I quite agree with you about Tom Pinch. He is a despicable kind of
character; just the kind of character Dickens liked, because he had
himself a thick streak of maudlin sentimentality of the kind that, as
somebody phrased it, "made him wallow naked in the pathetic." It always
interests me about Dickens to think how much first-class work he did and
how almost all of it was mixed up with every kind of cheap, second-rate
matter. I am very fond of him. There are innumerable characters that he
has created which symbolize vices, virtues, follies, and the like almost
as well as the characters in Bunyan; and therefore I think the wise
thing to do is simply to skip the bosh and twaddle and vulgarity and
untruth, and get the benefit out of the rest. Of course one fundamental
difference between Thackeray and Dickens is that Thackeray was a
gentleman and Dickens was not. But a man might do some mighty good work
and not be a gentleman in any sense.
"MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT"
White House, February 29, 1908.