times, they found an astute leader in Disraeli, who had few principles
and could trim his sails to any wind. The Tory Reform Bill, which he put
forward in February 1867, came out a very different Bill in July, after
discussion in the Cabinet, which led to the resignation of three
ministers, and after debates in the House of Commons, where it was
roughly handled. The principle of household suffrage was conceded, and
another million voters were added to the electorate. Disraeli had made a
greater change of front than any which he could attribute to Peel, and
that without conviction, for reasons of party expediency. The real
triumph belonged to Bright. 'The Bill adopted', he writes, 'is the
precise franchise I recommended in 1858.' He had not only roused the
country by his platform speeches, he had carefully watched the Bill in
all its stages through the House, and gradually transformed it till it
satisfied the aspirations of the people. He had been content to work
with Disraeli so long as he could further the cause of Reform; and he
only quarrelled with that statesman finally when, in 1878, he revived
the anti-Russian policy of Palmerston.
During this strenuous time his domestic life was happy and tranquil.
After the death of his first wife he had remained a widower for six
years, and in 1847 he had married Margaret Leatham, who bore him seven
children and shared his joys and sorrows in no ordinary measure for
thirty years. Whenever politics took him away from his Rochdale home, he
wrote constantly to her, and his letters throw most valuable light on
his inmost feelings. She died in 1878, and after this his life was
pitched in a different key. The outer world might suppose that high
political office was crowning his career, but his enthusiasm and his
power were ebbing and his physical health failed him more than once. He
was as affectionate to his children, as friendly to his neighbours, as
true to his principles; but the old fire was gone.
The outward events of his life from 1867 to 1889 must be passed over
lightly. Against his own wishes he was persuaded by Gladstone to join
the Cabinet in 1868 and again in 1880. His name was a tower of strength
to the Government with the newly-enfranchised electors, but he himself
had little taste for the routine of office. At Birmingham, for which he
had sat since 1857, he compared himself to the Shunammite woman who
refused the offer of advancement at court, and replied to the prophet,
'I dwell among mine own people'. But events were too strong for him: he
was drawn first to Westminster to share in the government of the
country, and then to Osborne to visit the Queen. Both the Queen and he
were nervous at the prospect, but the interview passed off happily.[21]
Family affections and sorrows were a bond between them, and he talked to
her with his usual frankness and simplicity. Even the difficult question
of costume was settled by a compromise, and the usual gold-braided
livery was replaced by a sober suit of black. Ministerial work in
London might have proved irksome to him; but his colleagues in the
Cabinet were indulgent, and no excessive demands were made upon his
strength. It was recognized that Bright was no longer in the fighting
line. In 1870 he was incapacitated by a second long illness, and he had
little share in the measures carried through Parliament for Irish land
purchase and national education.
[Note 21: See Fitzmaurice, _Life of Lord Granville_, vol. i, p.
540.]
His official career was finally closed in 1882, when the bombardment of
Alexandria seemed to open a new and aggressive chapter in our Eastern
policy. Bright was true to his old principles and resigned office.
He severed himself still more from the official Liberals in 1886, when
he refused to follow Gladstone into the Home Rule camp. He disliked the
methods of Parnell, the obstruction in Parliament, and the campaign of
lawlessness in Ireland. His own victories had not been won so, and he
had a great respect for the traditions of the House. He also believed
that the Home Rule Bill would vitally weaken the unity of the realm. But
no personal bitterness entered into his relations with his old
colleagues: he did not attack Gladstone, as he had attacked Palmerston
in 1855. From his death-bed he sent a cordial message to his old chief,
and received an answer full of high courtesy and affection.
His illness lasted several months. From the autumn of 1888 he lay at One
Ash, weak but not suffering acutely; and on March 27, 1889, he quietly
passed away. His old friend Cobden had preceded him more than twenty
years, having died in 1865, and had been buried at his birthplace in
Sussex, where he had made himself a peaceful home in later life. Bright
proved himself equally faithful to the home of his earliest years. He
was laid to rest in the small burying-ground in front of the Friends'
meeting-house where he had worshipped as a child. In his long career he
had served noble causes, and scaled the heights of fame, and the crowds
at his funeral testified to the love which his neighbours bore him. He
had never willingly been absent for long from his native town. His life,
compared with that of Disraeli or Gladstone, seems almost bleak in its
simplicity, varied as it was by so few excursions into other fields. But
two strong passions enriched it with warmth and glow, his family
affections and his zeal for the common good. These filled his heart, and
he was content that it should be so.
