DICKENS'S SKETCHES BY 802,
EXERCISES IN THE CRAFT OF FICTION

Thesis Ior the Degree of Ph. D;-

MICHIGAN $7?AT.E UNIVERSITY

Duane Kenneth De Vries
I964

 

11-15513

This is to certify that the

thesis entitled

DICKENS'S w
91 §_Q_Z_, EXERCISES
in the Craft of Fiction

presented by

DUANE KENNETH DE VRIES

has been accepted towards fulfillment
of the requirements for

it)— degree in M

 

Major professor

Date May 22, 1961+

 

0-169

 

 

 

LIBRARY

Michigan Stat!
University

 

(E’s;

 

DICKENS'S SKETCHES BY BOZ:

 

EXERCISES IN THE CRAFT OF FICTION

BY

Duane Kenneth DeVries

AN ABSTRACT OF A THESIS

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

Department of English

1964

ABSTRACT

DICKENS'S SKETCHES BY BOZ,
EXERCISES IN THE CRAFT OF FICTION

by Duane Kenneth Devries

The purpose of this study is to prove that, just as
the development of Dickens's imagination during childhood
and his goals and interests as a young man were somehow
necessary steps in his development into a writer, so the
fifty-nine sketches and tales that he published between
1833 and 1836, and collected as Sketches by Boz, comprise—-
as exercises in the craft of fiction-—a series of steps in
Dickens's development into a novelist, a goal he virtually
achieved with Pickwick Papers.

The first chapter begins with a review of Dickens's
childhood reading, play-going, and other amusements that
resulted in the lonely boy's imaginative daydreaming,
pretending, play-acting, and, ultimately, juvenile writing,
all clear indications, in retrospect, of the direction
Dickens's life would take. As a young man, determinedly
advancing from lawyer's clerk to legal shorthand recorder
to actor to newspaper reporter, Dickens acquired an
education for himself in literature and in reality. And

he continued writing. His letters, poems, and plays of this

Duane Kenneth DeVries

time, though crude, reveal his interest in writing and give

occasional glimpses of some talent on his part as an author.
The second chapter deals with Dickens's first tales,

which appeared in the Monthly Magazine between late 1833

and early 1835. Too strongly influenced by contemporary

theatrical farces, they afford sufficient evidence that

Dickens was not then capable of writing Pickwick Papers.

 

Yet they do show him improving slightly over the faulty
character conception, distorted plot emphasis, inadequately
conceived scenes, stilted dialogue, awkward narrative pro-
gression, and other flaws that mar the earliest of these
tales.

Chapter three investigates the essays Dickens wrote
between late 1834 and early 1836 for various publications.
He did not abandon his exercises in the craft of fiction,
however, for he continued to practice the techniques of
fiction in paragraphs of description, in brief characteri-
zations, in narrative illustrations, in comic, satiric, and
sentimental approaches to his subject—-all parts of these
descriptive "sketches." The fact that he was writing
essays rather than fiction produced a greater stress on
reality and, partly as a result, on more precisely detailed
characters, scenes, and settings. Mbst important, he thus
practiced the various aspects of fiction virtually in
isolation from one another. When he returned to writing

tales for Bell's Life in London, Dickens was much better

Duane Kenneth DeVries

equipped to do so. Although these tales show little improve-
ment in plot development, they are far richer in characteri-
zation, scenic fullness, description, tone, and style than
were the Monthleragazine pieces.

As the last chapter shows, by late 1835 Dickens had
developed into a conscious--though not always adept--crafts-
man. "The Great Winglebury Duel," "The Tuggses at Ramsgate,"
and particularly "The Black Veil" reveal his new concern
with structure--the unification of plot, characters, setting,
tone, and the mixture of dramatic and pictorial scenes to
support a predetermined theme or effect. Basic flaws are
still evident, but Dickens is obviously ready to write not

only Pickwick Papers but "connected works of fiction of a

 

higher grade."

Studying the Sketches in a relatively chronological

 

sequence thus reveals an important series of steps in
Dickens's early development as a craftsman, a change from

a young man with a desire to write stories and sketches that
will amuse people, but not knowing quite how to go about

it, into an author fairly well practiced in the techniques
of fiction writing, increasingly conscious of the effects

he can attain with such techniques, and rather proficient

in combining them to produce a fairly unified, relatively

effective comic or serious story.

Copyright by

DUANE KENNETH DEVRIES

1965

DICKENS'S SKETCHES BY BOZ,

EXERCISES IN THE CRAFT OF FICTION

BY

Duane Kenneth DeVries

A THESIS

Submitted to
Midhigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

Department of English

1964

PREFACE

What began as a study to be entitled "Charles Dickens
and the Craft of Fiction," an examination of Dickens's

development as a conscious literary artist from Sketches by

 

802 through Edwin Drood, has somehow dwindled into the

present study, "Dickens's Sketches byyBoz, Exercises in the

 

Craft of Fiction." I have not abandoned my larger project,
hoping to produce, within the next few years, a rather thick
volume, of which the present study will comprise a part.
I do not feel, however, that in thus limiting my subject
I have proportionally restricted its significance. As I
read and re—read the essays and tales that make up the
Sketches in the order of their publication, studied the
important revisions that Dickens made in some of them,
examined Dickens's comments on these early writings,
accumulated the bits and pieces of commentary that modern
scholars have devoted to them, and closely investigated their
contents and techniques, it soon became apparent to me that
the Sketches by 802 played a more important role in Dickens's
early development as a craftsman of the novel than most
scholars have indicated.

As I plan to show in the following chapters, the
interests and activities of Dickens's childhood, youth, and

young manhood helped to develop his imagination and gave

ii

him needed practice in acting and writing, thus preparing
him for his career as an author. And the tales and essays
that he wrote between 1833 and 1836 show him developing

from a relatively unconscious to a fairly conscious—-

though not always adept--craftsman in the art of fiction.

In the Sketches one can see the young author working with
the ideas and the techniques that will later blossom, with
typical Dickensian richness, into the superb artistry of

the later novels. The surprising qualities of such a youth-
ful work as Pickwick Papers (Dickens was only twenty-four
when he began it) become more understandable in the light of

a closer look at Dickens's even earlier Sketches by 802.

 

The later work no doubt deserves the praise given to it,

but some of the Sketches, particularly those written in

 

1835 and 1836, are of equally high quality. If this is
predominantly a study of Dickens's early development as a

writer of fiction, culminating in Pickwick Papers, it is

 

also, in no small part, a study of the Sketches by Boz
themselves, particularly of their gradually increasing quality
as literature.

I wish to express an indebtedness that may not always
be obvious in the footnotes to the biographies of Dickens by
John Forster and Edgar Johnson and to John Butt and Kathleen
Tillotson's pioneering study, Dickens at Work. Certain

suggestions made in Butt and Tillotson's chapter on Sketches

 

by 802 had much to do with the direction portions of this

study have taken.

iii

I wish to express my gratitude for various kindnesses

to the librarians of the libraries of Michigan State University,

Ohio University,

and Smith College.

Finally,

Ohio State University, Harvard University,

I wish particularly to acknowledge the help

and encouragement given to me by Dr. James D. Rust, who

directed the writing of this dissertation; by Dre. C. David

Mead and Bernard J. Paris,

the other members of my dissertation

committee; and by my wife, who postponed her graduate education

in order that I might complete mine.

All references to Dickens's works, unless otherwise

noted, are to the National Library Edition (New York:

Bigelow, Brown and Company, n.d.), which is consistently

abbreviated in the text and footnotes as NLE. Individual

works in this edition are abbreviated in the footnotes as

follows:

23
Sim—Jig
2C.

93

Misc. P.

BarnabyfRudge

Christmas Stories

 

David Copperfield

Great Expectations

 

Miscellaneous Papers
Nicholas Nickleby
Oliver‘Twist

 

Pidkwick Papers
Reprinted Pieces
Sketches by Boz
nggleppprwo Cities

The Uncommercial Traveller.

iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter Page
I. BEGINNINGS AND PREPARATIONS . . . . . . . . . l
Beginnings l
Preparations, 1827-1833 39

II. SKETCEIES BY BOZ--TI-IE EARLY "TALES" o o o o o o 62

 

 

 

III. SKETCHES BY BOZ--SKETCHES, SCENES,
CHARACTERS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
The Morning Chronicle "Street Sketches" 132
The Evening Chronicle "Sketches of
London" 144
The "Scenes and Characters" in Bell's
Life in London 176

 

IV. SKETCHES BY BOZ--CONCLUSIONS AND
PERSPECTIVES o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o 205

"A Visit to Newgate" and Three Tales 205
Perspectives and Conclusions 237

BIBLIOGMPPIY O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 258

CHAPTER I

BEGINNINGS AND PREPARATIONS

Beginnings

 

Nearly everyone knows about the boy named Charles
Dickens who had a limited education, whose father's debts
forced him to work in a blacking factory for months while
his father forcibly resided in debtors' prison, and who at
fifteen entered the adult world as a lawyer's office boy.
Many people know, too, that this office boy learned short-
hand, became a Parliamentary reporter, a newspaper reporter,
and, around August, 1836, with the fifth installment of
Pickwick Papers, the sensation of the literary world. Not
so widely known, however, is that the most popular--some
say the greatest--novelist of the nineteenth century had
published the first series of his Sketches by B02 in February
of that year, with a second series following in December.
Together, these two series make up a group of fifty-nine
tales and essays written between 1833 and 1836 that
twentieth century scholars usually pass lightly over in
their studies of Dickens's artistic achievements, and that
few people read these days. As Dickens's first published
writings, these "sketches" are important in themselves, for

they show Dickens's early struggles with matters of

craftsmanship and his early attempts to write something of
literary value. More significantly, however, in the light
of the novels he was later to write, these early works were
also exercises for Dickens in the craft of fiction. When
read in the order of their writing, they not only show
Dickens practicing the various aspects of fiction at
relatively simple levels but also show his growing awareness
of his craft and the increasing effectiveness with which he
utilized its techniques. If most of the contemporary
critics were pleasantly surprised by the wit, the richness

of detail, and the sheer exuberance of Pickwick Papers,

 

those who had reviewed the first series of Sketches by 802
a few months earlier had praised it for similar virtues and
seen it as the first work of a promising young author.l

Dickens's writing of the pieces that comprise the Sketches

 

certainly enabled him to make Pickwick Papers as good as

 

critics still claim it to be and no doubt prepared him to

advance more rapidly than he might otherwise have as a

writer of "connected works of fiction of a higher grade."2

 

1For a collection of contemporary criticism of SB,
see W[a1ter] D[exter]'s "The Reception of Dickens's First
Book," Dickn, XXXII (1936), 43-50. For excerpts from early
reviews of the parts of 23, see Walter Dexter's "How Press
and Public Received 'The Pickwick Papers,'" Nineteenth
Century and After, CXIX (1936), 318-329, or Walter Dexter
and J. W. T. Ley's The Origin of Pidkwick (London: Chapman
and Hall, Ltd., 1936): PP. 67-83. The abbreviations used
for Dickens's works are explained in the preface.

2"Preface to the Second Edition of the First Series"
of SE, in NLE, I, i, xii.

 

The story of Dickens's development as a writer has
its beginnings much farther back than 1833, however, as it
is the purpose of this introductory chapter to show. In a
way, it is not until one familiarizes himself with the
imaginative, creative side of Dickens's early life that he
can adequately understand the ease with which Dickens did
become a professional writer, once he realized that he had
somehow been preparing himself for such an occupation for
years. The period to 1827, the year that Dickens completed
the slight formal education he had managed to acquire, is
particularly significant for what it shows of the development
of Dickens's imagination. The period between 1827 and 1833,
the year that Dickens became a published author, is correspond-
ingly important not only for what it reveals of Dickens's
search for a profession that would somehow satisfy desires
and dreams evoked by his imaginative life but also for the
additional education it supplied him in literature, reality,
and writing itself.

To those who knew Dickens as a child in Chatham and
London, the birth and development of the imagination nec-
essary for his later achievements in literature must have
seemed significant only in retrospect. To Dickens himself,
his reading, his visits to the theater, his participation
in other forms of entertainment, his daydreaming, his
pretending, his acting in plays, and his juvenile attempts
at writing must have seemed more childhood prerogatives and

efforts to bring amusement into an often lonely and

frustrating life than any preparation for a literary future.
Nevertheless, the activities of his childhood were an
important part of just such a preparation.

His loneliness was partly the result of frequent
illnesses, attacks of violent spasms, that prevented him
from engaging in active childhood sports; while other
children played, he read nearby. Dickens always believed,
John Forster, his friend and first biographer, states, that
"this early sickness had brought to himself one inestimable
advantage in the circumstance of his weak health having
strongly inclined him to reading."3 But, in addition,
his father's financial troubles, which came to a head in
1824 but had been forming several years, deepened his loneli—
ness and frustrated his embryonic social pretensions and his
more valuable desire to acquire a decent education. In
later years, he wrote of his early experiences in the
blacking factory and in the frightening and inhospitable
city: "I do not write resentfully or angrily: for I
know all these things have worked together to make me what
I am.“4 Even if one recognizes the validity of this insight,
he may also detect a note of bitterness. In the auto-
biographical fragment that Dickens wrote for Forster in the

late 1840's, he certainly held his parents responsible for

 

3John Forster, The Life of Charles Dickens, ed. J.
W. T. Ley (London: Cecil Palmer, 1928), P. 3. This work
was originally published in three volumes, London, 1872-1874.

4Forster, p. 35.

the experiences that, Edmund Wilson states, "produced in

Charles Dickens a trauma from which he suffered all his

life."5

The youthful Dickens no doubt was, as he later
described himself, "a lonely boy" and "a very small and
not-over—particularly-taken-care-of boy,"6 but, like David
Copperfield, he was also "a child of excellent abilities,
and with strong powers of observation, quick, eager,

delicate,’ and "an innocent romantic boy, making his

imaginative world out of . . . strange experiences and

sordid things."7

If his parents were responsible for the
lasting hurt on his psyche, they, and others also, permitted
and frequently encouraged the life of fancy that the Dickens

who wrote Hard Times would strongly advocate.

 

One must give some credit to Dickens's schoolmasters8

for the education he received, but his parents also

 

SForster, pp. 25-26, 29, 34-35; Edmund Wilson, The
Wound and the Bow: Seven Studies in Literature (New Ybrk:
Oxford University Press, 1947), p. 6.

6"Railway Dreaming," Misc. P., in NLE, XVIII, ii,
114; The Letters of Charles Dickens (London: The Nonesuch
Press, 1938 [The Nonesuch Dickens, ed. Arthur Waugh, et al.]),
I, 315, to Washington Irving, 4/21/41. Hereafter cited as
Nonesuch Let.

729, in NLE, IX, i, 204 and 225. The first quotation
is a slight variant of Dickens's description of himself as
a child, to be found in his autobiographical fragment. See
Forster, p. 25.

 

 

 

8An elderly woman who conducted a dame school over
a Chatham dyer's shop: William Giles, an Oxford graduate,
who ran a day school in Chatham which Dickens attended
probably between 1820 and 1822: and Mr. Jones and the
teachers at Wellington House Academy, which Dickens attended
between late 1824 and early 1827.

contributed much. Forster reports Dickens as having
"frequently been heard to say that his first desire for
knowledge, and his earliest passion for reading, were
awakened by his mother, from whom he learned the rudiments
not only of English, but also, a little later, of Latin.
She taught him, he was convinced, thoroughly well."9
His mother and his maternal grandmother, then still house-
keeper to Lord Crewe, introduced him to Little Red Riding—
Hood, Jack the Giantkiller, Robin HCOd, Valentine and
Orson, Bluebeard, the Yellow Dwarf and "all Mother Bunch's

wonders,‘ and a multitude of sultans and Scheherazades,

princes and princesses, dwarfs and fairies who filled the
pages of "the most astonishing picture-books."lo There

was also Dr. Faustus, "going down to a very red and yellow
perdition, under the superintendance of three green person-

ages of a scaly humour, with excrescential serpents growing

out of their blade-bones": the Golden Dreamer and the

 

Norwich Fortune Teller with their instructions "for making
the dumb cake, and reading destinies in tea-cups": song
books, such as the Little Warblers and Fairburn's Comic
Songsters; and ballads "on the old ballad paper and in the
old confusion of types" with gaudy symbolic illustrations.

These samples of his early books he years later discovered

 

9Forster, pp. 3-4.

10"A Christmas Tree" and "The Child's Stoer".QB£;_§§"

in NLE; XIII, i. 8-10; 52.

in the window of a French bookshop: "All these as of yore,

when they were infinite delights to me'."11 He also listened

avidly to his grandmother's stories from the pages of history

and to her personal reminiscences.12
Storytelling was also an accomplishment of Mary

Weller, the nurse of the Dickens children during their

years in Chatham (1817-1822), who told them horrifying

tales of murder and supernatural wonders. Her stories of

Captain Murderer, a Bluebeardian villain of the worst sort:

of Chips, the ship's carpenter who was fatally plagued by

rats of all kinds and shapes: of ghastly child-craving

Black Cats: of gigantic animals: and of ghostly apparitions,

Dickens relates at length in "Nurse's Stories."l3 Apparently

his Aunt Mary, who lived in Chatham with the family until

her marriage, told stories of a similar nature, for, in

"The Holly—Tree," Dickens recalls sitting "at the knee of

a sallow woman with a fishy eye, an aquiline nose, and a

green gown," listening not only to stories about a landlord

who lost his customers because he put them into pies and

about a servant girl who married and then murdered an infamous

housebreaker but also about a brother-in-law who was every—

thing that Dickens's father was not, who had everything

 

11"Out of the Season," Repr. P., in NLE. XVII: ii: 295°

12Edgar Johnson, Charles Dickens: His Tragedy and
Triumph (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1952), p. 8.

1322,: in 11121 XVI: ii: 193-204.

that his father did not, and whose escapades, he later

discovered, were strongly reminiscent of Raymond and Agnes,

 

or The Bleeding_N‘un.l4 Such storytelling apparently was
as much a tradition in the Dickens's family as were John
Dickens's financial troubles. In another essay Dickens
writes of ghost stories told around his family's annual
Christmas tree.15

To his father, too, Dickens owed much of his imagin-
ative life. J. W. T. Ley, partly contradicting Forster's
harsh picture of John Dickens, believes that Charles "owed
the awakening of his imagination to his picturesque and

lovable, if happy-go-lucky father,’ citing as evidence

Charles's walks with his father about the Chatham dockyard,

their boating trips on the Medway, and their tramps along

the Dover Road.16 John Dickens's love of “the oratorical

gesture and the display of hospitality, resulting in

"friends about the festal board--as he would have called it--

a 91°Win9 hearth, songs and toasts,"l7

often included calling
in his young son and daughter to recite comic songs and
stories he had taught them. Much later Dickens told Forster

that he never remembered such entertainment but that "his

 

14
130-132.

"The Holly Tree," Chr. St., in NLE, XIII, i,

15"A Christmas Tree," Chr. St., in NEE: XIII: i, 15°

l6Ley's note, in Forster, p. 19, n. 10.

17Johnson, p. 8.

own shrill little voice of childhood did not again tingle
in his ears, and he blushed to think what a horrible little
nuisance he must have been to unoffending grown—up people

18 But if the

who were called upon to admire him."
recollections of some of these very people are accurate,
his solo performances and those in company with his sister

19

were indeed enjoyable. "He was proud of me, in his way,"

Dickens himself recollected of his father, "and had a great
admiration of the comic singing."20
According to Forster, the hardships of Dickens's
childhood gave rise to that energy and determination to
succeed that later helped to advance his career as a writer.21
Obviously, such ambition in itself could not have made
Dickens even an adequate writer. It needed to be strongly
reinforced by a highly developed fancy, by what one might
call a "producing" or a "creating" imagination-—that is,

one that constantly manifests itself in some form of overt

creativity. The development of just such an imagination was

 

18Forster, p. 6.

19Robert Langton, The Childhood and Ybuth of Charles
Dickens, rev. and enl. ed. (New York: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1891), p. 39; Forster, pp. 12, 19; Johnson, pp. 14-15.
Langton quotes Mary Weller as telling him that "a rather
favourite piece for recitation by Charles at this time was
'The Voice of the Sluggard' from Dr. Watts, and the little
boy used to give it with great effect, and with such action
and such attitudes" (Langton, p. 26).

20Forster,, p. 10.

21Forster, pp. 38—39.

10

an important part of Dickens's youth. To begin with,
Dickens was early provided with the basic materials necessary
for the development of the imagination itself. They came to
him from the reading, the theater-going, and the other
entertaining diversions of his youth and, as will be seen
in Chapters II, III, and IV, frequently furnished the subject
matter and the models for his first published writings.

The books Dickens read as a child were, in Forster's
words, "the birthplace of his fancy,"22 as they were of
David Copperfield's. Many of the books Dickens himself
read were those he later included in David's little library:

Smollett's Roderick Random, Hnmphrey Clinker, and Peregrine

 

Pickle, Fielding's Tom Jones, Goldsmith's The Vicar of

 

Wakefield, Cervante's Don Quixote, Le Sage's Gil Blas,

 

Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, the Arabian Nights and Tales of
23

 

the Genii, and several volumes of voyages and travels.
To this list Forster adds the Tatler and Spectator, Johnson's
.Idleg, Goldsmith's Citizen of the World, Mrs. Inchbald's
Collection of Farces and Other Afterpieces (published in
seven volumes in 1809), and a cheap series of novels then in
the course of publication, which probably included most of

24

the fiction listed above. Other works that should also

be included are the essays of Benjamin Franklin (at least

 

22Forster, p. 8.

232C_' in El Ix: is 73‘74.

4Forster, p. 8.

11

his paper, "The Art of Procuring Pleasant Dreams")25 a life

of Lord Nelson,26 Sterne's Sentimental Journey27 and.

probably Tristram Shandy,28

30

the Life or Memoirs of Baron

 

32

Trenck,29 Runylas, Philip Quarll,31 Gulliver's Travels,

 

and many of Washington Irving's works.33 There are others,
no doubt--books that Dickens never mentioned elsewhere or
that he referred to in such a context that one cannot
clearly associate them with "the two bedroom shelves"34 of
books that he read and reread and that were at times his

35 Reflecting Dickens's recollections of his

only pleasure.
own childhood, David Copperfield exclaims of his youthful

reading: "This reading was my only and my constant comfort.

 

25"Lying Awake," Repr. P0: in NEE: XVII: ii! 210‘

26"Nurse's Stories:".EII in NLE, XVI’ 11' 193'

27"Where We Stopped Growing," Misc. P.: in NEE:
XVIII, i, 339. '

28Forster, p. 464.

29"Where We Stopped Growing," Misc. P., in NLE:
XVIII, i, 342.

 

3O"Nurse's Stories," 22: in.EEE: XVI, ii! 192'

31"A Christmas Tree," Chr. St., in NEE: XIII: i! 11‘

32"Nurse's Stories," HI: in EEE: XVI: ii! 193'

33Nonesuch Let., I, 316, to Washington Irving:
4/21/41.

34

"Where We Stopped Growing," Misc. P., in NLE,
XVIII, i, 339.

35Forster, p. 8.

12

When I think of it, the picture always rises in my mind, of
a summer evening, the boys at play in the churchyard, and I
sitting on my bed, reading as if for life. Every barn in
the neighbourhood, and every foot of the churchyard has
some association of its own, in my mind, connected with
these books, and stood for some locality made famous in
them.“36 Dickens was, Mary Weller recalled much later, "a
terrible boy to read, and his custom was to sit with his
book in his left hand, holding his wrist with his right hand,
and constantly moving it up and down, and at the same time
sucking his tongue."37
Dickens also read other books during his childhood.
Very little record remains of those he read at the schools
he attended, but, given the typical school curriculum of
the early nineteenth century, he probably encountered little
in the way of literature.38 It is known that he recited a
piece about a Dr. Bolus from the Humourist's Miscellany
while at William Giles's school, but such entertainment
(though scarcely literary) was certainly not common.39

Dickens did have Latin instructors and quite likely read

selections from Ovid, Virgil, Terrence, Plautus, Cicero,

 

36NLE, IX, 1, 74.

37Langton, p. 25.

38Richard D. Altick, The English Common Reader
(Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1957), pp. 141—187,

passim.

39Forster, p. 7.

13

and Horace, but little more.40 Elsewhere, however, his

literary education continued. Jane Porter's Scottish Chiefs,

 

Holbein's Dance of Death, George Colman the Elder's Eggad
.§£ip§, and undoubtedly other works were loaned to him by

the people in the bookshop under the Soho lodgings of his
Uncle Thomas Barrow, whom the Dickens family frequently
visited.41 Goldsmith's Baa was presented to him by William
Giles when Dickens left Chatham.42 Dickens was also familiar
with Thomas Day's Sandford and Merton, whose Mr. Barlow,
tutor to Harry Sandford and Tommy Merton, he was later to
castigate as an "instructive monomaniacfl'and to accuse of

an insensibility that "not only cast its own gloom over

my childhood, but blighted even the sixpenny jest-books

of the time; for, groaning under a moral spell constraining
me to refer all things to Mr. Barlow, I could not choose but
ask myself in a whisper when tickled by a printed jest,

'What would ha think of it? What would ha see in it?”43
One such jest-book Dickens occasionally purchased on his

way home from a day's work at Warren's Blacking whenever

he had the necessary twopence, saved by skipping meals.

 

40"A Christmas Tree," Chr. St., in NLE, XIII, i, 14;
"Our School," Repr. P., in NLE, XVII, ii, 162; Forster, p. 42:
Johnson, p. 51.

41Forster, p. 12.

42Forster, p. 9.

