SYMPATHY WITH CHILDHOOD.
The dominant element in Dickens's character was sympathy _with_ childhood,
not merely for it. He had the productive sympathy that feels and thinks
from the child's standpoint.
The illustration just given of Major Jackman's co-operative sympathy with
Jemmy Lirriper in the perfect carrying out of what to most people would
have been only "the foolish ideas" of a child, as sincerely as if he had
been executing commissions from the prime minister, is an excellent
exemplification of the true ideal of sympathy in practice. The Major was
not working for Jemmy's amusement merely; he was a very active and
genuinely interested partner with Jemmy. "Jemmy was far outdone by the
serious and believing ways of the Major" in the imaginative plays which
were the most real life of Jemmy. Such was the sympathy of Dickens with
his own children; such sympathy he believed to be the most productive
power in the teacher or child trainer for beneficent influence on the
character of the child.
There is no other characteristic of his writings so marked as his broad
sympathy with childhood. Sympathy was the origin of all he wrote against
coercion in all its dread forms, of all he wrote about robbing children of
a real childhood, about the dwarfing of individuality, about the
strangling of the imagination, about improper nutrition, about all forms
of neglect, and cruelty, and bad training. The more fully his nature is
known the more deeply he is loved, because of his great love for the
child.
From the beginning of his educational work his overflowing, practical
sympathy is revealed.
He tells us in the preface to Nickleby that his study of the Yorkshire
schools and his delineation of the character of Squeers resulted from a
resolution formed in childhood, which he was led to form by seeing a boy
"with a suppurated abscess caused by its being ripped open by his
Yorkshire guide, philosopher, and friend with an inky penknife."
The sympathy of Nicholas, and John Browdie, and the Cheeryble brothers
with Smike and all suffering childhood are strong features of the book.
Dickens's own sympathy has cleared his mind of many fogs that still linger
in some minds regarding a parent's rights in regard to his child, even
though the parent has never recognised any of the child's rights. The
movement in favour of the recognition of the rights of children even
against their parents began with Dickens. When Nicholas discovered that
Smike was the son of his uncle, Ralph Nickleby, he went to consult brother
Charles Cheeryble in regard to his duty under the circumstances.
He modestly, but firmly, expressed his hope that the good old
gentleman would, under such circumstances as he described, hold him
justified in adopting the extreme course of interfering between parent
and child, and upholding the latter in his disobedience; even though
his horror and dread of his father might seem, and would doubtless be
represented, as a thing so repulsive and unnatural as to render those
who countenanced him in it fit objects of general detestation and
abhorrence.
"So deeply rooted does this horror of the man appear to be," said
Nicholas, "that I can hardly believe he really is his son. Nature does
not seem to have implanted in his breast one lingering feeling of
affection for him, and surely she can never err."
"My dear sir," replied brother Charles, "you fall into the very common
mistake of charging upon Nature matters with which she has not had the
smallest connection, and for which she is in no way responsible. Men
talk of Nature as an abstract thing, and lose sight of what is natural
while they do so. Here is a poor lad who has never felt a parent's
care, who has scarcely known anything all his life but suffering and
sorrow, presented to a man who he is told is his father, and whose
first act is to signify his intention of putting an end to his short
term of happiness by consigning him to his old fate, and taking him
from the only friend he has ever had--which is yourself. If Nature, in
such a case, put into that lad's breast but one secret prompting which
urged him toward his father and away from you, she would be a liar and
an idiot."
Nicholas was delighted to find that the old gentleman spoke so warmly,
and in the hope that he might say something more to the same purpose,
made no reply.
"The same mistake presents itself to me, in one shape or other, at
every turn," said brother Charles. "Parents who never showed their
love complain of want of natural affection in their children; children
who never showed their duty complain of want of natural feeling in
their parents; lawmakers who find both so miserable that their
affections have never had enough of life's sun to develop them are
loud in their moralizings over parents and children too, and cry that
the very ties of Nature are disregarded. Natural affections and
instincts, my dear sir, are the most beautiful of the Almighty's
works, but, like other beautiful works of his, they must be reared and
fostered, or it is as natural that they should be wholly obscured, and
that new feelings should usurp their place, as it is that the sweetest
productions of the earth, left untended, should be choked with weeds
and briers. I wish we could be brought to consider this, and,
remembering natural obligations a little more at the right time, talk
about them a little less at the wrong one."
