I.--The Wardle Family
Here is a very pleasing and natural group of persons, in whom it is
impossible not to take a deep interest. They are like some amiable
family that we have known. Old Wardle, as he is called, though he was
under fifty, was a widower, and had remained so, quite content with his
daughters' attachment. He had his worthy old mother to live with him, to
whom he was most dutiful, tolerant, and affectionate. These two points
recommend him. There was no better son than Boz himself, so he could
appreciate these things. The sketch is interesting as a picture of the
patriarchal system that obtained in the country districts, all the family
forming one household, as in France. For here we have Wardle, his
mother, and his sister, together with his two pleasing daughters, while,
later on, his sons-in-law established themselves close by. The "poor
relations" seem to have been always there. It is astonishing how Boz, in
his short career, could have observed and noticed these things. Wardle's
fondness for his daughters is really charming, and displayed without
affectation. He connected them with the image of his lost wife. There
is no more natural, truly affecting passage than his display of
fretfulness when he got some inkling that his second daughter was about
to make a rather improvident marriage with young Snodgrass. The first
had followed her inclinations in wedding Trundle--a not very good
match--but he did not lose her as the pair lived beside him. He thought
Emily, however, a pretty girl who ought to do better, and he had his eye
on "a young gentleman in the neighbourhood"--and for some four or five
months past he had been pressing her to receive his addresses favourably.
This was clearly a good match. Not that he would unduly press her, but
"if she _could_, for I would never force a young girl's inclinations." He
never thought, he says, that the Snodgrass business was serious. But,
how natural that, when Arabella, their friend, had become a regular
heroine and had gone off with her Winkle, that this should fill Emily's
head with similar thoughts, and set the pair on thinking that they were
persecuted, &c. What a natural scene is this between father and
daughter.
"My daughter Bella, Emily having gone to bed with a headache after she
had read Arabella's letter to me, sat herself down by my side the
other evening, and began to talk over this marriage affair. "Well,
pa," she says; "what do you think of it?" "Why, my dear," I said; "I
suppose it's all very well; I hope it's for the best." I answered in
this way because I was sitting before the fire at the time, drinking
my grog rather thoughtfully, and I knew my throwing in an undecided
word now and then would induce her to continue talking. Both my girls
are pictures of their dear mother, and as I grow old I like to sit
with only them by me; for their voices and looks carry me back to the
happiest period of my life, and make me, for the moment, as young as I
used to be then, though not quite so light-hearted. "It's quite a
marriage of affection, pa," said Bella, after a short silence. "Yes,
my dear," said I; "but such marriages do not always turn out the
happiest." "I am sorry to hear you express your opinion against
marriages of affection, pa," said Bella, colouring a little. "I was
wrong; I ought not to have said so, my dear, either," said I patting
her cheek as kindly as a rough old fellow like me could do it, "for
your mother's was one and so was yours." "It's not that, I meant,
pa," said Bella. "The fact is, pa, I wanted to speak to you about
Emily." The long and the short of it is, then, that Bella at last
mustered up courage to tell me that Emily was unhappy; that she and
your young friend Snodgrass had been in constant correspondence and
communication ever since last Christmas; that she had very dutifully
made up her mind to run away with him, in laudable imitation of her
old friend and schoolfellow.
Another member of this pleasant household was "The Fat Boy." There is
nothing humorous or farcical in the mere physical exhibition of a fat
person, _qua_ his fat. It was, indeed, the fashion of the day--and on
the stage particularly--to assume that fatness was associated with
something comic. There are a number of stout persons in Pickwick--the
hero himself, Tupman, old Weller, and all the coachmen, the turnkeys,
Slammer, Wardle, Fat Boy, Nupkin's cook, Grummer, Buzfuz, Mrs. Weller,
Mr. Bagman's uncle, and others. Thackeray attempted to work with this
element in the case of Jos Sedley, and his fatness had a very close
connection with his character. But, in the case of Boz, his aim was much
more intellectual and, as it were, refined. For his object was to show
what was a fat person's view of this world, as seen through the medium of
Fat. The Fat Boy is not a selfish, sensual being by nature--he is really
helpless, and the creature of necessity who is forced by his bulk to take
a certain _fat_ view of everything round him." If we reflect on it we
shall see how clearly this is carried out. It is curious that, in the
instance of the Fat Boy, Boz should have repeated or duplicated a
situation, and yet contrived to impart such varied treatment, but I
suspect no one has ever noticed the point. Joe, it will be remembered,
witnessed the proceedings in the arbour, when Mr. Tupman declared his
passion for the spinster aunt, and the subsequent embracing--to the great
embarrassment of the pair. At the close of the story he also intruded on
another happy pair--Mr. Snodgrass and his _inamorata_--at a similar
delicate moment. Yet in the treatment, how different--"_I wants to make
yer flesh creep_!"--his taking the old lady into confidence; and then he
was pronounced by his master, Wardle, to be under some delusion--"let me
at him"--&c., so his story and report led him into a scrape. When he
intruded on the pair at Osborne's Hotel, and Snodgrass was, later, shut
up there, again he was made the scapegoat, and Wardle insisted that he
was drunk, &c. So here were the incidents repeating themselves.