43"MI. BarloW:" E: in __NLEI XVI' ii' 435' 436°

14

This, the Portfolio of Entertaining and Instructive Varieties
in History, Science, Literature, the Fine Arts, etc., despite
its pretentious title consisted mainly of literary parodies.44
A year or so later, he and the other boys at Wellington
House Academy voraciously downed all the cheap penny and
Saturday magazines they could afford. Of one of these,

the Terrific Registerprorprecord of Crimes, Judgments,

Providences, and Calamities, Dickens later wrote: "I used,

when I was at school, to take in the Terrific Register,

 

making myself unspeakably miserable, and frightening my
very wits out of my head for the small charge of a penny
weekly; which considering that there was an illustration to
every number, in which there was always a pool of blood,

and at least one body, was cheap."45

The boys also read
their share of pamphlet romances.46

Besides books, the theater played a large part in
the imaginative life of the young Dickens. As a child in

Chatham, he was frequently taken to performances at the

Theatre Royal in Rochester by his father, by Mathew Lamert,

 

44Forster, p. 27.

4SForster, pp. 43-44.

46Forster, p. 42. Dickens had also, apparently, read
such romances much earlier. In the "Preface to the First
Cheap Edition" of Pickwick Papers (1847) he speaks of "a
dim recollection of certain interminable novels in [shilling
numbers], which used, some five-and—twenty years ago, to be
carried about the country by pedlars, and over some of which
I remember to have shed innumberable tears, before I served
my apprenticeship to Life.“ (in NLE, II, i, xvi—xvii).

15

an army surgeon with the Chatham Ordnance Hospital, and soon
to become Charles's uncle by marriage, and a little later

by James Lamert, Matthew's son.47 Unfortunately, Dickens
seldom mentioned the names of plays seen at this theater.

The only references in his later writings were to performances

of Shakespeare's Richard III and Macbeth, William Barrymore's

 

version of Pixérécourt's Dog of Montargis, Rowe's tragedy of

Jane Shore, Lillo's George Barnwell, and,though not by name,

 

 

other typical farces and melodramas.48 He no doubt saw
many of the plays popular in the early nineteenth century
and a number of great performers-—Edmund Kean, Charles
Mathews, Joseph Grimaldi--more often, one presumes, at

49

the London theaters than at the theater in Rochester.

In a Household Words paper, "Gone Astray," Dickens describes

 

a performance at a London theater, typical of those he must
also have seen at Rochester's Theatre Royal, that opened
with a donkey being auctioned off by a clown (and won,
obviously, by a confederate in the audience); these antics
were followed by an elaborately staged melodrama involving
a shipwreck, which was followed in turn by a piece somewhat

reminiscent of the Egg of Montargis.50 He was also an awed

 

47Forster, p. 7.

48"Dullborough Town," ET, in NLE, XVI, ii, 154—155:

"A Christmas Tree," Chr. St., in NLE, XIII, i, 12: Johnson,
p. 23.

49Langton, p. 29; Johnson, p. 23; Forster, pp. 104-105.

50"Gone Astray," Misc. P., in NLE, XVIII, i: 388-391-

16

spectator at pantomimes at the Theatre Royal and those
"which came lumbering down in Richardson's waggons at fair
time to the dull little town in which we had the honour to
be brought up."51 One December, when he was seven, his
father even took him to London to see the Christmas panto-
mimes at the great theaters there.52 In addition, James
Lamert occasionally got up private theatricals, in which
even Dr. Lamert sometimes acted, in the empty rooms of the
Ordnance Hospital.53 YOung Dickens saw these, too, but
their names have gone unrecorded. Mary Weller told Robert
Langton, some sixty years later, that in the happy Chatham
days the Dickens children and their friends sometimes i
"would sing, recite, and perform parts of plays" at home.
No doubt some of these plays came from Mrs. Inchbald's
collection of farces.54
Dickens was also an enthusiastic manager of toy
theaters. One such, built for him by James Lamert, kept him

amused during the bad days in London,55 and another, built

by his fellow students at Wellington House Academy, occupied

 

51"Introductory Chapter to 'Memoirs of Joseph
Grimaldi,'" Repr. P., in NLE, XVII, ii, 345. Also see the
description in "Greenwich Fair," SB, in NLE, I, 1, 143-146.

52Forster, p. 104.

53Forster, pp. 647.

54Langton, p. 25.

55Forster, p. 10.

17

him in mounting performances of the Dog of Montargis (in
which a white mouse played the title role), the crusty

Miller and His Men, Cherry and Fair Star, and Elizabeth,

 

Exile of Siberia, all standard items in the toy theater
repertoire.56 Dickens, one of his schoolfellows recalled
for John Forster, "was always a leader at these plays, which
were occasionally presented with much solemnity before an
audience of boys, and in the presence of the ushers."57

The world of young Charles Dickens was indeed one
to stimulate the fancy of a child. In addition to his
voracious reading, certainly unusual for a boy of eight
or nine, and his early acquaintance with the theater, he
later recalled other childhood interests. There were toys
that both fascinated and frightened him: a roly-poly
tumbler with horrible lobster eyes; a jack—in-the—box
"in a black gown, with an obnoxious head of hair, and a
red-cloth mouth, wide open," who reappeared in his child—
hood nightmares; drummer boys, toy soldiers, toy animals,
miniature garden tools, doll houses, and a harlequin's

58

wand. There were several magic lanterns, some that worked

and one, unfortunately intended for the climax of a youthful

 

56"Our School," Repr. ., in NLE, XVII, ii, 166;
"A Christmas Tree," Chr. St., in NLE, XIII, i, 13; Johnson,
pp. 49-50.

57Forster, p. 44.

58"A Christmas Tree," Chr. St., in NLE, XIII, i,
4-8; "New Year's Day," Misc. P., in NLE, XVIII, ii, 188.

18

birthday party, that did not.59 In Chatham he was accompanied

to an "Orrery,' a kind of motheaten travelling planetarium,

stared open-mouthed at Indian sword swallowers, and was
regaled at fairs and circuses.6O In London, he acquainted
himself with Punch and JUdy shows, conjurors; strong men:
show vans with fat pigs, wild Indians, and lady midgets:
and Stabbers's Band, which came around the neighborhood on
Monday mornings and for three-quarters of an hour played
such tunes as "Begone, Dull Carel" and "I'd Rather Have a

Guinea than a One-pound Note."61

If some of his early
experiences with religion, such as sitting through the

dull sermons in the church his family attended in Chatham,
were not memorable, others were: his nurse singing the
"Evening Hymn," his mother telling stories from the Bible,
and the Christmas "Waits" singing as they moved from house
to house while Charles in bed envisioned the singers acting

62

out scenes from the Christmas story. His schooldays he

 

59"Birthday Celebrations," Q! in NLE, XVI, ii, 262;
Forster, p. 16; Langton, p. 25.

60"Birthday Celebrations," ET, in NLE, XVI, ii, 257:
"Dullborough Town," ET, in NLE, XVI, ii, 154: "Introductory
Chapter to 'Memoirs of Joseph Grimaldi,'" Repr. P., in NLE,
XVII, ii, 345-347.

61"An Unsettled Neighbourhood," Misc. P., in NLE,

62"City of London Churches," 2:: in NEE: XVI: ii,
106-107; Forster, p. 2n; Langton, p. 29: "A Christmas Tree,"
Chr. St., in NLE, XIII, i, 13-14.

19

also lovingly remembered in later years although the
picture he painted of Wellington House Academy had its
darker colors.63 Nevertheless, as he wrote in 1838, "I

won prizes at school: and great fame; . . . I am positively

assured that I was a very clever boy."64

Finally, the glamour,
excitement, and adventure implicit in the physical world in
which the young Dickens moved impressed itself upon his
imagination: in Chatham, longing examinations of colorful
displays in booksellers' windows, and an environment of
"barracks and soldiers, and ships and sailors" and of "all
sorts of parties, junketings, and birthday celebrations

and . . . Fifth of November festivities round the bonfire":

in London, an atmosphere of prison, pawnshops, dark and
twisted alleys, Covent Garden, inns and taverns, and mad

women in black and white flitting through the streets.65

 

6300111. SChOOlIH RQEro P., in NLE, XVII, ii, 160—170.

64Nonesuch Let., I, 169, to Dr. Kuenzel, [July, 1838].
This statement apparently refers to Dickens's days at
Wellington House Academy, but, according to Langton (p. 57),
William Giles, Dickens's Chatham schoolmaster, also "seems
to have been much struck . . . with the bright appearance
. . . of his little pupil, and, giving him every encourage-
ment in his power, even to making a companion of him of an
evening, he was soon rewarded by the marked improvement that
followed. Charles made rapid progress, and there is no
doubt whatever that his wonderful knowledge and felicitous
use of the English language in after life was, in a great
measure, due to the careful training of Mr. Giles, who was
widely known as a cultivated reader and elocutionist."
Langton apparently received this information from Mrs.
Godfrey, the elder sister of Giles, whom he interviewed in
connection with his book.

65"Dullborough Town," g3, in NLE, XVI, ii, 158;
Langton, p. 58; "Where We Stopped Growing," Misc. P., in NLE,
XVIII, 1, 337-343.

 

20

A reader familiar with Dickens's works, early and
late, has probably already recognized the books the boy
read, the plays he witnessed, and the other entertainment
he indulged in as influences upon his published writings in
subject matter, form, or style. While the extent of such
activities is perhaps not astonishing to a person familiar
with Dickens's background, it may very likely surprise those
critics who still occasionally insist upon the paucity of
Dickens's "education." Yet a listing of the activities
that were available to Dickens affords merely a starting
point for a discussion of the child's imaginative life.
Of more significance is the influence that such entertain-
ment had upon his imagination, an influence of which he,
in later life, was well aware. In "Dullborough Town,"
referring to his Chatham years, he wrote, "All of my early
readings and early imaginations dated from this place. . . ."66
Elsewhere he described himself at this time as "a very odd
little child with the first faint shadows of all my books
in my head--I suppose."6.7 He conceived of the books in his
library, according to Forster, as "a host of friends when
he had no single friend; and in leaving Chatham, he has
often been heard to say, he seemed to be leaving them too,
and everything that had given his ailing little life its

68

picturesqueness and sunshine." He no doubt believed, as

 

66"Dullborough Town," _U_'I'_. in NL__E: XVI: ii: 162°

67Nonesuch Let., II, 743, to Baroness Burdett-Coutts,

 

2/9/56.

68Forster, p. 8.

21

he later had David Copperfield express it, that the books of
his youth "kept alive my fancy, and my hope of something
beyond that place and time. . . ."69
Whatever the impetus, the developing of Dickens's
imagination is certainly to be seen in the impressions
that his listening to stories, his reading, his theater-
going, and his other activities made upon him. In a way,
the world in which the boy lived is perhaps more adequately
pictured through his frequently fanciful impressions of the
realities around him than through the realities themselves.
For example, one of his earliest memories of childhood was
of "the sensation of being carried downstairs in a woman's
arms, and holding tight to her, in the terror of seeing the
steep perspective below." Downstairs, several people were
seated in a row along a wall. The reality of the party
that was apparently in progress became lost somehow in
the workings of the child's imagination. What he saw (as
recollected, at least, by the man) was "very like my first
idea of the good people in Heaven, as I derived in from a
wretched picture in a Prayer-book. . . ."70 Though one may
question the accuracy of this recollection and of other

memories like it, he must admit that the trait of seeing

common events and ordinary people in the light of a fancy

 

g, in NLE, IX, 1, 73.

70"New Year's Day," MiSE;_E-v in Egg! XVIII' ii’

189.

22

created by imaginative activities is characteristic of
Dickens both as a child and as a man. Besides, the re—
collection may very likely be accurate, for Dickens always

claimed to have a remarkable facility for a detailed

remembrance of his early childhood experiences.71

The intensity with which he participated in stories
he read or listened to may possibly explain his frequent
painting of life with the colors of his imagination:

Hundreds of times did I hear this legend of Captain
Murderer, in my early youth, and added hundreds of
times was there a mental compulsion upon me in bed,
to peep in at his window as the dark twin peeped,

and to revisit his horrible house, and look at him

in his blue and spotty and screaming stage, as he
reached from floor to ceiling and from wall to wall.
The young woman who brought me acquainted with Captain
Murderer had a fiendish enjoyment of my terrors, and
used to begin, I remember~~as a sort of introductory
overture--by clawing the air with both hands, and
uttering a long low hollow groan. So acutely did I
suffer from this ceremony in combination with this
infernal Captain, that I sometimes used to plead I
thought I was hardly strong enough and old enough to
hear the story again just yet. But she never spared
me one word of it, and indeed commended the awful
chalice to my lips as the only preservative known to
science against "The Black Cat"--a weird and glaring-
eyed supernatural Tom, who was reputed to prowl about
the world by night, sucking the breath of infancy,
and who was endowed with a special thirst (as I was
given to understand) for mine.

In this passage from "Nurse's Stories," Dickens recreates
the terror he felt as a child but also the fascination that
such tales held for him, not only then as a child but

later, too, as an adult. Yet the child's mind could not

 

71Forster, pp. 1—2.

72uNursels Stories, ll LE! in NLE, XVI, ii, 197.

23

easily differentiate between reality and illusion; we find
on another occasion the young boy terrorized by a stick—
figure chalked upon a church door, seen just after dark.

It had "a mouth from ear to ear, a pair of goggle eyes, and
hands like two bunches of carrots, five in each." He still
remembered, he told his Household Words readers, "the

running home, the looking after, the horror, of its follow-

. "73
ing me. . . .

He created a large portion of his child's world
from the books he liked best. As a particularly young boy

he lived in a world of fairy tales, where Little Red

Riding-Hood was his first love.74 But he was also involved

with "the real original roaring giants":

We have never outgrown the putting to ourselves of
this supposititious case: Whether, if we, with a
large company of brothers and sisters, had been put
in his (by which we mean, of course, in Jack's)
trying situation, we should have had at once the
courage and the presence of mind to take the

golden crowns (which it seems they always wore as
nightcaps) off the heads of the giant's children

as they lay a-bed, and put them on our family; thus
causing our treacherous host to batter his own
offspring and spare us. We have never outgrown

a want of confidence in ourselves, in this
particular.75

 

73"Lying Awake," Repr. P., in NLE, XVII, ii, 213.
Warrington Winters, in "Charles Dickens: The Pursuers and
the Pursued," Victorian Newsletter, No. 23 (Spring, 1963),
23-24, traces the recurrence of this chalked figure in
a number of Dickens's novels: .23 (Ch. 42), EN (Ch. 62),
92 (Ch. 48), pg (Ch. 6), 229 (Ch. 14), GE (Ch. 1).

74"A Christmas Tree," Chr. St., in NLE, XIII, i, 9.

75"Where We Stopped Growing:" Mi§2;_£°t in.§E§'
XVIII, i, 339-

24

Or, when he did not see life as it is pictured in fairy
tales, he imbued it with Eastern magic from the pages of the

Arabian Nights:

 

Oh, now all common things become uncommon and
enchanted to me. All lamps are wonderful; all
rings are talismans. Common flower-pots are full
of treasures, with a little earth scattered on the
top: trees are for Ali Baba to hide in: beef-
steaks are to be thrown down into the Valley of
Diamonds, that the precious stones may stick

to them, and be carried by the eagles to their
nests, whence the traders, with loud cries, will
scare them. Tarts are made, according to the
recipe of the Vizier's son of Bussorah, who turned
pastrycodk after he was set down in his drawers

at the gate of Damascus: cobblers are all Mustaphas,
and in the habit of sewing up people out into

four pieces, to whom they are taken blindfold. . . .
My very rocking-horse—-there he is, with his
nostrils turned completely inside—out, indicative
of Blood!--should have a peg in his neck, by
virtue thereof to fly away with me,as the wooden
horse did with the Prince of Persia, in the

sight of all his father's Court.'76

In Chatham, the impressively structured town hall satisfied
him as the model used by the Genie of the Lamp to construct
Aladdin's palace,77 and a dockyard car that, moving on a
tramroad, fished logs from the water reservoir and stacked
them in piles filled him with a longing "to play at Chinese
Enchanter, and to have that apparatus placed at my disposal

«78

for the purpose by a beneficent country. At other times,

as he grew in years, Dickens created a world derived from

 

76"A Christmas Tree:" Ch£;_§£rv in.§§§' XIII' i’

lO—ll.
77"Dullborough Town," g3, in NLE, XVI, ii, 154.

78"Chatham Dockyard," ET, in NLE, XVI, ii, 344.

25

the picaresque novel, recalling many years later "a not

very robust child, sitting in bye-places, near Rochester

Castle, with a head full of Partridge, Strap, Tom Pipes,
79

and Sancho Panza." Or, at another time, intoxicated with

reading "The Elder Brother" in Colman's Broad Grins, he

 

hurried to Covent Garden to compare it with the poem's
description. "He remembered," Forster stated, "as he said
in telling me this, snuffing up the flavour of the faded
cabbage-leaves as if it were the very breath of comic
fiction."80
The boy's imagination also worked upon the raw
material that the theater furnished him. Richard the
Third, backed against the stage box in which sat young
Dickens and "struggling for life against the virtuous
Richmond," was terrifyingly real. On the other hand, the
financial limitations of a provincial theater frequently
requiring an actor to play more than one role, were seen
through his imagination: “Many wondrous secrets of Nature
had I come to the knowledge of in that sanctuary: of which

not the least terrific were, that the witches in Macbeth

bore an awful resemblance to the Thanes and other proper

 

79"Preface to the First Cheap Edition," BE: in NLE.
IV, i, xvi.

80Forster, p. 12. The description of Covent Garden
in Colman's poem occupies four lines. To anyone familiar
with the poem, Dickens must have, at least initially, been
more interested in searching out the disreputable if comic
characters whom Colman described than sniffing the market
odors.

26

inhabitants of Scotland; and that the good King Duncan

couldn't rest in his grave, but was constantly coming out

of it and calling himself somebody else."81 The atmosphere

of the pantomime also strongly affected Dickens: he wanted

"to live forever in the bright atmosphere,‘ and longed for

"a Fairy immortality" with the pretty little fairy with
"the wand like a celestial Barber's Pole." After such

glorious moments, he found it difficult to return to

82

"the dull, settled world." Pantomime clowns, too, evoked

an imaginative response from the child:

As a child, we were accustomed to pester our
relations and friends with questions out of number
concerning these gentry:--whether their appetite for
sausages and such-like wares was always the same, and
if so, at whose expense they were maintained: whether
they were ever taken up for pilfering other people's
goods, or were forgiven by everybody because it was
only done in fun: how it was they got such beautiful
complexions, and where they lived; and whether they
were born Clowns, or gradually turned into Clowns as
they grew up. On these and a thousand other points
our curiosity was insatiable. Nor were our specu-
lations confined to Clowns alone; they extended to
Harlequins, Pantaloons, and Columbines, all of

whom we believed to be real and veritable personages,
existing in the same forms and characters all the
year round. How often we wished that the Pantaloon
were our godfatherl and how often thought that to
marry a Columbine would be to attain the highest
pitch of human felicity.83

 

81“Dullborough Town," Q2, in NLE: XVI: ii: 154‘155°

82"A Christmas Tree," Chr. St-: in NEE: XIII! i, 13'

83"Introductory Chapter to 'Memoirs of Grimaldi,'"

Repr. P., in NLE, XVII, ii, 344-345.

27

Finally, in "Gone Astray,‘ a Household Words paper,
the adult Dickens presented, in greatly abbreviated form,
an imaginative reconstruction of his mind as a child when
he was lost one day in London.84 At the age of eight or
nine, apparently on a visit to the city, he was taken to
see the outside of St. Giles's Church, of which he wrote:
I had romantic ideas in connection with that religious
edifice: firmly believing that all the beggers who
pretended through the week to be blind, lame, one-
armed, deaf and dumb, and otherwise physically
afflicted, laid aside their pretenses every
Sunday, dressed themselves in holiday clothes,
and attended divine service in the temple of their
patron saint. I had a general idea that the reigning
successor of Bamfylde Moore Carew acted as a sort of
church-warden on these occasions, and sat in a high
pew with red curtains.
Somehow the boy lost his guide. Having passed through his
first fright of "unreasoning terror," he decided to seek his
fortune "on the Whittington Plan." He first did some
sightseeing: Temple Bar ("I had read about heads being
exposed on the top of Temple Bar, and it seemed a wicked
old place. . . ."): St. Dunstan's, where he watched the
clock figures striking the bells: a toy shop, from which
"enchanted spot" he escaped after an hour or so: St. Paul's:
and finally Guildhall and its Giants. Of the large statues,

he recalled: "While I knew them to be images made of some-

thing that was not flesh and blood, I still invested them

 

84Misc. P., in NLE. XVIII, i, 380-92. Though the de-
tails and images used in the essay may not be specifically
those from his childhood experience, and may have been selected
to maintain a certain unity and to point the criticism im-
plicit in the essay, the essence of the original experience
is surely there. "This is literally and exactly how I went
astray," Dickens wrote toward the end of the essay: if so:
the essay is a magnificent illustration of the working of the
boy's imagination.

28

with attributes of life--with consciousness of my being

there, for example, and the power of keeping a sly eye upon

me. Following a short nap, he was somehow surprised upon

waking to find "no beanstalk, no fairy, no princess, no
dragon, no opening in life of any kind."
Later, he continued his impressionistic wandering:

The city was to me a vast emporium of precious
stones and metals, casks and bales, honour and
generosity, foreign fruits and spices. Every
merchant and banker was a compound of Mr. FitzWarren
and Sinbad the Sailor. . . .

Thus I wandered about the City, like a child
in a dream, staring at the British merchants, and
inspired by a mighty faith in the marvellousness
of everything. . . . In such stories as I made,
to account for the different places, I believed
as devoutly as in the City itself. I particularly
remembered that when I found myself on 'Change,
and saw the shabby people sitting under the
placards about ships, I settled that they were
Misers, who had embarked all their wealth to go
and buy golddust or something of that sort, and
were waiting for their respective captains to
come and tell them that they were ready to set
sail. I observed that they all munched dry
biscuits, and I thought it was to keep off
seasickness.

Finally, after visiting Mansion House and India House,

being chased by boys, and attending a theater in the

vicinity of Goodman's Fields, he sought out the Watch,

reported his name and address, and was shortly reunited

with his family. "They used to say I was an odd child,"

he concluded, “and I suppose I was. I am an odd man perhaps."
The "odd" child is a highly imaginative one treat-

ing each new experience in life in the light of the vicarious

experience derived from books read, stories heard, and

plays seen. The persistence of this process will almost

29

inevitably propel him toward some field of creative activity.
In addition, the child who can see such wonders in common-
places will later, as an adult, have little difficulty
creating Mr. Pickwick, Sam Weller, and Jingle, Quilp,

Sairey Gamp, Mr. Pecksniff, and the hundreds of other
memorable characters who fill his novels. Nor will he

find it difficult to design such places as Mr. Pidkwick's
Fleet Prison, Barnaby Rudge's London, Martin Chuzzlewit's

America, the Chancery Court and environs of Bleak HOuse,

 

and the Circumlocution Office of Little Dorrit. These are

 

all, as Edgar Johnson states, "realities in which the

commonplace, the comic, the pathetic, and the grotesque

are inseparably blended."85
Even more important to Dickens's future as a writer

than his use of his imagination to color reality is the

more overt manifestation of his imagination at work that

is to be seen in his making up games usually related to his

reading, in his retelling tales he had read or heard, and

in his creating his own stories about real people and

places. Like David Copperfield, he no doubt pretended being

Tom Jones ("a child's Tom Jones, a harmless creature," he

added) or Roderick Random for "a week together." Or,

“armed with the centre—piece out of an old set of boot-trees,"

he stalked the region of his house for days, "the perfect

realisation of Captain Somebody, of the Royal British Navy,

 

85Johnson, p. 22.

30

in danger of being beset by savages, and resolved to sell

his life at a great price."86

At another time, at the ripe
age of ten, a duel seemed the only way out of a rivalry
between him and another young man for the affection of "the
youngest Miss Clickett but one." He arranged his affairs
the evening before, perfectly in keeping with the procedures
culled from his reading: he wrote a letter to his beloved
and a will in a letter to his mother disposing of some
childhood engravings and a choice collection of marbles.

If the duel was to be fought with fists and somehow or
other did not quite come about, ending with the rivals
walking off arm in arm, that is beside the point.87 We

also see the young Dickens being delivered from the dungeons

88 or, while waiting to seek

of Seringapatam (a haycock),
his fortune with a companion "in the neighbourhood of the
Spanish Main, as soon as we should have accumulated forty
shillings each and a rifle," locking in a field near
London for the forty footsteps made there, according to
legend, by a man who had murdered his brother.89

Dickens's imaginative activity was further increased

by his experiences in London. A lonely, neglected child, he

 

86p_c_, in NLE, IX, 1, 73.
87"New Year's Day," Misc. P., in NLE, XVIII, ii, 191.
88"Dullborough Town," ET, in NLE, XVI, ii, 150.

89The Speeches of Charles Dickens, ed. K. J. Fielding
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1960), pp. 326-327--
hereafter cited as Speeches.

31

frequently escaped from the depressing reality of his family's
misfortunes into the world of his fancy. To entertain both
himself and his fellow workers at Warren's Blacking, he

retold the stories he had earlier read but "which were

fast perishing out of my mind."90

While waiting in the early
morning outside the Marshalsea for the gates to open,

Dickens told the orphanage servant whom the family still
maintained “some astonishing fictions respecting the wharves
and the Tower: of which I can say no more than that I hope

I believed them myself."91 Another incident from about

this time that, like the preceding incident, also re-

appeared in David Copperfield, gives a clear picture of the

 

creative, imaginative bent of the child's mind. His release
from the Marshalsea being imminent, John Dickens drew up

a petition for a bounty to be paid the prisoners to drink
the king's health on the monarch's forthcoming birthday.92
Young Charles established himself in a corner near the
petition, watching. As each prisoner filed in to sign his

name, a Captain Porter read the petition to the assemblage

in his most rhetorically sonorous tones. Dickens added:

 

90Forster, p. 29.

