Romance is perhaps the highest point of human expression, except indeed
religion, to which it is closely allied. Romance resembles religion
especially in this, that it is not only a simplification but a
shortening of existence. Both romance and religion see everything as it
were foreshortened; they see everything in an abrupt and fantastic
perspective, coming to an apex. It is the whole essence of perspective
that it comes to a point. Similarly, religion comes to a point--to the
point. Thus religion is always insisting on the shortness of human life.
But it does not insist on the shortness of human life as the pessimists
insist on it. Pessimism insists on the shortness of human life in order
to show that life is valueless. Religion insists on the shortness of
human life in order to show that life is frightfully valuable--is almost
horribly valuable. Pessimism says that life is so short that it gives
nobody a chance; religion says that life is so short that it gives
everybody his final chance. In the first case the word brevity means
futility; in the second case, opportunity. But the case is even stronger
than this. Religion shortens everything. Religion shortens even
eternity. Where science, submitting to the false standard of time, sees
evolution, which is slow, religion sees creation, which is sudden.
Philosophically speaking, the process is neither slow nor quick since
we have nothing to compare it with. Religion prefers to think of it as
quick. For religion the flowers shoot up suddenly like rockets. For
religion the mountains are lifted up suddenly like waves. Those who
quote that fine passage which says that in God's sight a thousand years
are as yesterday that is passed as a watch in the night, do not realise
the full force of the meaning. To God a thousand years are not only a
watch but an exciting watch. For God time goes at a gallop, as it does
to a man reading a good tale.
All this is, in a humble manner, true for romance. Romance is a
shortening and sharpening of the human difficulty. Where you and I have
to vote against a man, or write (rather feebly) against a man, or sign
illegible petitions against a man, romance does for him what we should
really like to see done. It knocks him down; it shortens the slow
process of historical justice. All romances consist of three characters.
Other characters may be introduced; but those other characters are
certainly mere scenery as far as the romance is concerned. They are
bushes that wave rather excitedly; they are posts that stand up with a
certain pride; they are correctly painted rocks that frown very
correctly; but they are all landscape--they are all a background. In
every pure romance there are three living and moving characters. For the
sake of argument they may be called St. George and the Dragon and the
Princess. In every romance there must be the twin elements of loving and
fighting. In every romance there must be the three characters: there
must be the Princess, who is a thing to be loved; there must be the
Dragon, who is a thing to be fought; and there must be St. George, who
is a thing that both loves and fights. There have been many symptoms of
cynicism and decay in our modern civilisation. But of all the signs of
modern feebleness, of lack of grasp on morals as they actually must be,
there has been none quite so silly or so dangerous as this: that the
philosophers of to-day have started to divide loving from fighting and
to put them into opposite camps. There could be no worse sign than that
a man, even Nietzsche, can be found to say that we should go in for
fighting instead of loving. There can be no worse sign than that a man,
even Tolstoi, can be found to tell us that we should go in for loving
instead of fighting. The two things imply each other; they implied each
other in the old romance and in the old religion, which were the two
permanent things of humanity. You cannot love a thing without wanting to
fight for it. You cannot fight without something to fight for. To love a
thing without wishing to fight for it is not love at all; it is lust. It
may be an airy, philosophical, and disinterested lust; it may be, so to
speak, a virgin lust; but it is lust, because it is wholly
self-indulgent and invites no attack. On the other hand, fighting for a
thing without loving it is not even fighting; it can only be called a
kind of horse-play that is occasionally fatal. Wherever human nature is
human and unspoilt by any special sophistry, there exists this natural
kinship between war and wooing, and that natural kinship is called
romance. It comes upon a man especially in the great hour of youth; and
every man who has ever been young at all has felt, if only for a moment,
this ultimate and poetic paradox. He knows that loving the world is the
same thing as fighting the world. It was at the very moment when he
offered to like everybody he also offered to hit everybody. To almost
every man that can be called a man this especial moment of the romantic
culmination has come. In the first resort the man wished to live a
romance. In the second resort, in the last and worst resort, he was
content to write one.
Now there is a certain moment when this element enters independently
into the life of Dickens. There is a particular time when we can see him
suddenly realise that he wants to write a romance and nothing else. In
reading his letters, in appreciating his character, this point emerges
clearly enough. He was full of the afterglow of his marriage; he was
still young and psychologically ignorant; above all, he was now, really
for the first time, sure that he was going to be at least some kind of
success. There is, I repeat, a certain point at which one feels that
Dickens will either begin to write romances or go off on something
different altogether. This crucial point in his life is marked by
_Nicholas Nickleby_.
It must be remembered that before this issue of _Nicholas Nickleby_ his
work, successful as it was, had not been such as to dedicate him
seriously or irrevocably to the writing of novels. He had already
written three books; and at least two of them are classed among the
novels under his name. But if we look at the actual origin and formation
of these books we see that they came from another source and were really
designed upon another plan. The three books were, of course, the
_Sketches by Boz_, _the Pickwick Papers_, and _Oliver Twist_. It is, I
suppose, sufficiently well understood that the _Sketches by Boz_ are, as
their name implies, only sketches. But surely it is quite equally clear
that the _Pickwick Papers_ are, as their name implies, merely papers.
