongs to our
own age. Who can tell how many people now living carry about in
their hearts the resolution expressed in one of Blake's verses?
I will not cease from mental fight,
Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand,
Till we have built Jerusalem
In England's green and pleasant land.
Jerusalem, of course, means heaven. The Lord's Prayer says, Thy will
be done on earth as it is in heaven.
You had better learn by heart this verse written {19} by William
Blake, for you will often want to remember it, and to help to build
Jerusalem in your own country, wherever that country is.
Charles Dickens has other claims to greatness, but surely none so
compelling as the fact that the spirit of his novels is the aspiring,
tender, loving spirit of humanity.
It is interesting to know the names of the special reforms for which
Dickens worked. These were to change the customs of the law courts
so that there should be less delay and greater simplicity in securing
redress for hardship, and to improve the character of the men
appointed to the bench; to change the Poor Laws, and especially to
improve their administration; to change and improve greatly the
schools which existed at that time; and to bring about a reformation
in the administration of prisons. Finally, he wished to have the
nation provide common means of decency and health in the dwellings of
the poor, so that fever and consumption should not forever be let
loose on God's creatures. These are almost Dickens' own words. All
these conditions have been so vastly improved that we who are living
to-day can hardly realize how much we have for which to be thankful.
But there are still in the world wrongs to right and conditions to
improve.
Dickens was a great novelist, but he was not a perfect novelist. It
is easy to find defects in the books that he wrote, defects of style,
faults in the plans of his novels and in the delineation of his
characters. But in spite of these defects, his novels are great
novels. It is possible that Dickens' characters are more true to
life than we have {20} thought they were. He may be one of the
greatest delineators of English character in the history of
literature. Can you not imagine Sam Weller, and Mark Tapley, yes,
and Tom Pinch, and Ham Peggotty, Tupman, Winkle and Snodgrass,
fighting in the trenches in France and Flanders, with bravery, jokes
and indomitable perseverance, while Boffin, Mr. Pickwick, Miss Betsey
Trotwood and Susan Nipper are busy with work at home? One of the
best ways, and certainly one of the most delightful ways, to study
the character and the genius of the people of England is to read the
novels of Charles Dickens.
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