9¥QQ, in NLE, IX, i, 222. Forster (p. 30) strongly
implies that this incident had earlier appeared in Dickens's
autobiographical fragment.

92Forster, p. 32. In 29 (NLE, IX, i, 223-225)
Mr. Micawber draws up a far more significant social document
calling for the abolition of imprisonment for debt.

32

Whatever was comical in this scene, and whatever

was pathetic, I sincerely believe I perceived in

my corner, whether I demonstrated it or not, quite
as well as I should perceive it now. I made out

my own little character and story for every man who
put his name to the sheet of paper. I might be able
to do that now, more truly: not merely earnestly,
or with a closer interest. Their different peculiari—
ties of dress, of face, of gait, of manner, were
written indelibly upon my memory. I would rather
have seen it than the best play ever played: and

I thought about it afterwards, over the pots of
paste-blacking, often and often. When I looked,
with my mind's eye, into the Fleet-prison during

Mr. Pickwick's incarceration, I wonder whether
half-a—dozen men were wanting from the Marshalsea
crowd that came filing in again, to the sound of
Captain Porter's voice'.93

Describing essentially the same scene in David Copperfield,
Dickens, through his narrator-hero, stated: "I set down
this remembrance here, because it is an instance to myself
of the manner in which I fitted my old bodks to my altered
life, and made stories for myself, out of the streets, and
out of men and women: and how some main points to the
character I shall unconsciously develop, I suppose, in
writing my life, were gradually forming all this while."94
Here, certainly, is Dickens's own interpretation of the
sources of his genius as a writer. Though his development
into a literary artist was obviously a complex process, his
molding of reality to suit himself, most frequently into
some form deriving from his intimacy with literature, was

_ an important part of the procedure.

 

93Forster, p. 33.

94in NLE, IX, i, 223.

33

Similar behavior continued during Dickens's years
at Wellington House Academy. Mr. Owen P. Thomas, one of
Dickens's schoolmates, wrote Forster that Dickens “invented
what we termed a 'lingo', produced by the addition of a
few letters of the same sound to every word: and it was our
ambition, walking and talking thus along the street, to be
considered foreigners."95 Apparently, Dickens used the
streets of London for other performances, too. Henry Danson,
another classmate, remembers Dickens "on one occasion
heading us in Drummond-street in pretending to be poor boys,
and asking the passers-by for charity--especially old ladies:
one of whom told us she 'had no money for beggar boys.‘ On
these adventures, when the old ladies were quite staggered
by the impudence of the demand, Dickens would explode with

96 Owen Thomas remembered

laughter and take to his heels."
at other times himself "extemporising tales of some sort,
and reciting them offhand, with Dickens and Danson or Tobin

97 It is most likely that

walking on either side of him."
Dickens, too, had his turn at telling stories.
Finally, in addition to the above mentioned overt

forms of creativity in which Dickens's interest in literature

 

95Forster, p. 42. Another schoolfellow denies that
Dickens invented this "lingo," it being already in use when
he entered the school (Forster, p. 51, n. 52--Ley's note).
Whatever the case, the use Dickens put it to is significant.

96Forster, p. 44.

97Forster, p. 42.

34

and the theater manifests itself, and perhaps most signifi-
cantly in the light of his future, the young Dickens also
wrote much, his first attempts at authorship being "certain
tragedies achieved at the mature age of eight or ten" in
which he got other children to act and which were "represented
with great applause to overflowing nurseries."98 He had
certainly been influenced by his reading, by the performances
he had witnessed at the Theatre Royal, perhaps by compositions
he may have written as scholarly assignments, and more
immediately, one suspects, by the theatrical ventures of

James Lamert. The name of only one of these plays has been
preserved, "Misnar, the Sultan of India," which, Forster
states, "was founded (and very literally founded, no doubt)

99 Forster also records

on one of the Tales of the Genii."
that around 1823 or 1824 Dickens wrote at least two
sketches. The first depicted a very old barber who shaved
Dickens's uncle, Thomas Barrow, and who "was never tired of
reviewing the events of the last war, and especially of
detecting Napoleon's mistakes, and re-arranging his whole
life for him on a plan of his own." The second, modeled

on a description of the canon's housekeeper in Gil Blas,

portrayed "a deaf old woman who waited on them in Bayham-

street, and who made delicate hashes with walnut ketchup."

 

98"Prefaceto the First Cheap Edition," SB, in NLE,
I, i, xv: Nonesuch Let., I, 169, to Dr. Kuenzel, [July,
1838].

99Forster, p. 6.

35

Dickens never had the courage to show either of these
sketches to anyone, Forster relates, though he was apparently
quite proud of them.100
Dickens's "career" as an amateur writer expanded
during his years at Wellington HCuse Academy. The influence
of the cheap penny and Saturday magazines, the pamphlet
romances, the toy theater performances, also his earlier
reading and theater-going, and no doubt the admiration of
the other boys easily led to much creative writing. Mr.
Danson, one of Dickens's classmates, wrote to Forester,
"I think at that time Dickens took to writing small tales,
and we had a sort of club for lending and circulating '

101

them." This is substantiated by another classmate, John

W. Bowden, who wrote elsewhere, "He and I, in conjunction
with one or two others, used to write short tales on scraps
of paper, pin them together so as to form bodks with a few
leaves, and lend them to the other boys to read for the

small charge of a piece of slate pencil, etc."102 They

also occasionally issued what Bowden referred to as a

 

lOOForster, pp. 12-13. Forster does not reveal his

source for this information. Although his descriptions show
he had some idea of the contents of these sketches, it seems
unlikely that he actually had read them. Perhaps Dickens

had included this information in his autobiographical fragment.

lOlForster, p. 44.

102Frederic G. Kitton, Charles Dickens bnyen and
Pencil (London: Frank T. Sabin, 1889-1890), p. 128. This
information originally appeared in the London Daily News,
Dec. 21, 1871.

36

small morning newspaper containing comic advertisements and
scraps of news. . . ."103 Langton, who corresponded with
him, reprinted two of the advertisements Bowden could re-
collect:
Lost. Out of a gentleman's waistcoat pocket, an
acre of land: the finder shall be rewarded
on restoring the same.
Lost. By a boy with a long red nose, and grey eyes,
a very bad temper. Whoever has found the same
may keep it, as the owner is better without
it. 4
Dickens's father, who had learned shorthand, was a Parlia-
mentary reporter at this time for a newspaper called the
British Press. Charles occasionally contributed to the
paper brief "penny-a-line" notices of accidents, fires,
and the like that the regular reporters had no time to
105
cover.

Dickens's intense interest in acting and play-
writing continued to be stimulated during the Academy years.
Another former Academy pupil, a Mr. Walsh, recalled for
Forster that Dickens "was very fond of theatricals. I
have some recollection of his getting up a play at Dan
'Tobin's house, in the back kitchen—-but not a written play.
We made a plot, and each had his part: but the speeches every-

one was to make for himself. When we had finished, we

were quite sure that if there had only been an audience

 

103Kitton, p. 128.
104Langton, pp. 88-89.

105Johnson, p. 53, quoting Samuel Carter Hall,
Retrospect of a Long Life (London, 1883), p. 111.

37

they would all have cried, so deep we made the tragedy."106

Dickens himself, in "Our School," describes another play
that he wrote based partly on his reading and partly on his
imaginative impression of yet another schoolfellow, a rich
but rather idiotic boy who, like Steerforth in David
Copperfield, had extra privileges as a "parlour-boarder":

. . . there was a belief among us that . . . he was
too wealthy to be "taken down." His special treat-
ment, and our vague association of him with the sea,
and with storms, and sharks, and Coral Reefs occasioned
the wildest legends to be circulated as his history.
A tragedy in blank verse was written on the subject--
if our memory does not deceive us, by the hand that
now chronicles these recollections--in which his
father figured as a Pirate, and was shot for a
voluminous catalogue of atrocities: first imparting
to his wife the secret of the cave in which his
wealth was stored, and from which his only son's

half crowns now issued. Dumbledon (the boy's name)
was represented as "yet unborn" when his brave

father met his fate: and the despair and grief of
Mrs. Dumbledon at that calamity was movingly

shadowed forth as having weakened the parlour-
boarder's mind. This production was received with
great favour, and was twice performed with closed
doors in the dining-room. But it got wind, and

was seized as libellous1 and brought the unlucky poet
into severe affliction.

If at a much later period in his life Dickens wrote
to Forster, "Assumption has charms for me so delightful--
I hardly know for how many wild reasons--that I feel a loss
of Oh I can't say what exquisite foolery, when I lose a
chance of being someone not in the remotest degree like

108

myself," obviously this attitude was present in the

 

106Forster, p. 835n.

1075:0111. SChOOlp ll ReEro P., in NLE, XVII, ii, 163-164.

108Forster, p. 839.

38

young Charles Dickens as well. Not only did it make reading,
play—going, and other varieties of youthful entertainment
most attractive to him and give him at least vicarious
experience far beyond the range of most children of his
time and place, it also enabled him to escape from the
dreary and at times terrifying realities of his childhood.
And it resulted in actual writing, much more tangible
evidence of the direction his life was likely to take—-
given the right opportunities. The reading and the theater-
going are the raw materials, the sources, from which his
imagination developed. As such, they largely determined
the form and content of his imaginative dreams, his
fanciful play, his early creative writing, and in certain
respects his later writing, too. But if these sources

are important, even more so is the imagination, early
formed, that used these sources to create a world in which
a lonely, frustrated, and frequently frightened boy could
live happily and securely, engaging in the make-believe
that was to be a life-long habit. Observed from the
vantage point of the future, the play-acting, the pretend—
ing based on the books he had read, the early writing--all
clearly moved Charles Dickens slowly bdt almost inevitably
toward the occupation in which he would enchant generations

of readers.

39

Preparations, 1827-1833

Although Dickens's imagination continued to develop
and to manifest itself in various creative activities after
1827 as well as before, the period of his life between 1827
and 1833 is particularly characterized by his search for
some vocation that would enable him to use his creative
ability. In the course of his search, he not only con-
tinued to prepare himself unconsciously for a future as a
writer but conscientiously procured a more thorough education
for himself, particularly in literature, and, most importantly,
continued to write.

The beginning of his "adult" life was by no means
promising. Shortly after leaving Wellington House Academy
in 1827, fifteen year old Charles Dickens became a minor
clerk (more office boy than anything else) with Ellis and
Blackmore, solicitors, a position that his mother had obtained
for him. However, he soon discovered that he was not
temperamentally suited to office work and began casting
about for a more felicitous, remunerative, and challenging
vocation, a task that would occupy him for the next six
years or so.

As his father was a Parliamentary reporter (by 1828
he had moved from the British Press to the Mbrninngerald)
and his uncle John Barrow a reporter for the Times, Dickens's
first tentative movements were toward a similar career.

He had heard, apparently as David Copperfield had, that

many wealthy and influential men had begun as members of the

4O

Parliamentary press gallery.109 Accordingly, as David
Copperfield was later to do, he labored over Gurney's
Brachygraphy until he had mastered that popular system of
shorthand. But he found no employment as a Parliamentary
reporter (he was, after all, a novice and just turned
sixteen). Instead, leaving Ellis and Blackmore, he set
himself up as a free—lance shorthand writer for the proctors
in the Consistory Court of Doctors' Commons.110 He soon
tired of this, too. "It wasn't," he was much later to write
Forster, "a very good living (though not a yegy bad one),

and was wearily uncertain."lll He had fallen in love with
Maria Beadnell and so was more acutely conscious of his
financial position. "I went at it," he wrote of his
courtship, "with a determination to overcome all the
obstacles, which fairly lifted me up into that newspaper
life, and floated me away over a hundred men's heads. . . ."112
By that time, in late 1832, Maria was in Paris, where her

parents apparently hoped she would forget the eager young

man who was desperately in love with her. Shortly after her

 

10995;, in NLE, Ix, ii, 120.

110Among the archives of St. Bartholomew's is a
transcript of two cases of 1830 in Dickens's handwriting.
These are the originals on which the law suit in "Doctors'
Commons," one of the Sketches by Boz, is based. For an
account of this document, see William J. Carlton, Charles
Dickens, Shorthand Writer: The 'Prentice Days of a Master
Craftsman (London: Cecil Palmer, 1926): PP. 57—67.

111

 

Forster, p. 380.

lleorster, p. 49.

41

return, and following "coldnesses, quarrels, caprices,
113

reproaches,‘ she rewarded their hopes.
In the meantime, Dickens had been attracted to
acting as a possible profession. His avid interest in
the theater had been virtually suspended after his family
had left Chatham but was reactivated when he became a
clerk with regular pay. Dickens's taste for theatricals,
Edward Blackmore recalled later for Forster, "was much
promoted by a fellow-clerk named Potter. . . . They took
every opportunity, then unknown to me, of going together to
a minor theatre, where (I afterwards heard) they not
unfrequently engaged in parts."114 Between 1828 and 1832,
while Dickens was a shorthand reporter in Doctors' Commons,
' his play-going continued unabated and with increased purpose:
he was seriously considering acting as a career. He
explained later to Forster: "I went to some theatre every

night, with a very few exceptions, for at least three years:

really studying the bills first, and going to where there was

 

113Johnson, p. 72. See pp. 67-83 for the course
of the affair between Dickens and Miss Beadnell.

114Forster, p. 46. George Lear, a fellow clerk at
Ellis and Blackmore's, said that Potter, not Dickens, was
stage-struck: "The theatre he [Potter] became attached to
was a poor place called the Minor Theatre in Catherine Street,
Strand. I went two or three times with Dickens to see Potter
act, but he had no talent whatever in that direction. I do
not for a moment think that Dickens ever acted at this theatre,
and I know that his opinion agreed with mine, that the sooner
Potter quitted the boards of 'The Minor,‘ the better" (in
Kitton, p. 132). For Dickens's impressions see "Private
Theatres," SB, in NLE, I, i, 148—157.

42

the best acting: and always to see Mathews whenever he played.
I practised immensely (even such things as walking in and

out, and sitting down in a chair): often four, five, six
hours a day: shut up in my own room, or walking about in

the fields. I prescribed to myself, too, a sort of

Hamiltonian system for learning parts: and learnt a great

"115

number. In addition, he took lessons from Robert Keeley,

a well-known actor.116

That Dickens had ability as an actor, particularly
as a comic one, is verified by some of the people who knew
him then. George Lear much later wrote:

Going back for a moment to the old chamber in
Holborn Court, I have the most perfect recollection
of the laundress as she was called,--the old woman
who used to sweep out the offices, light the fires
in winter, etc.--though why she was thus called I
never could make out, for she never washed anything
that I could see, certainly not herself. . . .
Dickens took great interest in her, and would mimic
her manner of speech, her ways, her excuses, etc.,
to the very life. He could imitate in a manner that
I have never heard equalled, the low population of
the streets of London in all their varieties, whether
mere loafers or sellers of fruit, vegetables, or
anything else. He could also excel in mimicking the
popular singers of that day, whether comic or patriotic:
as to his acting, he could give us Shakespeare by the
ten minutes, and imitate all the leading actors of
that time. His father, he said, was intimate with
many of them, among whom I particularly recollect
YOung Macready, J. P. Harley, etc. He told me he
had often taken parts in amateur theatricals
before he came to us.

 

115Forster, p. 380.

116Nonesuch Let., I, 681, to John Forster,

[June, 1845].

 

43

Lear adds that Dickens also delighted in imitating and des-
cribing the old clerks who presided over the public offices.117
Through his father apparently but also through his
sister Fanny, Dickens became more closely associated with
the world of actors and singers than one might have expected
from his earlier background. Fanny, following her graduation
from the Royal Academy of Mnsic in January, 1827, had begun
to move on the fringes of the theatrical crowd: for example,
in 1827 and 1828 she sang at benefits for the actor, John
Pritt Harley. Often she and Charles gathered around the
piano with these new friends for an evenings of songs and
fun.118 Charles was no doubt frequently the bright light
of the evening. Henry Burnett, who later married Fanny,
reported that Dickens occasionally sang serio-comic songs
that were "highly successful, and gave great pleasure even
to the most sedate among his friends, for it was his habit

to give very amusing, droll, and clever sketches of

character between the verses, comic and quaint, but never

 

vulgar."119 Some of these sketches were no doubt based
on similar material in Charles Mathews's ”At Homes."120
117Kitton, pp. 131-132.
118Johnson, pp. 54-55.
lngitton, p. 137.
120For a description of Mathews's "At HOmes,“ see

The Memoirs of Charles Mathews, Comedian, ed. Mrs. Charles
Mathews (London: R. Bentley, 1838-1839), II—IV, passim.

44

Early in 1832, believing himself ready for a theatri-
cal career, Dickens wrote to George Bartley, the stage
manager at Covent Garden:

I . . . told him how young I was, and exactly what I
thought I could do: and that I believed I had a
strong perception of character and oddity, and a
natural power for reproducing in my own person
what I observed in others. . . . There must have
been something in my letter that struck the
authorities, for Bartley wrote to me almost
immediately to say that they were busy getting

up the Hunchback (so they were), but that they
would communicate with me again, in a fortnight.
Punctual to the time another letter came, with

an appointment to do anything of Mathews's I
pleased, before him and Charles Kemble, on a
certain day at the theatre. My sister Fanny

was in the secret, and was to go with me to play
the songs. I was laid up when the day came,

with a terrible bad cold and an inflammation of
the face. . . . I wrote to say so, and added that
I would renew my application next season. . . .
See how near I may have been to another sort

of life?121

Dickens also told Forster, in the same letter as the one
just quoted from, that he never thought of the stage but
as a means of getting money: knowing of his intense interest
in the theater, one can scarcely accept such an explanation.
Although he abandoned his projected career as an
actor, Dickens did not lose interest in the theater. In
1833, a year after his only attempt to join a professional
acting company, he was the moving spirit behind two evenings
of amateur theatricals involving his family and some friends.

The first, which took place on April 27, consisted of John

 

121
Forster, pp. 59-60.

45

Heward Payne's opera, Clari, the Maid of Milan (with music

by Henry R. Bishop), P. P. O'Callaghan's The Married Bachelor,
and R. Brinsley Peake's Amateurs and Actors. Dickens, Edgar
Johnson relates, "made himself producer, director, and stage
manager, designed scenery, worried with the stage carpenter
about how to produce moonlight, played an accordian in

the band, wrote the prologue to the performance, rehearsed

the actors--everything_u122

A bit later in the year he
repeated the process for another evening of theatrical
entertainment, of whose feature attraction, a burlesque

extravaganza entitled The O'Thello, he was the proud author.

 

But after 1832 acting ceased to interest him as a
possible profession. In that year his earlier preparation
for a career as a Parliamentary reporter bore results: he

accepted positions with both the Mirror of Parliament, a

 

serious rival to Hansard, and the True Sun. He worked for
the latter only a few months but continued with the Nfirror

of Parliament for at least two years, spending a good portion
of his time in the cramped quarters reserved for reporters

in the two HOuses, his pad balanced on his knee as he

123 As his biographers

strained to hear the orators below.
indicate, these years were a liberal education. He joined
the reportoria] corps in the historical final moments of

debate on the Reform Bill of 1832. In the following years

he undoubtedly reported debates on the bills for abolishing

 

122Johnson, p. 76.

123Speeches, p. 347.

 

46

slavery in the colonies and abolishing the East India
Company's long—held monopoly, on Sadler's Ten Hours Bill,
or the Irish Coercion Bill, and on Lord Ashley's bill to
limit the working hours of adults. He must also have been
present for some of the debate leading to the new Poor

Law, to Lord Althrop's Factory Act of 1834, and to other
legislation of lesser importance. He heard Stanley and
O'Connell oppose each other over the Irish Coercion Bill
(he re—recorded Stanley's entire speech, but was, according
to tradition, so deeply moved by O'Connell's reply that

he was momentarily unable to continue his note-taking). He
was probably present for Gladstone's maiden speech, for
Bulwer's address on keeping faith with the Negro, for
Brougham's famous speech at Edinburgh after he resigned

the Chancellorship, and for many other speeches by such
well-known political figures as Grey, Peel, Denman, Lyndhurst,
Ellenborough, Hume, Melbourne, Grote, Russell, Cobbett, and

Macaulay.124

"Even a casual glance at Hansard for those
years, or a brief examination of one of those ponderous
three-volumed Victorian biographies, say the biography of
Henry Brougham, would reveal a galaxy of powerful person-

alities and a solid amount of epoch-making legislation,”

concludes one of Dickens's biographers. "Where is the college

 

124
Forster, p. 63, and (Ley's note), p. 66, n. 72:

Johnson, pp. 63-66, 87-88.

47

graduate who would not envy such an opportunity?"125

In August, 1834, having risen to the top of his
profession, "not merely for accuracy in reporting, but for
marvellous quickness in transcript" (the considered opinion
of one of his gallery colleagues),126 Dickens finally joined
the staff of the Morning Chronicle, a Liberal paper with
which he had earlier sought work. But this reward for his
industriousness and persistence really came too late.
Sometime during the second half of 1833 he had written his
first work of fiction, a short, rather crudely conceived
tale about a London bachelor imposed upon by country
cousins. Its publication in the December, 1833, issue of
the Monthly Magazine turned him more sharply toward the
writing career for which he had somehow seemed destined from
childhood. Dickens himself may have felt at this time that
his earliest published stories and sketches were only "side
issues" of his journalistic career, as F. J. H. Darton

believes.127

Yet it is also true that his position on the
Morning Chronicle offered the security that the budding
literary artist needed, for the Monthlpragazine could not

afford to pay Dickens for his contributions. Even Darton

 

125John Manning, Dickens on Education (Toronto:
University of Toronto Press, 1959), pp. 40-41.

126James Grant, The Newspaper Press (London: Tinsley
Brothers, 1871), I, 295. In the 1830's Grant was a reporter
for the Morning Advertiser.

127F. J. H. Darton, "Dickens the Beginner: 1833-1836,"
Quarterly Review, CCLXII (1934), 61.

 

48

concedes that there is "an odd mixture of sanguine confidence
and caution” in certain letters Dickens wrote to Henry Kolle
at this time about his plans for additional sketches and a
novel.128 But one can only speculate about what ambitions
and dreams for financial security and literary prestige may
have been running through Dickens's mind in 1834 and 1835.
His future must have challenged him as one of virtually
infinite possibilities. He certainly knew by this time
that he had the capacity for work, the initiative to
advance in whatever field he entered, and the imaginative
resources and the technical knowledge necessary to at least
attempt to write works of fiction, even three-volume novels.
That he accepted the challenge the future held for him,
and met it, is a matter of record.

But Dickens's occupations between 1827 and 1833
did more than move him gradually, if haphazardly, in the
direction of his vocation as an author: they played a
considerable part, in one way or another, in preparing him
for this career. To start with, all obviously furnished
subject matter for his writings. But his work as a short-
hand reporter in Doctors' Commons and in Parliament was
also valuable in other respects. In going through the
process of recording in shorthand and then recopying in
longhand whatever was said, Dickens constantly reproduced,

in Doctors' Commons, the speech patterns of people of

 

128Darton, "Dickens the Beginner: 1833—1836," p. 62.

49

various classes and, in Parliament, the rhetorical nuances
of educated and sometimes pompous gentlemen. Such practice
was to be invaluable when he came to write fiction. He
may also have implemented an early fluency with English
while recording Parliamentary debate. He was responsible
not only for making sense out of incompletely heard sentences
but also for revising inaccurately constructed ones. As a
colleague later stated it, a Parliamentary reporter's task
was to make ”at least tolerable English for even the worst
speaker: otherwise the inaccuracies and slovenliness of the
style would be ascribed to the reporter, not to the speaker."
He was also expected to correct any errors the speaker made
in quoting dates, names, and other facts.129
Dickens's preparation for a career as actor also
helped to prepare him as writer. His wide reading of plays
with an eye to acting in them greatly increased the models
at his disposal when he did begin to write for publication.
This early, and thorough, familiarity with the ingredients
and forms of tragedy, comedy (particularly farce), and
melodrama gave him a certain facility from the start: he
knew what effects the various forms were capable of producing
and, no doubt, from memorization of parts if from nothing

else, had some idea of how to achieve such effects. As an

actor, he had become adept at projecting himself into the

 

129Grant, II, 201, 203.

50

characters of real people, both with accuracy and with
exaggeration, and had mastered the roles of certain theatri-
cal types--for example, those that were the specialties of
Charles Mathews. It was not a terribly long step to what
the literary artist needs-—the ability to create original
characters who, while maintaining an easily recognizable
resemblance to one or more real people, still manage to
have lives of their own within the stories for which they
have been conceived. In addition, his leadership in the
production of the amateur theatricals in 1833 gave him
some experience in the manipulation of all the parts of a
creative performance, an ability that he would find useful
when he sat down to write.

Finally, between 1827 and 1833 Charles Dickens
prepared himself in a more direct, though apparently still
unconscious, way as a writer. First, the plays he saw,
read, and acted in provided him with a fairly thorough
survey of eighteenth and nineteenth century drama.130
He no doubt continued to reread, as he did the rest of his
life, the novels and essays familiar to him from boyhood.
He also must have devoured the contents of many magazines

and newspapers now that he did not have to go without dinner

 

130For listings (undoubtedly incomplete) see J. B.
Van Amerongen, The Actor in Dickens (New York: D. Appleton
and Company, 1927), assim, and Earle R. Davis, "Literary
Influences upon the Early Art of Charles Dickens" (unpubl.
diss., Princeton, 1935), pp. 114-116 and passim.

