I SCRIPTIONS BY CHARLES DICKENS WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY HAMILTON W. MABIE F the number of copies sold affords a basis for opinion, the books of Charles Dickens are more widely read to-day in England than during his lifetime, when his popularity was regarded as unique in the history of English writing. It is almost inevitable that a great enthusiasm for a man in any walk of life should be followed by a reaction when he disappears from the stage of action and the spell of his personality is no longer felt. Idolatry is the mother of iconoclasm, and sooner or later fierce-eyed reformers invade the temple and with sacrilegious hands tear down the image and scatter the votive offerings. For a time after the death of Dickens his reputation suffered many things at the hands of critics, some of whom were wont to declare, with that air of superiority which never loses its interest for those who enjoy the self-revelations of criticism, that he was steeped in sentimentalism, exaggeration, and humanitarianism; drowned, as it were, in the milk of human kindness. All these charges could be proved in the high court of ultimate judgment; there is the evidence of "Dombey and Son," of "The Old Curiosity Shop," of chapters and passages scattered through all the books. Andrew Lang accuses Dickens of "wallowing naked in the pathetic," and it is certainly true that he wades in at times beyond his depth. But Dickens is saved, as Scott has been saved, by certain large endowments of human feeling, insight, imagination, humor, and power of portraiture. The critics were so eager in their pursuit of the craftsman that they ran in full cry past the genius of the man, and long ago they began to steal quietly back, as if they had never made the welkin ring with their bayings. Meanwhile the selective process of time has quietly sifted the grain from the chaff; has dropped the sentimental, exaggerated, and unreal work, and set the stamp of fame on what was characteristic, not of the mannerisms, but of the genius of Dickens. "David Copperfield," "Nicholas Nickleby," "Our Mutual Friend," and "The Tale of Two Cities " have a long life before them. The brilliant story of Sidney Carton is a tour de force rather than a creation of the Dickens genius; it shows the influence of Carlyle's powerful and dramatic rendering of the French Revolution; but it has such vitality of portraiture, such inherent nobility, such interest of incident and narrative, that it will long survive as an evidence of the power of Dickens to use material not vitally related to him as if it were his own. The note of exaggeration in Dickens was due in part to his overflowing vitality and in part to a certain lack of taste in the man. Those who heard him read "Dr. Marigold" will never forget with what consummate skill he liberated the little group in the cart from the book and set them moving like living creatures before the eye; nor will they forget the over-emphasis of the heavy double chain of gold across the waistcoat, and the excess of flowers in the lapel of the coat. But these things were forgotten in the living power of a dramatic artist who would have made a place for himself on the stage if he had not made it in a kindred art. The kindness; the deep and contagious human interest; the broad humor, full of laughter and never far from tears; the wonderful power of vizualizing places and people these survive as the memories of those fascinating readings. It must be remembered also that Cruikshank contributed not a little to the impression of exaggeration in many of Dickens's most striking and popular characters. The illustrations were as rich in humor as the text in which they were set; but they emphasized every line that was out of normal drawing, and threw the exaggerations into bold relief by diverting attention from the accessories and background which gave the human figures their setting. It must also be remembered that the humorous studies in Dickens's novels need the gloss of the life they reproduced; the form and habit of that life have greatly changed, but enough remains to give valuable clues to the student of the "Pickwick Papers." In the stable yards of the old inns there are figures which make one realize how faithfully Dickens could draw from the life; on the highways one continually comes upon men who have strayed out of the stories; and a day in the East End of London makes the oddest and most unreal of the novelist's semi-humorous, semi-tragical creations credible. Times and tastes have changed; a new point of view has been reached; another and far more sophisticated manner has succeeded the broad, leisurely, effective style of the author of " Dr. Marigold;" but the vitality of heart, imagination, and style of this master of laughter and of tears has not parted with its power in losing its novelty. The story or sketch, as reprinted here, has been shortened by the omission of passages not essential to its development. I CHAPTER I. TO BE TAKEN IMMEDIATELY AM a Cheap Jack, and my own father's name was Willum Marigold. It was in his lifetime supposed by some that his name was William, but my own father always consistently said, No, it was Willum. On which