II.--Shooting, Riding, Driving, etc.
Boz declared in one of his Prefaces that he was so ignorant of country
sports, that he could not attempt to deal with them in a story.
Notwithstanding this protest, he has given us a couple of shooting scenes
which show much experience of that form of field sports. There is a tone
of sympathy and freshness, a keen enjoyment of going forth in the
morning, which proves that he himself had taken part in such things. Rook-
shooting was then an enjoyable sport, and Boz was probably thinking of
the rooks at Cobham, where he had no doubt hovered round the party when a
lad. As we know, Mr. Tupman, who was a mere looker-on, was "peppered" by
his friend Winkle, a difficult thing to understand, as Winkle must have
been firing high into the trees, and if he hit his friend at all, would
have done so with much more severity. The persons who were in serious
danger from Mr. Winkle's gun were the boys in the trees, and we may
wonder that one, at least, was not shot dead. But the whole is so
pleasantly described as to give one a perfect _envie_ to go out and shoot
rooks. There are some delightful touches, such as Mr. Pickwick's alarm
about the climbing boys, "for he was not quite certain that the distress
in the agricultural interest, might not have compelled the small boys
attached to the soil to earn a precarious and hazardous existence by
making marks of themselves for inexperienced sportsmen." And again, "the
boy shouted and shook a branch with a nest on it. _Half-a-dozen young
rooks in violent conversation flew out to ask what the matter was_." Does
not this bring the whole scene before us.
The other shooting scene is near Bury St. Edmunds--on Sir Geoffrey
Manning's grounds--on September 1st, 1830, or 1827, whichever Boz
pleases, when "many a young partridge who strutted complacently among the
stubble with all his finical coxcombry of youth, and many an older one
who watched his levity out of his little, round eye with the contemptuous
air of a bird of wisdom and experience, alike unconscious of their
approaching doom, basked in the fresh morning air with lively and
blithesome feelings, and, a few hours later, were laid low upon the
earth." Here we have the beginning of that delightful fashion of
Dickens's, which he later carried to such perfection, of associating
human feelings and associations with the animal creation, and also
inanimate objects.
Everything connected with "the shooting" is admirably touched: The old,
experienced "shot," Wardle; the keepers and their boys; the dogs; the
sham amateurs; the carrying of the guns "reversed arms, like privates at
a funeral." Mr. Winkle "flashed and blazed and smoked away without
producing any material results; at one time expending his charge in mid-
air, and at others sending it skimming along so near the surface of the
ground as to place the lives of the two dogs on a rather uncertain and
precarious tenure. 'What's the matter with the dogs' legs? How _queer_
they're standing!' whispered Mr. Winkle. 'Hush, can't you! Don't you
see they are making a point?' said Wardle. 'Making a point?' said Mr.
Winkle, glaring about him, as if he expected to discern some particular
beauty in the landscape which the sagacious animals were calling special
attention to. 'What are they pointing at?' 'Keep your eyes open,' said
Wardle, not heeding the question in the excitement of the moment. 'Now
then.'" How natural and humorous is all this.
This was partridge shooting, "old style"--delightful and inspiriting, as
all have felt who have shared in it. Now we have "drives" on a vast
scale; then you would follow the birds from field to field "marking them
down." I myself with an urchin, a dog, and a single-barrelled old gun
have thus followed a few precious birds from field to field all the day
and secured them at the last. That was true enjoyment.
III.--Horses and Driving in "Pickwick."
For one who so modestly disclaimed all knowledge of sporting and country
tastes, Boz shows a very familiar acquaintance with horses and their
ways. He has introduced a number of these animals whose points are all
distinctly emphasized: a number of persons are shown to be interested in
horses, who exhibit their knowledge of and sympathise with the animals, a
knowledge and sympathy which is but a reflection of his own. The cunning
hand that could so discriminate between shades of humorous characters
would not be at a loss to analyse traits of equine nature. There is the
cab horse, said to be forty years old and kept in the shafts for two or
three weeks at a time, which is depicted in Seymour's plate. How
excellently drawn are the two Rochester steeds: one "an immense brown
horse, displaying great symmetry of bone," which was to be driven by Mr.