31" .(Jlllll‘ 1’] [I'll (all!

 

 

51

to purchase them, as he had had to earlier--the True Sun,

 

Mirror of Parliament, Morning Chronicle, and Times, undoubted-

ly: the British Press and the Morning Herald for which his

 

father had worked: and also, from the nature of his early

allusions to them, the New Monthly Magazine, Thief, Metropolitan,

 

Athenaeum, Literary Gazette, Court Journal, Morning Post,

 

 

Fraser's, and the Examiner.131 There were no doubt others,

 

among them (some then and others a bit later) the magazines
in which Dickens's tales and sketches were first published:
the Monthly Magazine, the EvenianChronicle, Bell's Life

in London, the Carlton Chronicle, and the Library of Fiction.

 

 

On his eighteenth birthday Dickens became eligible
to use the British Museum library. Here, old request slips
show, he at least glanced at such works as Goldsmith's
History of England, Addison's Miscellaneous Works, Shakespeare's

Dramatic Works with a Life by Symond, Holbein's Dance of

 

Death, Berges's A Short Account of the Roman Senate, and

132

Lights and Shadows of Scottish Life (Anon.). These

 

records are not complete. In a letter of July, 1838, Dickens
wrote "[I] devoted myself for some time to the acquirement

of such general literature as I could pick up at the Library

 

131Nonesuch Let., I, 25, to Henry Kolle, [Dec., 1833]:
29, to Kolle, [1834]: 40, to Thomas Beard, 1/9/35: 67, to
John Macrone, [Feb.-Apr., 1836]: 69, to Macrone, [Apr., 1836]:
72, to Chapman and Hall, [NBy-Jun., 1836]: "The Boarding
House--No. II," Monthly Magazine, n.s. XVIII (August, 1834),
131 (in a later version Dickens cancelled the allusion to
the Examiner).

132William Miller, "Dickens Reads at the British
Museum,” Dickensian, XLIII (1947), 83-84.

 

 

 

52

of the British Museum."133 At other times he haunted a

circulating library at No. 24, Fetter Lane, in company with
a friend named Wiffin, who was apprenticed to a gold-and-
silver—smith. Mr. Haines, the print and curio-dealer who
kept the shop, later recalled DiCkens's "passion for sensa-
tional novels which he would carry away by the pile," and
a violent argument between Dickens and Wiffin over the merits
of Fenimore Cooper's Red Rover, an argument which Dickens,
who championed Cooper's abuse of the English, strengthened
by flinging the volume at Wiffin's head.134
A list of other works Dickens read about this time
would comprise a catalogue of early nineteenth century
authors, major and minor, with the possible exception of
Jane Austen. In addition to numerous sensational novels,
and those of Cooper, Dickens read the novels of Sir Walter
Scott, Bulwer-Lytton, Mrs. Radcliffe and other Gothic
novelists, Ainsworth's Rookwood, and from the preceding

century Richardson's Sir Charles Grandison and Godwin's

Caleb Williams. He probably read Miss Mitford's Our Village,

 

 

Pierce Egan's Tom and Jerry, Robert Surtees's Jorrocks'

 

Jaunts and Jollities, and some of Theodore Hook's works.

Long attracted to the essayists, DiCkens read during this

 

133Nonesuch Let., I, 168, to Dr. Kuenzel.

134Thomas Wright, The Life of Charles Dickens (London:
Herbert Jenkins, Ltd., 1935), pp. 64-65. Wright believes
Haines's shop may have served as the model for the Old
Curiosity Shop.

53

time, if not earlier, writings of Leigh Hunt, William Hazlitt,
Charles Lamb, Walter Savage Landor, Thomas DeQuincey, and

no doubt others,135 including works by two now forgotten
authors, who, some scholars hold, greatly influenced Dickens's
early writings: John Poole's Sketches and Recollections
(collected in 1835), which had been irregularly serialized
between 1826 and 1834 in the New Monthly Magazine,136 and

J. Wight's popular police reports for the Morninngerald,

collected as Mornings at Bow Street (1824) and More Mornings
137

 

at Bow Street (1827). Now, or possibly earlier, Dickens

read Boswell's Life of Johnson and also Johnson's own works,

138

at least his Life of Savage. Finally, Dickens read such

diverse publications as Belzoni's Observations and Discoveries,

 

within Pyramids, Tombs, etc. in Egypt and NUbia (1820), the

Newgate Calendar, and Scott's Letters on Demonology and
139

 

 

Witchcraft, Addressed to J. G. LockharthEsgr. (1830).

He also read much poetry. Of his contemporaries he

 

135See Earle R. Davis, "Literary Influences upon the
Early Art of Charles Dickens," and Harry Stone, "Dickens's
Reading“ (unpublished dissertation, University of California,
Los Angeles, 1955), passim.

136John Butt and Kathleen Tillotson, Dickens at Work
(London: Methuen & Co,, Ltd., 1957): P. 37n.

137Nonesuch Let., I, 702, to Miss Coutts, 9/17/45:
Wilhelm Dibelius, Charles Dickens, 2nd ed. (Leipzig, 1926),
p. 80.

 

 

138Nonesuch Let., I, 48, to Catherine Hogarth, 10/29/35.

 

139Allusions in "Seven Dials," “The Last Cab-Driver:
and the First Omnibus Cad," and "Shabby-Genteel People,"
.§§: in NLE, I, i, 87, 187, 330.

54

particularly enjoyed the comic writings of Thomas Hood and,
from a slightly earlier period, the poems of Byron, Thomas
Moore, and George Colman the Elder.140
The roles played by Dickens's career as a shorthand
reporter, by his great interest in acting, and by his con-
siderably expanded literary education were certainly important
to his preparation as a writer. But most significant, in
this as in the earlier period of his life, was the writing
he continued to do. Interestingly enough, with all the
literary models he had to work with, the future novelist
mainly wrote poetry between 1827 and 1833: "Acrostic,"
"The Devil's Walk," ”The Churchyard," and "Lodgings to Let"
in Maria Beadnell's album: "A Fable (Not a Gay One)" in
Ellen Beard's: "The Bill of Fare," a fairly long and rather
poor imitation of Goldsmith's "Retaliation," for a dinner
given by the Beadnells: and "The Ivy Green,” which Dickens
put in The Pickwick Papers but wrote in this earlier period.
Even The O'Thello, his "travestie' on Shakespeare's play,
was in verse. These early poems are marred by tritely poetic
ideas, awkward syntax, and crude rhythm, as these lines
from "The Churchyardf illustrate:
HOW many tales these Tombstones tell
Of life's e'er changing scene,
Of bygone days spent ill or well

By those who gay have been:
Who have been happy, rich, and vain,

 

140
See footnote 135.

55

Who now are dead, and cold,
Who've gone alike to dust again,
The rich, poor, young, and old,141

or these from "The Bill of Fare“:

Last, here's Charles Dickens, who's now gone forever:
It's clear that he thought himself very clever:

To all his friends' faults--it almost makes me weep,
He was wide awake--to his own fast asleep!

Though blame he deserved for such wilful blindness
He had one merit,--he ne'er forgot kindness.

His faults--and they were not in number few,

As all his acquaintance extremely well knew,
Emanated-—to speak of him in good part,

I think rather more from his head than his heart,

No mortal means could this young man save,

And a sweet pair of eyes sent him home to his grave.142

Yet one finds an occasional felicitous line or so as in this
passage from the conclusion of "The Devil's Walk," a wittier
and generally better written poem than the others. The
Devil, having satirically commented on various London people
and events, glances in Maria Beadnell's album at the verses
of the very poem about his walk:

And he said with glee "they're worthy of me,
For I'm sure they're devilish bad."1 3

 

The poem had been building up to these concluding lines,
and the intended effect comes off rather well. Even so,
this poem, like the others, is amateurish at best. The
same unkind criticism can be applied to the extant fragments

of The O'Thello. One must respect the raw talent of the

 

141Collected Papers (London: The Nonesuch Press,
1938 [The Nonesuch Dickens, ed. Arthur Waugh, et al.]): II,
281.
142
Collected Papers, II, 292-293.

143Collected Papers, II, 281.

56

young man who can carry out a project to write a comic verse
travesty (including song lyrics) of a Shakespearean

tragedy, but the achievement was scarcely prophetic of

the later career, as the following short scene, taken

from the acting sides for the part of The Great Unpaid
(played appropriately enough by John Dickens) and concluding
Act I, Scene ii, illustrates:

CHORUS
Air: "Gold's but Dross“-—Robert le Diable

 

G.U. [GREAT UNPAID].
Bring the porter in the Pewter
And be sure they draw it mild.

E. ARGO. If he suspects his wife he'll shoot her,
And I am for vengeance wild.

CASS. Let's be happy:
Lots of baccy,
Let the cheerful smoke abound.
Dancing lightly,
Gaily, sprightly
Let the merry song go round.

G.U. Right fal 1a ral la ral lide

E. ARGO. Right fal 1a ral liddle dol de

CASS. Right fal la ral la ral lide
DESD. Right fal 1a ral liddle dol de
CHORUS:

Right fal la ral, etc.

. 144
(at end of chorus go out With the rest).

If the poetry is bad, the prose Dickens wrote between

1827 and 1833 is somewhat more promising and certainly more

significant for the future of a novelist. He apparently

 

144Collected Papers, II, 62—63.

57

wrote a "monypolylogue" similar to the one—man, quick-change

playlets of Charles Mathews and scribbled certain rough

sketches of people and things in a notebook,145 but these

writings have not survived. Only the letters that Dickens
wrote before 1834 still remain. Fortunately, they illustrate
that even this early in his writing career Dickens had some
control over the English language and some ability to

express himself formally, colloquially, seriously, humorously.
For example, he could write the following to Maria Beadnell:

Your own feelings will enable you to imagine
far better than any attempt of mine to describe
the painful struggle it has cost me to make up my
mind to adopt the course which I now take--a course
than which nothing can be so directly opposed to my
wishes and feelings, but the necessity of which becomes
daily more apparent to me. Our meetings of late have
been little more than so many displays of heartless
indifference on the one hand, while on the other
they have never failed to prove a fertile source of
wretchedness and misery: and seeing, as I cannot fail
to do, that I have engaged in a pursuit which has long
since been worse than hopeless and a further perseverance
in which can only expose me to deserved ridicule, I
have made up my mind to return the little present
I received from you some time since (which I have
always prized, as I still do, far beyond anything I
ever possessed) and the other enclosed mementos of
our past correspondence which I am sure it must be
gratifying to you to receive, as after our recent
situations they are certainly better adapted for
your custody than mine.

Need I say that I have not the most remote idea
of hurting your feelings by the few lines which I
think it necessary to write with the accompanying
little parcel? I must be the last person in the
world who could entertain such an intention, but

 

145See Johnson, pp. 90-91 (quoting from John Payne
Collier's An Old Man's Diary, Forty Years Ago (London, 1872,
pp. 13-14]) and p. 76: F. G. Kitton, The Minor Writings of
Charles Dickens (London: Elliot Stock, 1900), pp. 221—222:
Ralph Straus, Charles Dickens, A Biographygfrom New Sources
(New York: Cosmopolitan, 1928), p. 68.

58

I feel that this is neither a matter nor a time for
cold, deliberate, calculating trifling. ‘My feelings
upon any subject more especially upon this, must be
to you a matter of very little moment, still I have
feelings in common with other people--perhaps so
far as they relate to you they have been as strong
and as good as ever warmed the human heart--and I
do feel that it is mean and contemptible of me to
keep by me one gift of yours or to preserve one
single line or word of remembrance, or affection
from you. I therefore return them, and I can only
wish that I could as easily forget that I ever
received them.146

The language is obviously stilted and the sentence structure
unnecessarily complex, but the cruelty of the cold tone,
however much disclaimed by Dickens at the beginning of the
second paragraph, is clearly intentional, as the irony at
the close of the first paragraph illustrates.

If the above excerpt is formal and serious, passages
from other letters are more light-hearted in tone and more
colloquial in style: 8

In reply to your inquiry respecting a sizable
pony, I have great satisfaction in being able to
say that I have procured you an "'oss" which I have
had once or twice since I have been here. I am a
poor judge of distance, but I should certainly say
that your legs would be off the ground when you are
on his back. To look at the animal in question
you would think (with the exception of dog's meat)
there was no earthly purpose to which he could be
applied. But when you try him, joking apart, I
will pledge you my veracity, he will beat any horse,
hired or private, that you would see in a morning's
ride. I am his especial patron, but on this occasion
I will procure something smaller for myself.147

 

146
3/18/33.

147Nonesuch Let., I, 7-8, to Henry Kolle,

 

Nonesuch Let., I, 16, to Maria Beadnell,

[1832].

59

By the by, if I had many friends in the habit of
marrying, which friends had brothers who possessed
an extensive assortment of choice hock, I should
be dead in no time. Yesterday I felt like a maniac,
today my interior resembles a lime basket.1
The humor here is obvious, relying on some exaggeration
and on highly pictorial images, but it is not exorbitant
and, probably because of its spontaneity, is superior to
much of the humor Dickens attempted in his earliest
published tales.

By 1833, then, though he had much to learn about
certain basic techniques of writing and, for that matter,
may have just become conscious of professional ambitions
in the authorial line, Charles Dickens was about ready to
launch his literary career. His preparation for it, if
largely unconscious, was extensive. His reading, theater-
going, acting, and other youthful activities, particularly
his daydreaming and imaginative games, contributed greatly
to the development of his creative imagination, as perhaps,
in their way, did his many days of loneliness and frustration.
A few years later the assiduity with which Dickens acquired
an education for himself in the British Museum reading room
and consciously prepared himself as a Parliamentary reporter
and as an actor suggests the care he must likewise have
taken a short time later to ready himself as a writer.

More significantly, these activities themselves were

important influences on his writing. He was intimately

 

148Nonesuch Let., I: 23: to Henry K°lle' [5/19/331'

 

6O

familiar with two Londons—-the dark, frightening city of

his boyhood and the fascinating playground of his young
manhood, a London of theaters and inns, Parliament, Doctors'
Commons, criminal courts, Seven Dials and Monmouth Street,
Vauxhall Gardens and Astley's Circus.149 He also read
armloads of novels, plays, poems, and essays, Thus, by

the time he stealthily dropped his first manuscript "with
fear and trembling, into a dark letter-box, in a dark office,
up a dark court in Fleet Street” one evening in 1833,150
he not only had a head full of possible subjects for future
papers, he had numerous literary models available to aid
him in giving form to his experiences and observations.
Moreover, he had been acting and writing for years. "Do
you care to know," he wrote to a friend in 1859, "that I
was a great writer at eight years old or so--was an actor

and speaker from a baby?"151

Crude though his early poems,
plays, and sketches may have been (though the letters show
some promise), the act of imitation and creation was an

important first step in his training as a writer. Bolstered

by Dickens's determination to gain eminence and financial

 

149"Having been in London two years, wrote George
Lear, a fellow clerk of Dickens at Ellis and Blackmore's,
"I thought I knew something of town, but after a little
talk with Dickens I found that I knew nothing. He knew
it all from Bow to Brentford' (in Kitton, Charles Dickens by
Pengand Pencil, p. 131).

150“Preface to the First Cheap Edition," 32, in
NLE, II, i, xv.

151

 

Nonesuch Let., III, 122, to Mrs. Howitt, 9/7/59.

61

success in some field, his extensive though mainly un-
conscious preparation for a writing career made his resolution
to become an author more easily attainable than otherwise,

and his rapid advancement in this new profession more under-

standable.

CHAPTER II

SKETCHES BY BOZ--THE EARLY "TALES"

Since it was predominantly as a novelist that
Charles Dickens carved out his literary career, critics have
quite naturally devoted little attention to the large number
of miscellaneous writings that spanned his years of producti-
vity, from the first tale in the Monthly Magazine, two and
one-half years before Pickwick Papers, to the last article
in his own All the Year Round, late in 1869. Certainly
not deserving of this critical neglect, as the following
three chapters will show, are the fifty-nine tales,
character studies, and descriptive essays that Dickens wrote
between 1833 and 1836 and collected in a total of three
volumes as the first and second series of Sketches by B02

in February and December of 1836.1

 

1Most of the tales and sketches had originally appeared
in the Monthlngagazine, Bell's Weeklngagazine, Morning
Chronicle, Evening Chronicle, Bell's Life in London, Library
of Fiction, and Carlton Chronicle. A detailed listing of
their original publication is to be found in Thomas Hatton
and Arthur H. Cleaver, A Bibliography of the Periodical Works
of Charles Dickens: Bibliographical, Analyticangand Statisti-
.gal (London: Chapman & Hall, Ltd., 1933), pp. 91—103. Since
1933 two changes in this list have been noted. The publica-
tion of "Brokers' and Marine-Store Shops" in the Mbrning
Chronicle for December 15, 1834, was first discovered by
William J. Carlton—-see his "'The Story without a Beginning':
An Unrecorded Contribution by 302 to the Mbrning Chronicle,"
Dickn, XLVII (1951), 67-70. "Sentiment" was first published
in Bell's weekly Magazine on June 7, 1834, as indicated by

62

63

Whenever a scholar devotes a few paragraphs or even
a few pages to the Sketches by Boz, he generally points, as
does Edgar Johnson in his biography of Dickens, to the
young author's detailed, realistic, and frequently humorous
observations of the life he then knew: to his early sympathy
with those oppressed by society and its institutions: and
to the anticipation not only of the style and characters of
his later works but also of the "incredible fecundity that

was to be."2 Although Johnson concludes that this early

fi

work

is full of the flaws and shortcomings that disclose

it to be the work of an apprentice," he adds, as would other
critics, that "it is also full of something more than
promise: of a kind of not entirely ripe fulfillment.
Apprentice work indicating an apprentice so enormously gifted
and even here so precociously skilled might well banish all

surprise if its author, in his very next effort, leaped into

 

Hilmer Nielsen in his “Some Observations on Sketches by Boz,"
Dickn, XXXIV (1938), 243-245. This last discovery has generally
been ignored by later scholars.

2Johnson, pp. 110-114. For example, Forster speaks
of "the first sprightly runnings' of Dickens's genius
(Forster, p. 76): Ernest Boll finds ”the closest organic
membership" of §§ to the whole body of Dickens's writings
relative to characters, situations, style, form, and
authorial comment ("The Sketches by 'Boz,'" Dickn, XXXVI
[1939], 72): C. B. Cox believes that in SB "the comic view-
points which are implied in his later works can be seen in
the process of development" ("Comic Viewpoints in Sketches
by Boz,” En lish, XII [Spring, 1959], 132): Lionel Stevenson
claims that in SB Dickens “unconsciously wrote for future
generations a 'Handbook to Early Victorian England'" ("An
Introduction to Ybung Mr. Dickens," Dickn, XXIX [Spring,
1933], 114): and Humphry Heuse sees the work as "a prosPectus
of what he was to do for the next thirty years" (The Dickens
World, 2nd ed. [London: Oxford University Press, 1942],
p. 21).

64

the circle of the masters."3

A more detailed study of the Sketches than Johnson
and other scholars with different objectives could justifi-
ably make should reveal the exact nature of the short-
comings and virtues of the work. In addition, an examination
of these early magazine pieces in approximately the order
of their writing--an approach that has not before been
taken--will reinforce Johnson's conclusions and chronicle
the early stages of Dickens's development as a writer of
fiction. There is little likelihood that the young author
who had thus far written ”Misnar, the Sultan of India,"

The O'Thello, and "A Bill of Fare" could have "leaped into

 

the circle of the masters” with PickwiCk Papers in 1833,
whatever raw talent he may have possessed. As a result,
the years between 1833 and 1836, during which Dickens wrote
and published the tales and essays he collected as Sketches
by Boz, provide fertile ground for an investigation of his
early development as a craftsman.

Dickens began his professional writing career with
eight farcical tales, the subjects of this chapter, all
but one of which appeared in the Monthly Magazine, a
liberal publication of small circulation and declining

reputation.4 As one might expect, the tales are ineffective

 

3Johnson, p. 114.

4See F. J. Harvey Darton, Dickens, Positively the
First Appearance: A Centenarngeview (London: The Argonaut
Press, 1933), p. 10, for a fuller description of the

65

for the most part, poorly conceived and crudely written.

Yet they are not without occasional virtues, and the last
two or three show some improvement over the first. A study
of these tales will reveal a young writer's early, generally
unsuccessful struggle with the complex intermixture of
techniques that make up the craft of fiction. He wants to
write, to amuse people, to make a name and, one supposes,

a fortune for himself, but the precise means by which he
should proceed are not yet known to him. One can see
Dickens making tentative movements in the direction of

what would later (as illustrated by reference to Pickwick
Papers) prove to be effective techniques for his particular
genius. But more often than not he pulls back, content to
return to the security of imitating what he does not realize
are flawed models: or he fails to follow through in the

next tale he writes with a technique that had been particularly
effective in the preceding one. What one would like to
think of as conscious experimentation on Dickens's part may

be this to some slight extent, but the virtues these tales

 

Monthly Magazine. The tales that appeared in it were "A
Dinner at Poplar Walk" (retitled “Mr. Minns and His Cousin"
for the collected edition), December, 1833: "Mrs. Joseph
Porter, 'over the way,'" ("Mrs. Joseph Porter” in the
collected edition), January, 1834: "Horatio Sparkins,"
February, 1834: The Bloomsbury Christening," April, 1834:
”The Boarding House," May and August, 1834: ”The Steam
Excursion,“ October, 1834: and “A Passage in the Life of

Mr. watkins Tottle," January and February, 1835. In addition,
"Sentiment" appeared in Bell's Weekly Magazine, June 7, 1834.
In referring to these tales and later to the other essays
and tales of SB I shall, unless otherwise noted, use the
titles which appear in modern editions, for the sake of the
reader.

 

66

possess were largely unconsciously achieved. Yet the
richness of detail, character, and incident that would be
representative of the later Dickens can be observed
beginning to unfold in these early tales.

Dickens's efforts in writing as a boy and very
young man had to some extent prepared him for the career
he embarked upon in 1833. If he had had little practice
in the writing of fiction itself, he was certainly familiar
with the more obvious techniques of fiction writing from
his own voracious reading. But equally important, his
early dramatic efforts, evoked no doubt by his intense
interest in viewing plays, had given him some practice in
at least the rudimentary techniques of plot manipulation
and character development that he would need in writing
stories. In addition, he had quite likely selected certain
models from the literature and drama of his acquaintance
to serve as guides for his own writing, though if he selected
specific works or even authors, these are for the most

part unavailable to modern scholars.5 One can point, at

 

5Perhaps the closest influences were the "At Homes"
of Charles Mathews and the Sketches and Recollections in two
volumes (London: Published for Henry Colburn by Richard
Bentley, 1835) of John Poole. Though no scripts of Mathews's
performances exist, descriptions of his various one-man
shows found in Mrs. Mathews's The Memoirs of Charles Mathews,
mainly in volume IV, suggest that Dickens, who was a devout
admirer of the elder Mathews, may very likely have consciously
imitated in his early writing, as he had earlier in his
amateur entertainments, characters and situations created by
Mathews (with the initial authorial aid of his son and R. B.
Peake). Wilhelm Dibelius, in his Charles Dickens, pp. 68ff.,
discusses the theatrical influence, particularly that of

67

least, to certain typga of literature, predominantly popular,
upon which Dickens must surely have modelled his earliest
published writings. Of some influence would be the
eighteenth and early nineteenth century novels, in which
Dickens was well-read, and those essays or parts of essays
from the same years that contain character studies of one
kind or another (Addison and Steele's, Goldsmith's, Lamb's,
Irving's). HOwever, the most important influences were the
one-act farces then extremely popular as afterpieces in the
early nineteenth century theater and the great number of
short fictional pieces (some even in verse, such as the
story poems of Hood, Coombes, and George Colman) in the
popular magazines of the 1820's and 1830's. From these
sources in particular, Dickens must have picked up the
farcical situations, the lower and middle class characters,
and the punning, obtrusively clever style of writing that

all too frequently characterize his early tales.6

 

Mathews, on Dickens's early writings. Butt and Tillotson,

p. 48, allude to Poole's influence. As they suggest, Poole's
“Preparations for Pleasure," which originally appeared in

the New Mbnthly Magazine, October, 1829, bears a strong
resemblance to parts of Dickens's "The Steam Excursion,"
which was written about five years later. One and possibly
two of the other essays in Poole's collection also bear
striking similarities to some of Dickens's later Sketches.

6It is not my intention to do a study of the influences

upon Dickens's earliest writings, though in later pages of

this chapter and the following chapters I may occasionally
concentrate upon a particularly close influence. Rather,

I wish merely to suggest what is no doubt obvious to the
reader, that Dickens did not write ig vacuo, that he was

at every turn confronted by the flood of theatrical and
magazine literature produced for early nineteenth century

68

At any rate, when Dickens sat down to write his
first story, probably in the summer of 1833, he must have
been reasonably conscious of what he was about to do.