Type of the wise who soar but never roam,
True to the kindred points of Heaven and Home.
[Illustration: CHARLES DICKENS
From the painting by Daniel Maclise in the National Portrait Gallery]
CHARLES DICKENS
1812-1870
1812. Born at Landport, Portsmouth, February 7.
1816. Parents move to Chatham; 1821, to London.
1822. Father bankrupt and in prison. Charles in blacking warehouse.
1827. Charles enters lawyer's office.
1831. Reporters' Gallery in Parliament.
1836. Marries Catherine Hogarth. Publishes _Sketches by Boz_.
1837. _Pickwick Papers._ 1838. _Nicholas Nickleby._
1842. First American journey. 1843. _Martin Chuzzlewit._
1844-5. Eleven months' residence in Italy, chiefly at Genoa.
1846. Editor of _Daily News_ for a few weeks.
1846-7. Six months at Lausanne; three months at Paris. _Dombey and Son._
1849-50. _David Copperfield._
1850. Editor of weekly periodical, _Household Words_.
1851-2. Manager of theatrical performances. 1852. _Bleak House._
1853. Italian tour: Rome, Naples, and Venice.
1856. Purchase of Gadshill House, near Rochester.
1858. Beginning of public readings.
1859. _Tale of Two Cities_ appears in _All the Year Round_.
1860. Gadshill becomes his home instead of London.
1867. Second American journey. Public readings in America.
1869. April, collapse at Chester. Readings stopped.
1870. Dies at Gadshill, June 9.
CHARLES DICKENS
NOVELIST AND SOCIAL REFORMER
In these days when critics so often repeat the cry of 'art for art's
sake' and denounce Ruskin for bringing moral canons into his judgements
of pictures or buildings, it is dangerous to couple these two titles
together, and to label Dickens as anything but a novelist pure and
simple. And indeed, all would admit that the creator of Sam Weller and
Sarah Gamp will live when the crusade against 'Bumbledom' and its
abuses is forgotten and the need for such a crusade seems incredible.
But when so many recent critics have done justice to his gifts as a
creative artist, this aspect of his work runs no danger of being
forgotten. Moreover, when we are considering Dickens as a Victorian
worthy and as a representative man of his age, it is desirable to bring
out those qualities which he shared with so many of his great
contemporaries. Above all, we must remember that Dickens himself would
be the last man to be ashamed of having written 'with a purpose', or to
think that the fact should be concealed as a blemish in his art. There
was nothing in which he felt more genuine pride than in the thought that
his talents thus employed had brought public opinion to realize the need
for many practical reforms in our social condition. If these old abuses
have mostly passed away, we may be thankful indeed; but we cannot feel
sure that in the future fresh abuses will not arise with which the
example of Dickens may inspire others to wage war. His was a strenuous
life; he never spared himself nor stinted his efforts in any cause for
which he was fighting; and if he did not win complete victory in his
lifetime, he created the spirit in which victory was to be won.
Charles Dickens was born in 1812, the second child of a large family,
his father being at the time a Navy clerk employed at Portsmouth. Of his
birthplace in Commercial Road Portsmouth is justifiably proud; but we
must think of him rather as a Kentishman and a Londoner, since he never
lived in Hampshire after his fourth year. The earliest years which left
a distinct impress on his mind were those passed at Chatham, to which
his father moved in 1816. This town and its neighbouring cathedral city
of Rochester, with their narrow old streets, their riverside and
dockyard, took firm hold of his memory and imagination. To-day no places
speak more intimately of him to the readers of his books. Here he passed
five years of happy childhood till his father's work took the family to
London and his father's improvidence plunged them into misfortune.
