Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens | Page 6

century and thoroughly
soaked and absorbed the English. We are now, it is constantly said, an
incurably Puritanic people. Personally, I have my doubts about this. I
shall not refuse to admit to the Puritans that they conquered and
crushed the English people; but I do not think that they ever
transformed it. My doubt is chiefly derived from three historical facts.
First, that England was never so richly and recognisably English as in
the Shakespearian age before the Puritan had appeared. Second, that
ever since he did appear there has been a long unbroken line of brilliant
and typical Englishmen who belonged to the Shakespearian and not the
Puritanic tradition; Dryden, Johnson, Wilkes, Fox, Nelson, were hardly
Puritans. And third, that the real rise of a new, cold, and illiberal
morality in these matters seems to me to have occurred in the time of
Queen Victoria, and not of Queen Elizabeth. All things considered, it is
likely that future historians will say that the Puritans first really
triumphed in the twentieth century, and that Dickens was the last cry of
Merry England.
And about these additional, miscellaneous, and even inferior works of
Dickens there is, moreover, another use and fascination which all
Dickensians will understand; which, after a manner, is not for the
profane. All who love Dickens have a strange sense that he is really

inexhaustible. It is this fantastic infinity that divides him even from the
strongest and healthiest romantic artists of a later day--from Stevenson,
for example. I have read Treasure Island twenty times; nevertheless I
know it. But I do not really feel as if I knew all Pickwick; I have not so
much read it twenty times as read in it a million times; and it almost
seemed as if I always read something new. We of the true faith look at
each other and understand; yes, our master was a magician. I believe
the books are alive; I believe that leaves still grow in them, as leaves
grow on the trees. I believe that this fairy library flourishes and
increases like a fairy forest: but the world is listening to us, and we will
put our hand upon our mouth.
OUR MUTUAL FRIEND
One thing at least seems certain. Dickens may or may not have been
socialist in his tendencies; one might quote on the affirmative side his
satire against Mr. Podsnap, who thought Centralisation "un-English";
one might quote in reply the fact that he satirised quite as unmercifully
state and municipal officials of the most modern type. But there is one
condition of affairs which Dickens would certainly have detested and
denounced, and that is the condition in which we actually stand to-day.
At this moment it is vain to discuss whether socialism will be a selling
of men's liberty for bread. The men have already sold the liberty; only
they have not yet got the bread. A most incessant and exacting
interference with the poor is already in operation; they are already ruled
like slaves, only they are not fed like slaves. The children are forcibly
provided with a school; only they are not provided with a house.
Officials give the most detailed domestic directions about the fireguard;
only they do not give the fireguard. Officials bring round the most
stringent directions about the milk; only they do not bring round the
milk. The situation is perhaps the most humorous in the whole history
of oppression. We force the nigger to dig; but as a concession to him
we do not give him a spade. We compel Sambo to cook; but we consult
his dignity so far as to refuse him a fire.
This state of things at least cannot conceivably endure. We must either
give the workers more property and liberty, or we must feed them

properly as we work them properly. If we insist on sending the menu
into them, they will naturally send the bill into us. This may possibly
result (it is not my purpose here to prove that it will) in the drilling of
the English people into hordes of humanely herded serfs; and this again
may mean the fading from our consciousness of all those elves and
giants, monsters and fantastics whom we are faintly beginning to feel
and remember in the land. If this be so, the work of Dickens may be
considered as a great vision--a vision, as Swinburne said, between a
sleep and a sleep. It can be said that between the grey past of territorial
depression and the grey future of economic routine the strange clouds
lifted, and we beheld the land of the living.
Lastly, Dickens is even astonishingly right about Eugene Wrayburne.
So far from reproaching him with not understanding a gentleman, the
critic will be astonished at the accuracy with