Even so, it is best that, except among his friends and
relatives, this first story went virtually unnoticed.
Although it was not below the quality of much of the fiction
published by the Monthly Magazine, it was, nevertheless,
noticeably inferior to the tales Dickens would be writing
but a few months later. In 1836 (and later), when Dickens
revised "Mr. Minns and His Cousin," he himself furnished,
through his revisions, a detailed criticism of his earliest

O I O 7 3 O I .
profeSSional writing. An examination of these reViSIons

 

audiences. For the theatrical influence on Dickens, see
footnote 5: for the influence of magazine fiction, see
Nielsen, "Some Observations on Sketches by Boz," pp. 243—245:
for contemporary criticism, whose authors frequently allude
to influences on SB, see W[alter] D[exter], ”The Reception
of Dickens's First BoOk,“ Dickn, XXXII (1936), 43-50, and

W. Miller and E. H. Stange, A Centenary gibliography of the
Pickwick Papers (London: The Argonaut Press, 1936), passim.
Also see Earle Rosco Davis, "Literary Influences upon the
Early Art of Charles Dickens,” passim: David Cowden, "The
Structure of Dickens's Novels," (unpublished Ph.D. Disser-
tation, Harvard University, 1959):Harry Stone, "Dickens's
Reading," Ernest Boll, "Charles Dickens and Washington
Irving," Mpg, V (December, 1944), 453-467: Christof Wegelin,
“DiCkens and Irving: the Problem of Influence," Mpg, VII
(March, 1946), 83-91.

7For a history of the revisions Dickens made in the
various editions of §§ between 1836 and 1867, see Butt and
Tillotson, pp. 35-61. According to them, most of the changes
in "Mr. Minns and His Cousin" were made for the first
edition of the second series of SB (published December, 1836,
although dated "1837”). Thus, though I contrast the Monthly
Magazine version of December, 1833, to that of the NEE
modern version, which follows the 1867 edition of Dickens's
works, for all practical purposes one sees the conscious
craftsman of 1836 at work. My purpose, however, in making
the contrast is more to shed light on the Dickens of 1833

69

will reveal not only what Dickens knew about writing by 1836
but what he did and did not know about it in 1833, and should
thus be a start toward setting up the criteria by which
Dickens's gradual development as a craftsman must be
measured.

To begin with, the earliest published version of
Dickens's tale of Mr. MinnS's visit to his suburban cousins
contained a number of stylistic peculiarities, literary
affectations, that call unnecessary attention to themselves.
One example is the overuse of italics and quotation marks,
such as those used to emphasize the author's "wit" in the
opening paragraph of the story:

Mr. Minns was a bachelor of about forty, as he

said--of about eight and forty, as his friends said.
He was always exceedingly clean, precise, and tid ,
perhaps somewhat priggish, and the most "retiring
man in the world." (Egg p. 617)8
In the later version of this pasSage Dickens had quietly
excised such affectations and further cleared up the passage:
Mr. Augustus Minns was a bachelor, of about forty
as he said--of about eight-and-forty, as his friends
said. He was always exceedingly clean, precise, and
tidy: perhaps somewhat priggish, and the most retiring

man in the world. (NLE, I, i, 393)

But the most noticeable stylistic affectations in "Mr. Minns

 

than the one of 1836. For a complete text of the original
edition, see Darton, Dickens, Positively_the First Appearance,
pp. 51—68, or "In All the Glory of Print,” DiCkn, XXX

(1934), 1—10.

80m this and the next few pages fMM" refers to the
Mbnthly Magazine, XVI (December, 1833). ‘NLE, as mentioned
in the Preface, refers to the National Library Edition of
Dickens's works.

70

and His Cousin" are a number of extravagant figures of speech,
most of which Dickens removed in later revisions: "Minns
. . . looked as merry as a farthing rushlight in a fog":
he had "a face as red as a flamingo": "his boots were like
pump-suckers": "Had Minns been struck by an electric eel,
he could not have made a more hysterical spring through the
door-way": "Minns leaped from his seat as though he had
received the discharge from a galvanic battery": Minns
was ”looking forward to his visit of the following Sunday
with the feelings of a pennyless poet to the weekly visit
of his Scotch landlady“: and he was "as happy as a tom-tit
upon bird-lime.” Only the last three, for no apparent
reason, remain in all published versions. A figure of speech
that Dickens added in revision, though less colorful and
original, is more suitable: "the first gleam of pleasure
he had experienced that morning shone like a meteor through
his wretchedness." That such extravagant figures of speech
appear with decreasing frequency in his writing of the next
few months is at least a small sign of Dickens's growing
maturity as a writer. '
Other relatively minor revisions Dickens made give

additional insight into the faults of the 1833 version of
"Mr. Minns and His Cousin." These revisions at least clarify
somewhat confused meanings, eliminate some wordiness, and
more adequately point up the humor, as in the following:

1. Original: He [Mr. Minns] had but two particular

horrors in the world, and those were dogs and children.

His prejudice arose from no unamiability of disposition,
but thatthe habits of the animals were continually at

71

variance with his love of order, which might be
said to be equally as powerful as his love of life.
(3gp p. 617)
Revision: There were two classes of created objects
which he held in the deepest and unmingled horror:
these were dogs, and children. He was not unamiable,
but he could, at any time, have viewed the execution
of a dog, or the assassination of an infant, with the
liveliest satisfaction. Their habits were at variance
with his love of order: and his love of order was as
powerful as his love of life. (NEE, I, i, 393-394)

2. When asked by his cousin how he is, Minns replies:
Original: "Uncommonly well, thank ye," said Minns,
casting a diabolical look at the dog, who, with his
hind-legs on the floor, and his fore-paws resting on
the table, was dragging a bit of bread—and-butter out
of a plate, which, in the ordinary course of things,
it was natural to suppose he would eat with the
buttered side next to the carpet. (3gp p. 618)
Revision: “Uncommonly well, thank you," said Minns,
casting a diabolical look at the dog, who, with his
hind-legs on the floor, and his fore-paws resting on
the table, was dragging a bit of bread-and-butter out
of a plate, preparatory to devouring it, with the
buttered side next the carpet. (NLE, I, i, 396)
In addition to these and many other minor revisions,
Dickens found time in 1836 to make major changes in two
parts of this first tale that show he was capable of creating
an effective minor scene by then and had a greater compre-
hension of the plot structure for the entire story. The
1833 version thus reveals his difficulties in creating a
full, though minor, scene and his less than adequate con-
ception of plot structure.
The minor scene that Dickens expanded in 1836 occurs
in the coach that takes Mr. Minns to dinner at Poplar Walk.
Having waited an excessively long time for the coach to

get underway (the coachman is attempting to find additional

passengers), Minns voices his complaints. The original

72

version then proceeds as follows:

"Going this minute, Sir," was the reply:--and
accordingly the coach trundled on for a couple of hundred
yards, and then stopped again. Minns doubled himself
up into a corner of the coach, and abandoned himself
to his fate.

"Tell your missis to make haste my dear--'cause
here's a gentleman inside vich is in a desperate hurry."
In about five minutes more missis appeared, with a
child and two band-boxes, and then they set off.

'Be quiet, love,“ said the mother--who saw the
agony of Minns, as the child rubbed its shoes on the
new drab trousers--"be quiet, dear! Here, play with
this parasol--don't kick the gentleman.“

The interesting infant, however, with its agree-
able plaything, contrived to tax Mr. MinnS's ingenuity,
in the "art of self-defense,“ during the ride: and
amidst these infantile assaults, and the mother's
apologies, the distracted gentleman arrived at the
Swan, when, on referring to his watch, to his great
dismay he discovered that it was a quarter past five.

(MM, p. 620)

The revision not only clarifies the progression of the action
but creates a more effective portrait of the child and turns

a rather awkwardly related scene into a more than adequately

humorous episode. Hens we have the Dickens who, at the

time of revision, was well into Pickwick Papers:
"Going this minute, sir," was the reply:--and,
accordingly, the machine trundled on for a couple
of hundred yards, and then stopped again. Minns
doubled himself up in a corner of the coach, and
abandoned himself to his fate, as a child, a mother,
a bandbox, and a parasol, became his fellow-passengers.
The child was an affectionate and an amiable
infant: the little dear mistook Minns for his other
parent, and screamed to embrace him.
“Be quiet, dear," said the mama, restraining the
impetuosity of the darling, whose little fat legs
were kicking, and stamping, and twining themselves
into the most complicated forms, in an ecstasy of
impatience. "Be quiet, dear, that's not your papa."
”Thank Heaven I am not!" thought Minns, as
the first gleam of pleasure he had experienced that
morning shone like a meteor through his wretchedness.

 

liil'

'IIII

73

Playfulness was agreeably mingled with affection
in the disposition of the boy. When satisfied that
Mr. Minns was not his parent, he endeavoured to
attract his notice, by scraping his drab trousers
with his dirty shoes, poking his chest with his
mama's parasol, and other nameless endearments peculiar
to infancy, with which he beguiled the tediousness of
the ride, apparently very much to his own satisfaction.
When the unfortunate gentleman arrived at the Swan,
he found to his great dismay, that it was a quarter—
past five. (NLE, I, i, 399-400)

Although limited by Dickens's original construction
of his first tale, the revised scene is not noticeably
inferior to the following passage from the second chapter
of Pickwick Papers. The excerpt below does, however, have
the advantage of being part of a much more fully developed
scene in a much longer work. Mr. Pidkwick's character, for
example, has already been partly established, and the
business with his notebook is funnier in the light of the
first chapter.

"Cab!" said Mr. Pickwick.

”Here you are, sir,“ shouted a strange specimen of
the human race, in a sackcloth coat, and apron of the
same, who with a brass label and number round his
neck, looked as if he were catalogued in some col-
lection of rarities. This was the waterman. "Here
you are, sir. Now, then, fust cab!" And the first
cab having been fetched from the public-house, where
he had been smoking his first pipe, Mr. Pickwick
and his portmanteau were thrown into the vehicle.

”Golden Cross," said Mr. Pickwick.

”Only a bob's vorth, Tommy," cried the driver,
sulkily, for the information of his friend the water-
man, as the cab drove off.

”How old is that horse, my friend?" inquired Mr.
Pickwick, rubbing his nose with the shilling he had
reserved for the fare.

"Forty-two," replied the driver, eying him askant.

"What!" ejaculated Mr. Pickwick, laying his hand
upon his note-hock. The driverreiterated his former
statement. Mr. Pickwick looked very hard at the man's
face, but his features were immovable, so he noted down
the fact forthwith.

74

”And how long do you keep him out at a time?"
inquired Mr. PiCkwick, searching for further information.
“Two or three veeks," replied the man. ‘
"Weeks!" said Mr. Pickwick, in astonishment-—and

out came the note-book again.
"He lives at Pentonwil when he's at home,"
observed the driver cooly, "but we seldom takes him

home on account of his veakness.”

"On account of his weakness!" reiterated the

perplexed Mr. Pickwick.

"He always falls down when he's took out o' the
cab," continued the driver, "but when he's in it, we
bears him up werry tight, and takes him in werry
short, so as he can't werry well fall down: and we've
got a pair 0' precious large wheels on, so ven he
does move, they run after him, and he must go on--
he can't help it." (NLE. II; it 8‘9)

The second major revision is a complete overhaul of
the conclusion of the story. There are numerous changes
here that correspond to revisions already discussed, but the
more important changes are those that give the story,
though somewhat belatedly, the focus that the original
version lacks. The conflict in the tale, as we know from
the brief opening scene between Mr. and Mrs. Budden (they
were the Bagshaws in the first version), revolves around
their plan to persuade Mr. Minns, who detests dogs,
children, and the Buddens, that their little son will
make a fine heir for Minns. Yet, in the story as Dickens
originally wrote it, this plot line tends to get lost while
Dickens occupies himself with deriving as much humor as
possible from Mr. Minns's harassment by Budden and his dog,

by the cabman and the child in the coach, and by the adults

and Minns's young nephew at the Budden's Sunday dinner.9

 

9C. E. Cox, in his "Comic Viewpoints in Sketches by
Boz, 133—134, sees the story as "first of all a simple satire
on Minns's ambition to impose order on all his actions." Thus

75

This false emphasis is not completely avoided even in the
final version of the story. But Dickens does make an attempt
in the concluding paragraphs of the later version to regain
the focus lost in the major portion of the story. He had
partly regained it in the original version. Amid the
confusion resulting from Minns's hasty departure from the
dinner party, Dickens had Master Alexander fix the print
of his raspberry-jam-and-custard-covered "paws" on Minns's
trousers and cry out, “Do stop, godpa'-—I like you--Ma'
says I'm to coax you to leave me all your money!" (gay
p. 624). Not only is this technique crude, but Dickens
failed to continue the emphasis in the concluding paragraph:
It was half-past three in the morning ere

Mr. Augustus Minns knocked faintly at No. 11,

Tavistock Street, Covent Garden. He had footed

it every step of the way from Poplar Walk:--he

had not a dry thread about him, and his boots

were like pump-suckers. Never from that day could

Mr. Minns endure the name of Bagshaw or Poplar

Walk. It was to him as the writing on the wall

was to Belshazzar. Mr. Minns has removed from

Tavistock Street. His residence is at present

a secret, as he is determined not to risk another
assault from his cousin and his pink-eyed poodle.

_(ggy p. 624)

 

the plot becomes ”a series of jokes about man's inability

to impose his sense of order and propriety on the raw
material of life, ”and the theme is seen implicit in the
contrast Dickens draws between the coldness and drabness of
Minns's "ordered existence" and the "exhuberant joy in life"
of Budden. The contrast is obviously not as clear-cut as
Cox suggests, for Budden, his family, his friends, and his
poodle are as humorously brought low as is Minns. In
addition, though Dickens is obviously utilizing what Stephen
Leacock (in his "TWO Humorists: Charles Dickens and Mark
Twain," Yale Review, n.s. XXIV [September, 1934], 120) calls
"the humor of discomfiture," it is scarcely for as serious

a purpose as Cox states.

76

The revision, however, does bring the point of the plot
back into focus. Minns is not now so much defeated as he
is somewhat victorious, having dashed the hopes of the
elder Buddens:
It was somewhere about three o'clock in the

morning, when Mr. Augustus Minns knocked feebly

at the street—door of his lodgings in Tavistock

Street, cold, wet, cross, and miserable. He

made his will next morning, and his professional

man informs us, in that strict confidence in which

we inform the public, that neither the name of

Mr. Octavius Budden, nor of Mrs. Amelia Budden,

nor of Master Alexander Augustus Budden appears

therein. (NLE, I. i, 406)

This brief study of the revisions Dickens made in

"Mr. Minns and His Cousin," mainly in 1836, show that by then
the author himself was aware of the tale's rather awkward
and frequently affected style, of its occasionally confusing
narrative, of its lack of descriptive fullness, and of its
formlessness, even though he did not completely rid the
revised versions of these faults. To have done so, and
also to have raised the quality of the characterizations of
Minns, Budden, and other figures, would have called for a
thorough replanning and a complete rewriting of the tale, a
task that in 1836 Dickens scarcely had the time or inclination
to carry out. Even in its revised form--and ”Mr. Minns
and His Cousin" received considerably more reworking than
the other early tales-—it is not noticeably inferior to the
others. Yet in December, 1833, and early 1834, the twenty-

one year old author would scarcely have acknowledged the

validity of such criticism if it had been offered. A week

77

after the story appeared in the Monthly Magazine, as Dickens
rather proudly wrote his friend, Henry Kolle, it was pirated
for publication in the London weekly Magazine (still known to

Dickens by its former title of The Thief): he had received

 

"a polite and flattering communication from the Monthly
people requesting more papers": and he was in the midst
of planning or writing two short tales, a series of papers
to be called “The Parish,” and a "proposed novel," which he
was considering cutting up into magazine sketches, "as
publishing is hazardous."10 A few months later, the weekly
Dispatch.listed his "The Bloomsbury Christening" as "among
the amusing papers" in the April, 1834, issue of the Monthly
Magazine and the following month indicated that the first
part of "The Boarding House" was excellent in [its] way."11
While the study of the revisions that Dickens made
in his first stories reveals his inadequacies as a writer
in 1833, an investigation of the various aspects of the
craft of fiction in the other Monthlyagagazine tales should
afford not only a more particularized itemization of the

faults but, more importantly, of the virtues of these early

tales. It should also show Dickens slowly, and with

 

10Nonesuch Let., I, 29, to Henry Kolle, [1834].
For a note on the London Weekly Magazine, See Walter Dexter's
"When Found: The Pirates,“ Dickn, XXX (1934), 239.

11Quoted in Dexter's "Contemporary Opinion of
'Dickens's Earliest Work," Dickn, XXXI (1935), 106. There is
no way of knowing whether or not Dickens read these brief
evaluations of his early tales.

78

difficulty, making progress in his handling of the techniques
of fiction. In addition, such a study of what Dickens does
and does not do with plot, scene development, characteri-
zation, setting, description, narration, and critical intent
or purpose should virtually though not entirely complete
the setting up of the criteria by which his development as
a craftsman can be evaluated.

Although Dickens grouped these early stories under
the heading of "Tales" in the first combined edition of the
two series of Sketches bypBoz,12 they are essentially "small

fictional sketches,"l3 or "episodes,” lively scenes rather

than stories with developed plots and characters.14 As
sketches, episodes, or scenes, then, they lack, except in

a superficial sense, what R. S. Crane requires a plot to

be: a "completed change, gradual or sudden,” in the situation,
in the character, or in the thought, and consequently in the
feelings, of the protagonist.15 But if one grants that,

for the sake of the comedy, the cleverness, the flashes of

wit, even the pure exuberance of good spirits, such farcical

sketches need not be tied down to rigid conventions of

 

12Butt and Tillotson, pp. 56-57. This was the edition
issued in monthly parts, NOvember, 1837-June, 1839.

13Johnson, p. 91.

14Darton, Dickens, Positively the First Appearapge,

p. 71.

15R. S. Crane, "The Concept of Plot and the Plot of
Tom Jones," in Critics and Criticisms, ed. R. S. Crane
(Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1957), pp. 66-67.

79

story-telling, some of these early tales are not entirely
unsatisfactory. From such a point of View one might, for
example, appreciate "The Bloomsbury Christening" (April,

1834), which, while similar in plot to "Mr. Minns and His

Cousin,I is more fully and more convincingly developed

(it may even have prepared the way for Dickens's revisions

in 1836 of "Mr. Minns and His Cousin"), or "The Steam
Excursion" (October, 1834), which, while containing characters
who walk through a kind of plot, is really, after all, a
charming, frequently humorous sketch of an outing on the
Thames that ends somewhat disastrously in rough water and

seasickness. “Dickens, writes Lionel Stevenson, commenting

upon the Sketches by B02 in general, "naively shows him-

self so fascinated by every detail of the human life around

him, so unaffectedly entertained by the commonplace, that

he prattles about them in the full assurance that his reader

will be equally thrilled. He does not feel the need of

any plot or continuity of suspense, and so great is his

zest that the reader actually does respond to it."16
Nevertheless, despite redeeming virtues, these early

tales are noticeably marred by inconclusive, unconvincing,

and inadequately conceived plots. Sometimes, as in "HOratio

Sparkins” (February, 1834), Dickens becomes confused about

the direction in which his story should be moving.17 Although

 

16Lionel Stevenson, "An Introduction to Young Mr.
Dickens,“ p. 113.

17See my discussion earlier in this chapter of
"Mr. Minns and His Cousin,” which in its original version
also had a misdirected plot.

80

the Maldertons are concerned throughout the story with the
social connections of Horatio Sparkins, the "discovery"
that he is really Mr. Samuel Smith, a clerk and junior
partner in a "cheap“ store, is too abrupt--not because it
is unexpected but because it is made too soon. In the
preceding scenes Dickens was so busy satirizing the social
pretentions of all the characters that the reader has for-
gotten that he had been suspicious of the identity of Mr.
Sparkins from the beginning of the tale. He is surprised
to recall that Heratio was originally meant to be the
scapegoat of the piece. Another fault of "Horatio Sparkins"
and also of "Mrs. Joseph Porter" (as well as of "Mr. Minns
and His Cousin”) lies in Dickens's failure in these very
early tales to create scenes that are essential to the
adequate development of his plots. In "Heratio Sparkins“
Mrs. Malderton and her daughters no sooner recognize Mr.
Sparkins as the clerk than Dickens states, "'We will draw
a veil,’ as novel-writers say, over the scene that ensued"
(NLE, I, ii, 46). This should be, after all, the climactic
scene of the story. We should be allowed to witness
reactions when women who feel guilty about frequenting

a "cheap” shop discover that their "eligible" young man
works there: what price snobbery now? Dickens makes the
same mistake with "Mrs. Joseph Porter" (January, 1834),
where, with the additional flaw of a plot so slight that

it is virtually nonexistent, he prepares the reader for a

81

climactic amateur performance of Othello, certain to be a
comic tour de force, but then fails to describe it at any
length. ”It would be useless and tiresome," he states,
”to quote the number of instances in which Uncle Tom, now
completely in his element, and instigated by the mischievous
Mrs. Porter, corrected the mistakes of the performers. . ."
(NLE, I, ii, 123). As with "Mrs. Joseph Porter," "Sentiment"
(June 7, 1834) is virtually plotless. Cornelius Brook
Dingwall, Esq., M.P. sends his daughter to the "finishing
establishment" of the female Crumptons to rid her of a
sentimental attachment to an unacceptable young man. Unknown
to all, he is the nephew of the Misses Crumpton and, having
thus easily discovered his beloved in their establishment,
promptly elopes with her. Dickens does not even describe
the elopement: instead, he puts in a lengthy closing scene
in which Miss Maria Crumpton hesitantly tells Mr. Dingwall
about it.

Although almost any scene from Pickwick Papers
will do, the Bardell ya. Pidkwick trial clearly illustrates
what, approximately three years later, Dickens would be
capable of doing with plot. He has the obvious advantage
of having earlier in the novel established the characters
of important personages in the trial scene, but the story
can still be looked at as a tale complete in itself.
Through the testimony of the witnesses and the behavior of

all the participants in the trial, a conflict is quickly

82

set up, developed at some length, and finally resolved in
just the way one knew from the beginning was inevitable.
Yet, even as he loses the trial, Mr. Pickwick has his moment
of triumph over Dodson and F099: Mrs. Bardell's attorneys.
However, Dickens gives the story a further (though expected)
twist. It ends with Tony Weller's outwardly absurd but
somehow perceptive lament that, in ironic fashion, sums up
the picture of the English legal system that Dickens

painted in the chapter:

'Do you find for the plaintiff, gentlemen, or
for the defendent?“

”For the plaintiff."

"With what damages, gentlemen?“

”Seven hundred and fifty pounds."

Mr. Pickwick took off his spectacles, carefully
wiped the glasses, folded them into their case, and
put them in his pocket: then having drawn on his
gloves with great nicety, and stared at the foreman
all the while, he mechanically followed Mr. Perker
and the blue bag out of court.

They stopped in a side room while Perker paid
the court fees: and here, Mr. Pickwick was joined by
his friends. Here, too, he encountered Messrs. Dodson
and Fogg, rubbing their hands with every token of
outward satisfaction.

"well, gentlemen," said Mr. Pickwick.

"Well, sir,“ said Dodson: for self and partner.

"You imagine you'll get your costs, don't you,
gentlemen?“ said Mr. Pickwick.

Fogg said they thought it rather probable.

Dodson smiled, and said they'd try.

'Ybu may try, and try, and try again, Messrs.
Dodson and Fogg," said Mr. Pickwick vehemently,

"but not one farthing of costs or damages do you ever
get from me, if I spend the rest of my existence in
a debtors' prison."

"Ha, ha!" laughed Dodson. "You'll think better of
that, before next term, Mr. Pickwick."

“He, he, he! We'll soon see about that, Mr.
Pickwick," grinned Fogg.

Speechless with indignation, Mr. Pickwick allowed
himself to be led by his solicitor and friends to the
door, and there assisted into a hackney coach, which

83

had been fetched for the purpose, by the ever-
watchful Sam Weller.

Sam had put up the steps, and was preparing
to jump upon the box, when he felt himself gently
touched upon the shoulder: and looking round, his
father stood before him. The old gentleman's
countenance wore a mournful expression, as he shook
his head gravely, and said, in warning accents--

“I know'd what 'ud come 0' this here mode 0'
doin' bis'ness. Oh Sammy, Sammy, vy worn't there
a alleybi!‘ (NLE, II, ii, 110-111)

Much of the blame for the inadequacies of his early
plots lies with the similarities these tales bear to the
theatrical farces. As a type, Dickens's tale is a ”sort
of narrative farce,” a "disguised” farce, or even--as one

critic called "Mr. Minns and His Cousin"--a "rattling

farce."18 The early tales, as well as some of the other

tales in the first series of Sketches by Boz, were strongly
reminiscent of the theatrical farce to the contemporary
reviewers, among them George Hogarth, soon to become Dickens's
father-in-law, who wrote in the obviously partisan Morning
Chronicle:

These tales are in general very interesting and
entertaining: and several of them are so ingenious
in their plot, so full of ris comica, and told in
so dramatic a manner, that they want little more
than a division into scenes to become excellent
theatrical pieces. To one of them "The Bloomsbury
Christening,” Mr. Buckstone is indebted for his
very popular piece of "The Christening,“ and the
admirable tales, "The Great Winglebury Duel," “The
Boarding Heuse,“ "Heratio Sparkins,” and the
"Passage in the Life of Mr.‘Watkins Tottle,“ are
equally rich in dramatic materials.

 

 

18Nielsen, p. 244: Percy Fitzgerald, Memories of
Charles Dickens (Bristol: J. W. Arrowsmith, Ltd., 1913),
pp. 337 and 337n.

19Quoted in D[exter], “The Reception of Dickens's
First Book," p. 44.