point I content myself with looking at the argument this way: If a man is not allowed to know his own name in a free country, how much is he allowed to know in a land of slavery? I was born on the Queen's highway, but it was the King's at that time. A doctor was fetched to my own mother by my own father, when it took place on a common; and in consequence of his being a very kind gentleman, and accepting no fee but a tea-tray, I was named Doctor, out of gratitude and compliment to him. There you have me. Doctor Marigold. I am at present a middle-aged man of a broadish build, in cords, leggings, and a sleeved waistcoat the strings of which H. W. M. is always gone behind. Repair them. how you will, they go like fiddle-strings. You have been to the theater, and you have seen one of the wiolin-players screw up his wiolin, after listening to it as if it had been whispering the secret to him that it feared it was out of order, and then you have heard it snap. That's as exactly similar to my waistcoat as a waistcoat and a wiolin can be like one another. I am partial to a white hat, and I like a shawl round my neck wore loose and easy. Sitting down is my favorite posture. If I have a taste in point of personal jewelry, it is mother-of-pearl buttons. There you have me again, as large as life. The doctor having accepted a teatray, you'll guess that my father was a Cheap Jack before me. You are right. He was. It was a pretty tray. It represented a large lady going along a serpentine up-hill gravel-walk, to attend a little church. Two swans had likewise come astray with the same intentions. When I call her a large lady I don't mean in point of breadth, for there she fell below my views, but she more than made it up in height; her height and slimness was-in short THE height of both. I often saw that tray, after I was the innocently smiling cause (or more likely screeching one) of the doctor's standing it up on a table against the wall in his consulting-room. Whenever my own. father and mother were in that part of the country, I used to put my head (I have heard my own mother say it was flaxen curls at that time, though you wouldn't know an old hearth-broom from it now until you come to the handle, and found it wasn't me) in at the doctor's door, and the doctor was always glad to see me, and said, " Aha, my brother practitioner! Come in, little M.D. How are your inclinations as to sixpence ?" You can't go on forever, you'll find, nor yet could my father nor yet my mother. If you don't go off as a whole when you are about due, you're liable to go off in part, and two to one your head's the part. Gradually my father went off his, and my mother went off hers. It was in a harmless way, but it put out the family where I boarded them. The old couple, though retired, got to be wholly and solely devoted to the Cheap Jack business, and were always selling the family off. Whenever the cloth was laid for dinner, my father began rattling the plates and dishes, as we do in our line when we put up crockery for a bid, only he had lost the trick of it, and mostly let 'em drop and broke 'em. As the old lady had been used to sit in the cart, and hand the articles out one by one to the old gentleman on the footboard to sell, just in the same way she handed him every item of the family's property, and they disposed of it in their own imaginations from morning to night. At last the old gentleman, lying bedridden in the same room with the old lady, cries out in the old patter, fluent, after having been silent for two days and nights : "Now here, my jolly companions every one— which the Nightingale club in a village was held, At the sign of the Cabbage and Shears, Where the singers no doubt would have greatly excelled, But for want of taste, voices, and ears now, here, my jolly companions, every one, is a working model of a used-up old Cheap Jack, without a tooth in his head, and with a pain in every bone: so like life that it would be just as good if it wasn't better, just as bad if it wasn't worse, and just as new if it wasn't worn out. Bid for the working model of the old Cheap Jack, who has drunk more gunpowdertea with the ladies in his time than would blow the lid off a washerwoman's copper, and carry it as many thousands of miles higher than the moon as naught nix naught, divided by the national debt, carry nothing to the poor-rates, three under, and two over. Now, my hearts of oak and men of straw, what do you say for the lot? for the lot? Two shillings, a shilling, tenpence, eightpence, sixpence, fourpence. Twopence? Who said twopence ? The gentleman in the scarecrow's hat? I am ashamed of the gentleman in the scarecrow's hat. I really am ashamed of him for his want of public spirit. Now I'll tell you what I'll do with you. Come! I'll throw you in a working model of a old woman that was married to the old Cheap Jack so long ago that upon my word and honor it took place in Noah's Ark, before the Unicorn could get in to forbid the banns by blowing a tune upon his horn. There now! Come ! What do you say for both? I'll tell you what I'll do with you. I don't bear you malice for being so backward. Here ! If you make me a bid that'll only reflect a little credit on your