Life of Charles Dickens | Page 7

such as that to
which Charles Lamb referred. They recognized in him the superior
spirit, ready of pen, and affluent of speech, and with a certain grandeur
in his conviviality. He it was who drew up their memorial to George of
England on an occasion no less important than the royal birthday, when
they, the monarch's "unfortunate subjects,"--so they were described in

the memorial--besought the king's "gracious majesty," of his
"well-known munificence," to grant them a something towards the
drinking of the royal health. (Ah, with what keen eyes and penetrative
genius did little Charles, from his corner, watch the strange sad stream
of humanity that trickled through the room, and may be said to have
smeared its approval of that petition!) And while Mr. Dickens was
enjoying his prison honours, he was also enjoying his Admiralty
pension,[3] which was not forfeited by his imprisonment; and his wife
and children were consequently enjoying a larger measure of the
necessaries of life than had been theirs for many a month. So all went
on merrily enough at the Marshalsea.
But even under the old law, imprisonment for debt did not always last
for ever. A legacy, and the Insolvent Debtors Act, enabled Mr. Dickens
to march out of durance, in some sort with the honours of war, after a
few months' incarceration--this would be early in 1824;--and he went
with his family, including Charles, to lodge with the "Mrs. Pipchin"
already mentioned. Charles meanwhile still toiled on in the blacking
warehouse, now removed to Chandos Street, Covent Garden; and had
reached such skill in the tying, pasting, and labelling of the bottles, that
small crowds used to collect at the window for the purpose of watching
his deft fingers. There was pride in this, no doubt, but also humiliation;
and release was at hand. His father and Lamert quarrelled about
something--about what, Dickens seems never to have known--and he
was sent home. Mrs. Dickens acted the part of the peacemaker on the
next day, probably feeling that amid the shadowy expectations on
which she and her husband had subsisted for so long, even six or seven
shillings a week was something tangible, and not to be despised. Yet in
spite of this, he did not return to the business. His father decided that he
should go to school. "I do not write resentfully or angrily," said
Dickens, in the confidential communication made long afterwards to
Forster, and to which reference has already been made; "but I never
afterwards forgot, I never shall forget, I never can forget, that my
mother was warm for my being sent back."
The mothers of great men is a subject that has been handled often, and
eloquently. How many of those who have achieved distinction can trace

their inherited gifts to a mother's character, and their acquired gifts to a
mother's teaching and influence. Mrs. Dickens seems not to have been
a mother of this stamp. She scarcely, I fear, possessed those admirable
qualities of mind and heart which one can clearly recognize as having
borne fruit in the greatness and goodness of her famous son. So far as I
can discover, she exercised no influence upon him at all. Her name
hardly appears in his biographies. He never, that I can recollect,
mentions her in his correspondence; only refers to her on the rarest
occasions. And perhaps, on the whole, this is not to be wondered at, if
we accept the constant tradition that she had, unknown to herself, sat to
her son for the portrait of Mrs. Nickleby, and suggested to him the
main traits in the character of that inconsequent and not very wise old
lady. Mrs. Nickleby, I take it, was not the kind of person calculated to
form the mind of a boy of genius. As well might one expect some very
domestic bird to teach an eaglet how to fly.
The school to which our callow eaglet was sent (in the spring or early
summer of 1824), belonged emphatically to the old school of schools.
It bore the goodly name of Wellington House Academy, and was
situated in Mornington Place, near the Hampstead Road. A certain Mr.
Jones held chief rule there; and as more than fifty years have now
elapsed since Dickens' connection with the establishment ceased, I trust
there may be nothing libellous in giving further currency to his
statement, or rather, perhaps, to his recorded impression,[4] that the
head master's one qualification for his office was dexterity in the use of
the cane;--especially as another "old boy" corroborates that impression,
and declares Mr. Jones to have been "a most ignorant fellow, and a
mere tyrant." Dickens, however, escaped with comparatively little
beating, because he was a day-boy, and sound policy dictated that
day-boys, who had facilities for carrying home