84

Even Dickens himself was aware of the "dramatic materials"
in his early tales. In the letter published in the Monthly
Magazine, November, 1834, he complained of John Buckstone's
unauthorized dramatic version of "The Bloomsbury Christening"
because, as he states, "I contemplated a dramatic destination
for my off—spring." In a note appended to the letter, the
editor corroborated Dickens's statement with "we know that
he [Boz] had already prepared a farce on the subject."20
Buckstone's version of Dickens's tale is typical of many of
the farcical afterpieces performed at that time and actually
does not bear a very close resemblance to Dickens's story
except in a few speeches, a few characters, and the fact
that it has something to do with a baby's christening.
Buckstone made drastic changes in the plot, which in turn
changed the relationships of the characters to one another
and necessitated the addition of some new characters.

Interestingly enough, Dickens himself reviewed "The
Christening" for the Morning Chronicle: a portion of his
generally favorable review is significant:

A new trifle, in one act, by Mr. Buckstone,

was produced here last night [October 13, 1834],
and met with complete success. It would be hardly

fair to detail the plot of an amusing interlude,
which is principally made up of unlooked-for situations,

 

20Quoted in W[alter] D[exter], "A New Contribution to
'The Menthly Magazine' and an Early Dramatic Criticism in
'The Morning Chronicle," Dickn, XXX (1934), 224. J. B.
Buckstone's ”The Christening“ was published in 1834 and in
"John Jones,:,and “The Christeningf (London: John Dicks, n.d.
[Dicks' Standard Plays, No. 816]). If such a script actually
existed, it is apparently no longer extant.

85

and humorous eguivoques. We will, therefore, only
say that the principal features of the peace [sic]
are the distresses of Grum (Mr. Wilkinson), a surly
misanthrope, who is entrapped into becoming sponsor
for the first child of Mr. Hepkins Twiddle (Mr.
Buckstone), and the confusion arising from certain
mistakes occasioned by a changing of children, and
confounding of people, which frequently takes

place on the stage, and never occur elsewhere.21

 

Dickens certainly seemed to be aware of the unreal, ephemeral
nature of a farce when he referred to Buckstone's effort

as a "trifle” and an “interlude" and stated that the

plot contrivances which fill "The Christening" could happen
only on the stage. Perhaps one can apply these remarks

to "The Bloomsbury Christening" as well, though it is true
that the concluding statement of the paragraph quoted
suggests that Dickens may have thought that his version
came closer to realism than Buckstone's. It does indeed
avoid some of the worst excesses of Buckstone's script.

In addition the review shows that Dickens realized that

the effectiveness of a farce depends upon the manipulation
of the basic plot to produce a series of typical farcical
situations and upon the creation of exaggerated characters,
clever stage business (one can see Buckstone, always the
actor, working such business into his script), and witty
dialogue not urgently related to the plot. In the delight
of the moment, the audience scarcely has time to recognize

the weakness of the plot, or,aB in Dickens's case with

 

21Quoted in Dexter, "A New Contribution, pp. 223-224.
Grum was Dickens's Mr. Dumps and Twiddie was his Kitterbell.

86
Buckstone's play, if it does, it is willing to concede the
unimportance of the plot. Yet, in a printed tale that one
may study at leisure, plot deficiencies that in one way or
another mar the plan of the story soon make themselves known
to the critical reader.

In placing emphasis on the comic scene rather than
concerning himself much about plot motivation and consistency,
Dickens certainly followed in the tradition of the farce.
Even so, he had to write a number of tales before he at all
mastered the more effective techniques of scene development.
As I have already indicated in my study of the differences
between the original and revised versions of the scene in
the coach in "Mr. Minns and His Cousin,“ the early version
is flawed by the general awkwardness of Dickens's presenta-
tion--by the too abrupt jumps in time, the omission of
certain necessary details, the crudity of the humor, and
the inadequately developed characterizations. These faults
and others carry over into the rest of the tales also.

For example, in the following scene from "The Boarding
House,” awkward dialogue and pretentious humor spoil what
might have become a fairly effective comic scene:
"Soup for Mrs. Maplesone, my dear," said the
bustling Mrs. Tibbs. She always called her husband

“my dear" before company. Tibbs, who had been

eating his bread, and calculating how long it

would be before he should get any fish, helped

the soup in a hurry, made a small island on the

table-cloth, and put his glass upon it, to hide

it from his wife.
"Miss Julia, shall I assist you to some fish?"

87

"If you please-—very little--oh! plenty, thank
you” (a bit about the size of a walnut put upon the
plate).

"Julia is a very little eater,” said Mrs. Maplesone
to Mr. Calton.

The knocker gave a single rap. He was busy
eating the fish with his eyes: so he only ejaculated,
"Ah.- II

"My dear,” said Mrs. Tibbs to her spouse after
everyone else had been helped, "what do ygg take?"

The inquiry was accompanied with a look intimating
that he mustn't say fish, because there was not much
left. Tibbs thought the frown referred to the island
on the table—cloth: he therefore cooly replied, "Why--
I'll take a little--fish, I think."

"Did you say fish, my dear?" (another frown).

”Yes, dear," replied the villain, with an expression
of acute hunger depicted in his countenance. The
tears almost started to Mrs. Tibbs's eyes, as she
helped her "wretch of a husband," as she inwardly
called him, to the last eatable bit of salmon on the
dish.

"James, take this to your master, and take away
your master's knife." This was deliberate revenge,
as Tibbs never could eat fish without one. He was,
however, constrained to chase small particles of
salmon around and round his plate with a piece of
bread and a fork, the number of successful attempts
being about one in seventeen. (NEE, I, i, 354)

Completed by an inocuous conversation between Mrs. Tibbs's
ill-informed boarders about modern poets (Byron and Thomas
Moore)22 the entire dinner scene joins with other equally
poorly constructed scenes to form, as Dickens might have

put it at this time, a “ditto ditto" tale. As is the case

with this scene from "The Boarding Heuse, one too often

 

22Here is a sample of the conversation:
"'Ah,‘ said Mr. Calton. filling his glass. 'Tom Moore is
my poet.‘

“'And mine,' said Mrs. Maplesone.

"'And mine,' said Miss Julia.

"'And mine,' added Mr. Simpson.

"Look at his compositions,' resumed the knodker.

”'To be sure,’ said Simpson, with confidence."

(LE-E: 1: in 355)

88

finds that characters carry on conversations (thereby
creating scenes) because Dickens knows that he should not
merely gall the story, that he must, as do his dramatic
models, ghpy his characters in action by creating a series
of scenes in relatively chronological order occupying a
certain amount of space and time, even though there may
be no obvious structural necessity for some of the scenes.
The following scene from Pickwick Papers, in which
Sam Weller tries to discover Mrs. Bardell's plans in regard
to her threatened breach of promise suit, should instantly
point up the flaws of the scene from "The Boarding House":

Sam . . . said at once, that he never could drink
before supper, unless a lady drank with him. A great
deal of laughing ensued, and Mrs. Sanders volunteered
to humor him, so she took a slight sip out of her glass.
Then, Sam said it must go all round, so they all took
a slight sip. Then, little Mrs. Cluppins proposed
as a toast, ”Success to Bardell agin Pickwick": and
then the ladies emptied their glasses in honour of
the sentiment, and got very talkative directly.

"I suppose you've heard what's going forward,

Mr. Weller?" said Mrs. Bardell.

“I've heerd somethin' on it,” replied Sam.

"It's a terrible thing to be dragged before the
public, in that way, Mr. Weller," said Mrs. Bardell:
”but I see now, that it's the only thing I ought to
do, and my lawyers, Mr. Dodson and Mr. F099: tell
me, that with the evidence as we shall call, we
must succeed. I don't know what I should do,

Mr. Weller, if I didn't.“

The mere idea of Mrs. Bardell's failing in her
action, affected Mrs. Sanders so deeply, that she
was under the necessity of re-filling and re-
emptying her glass immediately: feeling, as she said
afterwards, that if she hadn't had the presence of
mind to do so, she must have dropped.

”Ven is it expected to come on?" inquired Sam.

"Either in February or March,“ replied Mrs.
Bardell.

"What a number of witnesses there'll be, won't
there?" said Mrs. Cluppins.

89

"Ah, won't there!" replied Mrs. Sanders.

”And won't Mr. Dodson and F099 be wild if the
plaintiff shouldn't get it?" added Mrs. Cluppins, "when
they do it all on speculation!“

"Ah! won't they!” said Mrs. Sanders.

“But the plaintiff must get it," resumed Mrs.
Cluppins.

"I hope so," said Mrs. Bardell.

"Oh, there can't be any doubt about it," rejoined
Mrs. Sanders.

'Vell," said Sam, rising and setting down his
glass, "all I can say is, that I wish you may get it."

"Thank'ee, Mr. Weller,“ said Mrs. Bardell,
fervently.

"And of them Dodson and Foggs, as does these sort
0 things on spec," continued Mr. Weller, "as well as
for the other kind and gen'rous people 0' the same
purfession, as sets people by the ears, free gratis
for nothin', and sets their clerks to work to find
out little disputes among their neighbours and
acquaintances as vants settlin' by means 0' law-
suits--all I can say 0' them is, that I vish they had
the revard I'd give 'em.”

“Ah, I wish they had the reward that every kind and
generous heart would be inclined to bestow upon them!"
said the gratified Mrs. Bardell.

”Amen to that,“ replied Sam, “and a fat and happy
livin' they'd get out of it! Wish you good night,
ladies. . (E; II: i3 476-477)

Even the last of these farcical tales, "A Passage
in the Life of Mr. Watkins Tottle," contains in one place
or another the faults that marred Dickens's scenes from the
beginning. Yet it, along with some of the other tales, also
contains more than one scene equal to that between Sam
Weller, Mrs. Bardell, and her cronies. Unfortunately,
such effective episodes are all too rare in the early tales.
Hewever, as early as "The Bloomsbury Christening" Dickens
creates a scene--another one in a coach--that compares
favorably even to the revised version of the somewhat

similar scene in "Mr. Minns and His Cousin." In it a

9O

combination of effective characterization, humor, and action
more than compensates for occasional crudities in the style
(see NLE, I, ii, 180-182). The revelation scene in part
two of "The Boarding House" (see NEE, I, ii, 382-392) is
not without merit although it unquestionably imitates many
such scenes in inferior farces. "The Steam Excursion," too,
contains two or three nicely developed scenes in which the
dialogue is relatively effective in forwarding the story or
at least furnishing humor of sufficient quality to make the
scene entertaining in itself. One such scene takes place
in order to get Percy Noakes from shore to The Endeavour,
the excursion boat:

"Boat,sir?“ cried one of the three watermen who
were mopping out their boats, and all whistling. "Boat,
sir?"

"No,“ replied Mr. Percy Noakes, rather sharply:
for the inquiry was not made in a manner at all suit-
able to his dignity.

"Would you prefer a wessel, sir?" inquired another,
to the infinite delight of the ”Jack-in-the water."

Mr. Percy Noakes replied with a look of supreme
contempt.

"Did you want to be put on board a steamer, sir?"
inquired an old fireman-Waterman, very confidentially.
He was dressed in a faded red suit, just the colour
of the cover of a very old Court-guide.

"Yes, make haste--the Endeavour--off the Custom
House."

"Endeavour!" cried the man who had convulsed the
"Jack" before. “Vy, I see the Endeavour go up half
an hour ago."

“So did I,” said another: ”and I should think she'd
gone down by this time, for she's a precious sight
too full of ladies and gen'lemen."

Mr. Percy Noakes affected to disregard these
representations, and stepped into the boat, which
the old man, by dint of scrambling, and shoving,
and grating, had brought up to the causeway. "Shove
her off!” cried Mr. Percy Noakes, and away the boat
glided down the river: Mr. Percy Noakes seated on the

91

recently mopped seat, and the watermen at the stairs
offering to bet him any reasonable sum that he'd
never reach the I'Custom-us."23
Most successful, however, and most reminiscent of
the later Dickens is the excellently done scene in part two

of "A Passage in the Life of Mr. Watkins Tottle' that takes

place in the "social room" of the sponging house to which

 

23NLE, I, ii, 73. John Poole's "Preparations for
Pleasure: or, A Pic-nic,” in his Sketches and Recollections,
Vol. I (London: Published for Henry Colburn by Richard
Bentley, 1835), which Dickens must have read in its first
appearance in the New Mbnthlpragazine (October, 1829),
apparently served Dickens as a specific model for "The Steam
Excursion," though his purpose was no doubt to write a
superior imitation than to indulge in plagiarism. While
both tales contain a number of virtually identical scenes,
the basic plots, the characters, the specific details, and
the styles differ considerably. A comparison of the scene
in Poole's story parallel to the one from Dickens's quoted
above will show not only the obvious connection between the
two tales but the frequent superiority of Dickens's over
Poole's: "Mr. Bagshaw, who had been appointed to hire a
boat, and make the most economical arrangements he could
about the fare, went down to Westminster Bridge. He was
instantly surrounded by a dozen of the gentlemen who
habitually congregate at that place.

"'Boat, your honour--all ready, your honour.'

'Mr. Bagshaw explained.

“He came 'to engage a boat, barge or other aquatic
vehicle, of sufficient capacity to convey a party of fourteen
to Twickenham and back:--what would be the remuneration re-
quired?‘

"A stout, impudent, half-drunken, fellow thrust himself
forward, shouting, 'I'm your man for five guineas.‘

"Mr. Bagshaw's only reply to this was, 'You are an
extortionate scoundrel.'

”Hereupon, the 'jolly young waterman' struck Mr. Bagshaw
a violent blow on the right eye. Mr. Bagshaw proceeded
to the nearest police-office, and stated his complaint: in
consequence of which a warrant was issued to bring up the
offender on the following morning.” (Sketches and Recol-
lections, I, 283-284).

Mr. Budden of "Mr. Minns and His Cousin" was named
Octavius Bagshaw in the original version. Another character
in Poole's tale, Mr. Frederick Snodgrass, also loaned
Dickens his name.

92

Mr. Tottle's debts have brought him. Mr. Gabriel Parsons
has come, somewhat unwillingly, to furnish the money for
Mr. Tottle's release in order that their greater purpose,
trapping Miss Lillerton (and her money) into marrying Tottle,
may be accomplished. While he is not part of the scene, it
is viewed largely-through Mr. Parson's eyes. The scene
has apparently no function in forwarding the story, for_
Mr. Parsons is merely waiting for Mr. Tottle to come down,
butit may have some value as background against which one is
to see the pathetic figure Tottle will cut later in the
story. Because the conversation and action occur between
minor characters who appear only in this scene, Dickens was
forced to make quick and clear distinctions between the
characters. Speech, mannerisms, gestures, descriptions,
and actions combine to create individual characters who in
turn create the finest scene in these early farcical
tales. A portion follows:

In one of the boxes two men were playing at cribbage

with a very dirty pack of cards, some with blue, some

with green, and some with red backs--selections from

decayed packs. The cribbage-board had been long ago

formed on the table by some ingenious visitor with

the assistance of a pocket-knife and a two-pronged

fork, with which the necessary number of holes had

been made in the table at proper distances for the

reception of the wooden pegs. In another box a

stout, hearty-looking man, of about forty, was eating

some dinner which his wife--an equally comfortable-

looking personage--had brought him in a basket: and

in a third, a genteel-looking young man was talking

earnestly, and in a low tone, to a young female,

whose face was concealed by a thick veil, but whom

Mr. Gabriel Parsons immediately set down in his own

mind as the debtor's wife. A young fellow of vulgar
manners dressed in the very extreme of the prevailing

93

fashion, was pacing up and down the room, with a
lighted cigar in his mouth and his hands in his
pockets, ever and anon puffing forth volumes of
smoke, and occasionally applying, with much apparent.
relish, to a pint pot, the contents of which were
"chilling“ on the hob. .

"Fourpence more, by gum!" exclaimed one of the
cribbage-players, lighting a pipe, and addressing
his adversary at the close of the game: "one 'ud
think you'd got luck in a pepper-cruet, and shook
it out when you wanted it."

"Well, that a'n't a bad 'un," replied the other,
who was a horse-dealer from Islington.

"No: I'm blessed if it is,“ interposed the jolly-
looking fellow, who, having finished his dinner, was
drinking out of the same glass as his wife, in truly
conjugal harmony, some hot gin-and—water. The faith-
ful partner of his cares had brought a plentiful
supply of the anti-temperance fluid in a large flat
stone bottle, which looked like a half-gallon jar
that had been successfully tapped for the dropsy.
You're a rum chap, you are, Mr. Walker--will you
dip your beak into this, sir?"

"Thank 'ee, sir," replied Mr. Walker, leaving
his box, and advancing to the other to accept the
proffered glass. "Here's your health, sir, and
your good 'ooman's here. Gentlemen a11-—yours, and
better luck still. Well, Mr. Willis," continued the
facetious prisoner, addressing the young man with the
cigar, "you seem to rather down to-day--floored, as
one may say. What's the matter, sir? Never say die,
you know.

"Oh! I'm all right," replied the smoker. “I
shall be bailed out to-morrow.“

"Shall you, though?" inquired the other. ”Damme,
I wish I could say the same. I am as regularly over
head-and-ears as the Royal George, and stand about as
much chance of being bailed out. Hat ha! ha!"

”Why," said the young man, stopping short, and
speaking in a very loud key, "look at me. What d'ye
think I've stopped here two days for?"

"'Cause you couldn't get out, I suppose,’ inter-
rupted Mr. Walker, winking to the company. "Not
that you're exactly obliged to stop here, only you
can't help it. No compulsion, you know, only you
must--eh?“

"A'n't he a rum un?" inquired the delighted indi-
vidual, who had offered the gin-and-water, of his wife.

"Oh, he just is!" replied the lady, who was quite
overcome by these flashes of imagination.

(_N_I,§, I, ii, 148-149)

94

One finds in this scene (of which the portion quoted com-
prises approximately one-fourth) what F. J. H. Darton, while
briefly alluding to the "half-mechanical" nature of Dickens's
early tales, calls their chief virtue, a "freshness and an
insatiable gusto which Dickens only lost when he was physi-
cally worn out."24 One can certainly point to several
such bright spots in some of these early tales, though
not with the frequency Darton seems to indicate, spots where
Dickens's developing ability strikes a few sparks before
dying out, but he must also modify any enthusiasm these
flashes of genius may evoke with a remembrance of long, dull
stretches of awkward, irrelevant dialogue: extraneous and
too obvious witticisms: and the descriptions of flat, fatuous
characters that dominate these tales.

The characterizations in the lengthy scene quoted
from "A Passage in the Life of Mr. Watkins Tottle" are,
considering the age and limited experience of the author,
admirably done. Unfortunately, although the level of ability
shows what Dickens was capable of by the end of 1834, he
hit such peaks of achievement in characterization only
rarely during this early period. The fault lies partly
in the nature of the short tale, which has to contain a
great amount of narrated action in order to get itself

told: as a result, the characters are more likely to be

 

24Darton, Dickens, Positively the First Appearance,

p. 125.

95

easily recognizable types than strong, original creations.
Yet the fault also lies in Dickens's apparent inability to
compensate in one way or another for just such a deficiency
in the form with which he was working. To speak in terms

of the influence of the one-act farce on these early tales,
one might say that Dickens imitates the script but not the
performance. Most of the farces of the period, Allardyce
Nicoll states, “were written for low-comedy actors who

could 'put across' almost anything, and consequently there

is generally evident aucarelessnesson the part of the authors

both as regards plot and form."25

These playwrights were
also lax in regard to characterization, relying upon the
actors to furnish many of the details of speech, appearance,
mannerism, and stage movement for them. The actors them-
selves were not slow to accept such flattering challenges
to their abilities. After examining scripts by such turn-
of-the-century writers of farces as Frederidk Reynolds and
Charles Dibdin, Leigh Hunt discovered not what truly comic
writers they were but “what excellent actors we possessed.
The phrases, the sentiments, the fancies will appear very
monotonous and inefficient when separated from the grins of

[Joseph] Munden and the chatterings of [John] Fawcett. . . ."26

 

25Allardyce Nicoll, A History of the English Drama,
1660-1900. Vol. IV. EarlypNineteenth Century Drama, 1800-
1850, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1955),
p. 133.

26Quoted in Ernest Bradlee Watson's Sheridan to
Robertson: A Study of the Nineteenth-Century London Stage
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1926), p. 315.

96

In another article, to illustrate the "great power" Munden
had of "filling up the paltriest sketches," Hunt describes
Munden's actions in connection with a single line in a scene
from Thomas Knight's The Turnpike Gate, a musical farce
first performed at Covent Garden, November 14, 1799:

[He] comes in and hovers about a pot of ale which

he sees standing on a table, looking about him with

a ludicrous caution as he makes his advances, half-

afraid and half-simpering when he has got near it,

and then after circumventing it with his eyes and

feelings over and over again, with some more cautious

lookings about, heaving a sudden look into it in the

most ludicrous manner imaginable and exclaiming, in an

under voice of affected indifference and real chuckling,

"Some gentleman has left his ale."27

It is precisely the comic mannerisms, gestures, and

actions used by Munden to give body to the role described
above that the characters in Dickens's early tales do not
have. They lack the life, even the artificial life of
good comic caricature, that the actors could give to the
frequently stiff, typed characters the playwright had
"created.” Dickens's early stories abound with characters
so flat that they scarcely come within the scope of E. M.

28

Forster's definition of "flat" characters. The tales

 

27Leigh Hunt's Dramatic Criticism, 1808-1831, ed.
Lawrence Huston Houtchens and Carolyn Washburn Houtchens (New
York: Columbia University Press, 1949), pp. 101-102 (origin-
ally an essay on comic actors published in the Examiner,
January 29, 1815). If Dickens's early tales lacked such
"characterizing" action, his later Sketches did not (see
chapter three), nor did Pickwick Papers, as this description
of Mr. Pickwick on the ice slide at Dingley Dell illustrates:
"Mr. Pickwick paused, considered, pulled off his gloves
and put them in his hat: took two or three short runs,
baulked himself as often, and at last took another run, and
went slowly and gravely down the slide, with his feet about
a yard and a quarter apart, amidst the gratified shouts of
all the spectators." (NLE, II, ii, 11)

28E. M. Forster, Aspects of the Novel (New Yerk:
Harcourt Brace & Company, 1927), pp. 103—111.

97

contain, for example, a superfluity of bachelors: old

(Mr. Tottle, of course, Mr. Calton and Mr. Gobler from

"The Boarding HOuse,” Mr. Minns, and Mr. Dumps of "The
Bloomsbury Christening"), young (Horatio Sparkins, Percy
Noakes and his friends from "The Steam Excursion," and Mr.
Septimus Hicks and others in "The Boarding House“), romantic
(Sparkins, and Theodosius Butler of "Sentiment"), and mis-
anthropic (Minns and Dumps). These and others can also be
fit into a number of the categories covered by Dickens in
his Sketches of Younngentlemen (1838): the Out-and-Out
Young Gentleman, the Very Friendly Ybung Gentleman, the
Funny Young Gentleman, the Theatrical Young Gentleman, the
Poetical Young Gentleman, and the Young Ladies' Young
Gentleman. Dickens's young ladies are generally silly and
romantic, and painted in the best tradition of the sentimental
novels they seem to dote upon (see particularly the Maldertons
of "Horatio Sparkins,“ the Maplesones of ”The Boarding
House,“ the young ladies of Minerva House and particularly
Miss Brock Dingwall of "Sentiment," and the Briggses and
Tauntons of “The Steam Excursion"). Couples, young and

old, usually follow the patterns of those in Dickens's
Sketches of YoungCouples (1840). Families tend strongly
toward social climbing (the Maldertons of "Horatio Sparkins"
are particularly notorious for this), but they are generally
limited by the inadequacies of the family members, the
mothers being tediously restricted to backbiting and gossip,

the brothers to stupid remarks, the daughters to romantic

98

insipidities, the fathers to thoughts of their clubs and of

stolid, Sanctity-of-the-Home security, and the relatives to

embarrassing eccentricities (in addition to the Maldertons,

one might include the Porters and Gattletons of "Mrs.

Joseph Porter" and the Briggses and Tauntons of "The Steam

Excursion"). Sarcastic cabmen, servants, naughty children,

and foolish old men and women virtually complete the gallery

of Dickens's early characters. As F. J. H. Darton has

stated, the characters who inhabit Dickens's early tales

are the stock figures of the minor fiction and drama of the

period, which were in turn drawn from the essays, dramas,

and novels of the eighteenth century but tarnished from

long usage by inferior authors and "seasoned with the

crude humour which thinks any social difference laughable."

Dickens, he states, "laughed immoderately' at such stock

characters, "but he used them without the least hesitation,

believing, it seems likely, that his earnest humanity, if

it were only tense and pitiful enough, turned their theatrical

rant and posturing into the talk and deeds of ordinary human

beings in an exalted state of emotion. It was a delusion

shared by many of his readers during his lifetime."29
The fact that most of Dickens's characters in these

tales can be so glibly dismissed reveals, I believe, the

 

29Darton, Dickens, Positively the First Appearance,
pp. 71-72. Darton is obviously also referring to the melo-
dramatic creations which do not appear in these early farces.
Certainly his remarks apply to the farcical tales as well.

99

shallow concept of characterization underlying them. It is
no wonder Dickens also had trouble with his plots: such
characters can only engage in limited and predetermined
actions, carry on stilted conversations, and have superficial
thoughts. An author can scarcely make a good story from
such matter or indulge in any but the most obvious and super-
ficial social satire or literary parody. For example, in
"The Steam Excursion,” actually one of the better of these
early tales, the jealous rivalry between the Mrs. and the
two Misses Taunton on one side and the Mrs. and the three
Misses Briggs on the other is seriously handicapped not
only by the similarity of the one group of females to the
other (the main difference: the Taunton girls are a duet
of singers, the Briggses a trio of guitarists) but by their
lack of originality in carrying on the rivalry. Because
the competition, led by the ambitious mothers, dominates
the entire story, it accordingly weakens the movement (I
hesitate to call it "plot") of the story and directs the
social satire at female jealousies more than anything else.
One segment of the duel will, I believe, serve as an adequate
illustration of the story's occasional dullness. Miss
Emily Taunton has just been asked to sing a duet with
Captain Helves, the social lion of the excursion:
“Shall I accompany you, dear?" inquired one of
the Miss Briggses, with the bland intention of
spoiling the effect.
“Very much obliged to you, Miss Briggs,"
sharply retorted Mrs. Taunton, who saw through the

manoeuvre: "my daughters always sing without
accompaniments.“

100

"And without voices," tittered Mrs. Briggs, in
a low tone.