For those who know Wilkins Micawber it is needless to describe the
failings of Mr. Dickens; for others we may be content to say that he was
kindhearted, sanguine and improvident, quite incapable of the steady
industry needed to support a growing family. When his debts overwhelmed
him and he was carried off to the Marshalsea prison, Charles was only
ten years old, but already he took the lead in the house. On him fell
the duty of pacifying creditors at the door, and of making visits to the
pawn-broker to meet the daily needs of the household. His initiation
into life was a hard one and it began cruelly soon. If he was active and
enterprising beyond his years, with his nervous high-strung temperament
he was capable of suffering acutely; and this capacity was now to be
sorely tried. For a year or more of his life this proud sensitive child
had to spend long hours in the cellars of a warehouse, with rough
uneducated companions, occupied in pasting labels on pots of
boot-blacking. This situation was all that the influence of his family
could procure for him; and into this he was thrust at the age of ten
with no ray of hope, no expectation of release. His shiftless parents
seemed to acquiesce in this drudgery as an opening for their cleverest
son; and instead of their helping and comforting him in his sorrow, it
was he who gave his Sundays to visiting them in prison and to offering
them such consolation as he could. The iron burnt deep into his soul.
Long after, in fact till the day when the district was rebuilt and
changed out of knowledge, he owned that he could not bear to revisit the
scene; so painful were his recollections, so vivid his sense of
degradation. Twenty-five years later he narrated the facts to his friend
and biographer John Forster in a private conversation; and he only
recurred to the subject once more when under the disguise of a novel he
told the story of the childhood of David Copperfield. By shifting the
horror from the realm of fact to that of fiction, perhaps he lifted the
weight of it from the secret recesses of his heart.
When his father's debts were relieved, the child regained his freedom
from servitude, but even then his schooling was desultory and
ineffective. Well might the elder Dickens, in a burst of candour, say to
a stranger who asked him about his son's education, 'Why indeed, sir,
ha! ha! he may be said to have educated himself.'
At the age of fifteen Charles embarked again on his career as a
wage-earner. At first he was taken into a lawyer's office, where he
filled a position somewhat between that of office-boy and clerk, and two
years later he was qualifying himself by the study of shorthand for the
profession of a parliamentary reporter, which his father was then
following. He entered 'the Gallery' in 1831, first representing the
_True Sun_ and later the well-known _Morning Chronicle_; and at
intervals he enlarged his experiences by journeys into the provinces to
report political meetings. Thus it was that he familiarized himself with
the mail coaches, the wayside hostelries, and the rich variety of types
that were to be found there; with London in most of its phases he was
already at home. So, when in 1834 he made his first attempts at writing
in periodical literature, although he was only twenty-two years old, he
had a wealth of first-hand experiences quite outside the range of the
man who is just finishing his leisurely passage through a public school
and university: of schools and offices, of parliaments and prisons, of
the street and of the high road, he had been a diligent and observant
critic; for many years he had practised the maxim of Pope: 'The proper
study of mankind is Man.'
Friends sprang up wherever he went. His open face, his sparkling eye,
his humorous tongue, his ready sympathy, were a passport to the
goodwill of those whom he met; few could resist the appeal. Many readers
will be familiar with the early portrait by Maclise; but his friends
tell us how little that did justice to the lively play of feature, 'the
spirited air and carriage' which were indescribable. On the top of a
mail coach, on a fresh morning, they must have won the favour of his
fellow travellers more easily than Alfred Jingle won the hearts of the
Pickwickians. And beneath the radiant cheerfulness of his manner, the
quick flash of observation and of speech, there was in him an element of
hard persistence and determination which would carry him far. If the
years of poverty and neglect had failed to chill his hopes and break his
spirit, there was no fear that he would tire in the pursuit of his
ambition when fortune began to smile upon him. He had touched life on
many sides. He had kept his warmth of sympathy, his buoyancy, his
capacity for rising superior to ill-fortune; and the years of adversity
had only deepened his feeling for all that were oppressed. He had much
to learn about the craft of letters; but he already had the first
essential of an author--he had something to say.
The year 1836 is a definite landmark in the life of Dickens. In this
year he married; in this year he gave up the practice of parliamentary
reporting, published the _Sketches by Boz_, and began the writing of
_The Pickwick Papers_. This immortal work achieved wide popularity at
once. Criticism cannot hope to do justice to the greatness of Sam
Weller, to the humours of Dingley Dell and Eatanswill, to the adventures
of the hero in back gardens or in prison, on coaches or in wheelbarrows.