Pickwick, and Mr. Winkle's riding animal, another immense horse
"apparently a near relative of the animal in the chaise." "He don't shy,
does he?" The ostler guaranteed him quiet--"a hinfant in arms might
drive him"--"He wouldn't shy if he met a whole waggon-load of monkeys
with their tails burnt off." A far more original illustration than
anything used by the Wellers, whose special form that was. I pass over
the details of the driving and the riding which show a perfect knowledge
of animals, such as "the tall quadruped." Nothing is more droll than the
description of the loathing with which the party came to regard the
animal they were compelled to lead about all day. Then we have the post
horses and all connected with them. There is Tom Smart's "vixenish
mare," quite an intelligent character in her way. The account of the
coach drive down to Muggleton shows admirable observation of the ways of
the drivers.
Ben Allen's aunt had her private fly, painted a sad green colour drawn by
a "chubby sort of brown horse." I pass over the ghostly mailcoach horses
that flew through the night in "The Story of the Bagman's Uncle," flowing-
maned, black horses. There are many post horses figuring in Mr.
Pickwick's journey from Bristol to Birmingham and thence home; horses in
the rain and out of it.
Namby's horse was "a bay, a well-looking animal enough, but with
something of a flash and dog-fighting air about him." The horses which
took the hackney coach to the Fleet jolted along as hackney coaches
usually do. "The horses 'went better,' the driver said, 'when they had
anything before them.' They must have gone at a most extraordinary pace
when there was nothing." Visiting the Fleet with Mrs. Weller and the
deputy Shepherd, Mr. Weller drove up from Dorking with the old piebald in
his chaise cart, which, after long delay, was brought out for the return
journey. "If he stands at livery much longer he'll stand at nothin' as
we go back." There is a capital scene at the opening of Chapter XLVI.,
when the "cabrioilet" was drawing up at Mrs. Bardell's, and where so much
that is dramatic is "got out" of such a simple incident between the
contending directions.
IV.--Mr. Pickwick in Silk Stockings.
How well Boz knew how to touch the chords of human character--a power
that certainly needs long experience to work--is shown by the scene at
Wardle's dance, where Mr. Pickwick is nettled by Tupman's remarking that
he was wearing "pumps" for the first time. "_You_ in silk stockings,"
said that gentleman. Mr. Pickwick had just called attention to the
change which he considered a sort of public event to be admired by all.
"See this great man condescending to our frivolous tastes," and his host
had noted it in a flattering way. "You mean to dance?" But Tupman did
not look at it in this respectful way--he made a joke of it! "_You_ in
silk stockings." This was insolent to the grave, great man and
philosopher, so he turned sharply on his familiar: "And why not, sir--why
not?" This with warmth. The foolish Tupman, still inclined to be
jocose, said, "Oh, of course, there is no reason why you shouldn't wear
them"--a most awkward speech--as who should say, "This is a free
country--a man can wear a night cap in public if he chooses." "I imagine
not, sir--I imagine not," said Mr. Pickwick, in a _very peremptory_ tone.
Mr. Tupman had contemplated a laugh, but he found it was a serious
matter, so he looked grave, and said _they were a pretty pattern_. How
natural is all this! And still more so his leader's reply. "I hope they
are," he said, fixing his eyes upon his friend, "You see nothing
extraordinary in the stockings, _as_ stockings, I trust, sir." The
frightened Tupman said, "Certainly not, Oh, certainly not," and walked
away. Mr. Pickwick's face resumed its customary benign expression. This
little picture of weakness in an eminent man is characteristic. For
observe, when Tupman showed the folly of wearing a "two inch tail" to the
brigand's coat, Mr. Pickwick was furious, told him he was too old and too
fat; but when someone remarks on _his_ silk stockings he gets deeply
offended. His vanity is touched, there should have been no remark, or,
at least, only of admiration. He was, in fact, one of those flattered
and spoiled personages who cannot see any harm in their doing what they
reprove in others. Many a really great character is weak in this
direction. Observe the disingenuousness of the great man; he knew,
perfectly, that Tupman noticed nothing odd in the stockings, "_as_
stockings," he meant the oddity of his wearing them at all, and he had
said so, plainly. But, ignoring this, the great man chose to assume that
he was insolently reflecting on their pattern as outlandish. With his
despotic pressure, he forced him to say they were of a "pretty pattern,"
and thus vindicated his authority.