It was chiefly to break the power of ignorant and cruel parenthood over
suffering childhood that Ralph Nickleby was painted with such dark and
repellent characteristics, and that poor Smike's sufferings were detailed
with such minuteness. The sympathy of the world was aroused against the
one and in favour of the other, as a basis for the climax of thought which
brother Charles expressed so truly and so forcefully.
The same thought was driven home by the complaint of Squeers about one of
the boys in Dotheboys Hall.
"The juniorest Palmer said he wished he was in heaven. I really don't
know, I do _not_ know what's to be done with that young fellow; he's
always a-wishing something horrid. He said once he wished he was a
donkey, because then he wouldn't have a father as didn't love him!
Pretty wicious that for a child of six!"
It required the genius of Dickens to make such a clear picture of an
unloving father.
Even before Nicholas Nickleby was written Dickens had revealed his
sympathetic nature. Oliver Twist's story was written to stir the hearts of
his readers in favour of unfortunate children. What a contrast is made
between the hardening effects of his treatment by Bumble and the
"gentleman in the white waistcoat," and the humanizing influence of Rose
Maylie's tear dropped on his cheek.
Surely no sensitive little boy ever submitted to more unsympathetic
treatment than poor Oliver.
When little Oliver was taken before "the gentlemen" that evening, and
informed that he was to go that night as general house lad to a coffin
maker's, and that if he complained of his situation, or ever came back
to the parish again, he would be sent to sea, there to be drowned or
knocked on the head, as the case might be, he evinced so little
emotion that they by common consent pronounced him a hardened young
rascal, and ordered Mr. Bumble to remove him forthwith.
For some time Mr. Bumble drew Oliver along, without notice or remark;
for the beadle carried his head very erect, as a beadle always should;
and, it being a windy day, little Oliver was completely enshrouded by
the skirts of Mr. Bumble's coat as they blew open and disclosed to
great advantage his flapped waistcoat and drab plush knee breeches. As
they drew near to their destination, however, Mr. Bumble thought it
expedient to look down and see that the boy was in good order for
inspection by his new master: which he accordingly did, with a fit and
becoming air of gracious patronage.
"Oliver!" said Mr. Bumble.
"Yes, sir," replied Oliver in a low, tremulous voice.
"Pull that cap off your eyes, and hold up your head, sir."
Although Oliver did as he was desired at once, and passed the back of
his unoccupied hand briskly across his eyes, he left a tear in them
when he looked up at his conductor. As Mr. Bumble gazed sternly upon
him, it rolled down his cheek. It was followed by another, and
another. The child made a strong effort, but it was an unsuccessful
one. Withdrawing his other hand from Mr. Bumble's, he covered his face
with both, and wept until the tears sprung out from between his chin
and bony fingers.
"Well!" exclaimed Mr. Bumble, stopping short, and darting at his
little charge a look of intense malignity. "Well! Of _all_ the
ungratefullest and worst-disposed boys as ever I see, Oliver, you are
the----"
"No, no, sir," sobbed Oliver, clinging to the hand which held the
well-known cane; "no, no, sir; I will be good indeed; indeed, indeed I
will, sir! I am a very little boy, sir; and it is so--so----"
"So what?" inquired Mr. Bumble in amazement.
"So lonely, sir! So very lonely!" cried the child. "Everybody hates
me. Oh, sir, don't, don't, pray, be cross to me!" The child beat his
hand upon his heart, and looked in his companion's face with tears of
real agony.
The poor boy was put to bed by Sowerberry the first night. His master
said, as they climbed the stairs:
"Your bed's under the counter. You don't mind sleeping among the
coffins, I suppose? But it doesn't much matter whether you do or
don't, for you can't sleep anywhere else. Come, don't keep me here all
night!"