"Perhaps,“ said Mrs. Taunton, reddening, for
she guessed the tenor of the observation, though she
had not heard it c1ear1y--"Perhaps it would be as
well for some people, if their voices were not
quite so audible as they are to other people."

"And, perhaps, if gentlemen who are kidnapped
to pay attention to some persons' daughters, had
not sufficient discernment to pay attention to
other persons' daughters," returned Mrs. Briggs,
“some persons would not be ready to display that
ill-temper which, thank God, distinguishes them
from other persons."

"Persons!” ejaculated Mrs. Taunton.

"Persons," replied Mrs. Briggs.

“Insolence!"

"Creature!"
"Hush: hush!" interrupted Mr. Percy Noakes, who
was one of the very few by whom this dialogue had been

overheard. 'Hush!--pray, silence for the duet."

(yap, I, ii, 79-80)

By way of contrast, the following altercation be-
tween Mr. Pickwick and Mr. Tupman, relative to an invitation
to a costume ball, strikingly reveals how subtleties of
characterization transpose a type of scene similar to that
above from 'The Steam Excursion“ into one reflecting the
great comic inventiveness of Dickens:

"I shall go as a Bandit,“ interposed Mr. Tupman.

"What!” said Mr. Pickwick, with a sudden start.

“As a bandit,“ repeated Mr. Tupman, mildly.

”You don't mean to say," said Mr. Pickwick,
gazing with solemn sterness at his friend, “you
don't mean to say, Mr. Tupman, that it is your intention
to put yourself into a green velvet jacket, with a
two-inch tail?"

"Such ig my intention, sir," replied Mr. Tupman,
warmly. "And why not, sir?”

"Because, sir,“ said Mr. Pickwick, considerably
excited--"because you are too old, sir.“

"Too old!“ exclaimed Mr. Tupman.

"And if any further ground of objection be wanting,"
continued Mr. Pickwick, "you are too fat, sir."

"Sir," said Mr. Tupman, his face suffused with a
crimson glow. "This is an insult.”

101

"Sir,“ replied Mr. Pickwick in the same tone,

"it is not half the insult to you, that your appearance
in my presence in a green velvet jacket, with a two-
inch tail, would be to me.”

"Sir,“ said Mr. Tupman, "you're a fellow.“

"Sir," said Mr. Pickwick, "you're another."

Mr. Tupman advanced a step or two, and glared
at Mr. Pickwick. Mr. Pickwick returned the glare,
concentrated into a focus by means of his spectacles,
and breathed a bold defiance. Mr. Snodgrass and Mr.
Winkle looked on, petrified at beholding such a scene
between two such men.

”Sir,” said Mr. Tupman, after a short pause,
speaking in a low, deep voice, "you have called me
old.”

"I have," said Mr. Pickwick.

"And fat."

”I reiterate the charge.”

”And a fellow.“

”So you are!"

There was a fearful pause.

“My attachment to your person, sir," said Mr.
Tupman, speaking in a voice tremulous with emotion,
and tucking up his wristbands meanwhile, 9is great--
very great--but upon that person, I must take summary
vengeance.“

“Come on, sir,” replied Mr. Pickwick. Stimulated
by the exciting nature of the dialogue, the heroic
man actually threw himself into a paralytic attitude,
confidently supposed by the two by-standers to have
been intended as a posture of defence.

(M; II; 1. 259-261)

Besides dealing too solely with general, common-
place types, Dickens also fails with his early characters
because the devices of characterization that he uses, while
basic and necessary, are, when not used in connection with
other, subtler techniques, crude to the point of obviousness.
The reader, that is, is more aware of the device than of
the character, which in turn makes him all too aware of the
frequently stiff, limited, and unbelievable character. For

one thing, Dickens too often tells about his characters

102

rather than reveals or presents them through physical
descriptions, speech, mannerisms, and actions. Or, if

he does to some extent present his characters, he often
first explains them to his readers. This summarized character-
ization may be an aid to the swift movement needed in a
short tale, but when it is not effectively done, the story
falters. As a novice writer, Dickens quite naturally had
his share of failures. For example, in "Horatio Sparkins,"
a page before Mr. Jacob Barton, the Malderton's undesirable
relative, appears, Dickens has Mr. Malderton say of his
wife's "vulgar brother," that insufferable "tradesman":

"I wouldn't care if he had the good sense to conceal the
disgrace he is to the family: but he's so fond of his
horrible business, that he will let people know what he is."
Then, in case the reader is not willing to accept Mr.
Malderton's estimation of his brother-in—law, Dickens, the
omniscient author, immediately adds: ”Mr. Jacob Barton,

the individual alluded to, was a large grocer: so vulgar,
and so lost to all sense of feeling, that he actually

never scrupled to avow that he wasn't above his business:
'he'd made his money by it, and he didn't care who know'd
it'" (NLE, I, ii, 36). Although there is undoubtedly some
criticism of Malderton's snobbery implied in Dickens's
evaluation of Barton, the grocer also comes in for his share
of satire, for, when he does arrive at the dinner party,

virtually every speech he makes contains at least one

103

reference to his having made his money in business “and he
didn't care who know'd it." Also, as with Mr. Barton,
Dickens sometimes uses speech peculiarities or dialects

to distinguish certain characters (Mr. Budden of “Mr.

Minns and His Cousin,“ the cab driver in "The Bloomsbury
Christening," and ”Edward M'Neville Walter," the assumed
name of the romantic, linguistically flowery Mr. Theodosius
Butler of "Sentiment.). Many of his characters, major as
well as minor, are really so inadequately developed--not‘
even, in a number of instances, distinguished from other
characters in any way--that Dickens finds it necessary to
include elaborate ”stage directions" in the form of passages
descriptive of actions that should be conveyed by the speeches
themselves or made a part of the characterizations by other,
less directly summarized descriptions. The following

passage, also from Horatio Sparkins, shows Dickens in the

passages I have italicized continuously having to stress
the behavior and the reactions of his characters by means
of direct statement:

The first object that met the anxious eyes of the
expectant family on their entrance into the ball-room,
was the interesting Horatio, with his hair brushed
off his forehead, and his eyes fixed on the ceiling,
reclining in a contemplative attitude on one of the
seats.

“There he is, my dear," whispered Mrs. Malderton
to Mr. Malderton.

"How like Lord Byron!" murmured Miss Teresa.

”Or Montgomery!" whispered Miss Marianne.

"Or the portraits of Captain Cook!“ suggested
Tom.

 

104

"Tom--don't be an ass!“ said his father, whg
checked him on all occasions,flprobably with a view
to prevent him becoming "sharp"--which was very
unnecessary.

The elegant Sparkins attitudinised withiagmirable
effect until the family had crossed the room. He
then started up, with the most natural appearance of
supprise and delight: accosted Mrs. Malderton with
the utmost cordiality: saluted the young ladies in
the most enchanting manner: bowed to, and shook hands
with, Mr. Malderton, with a degree of respect
amounting almost to veneration: and returned the
greetings of the two young men in a half-gratified,
half—patronising_manner, which fully convinced them
that he must be an important, apd at the same time,
condescending personage. (gag, I, ii, 31-32)

 

 

 

Although all authors occasionally use such simple
short-cuts to characterization, Dickens's reliance upon
them gradually lessens until, by the time he is about one-

third into Pickwick Papers, he virtually stops using them.

 

The following scene between Sam Weller and Job Trotter,

Mr. Jingle's servant, illustrates some of the subtler,
cleverer substitutes that Dickens had discovered by late
1836 for the blunt crudity of the techniques of characteri-
zation found in the above example--straight-forward
descriptions of actions, suggestions of what certain
actions mean (for humor rather than clarification), and
characters' interpretations of each other's actions:

"And what sort of a place have you got?" inquired
Sam, as he filled his companion's glass for the
second time.

"Bad,” said Job, smacking his lips, "very bad.“

”Yen don't mean that?" said Sam.

"I do, indeed. Worse than that, my master's going
to be married."

"NO. ll

“Yes: and worse than that, too, he's going to run
away with an immense rich heiress, from boarding-
school."

105

"What a dragon!“ said Sam, refilling his companion's
glass. "It's some boarding-school in this town, I
suppose, an't it?”

Now, although this question was put in the most
careless tone imaginable, Mr. Job Trotter plainly
showed by gestures, that he perceived his new friend's
anxiety to draw forth an answer to it. He emptied
his glass, looked mysteriously at his companion,
winked both of his small eyes, one after the other,
and finally made a motion with his arm, as if he were
working an imaginary pump-handle: thereby intimating
that he (Mr. Trotter) considered himself as under-
going the process of being pumped, by Mr. Samuel Weller.

"No, no,“ said Mr. Trotter, in conclusion, "that's
not to be told to everybody. That is a secret--a
great secret, Mr. Walker [Sam's temporarily assumed
name].“

As the mulberry man said this, he turned his glass
upside down, as a means of reminding his companion that
he had nothing left wherewith to slake his thirst.

Sam observed the hint: and feeling the delicate manner
in which it was conveyed, ordered the pewter vessel

to be refilled, whereat the small eyes of the mulberry
man glistened.

”And so it's a secret?" said Sam.

"I should rather suspect it was,” said the mulberry
man, sipping his liquor, with a complacent face.

“I suppose your mas'r's wery rich?" said Sam.

Mr. Trotter smiled, and holding his glass in his
left hand, gave four distinct slaps on the pocket of
his mulberry indescribables with his right, as
if to intimate that his master might have done the
same without alarming anybody much, by the chinking
of coins.

"Ah,“ said Sam, "that's his game, is it?”

The mulberry man nodded significantly.

"Well, and don't you think, old feller,’ remonstrated
Mr. Weller, "that if you let your master take in this
here young lady, you're a precious rascal?"

“I know that,” said Job Trotter, turning upon his
companion a countenance of deep contrition, and
groaning slightly. “I know that, and that's what it
is that preys upon my mind. But what am I to do?“

(M; II: i3 281-283)

Such a passage as this clearly reveals the richness
of the characterizations (as well as of the humor, style,
and scene development) that Dickens was able to achieve by

the time he wrote Pickwick Papers. The characters that he

106

created for his early farcical tales, however, are general
types that need to be constantly surrounded by stage
directions or defined by other rather crude (though basic)
devices of characterization. A few characters, however,
whether the result of accident or of conscious, if hesitant,
artistic experimentation, stand out as exceptions to the
general practice and forecast some of the virtues of the
later Dickens. Mr. Nicodemus Dumps, for example, of

"The Bloomsbury Christening,” is a noticeable improvement
over Mr. Minns of "Mr. Minns and His Cousin" (though inferior,
certainly, to Mr. Pickwick or his fellow Pickwickians).

Not only does Dickens give a fuller opening description of
Dumps than of Minns and, as a result, a more specific
characterization, he is also more consistent in his use of
this initially established character to set the plot of

Mr. Dumps's revenge on the Kitterbells in motion and

to enliven the humor of at least one minor scene in the
story, Dumps's omnibus ride to his nephew's. The reader
was earlier prepared in the opening paragraph of the story:
there Dickens told him that Dumps was ill-natured, surly,
wretched, that he disliked everything in general but
particularly children, cabs, old women, banging doors,
musical amateurs, and omnibus cads, all of whom Dumps will
encounter in the course of the tale, some in the scene
quoted below. Having decided because of the rain to

take the omnibus to the Kitterbell's, Dumps finds himself

107

unceremoniously thrust by the cad into the midst of a
crowded omnibus:

”For Heaven's sake, where am I to sit?" inquired
the miserable man of ancfld gentleman, into whose
stomach he had just fallen for the fourth time.

”Anywhere but on my chest, sir," replied the
old gentleman in a surly tone.

"Perhaps the Egg would suit the gentleman better,"
suggested a very damp young lawyer's clerk, in a
pink shirt, and a smirking countenance.

After a good deal of struggling and falling about,
Dumps at last managed to squeeze himself into a seat,
which, in addition to the slight disadvantage of being
between a window that would not shut, and a door that
must be open, placed him in close contact with a
passenger, who had been walking about all the morning
without an umbrella, and who looked as if he had
spent the day in a full water-butt—-only wetter.

“Don't bang the door so,“ said Dumps to the
conductor, as he shut it after letting out four of the
passengers: "I am very nervous--it destroys me."

”Did any gen'lm'n say anythink?" replied the cad,
thrusting in his head, and trying to lock as if he
didn't understand the request.

"I told you not to bang the door so!" repeated
Dumps, with an expression of countenance like the
knave of clubs, in convulsions.

"Oh! vy, it's rather a sing'ler circumstance about
this here door, sir, that it von't shut without
banging,“ replied the conductor: and he opened the
door very wide, and shut it again with a terrific bang,
in proof of the assertion.

"I beg your pardon, sir,” said a little prim,
wheezing old gentleman, sitting opposite Dumps, "I
beg your pardon: but have you ever observed, when
you have been in an omnibus on a wet day, that four
people out of five always come in with large cotton
umbrellas, without a handle at the top, or the brass
spike at the bottom?" ’

"Why, sir," returned Dumps, as he heard the clock
strike twelve, "it never struck me before: but now
you mention it, I -- Hollo! hollo!" shouted the
persecuted individual, as the omnibus dashed past
Drury Lane, where he had directed to be set down--
”Where is the cad?”

“I think he's on the box, sir," said the young
gentleman before noticed in the pink shirt, which
locked like a white one ruled with red ink.

 

108

"I want to be set down!" said Dumps, in a faint
voice, overcome by his previous efforts.

"I think these cads want to be set down," returned
the attorney's clerk, chuckling at his sally.

”Hello!" cried Dumps again.

"Hello!“ echoed the passengers. The omnibus passed
Saint Giles's Church. .

"Hold hard!" said the conductor: “I'm blowed if
we ha'n't forgot the gen'lm'n as vas to be set down
at Doory Lane. --Now, sir, make haste, if you please,"
he added, opening the door, and assisting Dumps out
with as much coolness as if it was "all right."
Dumps's indignation was for once getting the better

 

of his cynical equanimity. "Drury Lane!" he gasped,
with the voice of a boy in a cold bath for the first
time.

"Doory Lane, sir? --yes, sir--third turning on the
righthand side, sir."

Dumps's passion was paramount: he clutched his
umbrella, and was striding off with the firm determi-
nation of not paying the fare. The cad, by a remarkable
coincidence, happened to entertain a directly contrary
opinion, and Heaven knows how far the altercation would
have proceeded, if it had not been most ably and satis-
factorily brought to a close by the driver.

”Hollo!" said that respectable person, standing up
on the box, and leaning with one hand on the roof of
the omnibus. "Hollo, Tom! tell the gentleman if so
be as he feels aggrieved, we will take him up to the
Edge-er (Edgeware) Road for nothing, and set him down
at Doory Lane when we comes back. He can't reject
that, anyhow."

The argument was irresistible: Dumps paid the
disputed sixpense, and in a quarter of an hour was on
the staircase of No. 14, Great Russell Street.

(_N_Lp, I, ii, 180-182)

In this scene one sees Dumps, as a result of being treated
as miserably as he generally treats others, degenerating
from arrogance to ineptitude and then from anger to complete
submission at the hands of the cad. Even as the reader
rejoices in Dumps's come-uppance, he feels, perhaps, a
slight touch of pity for a man whose misfortunes are

clearly produced by his own miserable personality. Dickens

does not, unfortunately, follow through in the rest of the

109

tale with this ambiguous characterization of Dumps, one
that, for a few moments in this scene, tends toward roundness
of character.30

But just as interesting as Dumps are the other
characters in this short scene. Here we see Dickens, as
early as "The Bloomsbury Christening,“ doing a more than
adequate job with the truly minor characters in his tale,
those who appear only for a brief moment. The technique
is simple--a descriptive touch, a suggestion of dialect,
a mannerism, a gesture, an action, achieved in one swift
31

stroke, sometimes in as short a space as a sentence.

The lawyer's clerk, for example, is depicted through a few

 

0Despite his moment of slight roundness, Dumps is
ultimately little advanced in characterization beyond
Minns, his earlier prototype. Mr. Watkins Tottle, who also
belongs to this group of aging bachelors, is the product of
certain advances in technique: he exhibits, for example, a
greater variety of emotion than his predecessors, he has
more to say than they do, and the humor of his situation
is more effectively handled. But, then, he is in love, a
subject more susceptible to humorous variety than mis-
anthropism. Besides, any roundness of character with
which he is endowed is largely the result of an inconsistency
of purpose on Dickens's part, as I shall explain later in
this chapter. Tottle, along with Gabriel Parsons and Miss
Lillerton, his fellow "performers,” is, after all, a stock
comedy character, and most of the incidents in his two-
part story are stock farcical episodes.

31From a later scene in "The Bloomsbury Christening,"
one recalls the nurse carrying the infant Kitterbell who,
at hearing Dumps's description of the baby as like "one
of those little carved representations that one sometimes
sees blowing a trumpet on a tombstone!" "stooped down over
the child, and with great difficulty prevented an explosion
of mirth,“ while the proud parents become terribly upset
by Dumps's remark (NLE, I, ii, 185: the italics are mine).
The nurse obviously understands Dumps and the Kitterbells.

110

descriptive words: he is damp, is wearing a pink shirt,
and seems to be constantly smirking. When he speaks, he
makes atrocious puns. There is practically nothing here
from which to create a character, but the clerk somehow
assumes a certain shape and a definite personality. The
sketchy description in combination with the comic tone in
which he delivers and reacts to his own puns, blithely
oblivious to Dumps's apparent discomfort, produce a young
man bursting with self-satisfaction and igia a; yiygg.

The omnibus driver appears in one short paragraph, but his
speech, apparently an accurate reproduction, and the brief
description of his nonchalant stance on the box that belies,
at the same time that it reinforces, the determination of
his remarks reveal more than one would expect. The cad,

a major character within the scene, is obviously a trouble-
maker. Dickens does not need to explain this fact, and
doesn't, for he reveals it through the Cockney's actions
(reinforced by the comic dialect): slamming the door after
he knows it bothers Dumps and deliberately allowing the
omnibus to dash past Dumps's stop. After each incident he
appears all innocence, and all arrogance. Such minor characters
as these will fill the pages of Dickens's later writings,
either in considerably enlarged forms or as minute but
essential pieces of the backdrop against which other, more
important characters will perform. It is important to note

that they are already making their appearances in these

111

early tales.32

I have so far indicated where Dickens did and did
not show improvement in his handling of plot, scene
development, and characterization in these early tales.

The later Dickens is also often memorable for the settings
of his novels, for the artistry with which they are
described, and the significance with which they are inbued.
One recalls not only the memorable slums of Oliver Twist
and other novels, the street settings for the Gordon Riots
in Barnaby Rudge, the storm and sea in David Copperfield,

Krook's shop and the oppressive fog of Bleak House, but

 

earlier the idyllic country ”sets," the inns and law offices,

and the interior of the Fleet in Pickwick Papers. Thus,

 

one is surprised to find so little description of this kind
in the Monthly Magazine tales. Yet what there is does show
Dickens's slowly developing concern for colorfully detailed
settings and his increasing need to give such "incidental"
settings at least some minor significance. The opening
description of the preparations for the amateur performance

of Othello in "Mrs. Joseph Porter" is at its most descriptive

 

32Others that should be mentioned are the members
of the amateur orchestra in ”Mrs. Joseph Porter," particu-
larly the deaf flute player who loses the race through the
overture (NLE, I, ii, 120-121): the guests and musicians
("the harp, in a state of intoxication," for example. ggag
I, i, 414-415): various minor members of the excursion party
in "The Steam Excursion” (gag, I, ii, 78, 81—82, 83-85,
87-89): and in particular the inhabitants of the sponging
house social room, already referred to, in "A Passage in the
Life of Mr. Watkins Tottle" (NLE, I, ii, 147-154).

112

in rather generally referring to "a strange jumble of flats,
flies, wings, lamps, bridges, clouds, thunder and lightning,
festoons and flowers, daggers and foil, and various other
messes in theatrical slang included under the comprehensive
name of 'properties'" (NLE, I, ii, 113). But later

descriptions of setting, such as the following passage from

"The Bloomsbury Christening,‘ are somewhat more detailed

than this and perhaps somewhat more suggestive of Dickens's
later work:

Everything indicated that preparations were
making for the reception of "a few friends" in the
evening. Two dozen extra tumblers, and four ditto
wineglasses--looking anything but transparent, with
little bits of straw in them--were on the slab in the
passage, just arrived. There was a great smell of
nutmeg, port wine, and almonds, on the staircase: the
covers were taken off the stair-carpet, and the figure
of Venus on the first landing locked as if she were
ashamed of the composition-candle in her right hand,
which contrasted beautifully with the lamp-blacked
drapery of the goddess of love. The female servant
(who looked very warm and bustling) ushered Dumps into
a front drawing-room, very prettily furnished, with
a plentiful sprinkling of little baskets, paper table-
mats, china watchmen, pink and gold albums, and
rainbow-bound little boOks on the different tables.

(app, I, ii, 182-183)

In addition to creating a specific setting for the scene

to follow, the details also serve briefly to characterize
the social status of the Kitterbells and to imply the nar-
rator's somewhat satiric view of the furnishings and, by
association, of the Kitterbells. In similar fashion, one
gets a brief but promising glimpse of the Misses Crumpton's

school, Minerva House, in ”Sentiment”:

113

The house was a white one, a little removed from the

roadside, with clOse palings in front. The bedroom

windows were always left partly open, to afford a

bird's-eye view of numerous little bedsteads with

very white dimity furniture, and thereby impress the

passer-by with a due sense of the luxuries of the

establishment: and there was a front-parlour hung

round with highly varnished maps which nobody ever

looked at, and filled with boOks which no one ever

read, appropriated exclusively to the reception of

parents, who, whenever they called, could not fail

to be struck with the very deep appearance of the

place. (NLE, I, i, 407)
By giving the reasons for the open windows and for the books
and maps no one ever touches, Didkens proves what one only
suspected about the setting in "The Bloomsbury Christening,"
that he is consciously using his brief description of certain
physical characteristics of Minerva House to supply infor-
mation about his characters and perhaps to suggest his
attitude toward them. Certainly the reader wonders about
the intellectual achievements and interests of students,
parents, and teachers in the story.

It is, however, in "The.Steam Excursion" that one
begins to find somewhat more positive evidence of Didkens's
developing powers of description, though passages describing
the places in which action will take place are still
relatively scarce. One gets only a glimpse of Mr. Percy
Noakes's chambers, none whatsoever of the Tauntons'
apartment, and very little of the excursion boat upon which
much of the action takes place. However, a description

of London streets, early morning, is quite well done, the

details of the setting furnished mainly by people rather

114

than by buildings and other inanimate objects:

The streets looked as lonely and deserted as if

they had been crowded, overnight, for the last time.
Here and there, an early apprentice, with quenched-
looking, sleepy eyes, was taking down the shutters

of a shop: and a policeman or milkwoman might occasion-
ally be seen pacing slowly along: but the servants had
not yet begun to clean the doors, or light the kitchen
fires, and London looked the picture of desolation.

At the corner of a by-street, near Temple Bar, was
stationed a "street-breakfast." The coffee was
boiling over a charcoal fire, and large slices of bread-
and-butter were piled oneupon the other, like deals

in a timberyard. The company were seated on a form,
which, with a view both to security and comfort,

was placed against a neighbouring wall. Two young
men, whose uproarious mirth and disordered dress
bespoke the conviviality of the preceding evening,
were treating three "ladies" and an Irish labourer.

A little sweep was standing at a short distance,
casting a longing eye at the tempting delicacies:

and a policeman was watching the group from the
opposite side of the street. The wan looks, and

gaudy finery of the thinly-clad women contrasted

as strangely with the gay sunlight, as did their
forced merriment with the boisterous hilarity of

the two young men, who, now and then, varied

their amusements by "bonneting" the proprietor of

this itinerant coffee-house. - (NLE, I, ii, 72)

Unfortunately, although Dickens does exhibit here his
ability to create a momentary atmosphere, the setting is
extraneous to the action and characters of the tale, and

in calling attention to itself, magnifies the importance of
a mere transitional scene. In addition, its rather serious
tone detracts from the comic emphasis of the story.

On the other hand, Dickens's description of the
storm that arises on the steamboat's return trip contributes
greatly to the effectiveness of the tale's final scene.