Every one must read them in the original for himself. In this book
Dickens reached at once the height of his success in making his fellow
countrymen laugh with him at their own foibles. If in the art of
constructing a story, in the depiction of character, in deepening the
interest by the alternation of happiness and misfortune, he was to go
far beyond his initial triumph,--still with many Dickensians, who love
him chiefly for his liveliness of observation and broad humour, Pickwick
remains the prime favourite.
The effect of this success on the fortunes of the author was immediate
and lasting. Henceforth he could live in a comfortable house and look
forward to a family life in which his children should be free from all
risk of repeating his own experience. He could afford himself the
pleasures and the society which he needed, and he became the centre of a
circle of friends who appreciated his talents and encouraged him in his
career. His relations with his publishers, though not without incident,
were generally of the most cordial kind. If Dickens had the
self-confidence to estimate his own powers highly, and the shrewd
instinct to know when he was getting less than his fair share in a
bargain, yet in a difference of opinion he was capable of seeing the
other side, and he was loyal in the observance of all agreements.
The five years which followed were so crowded with various activities
that it is difficult to date the events exactly, especially when he was
producing novels in monthly or weekly numbers. Generally he had more
than one story on the stocks. Thus in 1837, before _Pickwick_ was
finished, _Oliver Twist_ was begun, and it was not itself complete
before the earlier numbers of _Nicholas Nickleby_ were appearing. In the
same way _The Old Curiosity Shop_ and _Barnaby Rudge_, which may be
dated 1840 and 1841, overlapped one another in the planning of the
stories, if not in the execution of the weekly parts. There is no period
of Dickens's life which enables us better to observe his intense mental
activity, and at the same time the variety of his creations. Here we
have the luxuriant humour of Mrs. Nickleby and the Crummles family side
by side with the tragedy of Bill Sikes and the pathos of Little Nell.
Here also we can see the gradual development of constructive power in
the handling of the story. But for our purpose it is more significant to
notice that we here find Dickens's pen enlisted in the service of the
noblest cause for which he fought, the redemption from misery and
slavery of the children of his native land. Lord Shaftesbury's life has
told us what their sufferings were and how the machinery of Government
was slowly forced to do its part; and Dickens would be the last to
detract from the fame of that great philanthropist, whose efforts on
many occasions he supported and praised. But there were wide circles
which no philanthropist could reach, hearts which no arguments or
statistics could rouse; men and women who attended no meetings and read
no pamphlets but who eagerly devoured anything that was written by the
author of _The Pickwick Papers_. To them Smike and Little Nell made a
personal and irresistible appeal; they could not remain insensible to
the cruelty of Dotheboys Hall and to the depravity of Fagin's school;
and if these books did not themselves recruit active workers to improve
the conditions of child life, at least society became permeated with a
temper which was favourable to the efforts of the reformers.
As far back as the days of his childhood at Rochester Dickens had been
indignant at what he had casually heard of the Yorkshire schools; and
his year of drudgery in London had made him realize, in other cases
beside his own, the degradation that followed from the neglect of
children. On undertaking to handle this subject in _Nicholas Nickleby_,
he journeyed to Yorkshire to gather evidence at first hand for his
picture of Dotheboys Hall. And for many years afterwards he continued to
correspond with active workers on the subject of Ragged Schools and on
the means of uplifting children out of the conditions which were so
fruitful a source of crime. He discovered for himself how easily
miscreants like Fagin could find recruits in the slums of London, and
how impossible it was to bring up aright boys who were bred in these
neglected homes. Even where efforts had been begun, the machinery was
quite inadequate, the teachers few, the schoolrooms cheerless and
ill-equipped. Mr. Crotch[22] has preserved a letter of 1843 in which
Dickens makes the practical offer of providing funds for a washing-place
in one school where the children seemed to be suffering from inattention
to the elementary needs. His heart warmed towards individual cases and
he faced them in practical fashion; he was not one of those reformers
who utter benevolent sentiments on the platform and go no further.