Dickens pitied children for the terrors with which they were threatened,
as Oliver was threatened by the board, and he pitied them also for the
terrors that their imaginations brought to them at night. Sowerberry's
lack of sympathy was as great as Bumble's. When one of his own children
showed evidence of dread of retiring alone, Dickens sat upstairs with his
family in the evenings afterward. He did not tell the child the reason,
but she was saved from terror.
Oliver ran away from Sowerberry's, and when passing the workhouse he
peeped between the bars of the gate into the garden. A very little boy was
there who came to the gate to say "Good-bye" to him. He had been one of
Oliver's little friends.
"Kiss me," said the child, climbing up the low gate and flinging his
little arms round Oliver's neck: "Good-bye, dear! God bless you!"
The blessing was from a young child's lips, but it was the first that
Oliver had ever heard invoked upon his head; and through the struggles
and sufferings and troubles and changes of his after-life he never
once forgot it.
When Oliver was taken to commit burglary by Bill Sykes, and was wounded
and brought into the home he was assisting to rob, the good lady of the
house sent for a doctor. The doctor dressed the arm, and when the boy fell
asleep he brought Mrs. Maylie and Rose to see the criminal.
Rose sat down by Oliver's bedside and gathered his hair from his face.
As she stooped over him her tears fell upon his forehead.
The boy stirred and smiled in his sleep, as though these marks of pity
and compassion had awakened some pleasant dream of a love and
affection he had never known. Thus a strain of gentle music, or the
rippling of water in a silent place, or the odour of a flower, or the
mention of a familiar word, will sometimes call up sudden dim
remembrances of scenes that never were in this life; which vanish like
a breath; which some brief memory of a happier existence, long gone
by, would seem to have awakened; which no voluntary exertion of the
mind can ever recall.
"What can this mean?" exclaimed the elder lady. "This poor child can
never have been the pupil of robbers!"
"Vice," sighed the surgeon, replacing the curtain, "takes up her abode
in many temples; and who can say that a fair outside shall not
enshrine her?"
"But at so early an age!" urged Rose.
"My dear young lady," rejoined the surgeon, mournfully shaking his
head, "crime, like death, is not confined to the old and withered
alone. The youngest and fairest are too often its chosen victims."
"But can you, oh, can you really believe that this delicate boy has
been the voluntary associate of the worst outcasts of society?" said
Rose.
The surgeon shook his head in a manner which intimated that he feared
it was very possible, and, observing that they might disturb the
patient, led the way into an adjoining apartment.
"But even if he has been wicked," pursued Rose, "think how young he
is; think that he may never have known a mother's love, or the comfort
of a home; that ill usage and blows, or the want of bread, may have
driven him to herd with men who have forced him to guilt. Aunt, dear
aunt, for mercy's sake think of this, before you let them drag this
sick child to a prison, which in any case must be the grave of all his
chance of amendment. Oh! as you love me, and know that I have never
felt the want of parents in your goodness and affection, but that I
might have done so, and might have been equally helpless and
unprotected with this poor child, have pity upon him before it is too
late!"
"My dear love," said the elder lady, as she folded the weeping girl to
her bosom, "do you think I would harm a hair of his head?"
"Oh, no," replied Rose eagerly.
"No, surely," said the old lady; "my days are drawing to their close,
and may mercy be shown to me as I show it to others. What can I do to
save him, sir?"
Dickens used the doctor to rebuke the large class of people who are ever
ready to believe the worst about a boy, and who are always looking for his
depravity instead of searching for the divinity in him.
Rose's plea for kind treatment for the boy, "even if he has been wicked,"
was a new doctrine propounded by Dickens. The worst boys at home or in
school need most sympathy. Mrs. Maylie's attitude was in harmony with
Christ's teaching, but quite out of harmony with much that was called
Christian practice at the time Dickens wrote Oliver Twist. He taught the
doctrine that children were turned into evil ways and confirmed in them
through lack of sympathy. Poor Nancy said to Rose Maylie:
"Lady," cried the girl, sinking on her knees, "dear, sweet, angel
lady, you _are_ the first that ever blessed me with such words as
these; and if I had heard them years ago, they might have turned me
from a life of sin and sorrow; but it is too late, it is too late!"