V.--Violent Assaults, Shooting, &c
Duelling, imprisonment for debt, intoxication, elopements, are, perhaps,
the most striking social incidents in "Pickwick" that have disappeared
and become all but antiquarian in their character. Yet another, almost
as curious, was the ready recourse to physical force or violence--fistic
correction as it might be termed. A gentleman of quiet, restrained
habit, like Mr. Pickwick, was prepared, in case of call, either to
threaten or execute summary chastisement on anyone who offended him. The
police or magistrates seemed not to have been thought of, for the victim
would not think of appealing to either--all which seems strange to us
nowadays. At the Review even, the soldiers coolly overthrew Mr. Pickwick
and his friends who had got in their way. Winkle was maltreated so
severely that the blood streamed from his nose; this would not now be
tolerated. When Jingle affronted the great man by calling his friend
"Tuppy," Mr. Pickwick, we are told, "hurled the inkstand madly forward
and followed it up himself." This hurling of things at offenders was a
common incident, particularly in quarrels at table, when the decanter was
frequently so used, or a glass of wine thrown in the face. After the
adventure at the Boarding School, Mr. Pickwick "indented his pillow with
a tremendous blow," and announced that, if he met Jingle again, he would
"inflict personal chastisement on him"; while Sam declared that he would
bring "real water" into Job's eyes. Old Lobbs, in the story, was going
to throttle Pipkin. Mrs. Potts insisted that the editor of _The
Independent_ should be horsewhipped. More extraordinary still, old
Weller, at a quiet tea-meeting, assaulted the Shepherd, giving him "two
or three for himself, and two or three more to hand over to the man with
the red nose." Everyone set themselves right in this way and, it is
clear, knew how to use their "bunch of fives." Nor were there any
summonses or police courts afterwards; the incident was closed. Sam,
attempting to rescue his master at Ipswich, knocked down the "specials"
right and left, knocking down some for others to lie upon, yet he was
only fined two pounds for the first assault and three for the second--now
he would have been sent to jail under a severe sentence. Mrs. Raddle
insisted that her husband should get up and knock every one of the guests
down stairs, while Jack Hopkins offered to go upstairs and "pitch into
the landlord." At the Brick Lane meeting, Brother Stiggins, intoxicated,
knocked Brother Tadger down the stairs, while old Weller violently
assaulted Stiggins. At Bath, Dowler hunted Winkle round the Crescent,
threatening to cut his throat; and at Bristol, when the terrified Winkle
tried to ring the bell, Dowler fancied that he was going to strike him.
At Bristol, Ben Allen flourished the poker, threatening his sister's
rival, and when Mr. Pickwick sent Sam to capture Winkle, he instructed
him to knock him down even, if he resisted; this direction was given with
all seriousness. "If he attempts to run away from you, _knock him down_,
or lock him up, you have my full authority, Sam." The despotism of this
amiable man was truly extraordinary, he ruled his "followers" with a rod
of iron. That such should be exercised, or accepted even by the reader,
is a note of the time. It was, however, only a logical consequence of
the other summary methods.
The altercation between Mr. Pickwick and his other "follower," Tupman,
arising out of the "two-inch tail" question, was on the same lines. For
the affront of being called fat and old the latter scientifically turned
up his cuffs and announced that he would inflict summary chastisement on
his leader. Mr. Pickwick met him with a cordial "come on," throwing
himself into a pugilistic attitude, supposed by the two bystanders to
have been intended as a posture of defence. This seems to have been
accepted as a natural incident, though it was deprecated. In the Fleet
Prison, when Mr. Pickwick's nightcap was snatched off, he retorted with a
smart blow, and again invited everyone, "all of you," to "come on." When
the coachmen attended Sam to the Fleet, walking eight abreast, they had
to leave behind one of the party "to fight a ticket porter, it being
arranged that his friends should call for him as they came back." Even
in a moment of agitation--as when Ben Allen learned that his sister had
"bolted," his impulse was to rush at Martin the groom and throttle him;
the latter, in return, "felling the medical student to the ground." Then
we have the extraordinary and realistic combat between Pott and Slurk in
the kitchen of the "Saracen's Head," Towcester--the one armed with a
shovel, the other with a carpet bag--and old Weller's chastisement of
Stiggins. In short, this system of chastisement on the spot, it is
clear, was a necessary equipment, and everybody, high and low, was
understood to be ready to secure satisfaction for himself by the aid of
violence. No doubt this was a consequence of the duel which was, of
course, to be had recourse to only as the last resort.
When the wretched Jingle, and the still more wretched Job met Mr.