[Note 22: _Charles Dickens, Social Reformer_, by W. W. Crotch
(Chapman & Hall, 1913), p. 53.]
Critics have had much to say about Dickens's treatment of child
characters in his novels; the words 'sentimental' and 'mawkish' have
been hurled at scenes like the death of Paul Dombey and Little Nell and
at the more lurid episodes in _Oliver Twist_. But Dickens was a pioneer
in his treatment of children in fiction; and if he did smite resounding
blows which jar upon critical ears, at least he opened a rich vein of
literature where many have followed him. He wrote not for the critics
but for the great popular audience whom he had created, comprising all
ages and classes, and world-wide in extent. The best answer to such
criticism is to be found in the poem which Bret Harte dedicated to his
memory in 1870, which beautifully describes how the pathos of his
child-heroine could move the hearts of rough working men far away in the
Sierras of the West. Nor did this same character of Little Nell fail to
win special praise from literary critics so fastidious as Landor and
Francis Jeffrey.
In 1842 he embarked on his first voyage to America. Till then he had
travelled little outside his native land, and this expedition was
definitely intended to bear fruit. Before starting he made a bargain
with his publishers to produce a book on his return. The _American
Notes_ thus published, dealing largely with institutions and with the
notable 'sights' of the country, have not retained a prominent place
among his works; with _Martin Chuzzlewit_ and its picture of American
manners it is different. This stands alone among his writings in having
left a permanent heritage of ill-will. Reasons in abundance can be found
for the bitterness caused. He portrayed the conceit, the self-interest,
the disregard for the feelings of others which the less-educated
American showed to foreigners in a visible and often offensive guise;
and the portraits were so life-like that no arrow fails to hit the mark.
The American people were young; they had made great strides in material
prosperity, they had not been taught to submit to the lash by satirists
like Swift or more kindly mentors like Addison. Their own Oliver Wendell
Holmes had not yet begun to chastise them with gentle irony. So they
were aghast at Dickens's audacity, and indignant at what seemed an
outrage on their hospitality, and few stopped to ask what elements of
truth were to be found in the offending book. No doubt it was one-sided
and unfair; Dickens, like most tourists, had been confronted by the
louder and more aggressive members of the community and had not time to
judge the whole. In large measure he recanted in subsequent writings;
and on his second visit the more generous Americans showed how little
rancour they bore. But the portraits of Jefferson Brick and Elijah
Pogram will live; with Pecksniff, 'Sairey' Gamp, and other immortals
they bear the hall-mark of Dickens's creative genius.
To America he did not go again for twenty-five years; but, as he grew
older, he seemed to feel increasing need for change and variety in his
mode of life. In 1844 he went for nearly twelve months to Italy, making
his head-quarters at Genoa; and in 1846 he repeated the experiment at
Lausanne on the lake of Geneva. Later, between 1853 and 1856, he spent a
large part of three summers in a villa near Boulogne. Though he desired
the change for reasons connected with his work, and though in each case
he formed friendly connexions with his neighbours, it cannot be said
that his books show the influence of either country. His genius was
British to the core and he remained an Englishman wherever he went. He
complained when abroad that he missed the stimulus of London, where the
lighted streets, through which he walked at night, caused his
imagination to work with intensified force. But even in Genoa he proved
capable of writing _The Chimes_, which is as markedly English in temper
as anything which he wrote.
The same spirit of restlessness comes out in his ventures into other
fields of activity at home. At one time he assumed the editorship of a
London newspaper; but a few weeks showed that he was incapable of
editorial drudgery and he resigned. His taste for acting played a larger
part in his life; and in 1851 and other years he put an enormous amount
of energy into organizing public theatrical performances with his
friends in London. He always loved the theatre. Macready was one of his
innermost circle, and he had other friends on the stage. Indeed there
were moments in his life when it seemed that the genius of the novelist
might be lost to the world, which would have found but a sorry
equivalent in one more actor of talent on the stage, however brilliant
that talent was. But the main current of his life went on in London with
diligent application to the book or books in hand; or at Broadstairs,
where Dickens made holiday in true English fashion with his children by
the sea.