In The Old Curiosity Shop Dickens gave a beautiful picture of a
sympathetic teacher in Mr. Marton. His school was not well lighted or
properly ventilated, the furniture was poor, there was no apparatus
except a dunce's cap, a cane, and a ruler, his methods were old-fashioned,
but he possessed the greatest qualification of a good teacher, deep
sympathy with childhood. This was shown by the erasure of the blot from
the sick boy's writing; by his asking Nell to pray for the boy; by his
appreciation of the boy's love; by his hoping for his recovery against the
unfavourable reports; by his favourable interpretation of the worst signs;
by his absent-mindedness in school; by his giving the boys a half holiday
because he could not teach; by his asking them to go away quietly so as
not to disturb the sick scholar; by his saying "I'm glad they didn't mind
me" when the jolly boys went shouting away; by his telling the sick boy
that the flowers missed him and were less gay on account of his absence;
by his hanging the boy's handkerchief out of the window at his request, as
a token of his remembrance of the boys playing on the green; by the loving
way in which he embraced the dying boy, and held his cold hand in his
after he was dead, chafing it, as if he could bring back the life into it.
Dombey and Son is full of appeals for the tender sympathy of adulthood for
childhood. The story of Florence Dombey longing for the one look of
tenderness, the one word of kindly interest, the one sympathetic caress
from her father, which never came to her during her childhood, is one of
the most touching stories ever written. It was written to show that
children in the most wealthy homes need sympathy as much as any other
children, and that they are often most cruelly neglected by their parents.
Floy pleaded to be allowed to lay her face beside her baby brother's
because "she thought he loved her."
The love that is given back in exchange for loving interest is shown by
Paul's loving gratitude to Floy for her interest in him, which led her to
spend her pocket money in books, so that she might help him with his
studies that confused him so.
And high was her reward, when one Saturday evening, as little Paul was
sitting down as usual to "resume his studies," she sat down by his
side and showed him all that was rough made smooth, and all that was
so dark made clear and plain, before him. It was nothing but a
startled look in Paul's wan face--a flush--a smile--and then a close
embrace; but God knows how her heart leaped up at this rich payment
for her trouble.
"Oh, Floy," cried her brother, "how I love you! How I love you, Floy!"
"And I you, dear!"
"Oh, I am sure, sure of that, Floy!"
He said no more about it, but all that evening sat close by her, very
quiet; and in the night he called out from his little room within
hers, three or four times, that he loved her.
There is no higher reward than that of the sympathetic teacher who for the
first time lets light into a dark mind or heart.
The lady whom Florence overheard talking to her little orphaned niece
about her father's cruel coldness toward her truly said: "Not an orphan in
the wide world can be so deserted as the child who is an outcast from a
living parent's care."
As Dickens was one of the first to urge that children had rights, so he
was one of the first to show that there had been altogether too much
thought about the duty of children to parents, and too little about the
duty of parents to children. Alice Marwood, one of the characters in
Dombey and Son, said to Harriet Carker:
"You brought me here by force of gentleness and kindness, and made me
human by woman's looks and words and angel's deeds; I have felt, lying
here, that I should like you to know this. It might explain, I have
thought, something that used to help to harden me. I had heard so
much, in my wrongdoing, of my neglected duty, that I took up with the
belief that duty had not been done to me, and that as the seed was
sown the harvest grew."
One other point in regard to sympathy was made in Dombey and Son, that a
rough exterior may cover a sympathetic heart.
Long may it remain in this mixed world a point not easy of decision,
which is the more beautiful evidence of the Almighty's goodness: the
delicate fingers that are formed for sensitiveness and sympathy of
touch, and made to minister to pain and grief, or the rough, hard
Captain Cuttle hand, that the heart teaches, guides, and softens in a
moment!
In the model school of Dickens Doctor Strong is said to have been "the
idol of the whole school"; and David adds, "it must have been a badly
composed school if he had been anything else, for he was the kindest of
men." Doctor Strong's wife, who had been his pupil in early life, said:
"When I was very young, quite a little child, my first associations
with knowledge of any kind were inseparable from a patient friend and
teacher--the friend of my dead father--who was always dear to me. I
can remember nothing that I know without remembering him. He stored my
mind with its first treasures, and stamped his character upon them
all. They never could have been, I think, as good as they have been to
me, if I had taken them from any other hands."