Nor is the case at all different in spirit and essence when we come to
_Oliver Twist_. There is indeed a sort of romance in _Oliver Twist_, but
it is such an uncommonly bad one that it can hardly be regarded as
greatly interrupting the previous process; and if the reader chooses to
pay very little attention to it, he cannot pay less attention to it than
the author did. But in fact the case lies far deeper. _Oliver Twist_ is
so much apart from the ordinary track of Dickens, it is so gloomy, it is
so much all in one atmosphere, that it can best be considered as an
exception or a solitary excursus in his work. Perhaps it can best be
considered as the extension of one of his old sketches, of some sketch
that happened to be about a visit to a workhouse or a gaol. In the
_Sketches by Boz_ he might well have visited a workhouse where he saw
Bumble; in the _Sketches by Boz_ he might well have visited a prison
where he saw Fagin. We are still in the realm of sketches and
sketchiness. _The Pickwick Papers_ may be called an extension of one of
his bright sketches. _Oliver Twist_ may be called an extension of one of
his gloomy ones.
Had he continued along this line all his books might very well have been
note-books. It would be very easy to split up all his subsequent books
into scraps and episodes, such as those which make up the _Sketches by
Boz_. It would be easy enough for Dickens, instead of publishing
_Nicholas Nickleby_, to have published a book of sketches, one of which
was called "A Yorkshire School," another called "A Provincial Theatre,"
and another called "Sir Mulberry Hawk or High Life Revealed," another
called "Mrs. Nickleby or a Lady's Monologue." It would have been very
easy to have thrown over the rather chaotic plan of the _Old Curiosity
Shop_. He might have merely written short stories called "The Glorious
Apollos," "Mrs. Quilp's Tea-Party," "Mrs. Jarley's Waxwork," "The Little
Servant," and "The Death of a Dwarf." _Martin Chuzzlewit_ might have
been twenty stories instead of one story. _Dombey and Son_ might have
been twenty stories instead of one story. We might have lost all
Dickens's novels; we might have lost altogether Dickens the novelist. We
might have lost that steady love of a seminal and growing romance which
grew on him steadily as the years advanced, and which gave us towards
the end some of his greatest triumphs. All his books might have been
_Sketches by Boz_. But he did turn away from this, and the turning-point
is _Nicholas Nickleby_.
Everything has a supreme moment and is crucial; that is where our
friends the evolutionists go wrong. I suppose that there is an instant
of midsummer as there is an instant of midnight. If in the same way
there is a supreme point of spring, _Nicholas Nickleby_ is the supreme
point of Dickens's spring. I do not mean that it is the best book that
he wrote in his youth. _Pickwick_ is a better book. I do not mean that
it contains more striking characters than any of the other books in his
youth. The _Old Curiosity Shop_ contains at least two more striking
characters. But I mean that this book coincided with his resolution to
be a great novelist and his final belief that he could be one.
Henceforward his books are novels, very commonly bad novels. Previously
they have not really been novels at all. There are many indications of
the change I mean. Here is one, for instance, which is more or less
final. _Nicholas Nickleby_ is Dickens's first romantic novel because it
is his first novel with a proper and dignified romantic hero; which
means, of course, a somewhat chivalrous young donkey. The hero of
_Pickwick_ is an old man. The hero of _Oliver Twist_ is a child. Even
after _Nicholas Nickleby_ this non-romantic custom continued. The _Old
Curiosity Shop_ has no hero in particular. The hero of _Barnaby Rudge_
is a lunatic. But Nicholas Nickleby is a proper, formal, and ceremonial
hero. He has no psychology; he has not even any particular character;
but he is made deliberately a hero--young, poor, brave, unimpeachable,
and ultimately triumphant. He is, in short, the hero. Mr. Vincent
Crummles had a colossal intellect; and I always have a fancy that under
all his pomposity he saw things more keenly than he allowed others to
see. The moment he saw Nicholas Nickleby, almost in rags and limping
along the high road, he engaged him (you will remember) as first walking
gentleman. He was right. Nobody could possibly be more of a first
walking gentleman than Nicholas Nickleby was. He was the first walking
gentleman before he went on to the boards of Mr. Vincent Crummles's
theatre, and he remained the first walking gentleman after he had come
off.
