Those abuses which are supposed to belong specially to religion belong
to all human institutions. They are not the sins of supernaturalism, but
the sins of nature. In this respect it is interesting to observe that
all the evils which our Rationalist or Protestant tradition associates
with the idolatrous veneration of sacred figures arises in the merely
human atmosphere of literature and history. Every extravagance of
hagiology can be found in hero-worship. Every folly alleged in the
worship of saints can be found in the worship of poets. There are those
who are honourably and intensely opposed to the atmosphere of religious
symbolism or religious archaeology. There are people who have a vague
idea that the worship of saints is worse than the imitation of sinners.
There are some, like a lady I once knew, who think that hagiology is the
scientific study of hags. But these slightly prejudiced persons
generally have idolatries and superstitions of their own, particularly
idolatries and superstitions in connection with celebrated people. Mr.
Stead preserves a pistol belonging to Oliver Cromwell in the office of
the _Review of Reviews_; and I am sure he worships it in his rare
moments of solitude and leisure. A man, who could not be induced to
believe in God by all the arguments of all the philosophers, professed
himself ready to believe if he could see it stated on a postcard in the
handwriting of Mr. Gladstone. Persons not otherwise noted for their
religious exercise have been known to procure and preserve portions of
the hair of Paderewski. Nay, by this time blasphemy itself is a sacred
tradition, and almost as much respect would be paid to the alleged
relics of an atheist as to the alleged relics of a god. If any one has a
fork that belonged to Voltaire, he could probably exchange it in the
open market for a knife that belonged to St. Theresa.
Of all the instances of this there is none stranger than the case of
Dickens. It should be pondered very carefully by those who reproach
Christianity with having been easily corrupted into a system of
superstitions. If ever there was a message full of what modern people
call true Christianity, the direct appeal to the common heart, a faith
that was simple, a hope that was infinite, and a charity that was
omnivorous, if ever there came among men what they call the Christianity
of Christ, it was in the message of Dickens. Christianity has been in
the world nearly two thousand years, and it has not yet quite lost, its
enemies being judges, its first fire and charity; but friends and
enemies would agree that it was from the very first more detailed and
doctrinal than the spirit of Dickens. The spirit of Dickens has been in
the world about sixty years; and already it is a superstition. Already
it is loaded with relics. Already it is stiff with antiquity.
Everything that can be said about the perversion of Christianity can be
said about the perversion of Dickens. It is said that Christ's words
are repeated by the very High Priests and Scribes whom He meant to
denounce. It is just as true that the jokes in _Pickwick_ are quoted
with delight by the very bigwigs of bench and bar whom Dickens wished to
make absurd and impossible. It is said that texts from Scripture are
constantly taken in vain by Judas and Herod, by Caiaphas and Annas. It
is just as true that texts from Dickens are rapturously quoted on all
our platforms by Podsnap and Honeythunder, by Pardiggle and Veneering,
by Tigg when he is forming a company, or Pott when he is founding a
newspaper. People joke about Bumble in defence of Bumbledom; people
allude playfully to Mrs. Jellyby while agitating for Borrioboola Gha.
The very things which Dickens tried to destroy are preserved as relics
of him. The very houses he wished to pull down are propped up as
monuments of Dickens. We wish to preserve everything of him, except his
perilous public spirit.
This antiquarian attitude towards Dickens has many manifestations, some
of them somewhat ridiculous. I give one startling instance out of a
hundred of the irony remarked upon above. In his first important book,
Dickens lashed the loathsome corruption of our oligarchical politics,
their blaring servility and dirty diplomacy of bribes, under the name of
an imaginary town called Eatanswill. If Eatanswill, wherever it was, had
been burned to the ground by its indignant neighbours the day after the
exposure, it would have been not inappropriate. If it had been entirely
deserted by its inhabitants, if they had fled to hide themselves in
holes and caverns, one could have understood it. If it had been struck
by a thunderbolt out of heaven or outlawed by the whole human race, all
that would seem quite natural. What has really happened is this: that
two respectable towns in Suffolk are still disputing for the honour of
having been the original Eatanswill; as if two innocent hamlets each
claimed to be Gomorrah. I make no comment; the thing is beyond speech.
But this strange sentimental and relic-hunting worship of Dickens has
many more innocent manifestations. One of them is that which takes
advantage of the fact that Dickens happened to be a journalist by trade.
It occupies itself therefore with hunting through papers and magazines
for unsigned articles which may possibly be proved to be his. Only a
little time ago one of these enthusiasts ran up to me, rubbing his
hands, and told me that he was sure he had found two and a half short
paragraphs in _All the Year Round_ which were certainly written by
Dickens, whom he called (I regret to say) the Master. Something of this
archaeological weakness must cling to all mere reprints of his minor
work. He was a great novelist; but he was also, among other things, a
good journalist and a good man. It is often necessary for a good
journalist to write bad literature. It is sometimes the first duty of a
good man to write it. Pot-boilers to my feeling are sacred things; but
they may well be secret as well as sacred, like the holy pot which it is
their purpose to boil. In the collection called _Reprinted Pieces_ there
are some, I think, which demand or deserve this apology. There are many
which fall below the level of his recognised books of fragments, such as
_The Sketches by Boz_, and _The Uncommercial Traveller_. Two or three
elements in the compilation, however, make it quite essential to any
solid appreciation of the author.
Of these the first in importance is that which comes last in order. I
mean the three remarkable pamphlets upon the English Sunday, called
_Sunday under Three Heads_. Here, at least, we find the eternal Dickens,
though not the eternal Dickens of fiction. His other political and
sociological suggestions in this volume are so far unimportant that they
are incidental, and even personal. Any man might have formed Dickens's
opinion about flogging for garrotters, and altered it afterwards. Any
one might have come to Dickens's conclusion about model prisons, or to
any other conclusion equally reasonable and unimportant. These things
have no colour of the great man's character. But on the subject of the
English Sunday he does stand for his own philosophy. He stands for a
particular view, remote at present both from Liberals and Conservatives.
He was, in a conscious sense, the first of its spokesmen. He was in
every sense the last.
In his appeal for the pleasures of the people, Dickens has remained
alone. The pleasures of the people have now no defender, Radical or
Tory. The Tories despise the people. The Radicals despise the pleasures.