David said, when telling the story of his first introduction to Mr.
Murdstone:
"God help me, I might have been improved for my whole life, I might
have been made another creature, perhaps, for life, by a kind word at
that season. A word of encouragement and explanation, of pity for my
childish ignorance, of welcome home, of reassurance to me that it was
home, might have made me dutiful to him in my heart henceforth,
instead of in my hypocritical outside, and might have made me respect
instead of hate him."
In Bleak House Dickens gave in Esther the most perfect type of human
sympathy, and by his pathetic pictures of poor Jo, Phil, the Jellyby
children, the Pardiggle children, and others, stirred a great wave of
feeling, which led to a recognition of the duty of adulthood to childhood,
and taught the value of sympathy in the training of children.
Esther laid down a new law, revealed by Froebel, but given to the English
world by Dickens in the weighty sentence, "My comprehension is quickened
when my affection is."
The lack of sympathy in adulthood is revealed for the condemnation of his
readers in Mrs. Rachael's parting from Esther.
Mrs. Rachael was too good to feel any emotion at parting, but I was
not so good, and wept bitterly. I thought that I ought to have known
her better after so many years, and ought to have made myself enough
of a favourite with her to make her sorry then. When she gave me one
cold parting kiss upon my forehead, like a thaw drop from the stone
porch--it was a very frosty day--I felt so miserable and
self-reproachful that I clung to her and told her it was my fault, I
knew, that she could say good-bye so easily.
"No, Esther!" she returned. "It is your misfortune!"
Poor child, she cried afterward because Mrs. Rachael was not sorry to part
with her.
What a different parting she had when leaving the Miss Donnys' school,
where for six years she had been a pupil, and for part of the time a
teacher!
She received a letter informing her that she was to leave Greenleaf.
Oh, never, never, never shall I forget the emotion this letter caused
in the house! It was so tender in them to care so much for me; it was
so gracious in that Father who had not forgotten me, to have made my
orphan way so smooth and easy, and to have inclined so many youthful
natures toward me, that I could hardly bear it. Not that I would have
had them less sorry--I am afraid not; but the pleasure of it, and the
pain of it, and the pride and joy of it, and the humble regret of it,
were so blended, that my heart seemed almost breaking while it was
full of rapture.
The letter gave me only five days' notice of my removal. When every
minute added to the proofs of love and kindness that were given me in
those five days; and when at last the morning came, and when they took
me through all the rooms that I might see them for the last time; and
when some one cried, "Esther, dear, say good-bye to me here, at my
bedside, where you first spoke so kindly to me!" and when others asked
me only to write their names, "With Esther's love"; and when they all
surrounded me with their parting presents, and clung to me weeping,
and cried, "What shall we do when dear, dear Esther's gone!" and when
I tried to tell them how forbearing and how good they had all been to
me, and how I blessed and thanked them every one--what a heart I had!
And when the two Miss Donnys grieved as much to part with me as the
least among them; and when the maids said, "Bless you, miss, wherever
you go!" and when the ugly lame old gardener, who I thought had hardly
noticed me in all those years, came panting after the coach to give me
a little nosegay of geraniums, and told me I had been the light of his
eyes--indeed the old man said so!--what a heart I had then!
This was intended to show the results of her sympathy toward the pupils
and everybody connected with the school.
Mrs. Jellyby is an immortal picture of the woman who neglects her family
on account of her interest in Borrioboola Gha, or some other place for
which her sympathy is aroused. Dickens held that a woman's first duty is
to her children. The wretched Mr. Jellyby, almost distracted by the poor
meals, the disorder of his home, and the wild condition of his unfortunate
family, said to his daughter, "Never have a mission, my dear."
Caddy emphasized the thought Dickens had given in Dombey and Son through
Alice Marwood when she said to Esther:
"Oh, don't talk of duty as a child, Miss Summerson; where's ma's duty
as a parent? All made over to the public and Africa, I suppose! Then
let the public and Africa show duty as a child; it's much more their
affair than mine. You are shocked, I dare say! Very well, so am I
shocked, too; so we are both shocked, and there's an end of it!"