Pickwick in the Fleet, and the latter, giving money, had said, "Take
that, sir," the author adds, "Take what? . . . As the world runs, it
ought to have been a sound, hearty cuff, for Mr. Pickwick had been duped,
deceived, &c." Thus, Boz thought, as of course, that this was the
suitable method of treatment in such cases. "Must we tell the truth?" he
goes on; "it was a piece of money." The unconsciousness of all this is
very striking.
VI.--Winkle and Snodgrass
It has always seemed a matter of astonishment to me how such a creature
as Winkle should have won the fair Arabella. Every act of this man was a
deception--he could not help pretence, or, shall we say it boldly, lying.
His duel was a series of tricks--his shooting, skating, etc., all a sham.
Even when found out as an impostor before all the keepers and others, we
find him impudently saying, "I'll tell you what I shall do _to get up my
shooting again_." The fellow never had any shooting to get up. But the
mere habit of untruth was ingrained in the man. His undignified race, in
a dressing-gown, round the Crescent was no doubt concealed from
Arabella--she would never have got over that! As a display of cowardice
it was only matched by his hypocritical assumption of courage before
Dowler when he found he could assume it safely. He deceived his father
and Mr. Pickwick as to his marriage, and dropped on his knees to the
latter to beg pardon. How mean, too, was his behaviour to Mrs. Pott in
the difficulty with her husband. But nothing could shake the interest of
the fair Arabella in her lover, even his ignominious and public treatment
by Mr. Pickwick at the skating exhibition. How _can_ we account for it.
But Boz knew the female nature well, and here is the explanation: Winkle
had been "out"--had figured in a duel with a real officer in the army.
There was no mistake about _that_--gone out, too, in what appeared a
chivalrous manner to save the honour of the club. At least it had the
appearance of all that (though here was another falsehood). This had
been told to all--no doubt by Winkle himself--many times over. Nothing
could enfeeble that, it seemed heroic, and covered all other _laches_.
Neither did it lose in _his_ telling of it.
The most ridiculous feature surely in the man was his costume--meant to
be of a sporting complexion--which he never abandoned: green shooting
coat, plaid neckchief, and closely fitting drabs. When he returned from
his honeymoon, he was still in this uniform.
We may assume, however, that this points to a custom of the time: that
the sportsman was _always_ a sportsman. Even at the club meeting, at a
poorish room in a tavern, he must carry on the fiction that he has just
come back from a day's sporting, for there on the floor, conspicuous, are
the fowling piece, game bag, fishing rod, &c.
Snodgrass was another incapable and quite uninteresting--a person whom we
would not care to know. He posed as a poet and, to this end, wore, even
at the club, "a mysterious blue cloak, with a canine skin collar";
imagine this of a warm evening--May 12--in a stuffy room in Huggin Lane!
He must, however, live up to his character, at all hazards.
Snodgrass and his verses, and his perpetual "note book," must have made
him a bore of the first water. How could the charming Emily have
selected him. He, too, had some of Winkle's craft. He had been
entertained cordially and hospitably by old Wardle, and repaid him by
stealing his daughter's affections in a very underhand way, actually
plotting to run away with her.
There was something rather ignominious in his detection at Osborne's
Hotel. He is a very colourless being. As to his being a Poet, it would
seem to be that he merely gave himself out for one and persuaded his
friends that he was such. His remarks at the "Peacock" are truly
sapient: "Show me the man that says anything against women, as women, and
_I boldly declare he is not a man_!" Which is matched by Mr. Winkle's
answer to the charge of his being "a serpent": "Prove it," said Mr.
Winkle, warmly. It is to be suspected that the marriage with the amiable
Emily was not a success. The author throws out a hint to that effect:
"Mr Snodgrass, being occasionally abstracted and melancholy, is to this
day reputed a great poet among his acquaintance, though we do not find he
has ever written anything to encourage the belief." In other words he
was carrying on the old Pickwick game of "Humbug." So great an intellect
had quite thrown itself away on poor Emily--even his abstraction and
melancholy. How natural too that he should "hang on" to his father-in-
law "and establish himself close to Dingly Dell"--to "sponge,"
probably--while he made a sham of farming; for are we not told that he
purchased and cultivated a small farm--"_more for occupation than
profit_"--thus again making believe. Poor Emily!
I lately looked through the swollen pages of the monster London Directory
to find how many of the Pickwickian names were in common use. There was
not a single Snodgrass, though there was one Winkel, and one "Winkle and
Co." in St. Mary Axe. There was one Tupman, a Court dressmaker--no
Nupkins, but some twenty Magnuses, and not a single Pickwick. There
were, however, some twenty-four Wellers.