town, I'll throw you in a warmingpan for nothing, and lend you a toastingfork for life. Now come; what do you say after that splendid offer? Say two pound, say thirty shillings, say a pound, say ten shillings, say five, say two and six. You don't say even two and six? You say two and three? No. You sha'n't have the lot for two and three. I'd sooner give it to you, if you was goodlooking enough. Here! Missis! Chuck the old man and woman into the cart, put the horse to, and drive 'em away and bury 'em !" Such were the last words of Willum Marigold, my own father, and they were carried out by him and by his wife, my own mother, on one and the same day, as I ought to know, having followed as mourner. I courted my wife from the footboard of the cart. I did indeed. She was a Suffolk young woman, and it was in Ips wich market-place right opposite the cornchandler's shop. I had noticed her up at a window last Saturday that was, appreciating highly. I had took to her, and I had said to myself, "If not already disposed of, I'll have that lot." Next Saturday that come, I pitched the cart on the same pitch, and I was in very high feather indeed, keeping 'em laughing the whole of the time, and getting off the goods briskly. At last I took out of my waistcoat-pocket a small lot wrapped in soft paper, and I put it this way (looking up at the window where she was). "Now here, my blooming English maidens, is an article, the last article of the present evening's sale, which I offer to only you, the lovely Suffolk Dumplings biling over with beauty, and I won't take a bid of a thousand pounds for from any man alive. Now what is it? Why, I'll tell you what it is. It's made of fine gold, and it's not broke, though there's a hole in the middle of it, and it's stronger than any fetter that ever was forged, though it's smaller than any finger in my set of ten. Why ten? Because, when my parents made over my property to me, I tell you true, there was twelve sheets, twelve towels, twelve tablecloths, twelve knives, twelve forks, twelve tablespoons, and twelve teaspoons, but my set of fingers was two short of a dozen, and could never since be matched. Now what else is it? Come, I'll tell you. It's a hoop of solid gold, wrapped in a silver curl-paper, that I myself took off the shining locks of the ever beautiful old lady in Threadneedle Street, London city; I wouldn't tell you so if I hadn't the paper to show, or you mightn't believe it even of me. Now what else is it? It's a man-trap and a handcuff, the parish stocks and a leg-lock, all in gold and all in one. Now what else is it? It's a wedding-ring. Now I'll tell you what I'm a-going to do with it. I'm not a-going to offer this lot for money; but I mean to give it to the next of you beauties that laughs, and I'll pay her a visit tomorrow morning at exactly half after nine o'clock as the chimes go, and I'll take her out for a walk to put up the banns." She laughed, and got the ring handed up to her. When I called in the morning she says, "O dear! It's never you, and you never mean it?" "It's ever me," says I," and I am ever yours, and I ever mean it." So we got married, after being put up three times—which, by the by, is quite in the Cheap Jack way again, and shows once more how the Cheap Jack customs pervade society. She wasn't a bad wife, but she had a temper. If she could have parted with that one article at a sacrifice, I wouldn't have swopped her away in exchange for any other woman in England. Not that I ever did swop her away, for we lived together till she died, and that was thirteen year. Now, my lords and ladies and gentlefolks all, I'll let you into a secret, though you won't believe it. Thirteen year of temper in a Palace would try the worst of you, but thirteen year of temper in a Cart would try the best of you. are kept so very close to it in a cart, you see. There's thousands of couples among you getting on like sweet ile upon a whetstone in houses five and six pairs of stairs high, that would go to the Divorce Court in a cart. Whether the jolting makes it worse, I don't undertake to decide; but in a cart it does come home to you, and stick to you. Wiolence in a cart is so wiolent, and aggrawation in a cart is so aggrawating. You We might have had such a pleasant life! A roomy cart, with the large goods hung outside, and the bed slung underneath it when on the road, an iron pot and a kettle, a fireplace for the cold weather, a chimney for the smoke, a hanging-shelf and a cupboard, a dog and a horse. What more do you want? You draw off upon a bit of turf in a green lane or by the roadside, you hobble your old horse and turn him grazing, you light your fire upon the ashes of the last visitors, you cook your stew, and you wouldn't call the Emperor of France your father. But have a temper in the cart, flinging language and the hardest goods in stock at you, and where are you then? Put a name to your feelings. My dog knew as well when she was on the turn as I did. Before she broke out, he would give a howl, and bolt. How he knew it, was a mystery to me; but the sure and certain knowledge of it would wake him out of his soundest sleep, and he would give a howl, and bolt. At such times I wished I was him. |