On another occasion, overcome by emotion at the thought of her mother's
neglect, she said to Esther:
"I wish I was dead. I wish we were all dead. It would be a great deal
better for us."
In a moment afterward she kneeled on the ground at my side, hid her
face in my dress, passionately begged my pardon, and wept. I comforted
her, and would have raised her, but she cried, No, no; she wanted to
stay there!
"You used to teach girls," she said. "If you could only have taught
me, I could have learned from you! I am so very miserable, and like
you so much!"
How the Jellyby children loved and trusted Esther! How all children loved
and trusted her for her true sympathy!
Poor Jo swept the steps at the graveyard where the friend who spoke kindly
to him lay buried, and he always said of him, "He wos wery good to me, he
wos."
And Jo's other friends, Mr. Snagsby, whose sympathy drew half crowns from
his pocket, and Mr. George, and Doctor Woodcourt, and Mr. Jarndyce, and
Esther, showed their kindly sympathy for the wretched boy so fully that
the reading world loved them as real friends, and this loving admiration
led the Christian world to think more clearly in regard to Christ's
teachings about the little ones.
No heart can resist the plea for sympathy for such as Jo in the
description of his last illness and death. When the end was very near, as
Allan Woodcourt was watching the heavy breathing of the sufferer,
After a short relapse into sleep or stupor he makes of a sudden a
strong effort to get out of bed.
"Stay, Jo! What now?"
"It's time for me to go to that there berryin'-ground, sir," he
returns with a wild look.
"Lie down, and tell me. What burying-ground, Jo?"
"Where they laid him as wos wery good to me, wery good to me indeed,
he wos. It's time fur me to go down to that there berryin'-ground,
sir, and ask to be put along with him. I wants to go there and be
berried. He used fur to say to me, 'I am as poor as you to-day, Jo,'
he ses. I wants to tell him that I am as poor as him now, and have
come there to be laid along with him."
"By and bye, Jo. By and bye."
"Ah! P'raps they wouldn't do it if I was to go myself. But will you
promise to have me took there, sir, and laid along with him?"
"I will, indeed."
"Thank'ee, sir. Thank'ee, sir. They'll have to get the key of the gate
afore they can take me in, for it's allus locked. And there's a step
there, as I used for to clean with my broom.--It's turned wery dark,
sir. Is there any light a-comin'?"
"It is coming fast, Jo."
Fast. The cart is shaken all to pieces, and the rugged road is very
near its end.
"Jo, my poor fellow!"
"I hear you, sir, in the dark, but I'm a-gropin'--a-gropin'--let me
catch hold of your hand."
"Jo, can you say what I say?"
"I'll say anythink as you say, sir, for I knows it's good."
"OUR FATHER."
"Our Father!--yes, that's wery good, sir."
"WHICH ART IN HEAVEN."
"Art in Heaven--is the light a-comin', sir?"
"It is close at hand. HALLOWED BE THY NAME!"
"Hallowed be--thy----"
The light is come upon the dark benighted way. Dead!
Dead, your majesty. Dead, my lords and gentlemen. Dead, right
reverends and wrong reverends of every order. Dead, men and women,
born with heavenly compassion in your hearts. And dying thus around us
every day.
One of the best of Dickens's illustrations of gratitude for sympathy is
the case of Phil Squod, Mr. George's assistant in the shooting gallery. He
was a mere child in everything but years of hard experiences, but he was
devoted heart and soul to Mr. George for a kindly word of hearty sympathy.
So devoted was he that he attached himself to Mr. George and became his
faithful servant, and found his truest happiness in his service of love.
Phil recalled the story to Mr. George.
"It was after the case-filling blow-up when I first see you,
commander. You remember?"
"I remember, Phil. You were walking along in the sun."
"Crawling, guv'ner, again a wall----"
"True, Phil--shouldering your way on----"
"In a nightcap!" exclaims Phil, excited.
"In a nightcap----"
"And hobbling with a couple of sticks!" cries Phil, still more
excited.