Now this romantic method involves a certain element of climax which to
us appears crudity. Nicholas Nickleby, for instance, wanders through the
world; he takes a situation as assistant to a Yorkshire schoolmaster;
he sees an act of tyranny of which he strongly disapproves; he cries out
"Stop!" in a voice that makes the rafters ring; he thrashes the
schoolmaster within an inch of his life; he throws the schoolmaster away
like an old cigar, and he goes away. The modern intellect is positively
prostrated and flattened by this rapid and romantic way of righting
wrongs. If a modern philanthropist came to Dotheboys Hall I fear he
would not employ the simple, sacred, and truly Christian solution of
beating Mr. Squeers with a stick. I fancy he would petition the
Government to appoint a Royal Commission to inquire into Mr. Squeers. I
think he would every now and then write letters to newspapers reminding
people that, in spite of all appearances to the contrary, there was a
Royal Commission to inquire into Mr. Squeers. I agree that he might even
go the length of calling a crowded meeting in St. James's Hall on the
subject of the best policy with regard to Mr. Squeers. At this meeting
some very heated and daring speakers might even go the length of
alluding sternly to Mr. Squeers. Occasionally even hoarse voices from
the back of the hall might ask (in vain) what was going to be done with
Mr. Squeers. The Royal Commission would report about three years
afterwards and would say that many things had happened which were
certainly most regrettable; that Mr. Squeers was the victim of a bad
system; that Mrs. Squeers was also the victim of a bad system; but that
the man who sold Squeers his cane had really acted with great
indiscretion and ought to be spoken to kindly. Something like this would
be what, after four years, the Royal Commission would have said; but it
would not matter in the least what the Royal Commission had said, for by
that time the philanthropists would be off on a new tack and the world
would have forgotten all about Dotheboys Hall and everything connected
with it. By that time the philanthropists would be petitioning
Parliament for another Royal Commission; perhaps a Royal Commission to
inquire into whether Mr. Mantalini was extravagant with his wife's
money; perhaps a commission to inquire into whether Mr. Vincent Crummles
kept the Infant Phenomenon short by means of gin.
If we wish to understand the spirit and the period of _Nicholas
Nickleby_ we must endeavour to comprehend and to appreciate the old more
decisive remedies, or, if we prefer to put it so, the old more desperate
remedies. Our fathers had a plain sort of pity; if you will, a gross and
coarse pity. They had their own sort of sentimentalism. They were quite
willing to weep over Smike. But it certainly never occurred to them to
weep over Squeers. Even those who opposed the French war opposed it
exactly in the same way as their enemies opposed the French soldiers.
They fought with fighting. Charles Fox was full of horror at the
bitterness and the useless bloodshed; but if any one had insulted him
over the matter, he would have gone out and shot him in a duel as coolly
as any of his contemporaries. All their interference was heroic
interference. All their legislation was heroic legislation. All their
remedies were heroic remedies. No doubt they were often narrow and often
visionary. No doubt they often looked at a political formula when they
should have looked at an elemental fact. No doubt they were pedantic in
some of their principles and clumsy in some of their solutions. No
doubt, in short, they were all very wrong; and no doubt we are the
people, and wisdom shall die with us. But when they saw something which
in their eyes, such as they were, really violated their morality, such
as it was, then they did not cry "Investigate!" They did not cry
"Educate!" They did not cry "Improve!" They did not cry "Evolve!" Like
Nicholas Nickleby they cried "Stop!" And it did stop.
This is the first mark of the purely romantic method: the swiftness and
simplicity with which St. George kills the dragon. The second mark of it
is exhibited here as one of the weaknesses of _Nicholas Nickleby_. I
mean the tendency in the purely romantic story to regard the heroine
merely as something to be won; to regard the princess solely as
something to be saved from the dragon. The father of Madeline Bray is
really a very respectable dragon. His selfishness is suggested with much
more psychological tact and truth than that of any other of the villains
that Dickens described about this time. But his daughter is merely the
young woman with whom Nicholas is in love. We do not care a rap about
Madeline Bray. Personally I should have preferred Cecilia Bobster. Here
is one real point where the Victorian romance falls below the
Elizabethan romantic drama. Shakespeare always made his heroines heroic
as well as his heroes.
In Dickens's actual literary career it is this romantic quality in
_Nicholas Nickleby_ that is most important. It is his first definite
attempt to write a young and chivalrous novel. In this sense the comic
characters and the comic scenes are secondary; and indeed the comic
characters and the comic scenes, admirable as they are, could never be
considered as in themselves superior to such characters and such scenes
in many of the other books. But in themselves how unforgettable they
are. Mr. Crummles and the whole of his theatrical business is an
admirable case of that first and most splendid quality in Dickens--I
mean the art of making something which in life we call pompous and dull,
becoming in literature pompous and delightful. I have remarked before
that nearly every one of the amusing characters of Dickens is in reality
a great fool. But I might go further. Almost every one of his amusing
characters is in reality a great bore. The very people that we fly to in
Dickens are the very people that we fly from in life. And there is more
in Crummles than the mere entertainment of his solemnity and his tedium.
The enormous seriousness with which he takes his art is always an exact
touch in regard to the unsuccessful artist. If an artist is successful,
everything then depends upon a dilemma of his moral character. If he is
a mean artist success will make him a society man. If he is a
magnanimous artist, success will make him an ordinary man. But only as
long as he is unsuccessful will he be an unfathomable and serious
artist, like Mr. Crummles. Dickens was always particularly good at
expressing thus the treasures that belong to those who do not succeed in
this world. There are vast prospects and splendid songs in the point of
view of the typically unsuccessful man; if all the used-up actors and
spoilt journalists and broken clerks could give a chorus, it would be a
wonderful chorus in praise of the world. But these unsuccessful men
commonly cannot even speak. Dickens is the voice of them, and a very
ringing voice; because he was perhaps the only one of these unsuccessful
men that was ever successful.