One thing at least seems certain. Dickens may or may not have been
socialist in his tendencies; one might quote on the affirmative side his
satire against Mr. Podsnap, who thought Centralisation "un-English"; one
might quote in reply the fact that he satirised quite as unmercifully
state and municipal officials of the most modern type. But there is one
condition of affairs which Dickens would certainly have detested and
denounced, and that is the condition in which we actually stand to-day.
At this moment it is vain to discuss whether socialism will be a selling
of men's liberty for bread. The men have already sold the liberty; only
they have not yet got the bread. A most incessant and exacting
interference with the poor is already in operation; they are already
ruled like slaves, only they are not fed like slaves. The children are
forcibly provided with a school; only they are not provided with a
house. Officials give the most detailed domestic directions about the
fireguard; only they do not give the fireguard. Officials bring round
the most stringent directions about the milk; only they do not bring
round the milk. The situation is perhaps the most humorous in the whole
history of oppression. We force the nigger to dig; but as a concession
to him we do not give him a spade. We compel Sambo to cook; but we
consult his dignity so far as to refuse him a fire.
This state of things at least cannot conceivably endure. We must either
give the workers more property and liberty, or we must feed them
properly as we work them properly. If we insist on sending the menu into
them, they will naturally send the bill into us. This may possibly
result (it is not my purpose here to prove that it will) in the drilling
of the English people into hordes of humanely herded serfs; and this
again may mean the fading from our consciousness of all those elves and
giants, monsters and fantastics whom we are faintly beginning to feel
and remember in the land. If this be so, the work of Dickens may be
considered as a great vision--a vision, as Swinburne said, between a
sleep and a sleep. It can be said that between the grey past of
territorial depression and the grey future of economic routine the
strange clouds lifted, and we beheld the land of the living.
Lastly, Dickens is even astonishingly right about Eugene Wrayburne. So
far from reproaching him with not understanding a gentleman, the critic
will be astonished at the accuracy with which he has really observed the
worth and the weakness of the aristocrat. He is quite right when he
suggests that such a man has intelligence enough to despise the
invitations which he has not the energy to refuse. He is quite right
when he makes Eugene (like Mr. Balfour) constantly right in argument
even when he is obviously wrong in fact. Dickens is quite right when he
describes Eugene as capable of cultivating a sort of secondary and false
industry about anything that is not profitable; or pursuing with passion
anything that is not his business. He is quite right in making Eugene
honestly appreciative of essential goodness--in other people. He is
quite right in making him really good at the graceful combination of
satire and sentiment, both perfectly sincere. He is also right in
indicating that the only cure for this intellectual condition is a
violent blow on the head.