"With a couple of sticks. When----"
"When you stops, you know," cries Phil, putting down his cup and
saucer, and hastily removing his plate from his knees, "and says to
me, 'What, comrade! You have been in the wars!' I didn't say much to
you, commander, then, for I was took by surprise that a person so
strong and healthy and bold as you was should stop to speak to such a
limping bag of bones as I was. But you says to me, says you,
delivering it out of your chest as hearty as possible, so that it was
like a glass of something hot: 'What accident have you met with? You
have been badly hurt. What's amiss, old boy? Cheer up, and tell us
about it!' Cheer up! I was cheered already! I says as much to you, you
says more to me, I says more to you, you says more to me, and here I
am, commander! Here I am, commander!" cries Phil, who has started from
his chair and unaccountably begun to sidle away. "If a mark's wanted,
or if it will improve the business, let the customers take aim at me.
They can't spoil _my_ beauty. _I'm_ all right. Come on! If they want a
man to box at, let 'em box at me. Let 'em knock me well about the
head. _I_ don't mind! if they want a light weight, to be throwed for
practice, Cornwall, Devonshire, or Lancashire, let 'em throw me. They
won't hurt _me_. I have been throwed all sorts of styles all my life!"
Pip said in Great Expectations:
It is not possible to know how far the influence of any amiable,
honest-hearted, duty-doing man flies out into the world; but it is
very possible to know how it has touched one's self in going by, and I
know right well that any good that intermixed itself with my
apprenticeship came of plain contented Joe, and not of restless
aspiring discontented me.
Dear, simple-hearted Joe Gargery! When every one else was abusing Pip at
the great dinner party, he showed his sympathy for him by putting some
more gravy on his plate.
In Our Mutual Friend Lizzie Hexam, sympathizing with her father so much
that she would not learn to read because he was bitterly prejudiced
against education, but sympathizing so much with her brother Charley that
she had him educated secretly so that he might become a teacher, is an
illustration of nearly perfect sympathy.
The happiness of the little "minders" at old Betty Higden's is in sharp
contrast to the misery of the boarders of the respectable (?)
establishment of Mrs. Pipchin. In the one case was abject poverty and
loving sympathy, in the other plenty and cruel selfishness. When Mr. and
Mrs. Boffin were adopting Johnnie from Betty Higden's care, the brave old
woman said:
"If I could have kept the dear child without the dread that's always
upon me of his coming to that fate I have spoken of, I could never
have parted with him, even to you. For I love him, I love him, I love
him! I love my husband long dead and gone, in him; I love my children
dead and gone, in him; I love my young and hopeful days dead and gone,
in him. I couldn't sell that love, and look you in your bright kind
face. It's a free gift."
Betty was not a logically reasoning woman, but God is good, and hearts
may count in heaven as high as heads.
Dickens spoke with great enthusiasm in his American Notes of the practical
sympathy of Doctor Howe with all afflicted children, especially with blind
children, closing his sketch of the wonderful work he had done with the
sentence: "There are not many persons, I hope and believe, who after
reading these passages can ever hear that name with indifference." He
noted that Laura Bridgman had a special desire for sympathy.
She is fond of having other children noticed and caressed by the
teachers, and those whom she respects; but this must not be carried
too far, or she becomes jealous. She wants to have her share, which,
if not the lion's, is the greater part; and if she does not get it,
she says, "_My mother will love me_."
Dickens's types of sympathy with children grew more perfect as he grew
older. In his later years his head began to catch up with his heart.
Major Jackman, Mrs. Lirriper, and Doctor Marigold are among his most
wonderfully sympathetic characters.
What an ideal sending away to school Jemmy Lirriper had!
So the Major being gone out and Jemmy being at home, I got the child
into my little room here and I stood him by my chair and I took his
mother's own curls in my hand and I spoke to him loving and serious.
And when I had reminded the darling how that he was now in his tenth
year, and when I had said to him about his getting on in life pretty
much what I had said to the Major, I broke to him how that we must
have this same parting, and there I was forced to stop, for there I
saw of a sudden the well-remembered lip with its tremble, and it so
brought back that time! But with the spirit that was in him he
controlled it soon, and he says gravely, nodding through his tears: "I
understand, Gran--I knew it _must_ be, Gran--go on, Gran, don't be
afraid of _me_." And when I had said all that ever I could think of,
he turned his bright steady face to mine, and he says just a little
broken here and there: "You shall see, Gran, that I can be a man, and
that I can do anything that is grateful and loving to you; and if I
don't grow up to be what you would like to have me--I hope it will
be--because I shall die." And with that he sat down by me, and I went
on to tell him of the school, of which I had excellent
recommendations, and where it was and how many scholars, and what
games they played as I had heard, and what length of holidays, to all
of which he listened bright and clear. And so it came that at last he
says: "And now, dear Gran, let me kneel down here where I have been
used to say my prayers, and let me fold my face for just a minute in
your gown and let me cry, for you have been more than father--more
than mother--more than brothers, sisters, friends--to me!" And so he
did cry, and I too, and we were both much the better for it.
Dear old Doctor Marigold, the travelling auctioneer, in his tender
sympathy for his little girl when her mother was so cruel to her,
whispering comforting words in her ear as he was calling for bids on his
wares while she was dying, and afterward loving the deaf-mute child whom
he adopted in memory of his own child whom he had lost, has made thousands
more kindly sympathetic with children.
In the novel that he was writing when he died Dickens makes Canon
Crisparkle say to Helena Landless: "You have the wisdom of Love, and it
was the highest wisdom ever known upon this earth, remember."
David Copperfield said, "I hope that real love and truth are stronger in
the end than any evil or misfortune in the world."
The effect of lack of true sympathy on the heart that should have felt and
shown it is revealed in what Sydney Carton said to Mr. Lorry: "If you
could say with truth to your own solitary heart to-night, 'I have secured
to myself the love and attachment, the gratitude and respect, of no human
creature; I have won myself a tender place in no regard; I have done
nothing good or serviceable to be remembered by,' your seventy-eight years
would be seventy-eight curses; would they not?"
The contrast between the coldness and heartlessness of his parents or
guardians and the encouraging sympathy of his teacher is one of the
strongest features in the story of Barbox Brothers (Mugby Junction).
"You remember me, Young Jackson?"
"What do I remember if not you? You are my first remembrance. It was
you who told me that was my name. It was you who told me that on every
20th of December my life had a penitential anniversary in it called a
birthday. I suppose the last communication was truer than the first!"
"What am I like, Young Jackson?"
"You are like a blight all through the year to me. You hard-lined,
thin-lipped, repressive, changeless woman with a wax mask on! You are
like the Devil to me--most of all when you teach me religious things,
for you make me abhor them."
"You remember me, Mr. Young Jackson?" In another voice from another
quarter:
"Most gratefully, sir. You are the ray of hope and prospering ambition
in my life. When I attended your course I believed that I should come
to be a great healer, and I felt almost happy--even though I was
still the one boarder in the house with that horrible mask, and ate
and drank in silence and constraint with the mask before me every day.
As I had done every, every, every day through my school time and from
my earliest recollection."
"What am I like, Mr. Young Jackson?"
"You are like a Superior Being to me. You are like Nature beginning to
reveal herself to me. I hear you again as one of the hushed crowd of
young men kindling under the power of your presence and knowledge, and
you bring into my eyes the only exultant tears that ever stood in
them."
"You remember Me, Mr. Young Jackson?" In a grating voice from quite
another quarter:
"Too well. You made your ghostly appearance in my life one day, and
announced that its course was to be suddenly and wholly changed. You
showed me which was my wearisome seat in the Galley of Barbox
Brothers. You told me what I was to do, and what to be paid; you told
me afterward, at intervals of years, when I was to sign for the Firm,
when I became a partner, when I became the Firm. I know no more of it,
or of myself."
"What am I like, Mr. Young Jackson?"
"You are like my father, I sometimes think. You are hard enough and
cold enough so to have brought up an acknowledged son. I see your
scanty figure, your close brown suit, and your tight brown wig; but
you, too, wear a wax mask to your death. You never by a chance remove
it; it never by a chance falls off; and I know no more of you."