In the following passage the storm outside and the effect

of the storm on the excursion party are reflected in the

115

description of the interior of the cabin and of the articles
on the banquet table:

The throbbing motion of the engine was but too
perceptible. There was a large, substantial, cold
boiled leg of mutton, at the bottom of the table,
shaking like blanc—mange: a previously hearty sirloin
of beef looked as if it had been suddenly seized with
the palsy: and some tongues, which were placed on
dishes rather too large for them, went through the
most surprising evolutions: darting from side to
side, and from end to end, like a fly in an inverted
wineglass. Then, the sweets shook and trembled, till
it was quite impossible to help them, and people gave
up the attempt in despair: and the pigeon-pies looked
as if the birds, whose legs were stuck outside, were
trying to get them in. The table vibrated and
started like a feverish pulse, and the very legs
were convulsed-—everything was shaking and jarring.
The beams in the roof of the cabin seemed as if they
were put there for the sole purpose of giving people
headaches, and several elderly gentlemen became
ill-tempered in consequence. As fast as the steward
put the fire-irons up, they would fall down again: and
the more the ladies and gentlemen tried to sit
comfortably on their seats, the more the seats seemed
to slide away from the ladies and gentlemen. Several
ominous demands were made for small glasses of
brandy: the countenances of the company gradually
underwent most extraordinary changes: one gentle-
man was observed suddenly to rush from table without
the slightest ostensible reason, and dart up the
steps with incredible swiftness: thereby greatly
damaging both himself, and the steward, who happened
to be coming down at the same moment. (NLE, I, ii, 86-87)

In certain respects this passage contains virtues of the
later Dickens: the animation of inanimate objects, here

for the purpose of humor: the pseudo-innocence of the
narrator, who presumably cannot for the life of him imagine
why the gentleman should dash madly from the cabin: the
inconsequential, unreasonable, and therefore humorous action
of the steward's constant putting up of the fire-irons: and

the realism lying directly behind the colorfully exaggerated

116

descriptions. This description is by no means inferior to

the following fairly typical description from Pickwick

 

Papers:

The portmanteaus and carpet-bags have been stowed

away and Mr. Weller and the guard are endeavouring

to insinuate into the fore-boot a huge cod-fish

several sizes too large for it--which is snugly

packed up, in a long brown basket, with a layer

of straw over the top, and which has been left to

the last, in order that he may repose in safety

on the half-dozen barrels of real live native oysters,

all the property of Mr. Pickwick, which have been

arranged in regular order at the bottom of the

receptacle. The interest displayed in Mr. Pickwick's

countenance is most intense, as Mr. Weller and the

guard try to squeeze the cod-fish into the boot,

first head first, and then tail first, and then

top upward, and then bottom upward, and then side-

ways, and thenlong-ways, all of which artifices

the implacable cod—fish sturdily resists, until the

guard accidentally hits him in the very middle of

the basket, whereupon he suddenly disappears into

the boot, and with him, the head and shoulders

of the guard himself, who, not calculating upon

so sudden a cessation of the passive resistance of

the cod-fish, experiences a very unexpected

shock, to the unsmotherable delight of all the porters

and bystanders. Upon this, Mr. Pickwick smiles

with great good-humour, and drawing a shilling

from his waistcoat pocket begs the guard, as he

picks himself out of the boot, to drink his

health in a glass of hot brandy-and-water. . . .
(_NpE_, II, 1, 493)

If the descriptions in Pickwick Papers are superior to those
in the early tales it is precisely because the longer work
is so abundantly rich in everything. The passage above,
for example, comes merely at the beginning of the section
that Dickens devotes to the Christmas festivities at Dingley
Dell.

A description of an action--a summary of a scene
rather than the dramatization of it through dialogue and

accompanying action--is another extremely important

117

technique used by Dickens in his early tales. He usually
develops a story as a series of scenes presented chrono-
logically. The scenes by themselves would scarcely move

the story to its desired end, however: the dialogue and
characters being static, the individual scenes would fail

to flow smoothly and almost imperceptibly into one another.
Hence, of necessity, the connecting narrative paragraphs
serve to move characters from one scene to another in view
of the audience or to allow for an essential passage of
time, the characters regrouping themselves for the following
scene while the audience's attention is temporarily diverted
in one way or another. At other times, Dickens uses narra-
tive somewhat more subtly within a single scene, particularly
when dialogue will not fulfill his purpose, when the scene
must skip over dull but necessary moments in the action,
when telling rather than showing will produce better humor,
and when the farcical action must proceed at a faster rate
than a detailed presentation of action and conversation can
produce.

Although Dickens naturally used narrative for such
normal purposes from the beginning, his ability to use it
unobtrusively developed considerably during 1834, from the
awkward descriptive passages before, during, and after the
dinner scene in "Mr. Minns and His Cousin" to the following
fairly successful passage in "The Steam Excursion'" where

the summarizing narrative is probably not necessary, except

118

that Dickens must have thought he could derive greater
comic effect by using it. Mr. Noakes has just asked the
three Miss Briggses to play their guitars before dinner:

One of those hums of admiration followed the
suggestion, which one frequently hears in society,
when nobody has the most distant notion what he is
expressing his approval of. The three Misses Briggs
looked modestly at their mamma, and the mamma looked
approvingly at her daughters, and Mrs. Taunton looked
scornfully at all of them. The Misses Briggs asked
for their guitars, and several gentlemen seriously
damaged the cases in their anxiety to present them.
Then, there was a very interesting production of three
little keys for the aforesaid cases, and a melo-
dramatic expression of horror at finding a string
broken: and a vast deal of screwing and tightening,
and winding, and tuning, during which Mrs. Briggs
expatiated to those near her on the immense difficulty
of playing a guitar, and hinted at the wondrous
proficiency of her daughters in that mystic art.

Mrs. Taunton whispered to a neighbour that it was
"quite sickening!" and the Misses Taunton lodked as
if they knew how to play, but disdained to do it.

At length the Misses Briggs began in real earnest.
It was a new Spanish composition, for three voices
and three guitars. The effect was electrical.

All eyes were turned upon the captain, who was
reported to have once passed through Spain with
his regiment, and who must be well acquainted with
the national music. He was in raptures. This

was sufficient: the trio was encored: the applause
was universal: and never had the Tauntons suffered
such a complete defeat. (NLE, I, ii, 82-83)

However much one may be able to separate such a
passage from the dramatic scene in which it occurs, it
is still an essential part of the complex interplay of
description, narration, and dialogue out of which all authors
compose effective scenes and, of course, entire tales and
novels. The best example of Dickens's early ability with
pure narrative occurs at the end of the first chapter of

"A Passage in the Life of Mr. watkins Tottle" in Mr.

119

Gabriel Parsons's tale of his courting and marrying of the
present Mrs. Parsons. It has little purpose in the story,
perhaps none beyond Dickens's need to fill out the first
installment of the two-part story. Yet it is virtually the
only worthwhile and truly amusing part of the first chapter.
Mr. Parsons's narrative is actually part of a dialogue
between Tottle and his host, but Tottle's part in the
conversation is only to break up the long narrative speeches
of Parsons. Beginning with the statement, “I spent my
wedding-night in a back-kitchen chimney," Parsons describes
his courtship of Fanny--their secret morning meetings in
Kensington Park, the four letters a day that they wrote to
each other, the evening interviews in the kitchen or cellar,
and finally their secret marriage. On their wedding night,
not wanting to tell Fanny's father of their marriage until
her mother should return from Ramsgate, they are saying
their good-byes in the kitchen, when the maid suddenly
enters to tell them that Fanny's father is coming to the
kitchen to draw his own supper beer. The narrative continues
as follows:

If he discovered me there, explanation would have

been out of the question: for he was so outrageously

violent, when at all excited, that he never would

have listened to me. There was only one thing to

‘ be done. The chimney was a very wide one: it had

been originally built for an oven: went up perpendi-

cularly for a few feet, and then shot backward and

formed a sort of small cavern. my h0pes and

fortune-—the means of our joint existence almost?—

were at stake. I scrambled in like a squirrel:

coiled myself up in this recess: and, as Fanny and
the girl replaced the deal chimney-board, I could

120

see the light of the candle which my unconscious
father-in-law carried in his hand. I heard
him draw the beer: and I never heard beer run so
slowly. He was just leaving the kitchen, and I
was preparing to descend, when down came the infer-
nal chinmey—board with a tremendous crash. He
stopped and put down the candle and the jug of
beer on the dresser: he was a nervous old fellow,
and any unexpected noise annoyed him. He cooly
observed that the fireplace was never used, and
sending the frightened servant into the next kitchen
for a hammer and nails, actually nailed up the board,
and locked the door on the outside. So, there was I,
on my wedding-night, in the light kerseymere
trousers, fancy waistcoat, and blue coat, that I
had been married in in the morning, in a back-
kitchen chimney, the bottom of which was nailed up,
and the top of which had been formerly raised some
fifteen feet, to prevent the smOke from annoying
the neighbours. And there . . . I remained till
half-past seven the next morning, when the house-
maid's sweetheart, who was a carpenter, unshelled
me. The old dog had nailed me up so securely,
that, to this very hour, I firmly believe that no
one but a carpenter could ever have got me out.

(M. I, ii; 140-141)

One should compare this passage (in which Dickens never made
a single revision) with some of the narrative passages from
the original version of "Mr. Minns and His Cousin" quoted
at the beginning of this chapter. Dickens's success with
Mr. Parsons's tale lies somewhere in the felicity of its
phrasing, in the tension and humor that lie in sentence
structure and word choice, and in his more mature avoidance
of affected, extravagant imagery, puns, and word play. In
addition to thesestylistic merits, the narrative is note-
worthy for its simplicity, for the clever touches that at
least temporarily characterize Mr. Parsons, and for the
wild absurdity of the comic premise behind the episode.

The interplay between the actions Mr. Parsons describes and

121

his comments upon them certainly points to Dickens's
developing ability to interweave effectively the several
techniques and purposes required for the complex craft of
narration. He is at least ready, at this early stage in

his career, to write the descriptive essays that will

follow “A Passage in the Life of Mr. Watkins Tottle," if
not, perhaps to write the more brilliant episodes with which
Pickwick Papers abounds.

Mr. Parsons's narrative is well conceived and well
written, and in itself the incident related by Parsons is
superior in comic inventiveness to that told in the follow-
ing passage. But Tony Weller's narrative of his encounter
with "the shepherd" is vividly reinforced by the brilliance
of Dickens's characterization of Sam's father and by the
additional humor the cockney dialect adds to the telling:

Well, what with your mother-in—law a worrying me to
go, and what with my locking for'ard to seein' some
queer starts if I did, I put my name down for a ticket:
at six o'clock on the Friday evenin' I dresses myself
out wery smart, and off I goes with the old 'ooman,
and up we walks into a fust floor where there was tea
things for thirty, and a whole lot 0' women as

begins whisperin' to one another, and lookin' at me,
as if they'd never seen a rayther stout gen'l'm'n

of eight-and fifty afore. By and bye, there comes

a great bustle downstairs, and a lanky chap with a
red nose and a white neckcloth rushes up and sings
out, "Here's the shepherd a coming to wisit his
faithful flock": and in comes a fat chap in black,
vith a great white face, a smilin' avay like a
clockwork. Such goin's on, Sammy! "The kiss of
peace,‘ says the shepherd: and then he kissed the
women all round, and ven he'd done, the man vith the
red nose began. I was just a thinkin' whether I hadn't
better begin too--'specially as there was a wery

nice lady a sittin' next me--ven in comes the tea,
and your mother-in—law, as had been makin' the

122

kettle bile downstairs. At it they went, tooth and
nail. Such a precious loud hymn, Sammy, while the
tea was a brewing: such a grace, such eatin' and
drinkin'! I wish you could ha' seen the shepherd
walkin' into the ham and muffins. I never see such
a chap to eat and drink: never. The red-nosed man
warn't by no means the sort of person you'd like to'
grub by contract, but he was nothin' to the shepherd.
Well: arter the tea was over, they sang another hymn,
and then the shepherd began to preach: and wery well
he did it, considerin' how heavy them muffins must
have lied on his chest. Presently he pulls up, all of
a sudden, and hollers out, "Where is the sinner: where
is the mis'rable sinner?" Upon which, all the women
looked at me, and began to groan as if they was a
dying. I thought it was rather sing'ler, but
hows'ever, I says nothing. Presently he pulls up again,
and lookin' wery hard at me, says, “Where is the sinner:
where is the mis'rable sinner?" and all the women
groans again, ten times louder than afore. I got
rather wild at this, so I takes a step or two for'ard
and says, "My friend,” says I, "did you apply that 'ere
obserwation to me?" 'Stead of beggin my pardon as
any gen'l'm'n would ha' done, he got more abusive than
ever: called me a wessel, Sammy--a wessel of wrath--
and all sorts 0' names. So my blood being reg'larly
up, I first give him two or three for himself, and
then two or three more to hand over to the man with
the red nose, and walked off. I wish you could ha'
heard how the women screamed, Sammy, ven they picked
up the shepherd from under the table. . . .

(_N_L_1§, II, 1, 390-392)

Having examined the various techniques of plot,
scene development, characterization, description (including
setting), and narration to be found in the Monthly Magazine
tales, one must finally inquire as to Dickens's purpose in
writing these stories. The answer is not immediately evident,
however, quite possibly because Dickens himself may not
have known why he wrote them. Certainly he intended to
amuse his readers: his use of the theatrical farce as one
of his models would indicate this. The multitude of farcical

situations and characters and the abundance of puns and

123

other verbal witticisms that fill the pages of these early
stories are there for the purpose of keeping the reader
laughing.

And yet, while the stories are amusing to the reader,
they at times also satirize him, his fellow human beings,
and his society. Sometimes Dickens is concerned with little
more than parody, as in his humorous imitations of sentimental

novels in "Sentiment, of after-dinner speakers in "Mr.
Minns and His Cousin" and in "The Bloomsbury Christening,"
and of political oratory in "Sentiment." At other times,
however, he seems to be developing a relatively dark view
of human natureand its institutions. Despite the humor and
gaiety which pervade the greater part of any one story, the
plot of more than one of these tales has a rather bitter,
ironic ending. In part one of "The Boarding House,” Dickens
concludes one of the three love affairs with a breach of
promise suit, but he allows the two remaining couples to
marry. A farce might have ended at this point with some
effect. ‘However, Dickens does not stop here. Mr. Hicks
deserts his wife, and Mrs. Simpson elopes with an army
officer while her husband of six weeks is residing in debtors'
prison. Even Mrs. Tibbs, the manageress of the boarding
house, banishes her husband to the kitchen for the part he
played in losing her boarders for her. In the second part

of “The Boarding House" the Tibbses finally separate. Mr.

Tottle brings "A Passage in the Life of Mr. Watkins Tottle"

124

to an unexpected end by committing suicide. The characters,
too, are freqmently treated satirically by Dickens. Few

are those with whom the reader can establish any sort of
sympathetic identification. In "The Bloomsbury Christening,"
for example, the opening description of Mr. Nicodemus Dumps
is scarcely conducive to impressing the reader with the

human qualities of that misanthropic bachelor. But, in
addition, neither is the reader sympathetic to the characters
of Mr. and Mrs. Kitterbell, though they are more humorously
and more kindly satirized than the Buddens of "Mr. Minns

and His Cousin."

Only in the second chapter of "A Passage in the Life
of Mr. Watkins Tottle' does Dickens come close to achieving
anything like sympathy for one of his characters. The young,
unfortunate couple who play a minor part in the sponging
house scene are, indeed, typical creations of the sentimental
melodrama, but Mr. Tottle himself is the prime example
of Dickens's accomplishment. The sympathy Tottle attracts
is not initially a result of a change in his character so
much as it is of a noticeable change in the character of
Mr. Gabriel Parsons, who becomes unexpectedly mercenary in
chapter two. The unpleasant reality of the sponging house
setting also contributes to the change in the reader's
reaction to Tottle. Seeing Tottle in the clutches of
the sponging house proprietor, as well as in those of
Parsons, the reader realizes the seriousness of Tottle's

poverty and sees that beneath his farcical search for a

125

wife lies a financial necessity that guides his actions.

The reader immediately extends the required sympathy to him.
The author, one suspects, is aware of what he has accomplished,
for from this point to the end of the story, Mr. Tottle is
likeable, as Dickens's earlier comic characters had not been.
Tottle now acts valorously, resolutely, intelligently,
bashfully, and mildly (NLE, 1, ii, 157-158). He indulges

in genuinely noble emotions: "Mr. Watkins Tottle expressed

a hope that the Parsons family never would make a stranger
of him, and wished internally that his bashfulness would
allow him to feel a little less like a stranger himself"
(NLE, I, ii, 159). Moreover, Didkens reveals many of

Mr. Tottle's thoughts and motives. He shows us the lover's
embarrassment when he spills and breaks a water tumbler, he
exhibits his bashfulness when he awkwardly proposes to Miss
Lillerton, he portrays his feelings of foolishness when he
discovers that Miss Lillerton loves the Reverend Mr. Timson.
Here in Tottle is at least a suggestion of the greater

comic figures who will romp through the pages of Dickens's
novels, beginning with the immortal Pickwick, who bears a

sometimes striking resemblance to Tottle.33 Yet Tottle

 

33A passage that Dickens excised from the orignal
version of "A Passage in the Life of Mr. Watkins Tottle".
when he collected the story in the first series of_§§
suggests that plans he may have had for further stories
about Tottle may likely have been incorporated into 23:
"[Mr. Tottle, upon his death,] left a variety of papers in
the hands of his 1and1ady--the materials collected in his
wanderings among different classes of society--which that
lady has determined to publish, to defray the unpaid

126

is an exception to Dickens's practice of treating his
characters in these early tales with unsympathetic satire.
Another purpose that Dickens had in writing these
tales is closely connected to their satiric aspect. He
apparently wanted to do more than write highly imaginative
but totally unreal farces whose clever, beautiful, and comic
characters belonged to a century and a class different
from his own. He occasionally injected a certain amount
of reality into these tales by dealing with people, places,
and events familiar to him from his daily life, sometimes
for satiric effect. Scholars believe, for example, that
Mrs. Joseph Porter bears Mrs. Leigh's "malicious tongue"
and that Mr. Budden (of "Mr. Minns and His Cousin") is
really Mr. Leigh.34 The theatrical entertainment in "Mrs.
Joseph Porter" is obviously modelled upon similar amateurish
performances in John Dickens's home. Charles Dickens also
served as godfather to Henry Kolle's son, a fact he alludes

to in a letter to the father that closes with the apparently

 

expenses of his board and lodging. They will be carefully
arranged, and presented to the public from time to time,
with all due humility, by BOZ" (Monthleragazine, n.s., XIX
[February, 1835], 137). One should remember, too, that

Mr. Tottle's appearance bore at least a general resemblance
to that of Pickwick: he was fifty years old, stood four feet
six inches in his stocking feet, and was "plump, clean, and
rosy" (NLE, I, ii, 126).

34John Harrison Stonehouse, Green Leaves: New
Chapters in the Life of Charles Dickens, revised and enlarged
edn. (London: Piccadilly Fountain Press, 1931), pp. 12-13.
Johnson, pp. 91-93, accepts these identification. The Leighs
were the parents of Marianne Leigh, Maria Beadnell's closest
friend.

 

127

related remark, "Have you seen the Bloomsbury Christening,
if not, I'll send it to you,"35 a suggestion perhaps of the
source of certain settings, satirical incidents, or comic
characters in the story. In another letter to Kolle, Dickens
takes care to point out that "as neither you nor yours have
the most remote connection with The Boarding House of which
I am proprietor, I cannot have the least objection to
(indeed I shall be flattered by) your perusing it."36
The implication is that he was not averse to including an
occasional cutting sketch of some of his friends and
acquaintances in his tales. One familiar with the available
details of Dickens's life in London in the early and mid-
thirties also occasionally senses the realistic bases of
other scenes and characters as well. Although such bits
of real places, people, and events are hidden among the dull,
flaccid stretches of bad eighteenth century theatricality,
one can still see the touches that will characterize the
later Dickens beginning to show through, most particularly
when these realistic elements are tinted with satire.

At times the satire becomes bitter: Dickens may,
as Monroe Engel seems to suggest, have been consciously

attempting to delineate "the striving pretensions of the

insecure middle class: and the brutalization of those just

 

35Nonesuch Let., I, 30-31, to Henry Kolle, [April,

1834].

36Nonesuch Let., I, 31, to Henry Kolle, [April,

 

1834].

128

beneath them: and the callousness of those above."37

”Horatio Sparkins" contains the elenents of such satire,

as do several of the other tales: yet the crudity of Dickens's
techniques is more than adequately illustrated when one
compares these early examples of snobbery to those examples
depicted in the scenes connected with Mr. Pickwick's visit

to Bath, particularly in Sam's attendance of the footmen's
"swarry' (see NLE, II, ii, 147-163). The closing paragraphs
of a number of these early stories, with their deliberate
inversions of typically happy endings, would reinforce the
belief that Dickens saw the representation of an unpleasant
rather than a comic reality as one of his purposes as a
serious writer. In a way these endings give a satiric

twist to the stories, but they are generally far less effective
than the more comic, yet equally satiric ending to the

Bardell ya. Pickwick trial, for example, quoted earlier in
this chapter. Unfortunately, in order to shock the reader
with the unexpected ending to what seemed originally to be

a farce, Dickens had to distort the structure of his stories
and this failed to achieve an effective farcical, realistic,
or satiric effect. In reading the first part of "The

Boarding House,“ for example, one has no reason to believe

 

37Monroe Engel, The Maturity of Didkens (Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 1959), p. 78. In fairness, one
should add that Engel is speaking of the collected §§ rather
than just the early farcical tales and that he adds that
Dickens at this time lacked ”the literary force to make
much of it."

129

that any one of the three couples is the least incompatible:
Dickens has not characterized them in that direction.
Yet no couple remains long in happy union. Mr. Tottle's
suicide is also unexpected: until well into the second
chapter of "A Passage in the Life of Mr. Watkins Tottle,”
he is purely a farcical figure. Even when Dickens forces
the reader to become sympathetic toward Mr. Tottle, the change
in the poor gentleman's character makes him a more genuinely
comic character, along the lines of Mr. Pickwick, rather than
a pathetic one: only the latter type could have committed
suicide. In certain respects, then, the realistic twist,
the satiric ending, is in conflict with the predominantly
farcical tone of these early tales. The endings are not
necessarily false to life, but they are inconsistent with
what has gone before, and they most ungraciously, and in-
artistically, force the reader to reappraise what he has
read with little success of resolving the conficts in tone
and purpose inherent in the stories.

Whether Dickens's purpose in these early tales was
to amuse the reader with farcical characters and situations
or to paint a bitterly satirical picture of human nature
or perhaps to do both, and maybe even more, cannot be
clearly ascertained. If one critic might see the endings
as reinforcing, though somewhat belatedly, a cynical view
of life, another could just as well see the use of unexpectedly
unhappy endings as a clever technique of literary parody--

that is, Dickens may be bringing his stories to such

130

conclusions not because the conclusions are what he would

expect to happen in real life but because typically happy

endings are so grossly unreal. A critic might also, as

C. B. Cox does, work out an explanation for the apparent

conflict of purpose. Cox sees Dickens as already working

with a comic view of life as a paradox of human existence:

man is a fool (Cox uses Percy Noakes of "The Steam Excursion"

and Mr. Watkins Tottle as examples), "a creature whose attempts

to take himself seriously are worthy only of ridicule: yet,

on the other hand, the vigour with which such characters

pursue their activities redeems them from futility."38

However, these tales come too early in Dickens's life,

as wellas too early in his literary career, to admit of

such an interpretation of their purpose: or, perhaps, one

should say that if such an interpretation can be made to

explain the seeming irregularities in their structures,

it is not one that Dickens consciously made and utilized.
One must in the end agree with Charles Dickens's

own estimation of his early tales: "I am conscious Of their

often being extremely crude and ill-considered, and bearing

"39 While

obvious marks of haste and inexperience. . . .
one can see Dickens making slight progress in his use of

the techniques of characterization, dramatic scene

 

38
p. 135.

39Preface to the First Cheap Edition of pp (1850),
in NLE, I, i, xv.

C. B. Cox, "Comic Viewpoints in Sketches by Boz,"

131

construction, description, and narration, though practically
none in plot creation and structure, the tales are still
failures. Yet, so far as his career as a writer is con-
cerned, Dickens was not moving backwards. By the beginning
of 1835, he had at least written a number of tales: he had
had to be a stage manager of sorts, concerned with movements
of people from one place to another, with characterizations,
with sets, with lighting, with making necessary connections
between scenes, and with establishing a dominant mood
related somehow to the purposes behind all these activities.
Although in places, he approaches a quality of writing

characteristic of that of Pickwick Papers, such places are

 

rare: for the most part, the tales are dull, ineffective,

and relatively unimaginative. The learning process was
naturally a slow one, fraught with failures of various kinds,
but it yap a learning process, after all: even in these eight
tales Dickens shows some improvement. If one is still
surprised, upon the publication of the first few installments
of Pickwick Papers, to see the amazing progress in the quality
of Dickens's writing, he will have to turn to the next

pieces that Dickens wrote (which would also be collected in
Sketches by Boz), the essays in the Morning Chronicle, the
EveningChronicle, and Bell's Life in London, for the ex-
planation of his important progress between the writing of
the Monthly Magazine tales and of the comic novel that made

him world famous virtually overnight.

CHAPTER III

SKETCHES BY BOZ--SKETCHES, SCENES, CHARACTERS

The Morning Chronicle "Street Sketches”

Between late 1834 and early 1836, Dickens almost
completely abandoned the writing of tales, producing instead
three series of descriptive essays: five "Street Sketches"
for the Morning Chronicle, twenty "Sketches of London" for
the Evening Chronicle, and twelve "Scenes and Characters"

for Bell's Life in London. Despite the fact that only five

 

of these (all in Bell's Life in London) are tales, Dickens

 

nevertheless improved considerably during this period as a
writer of fiction. As will be shown in this chapter, the
essays,or rather the parts of essays, were little exercises
in the various techniques of fiction. Indeed, a number of
the important characteristics of Dickens as a writer, those
touches that, in reference to his novels, are frequently
referred to as peculiarly "Dickensian," have their beginnings
here. In this chapter, each of the series is examined in
turn. Coming at the beginning, the "Street Sketches" are
used to illustrate the various influences that affected the
form, substance, and tone of these and the later descriptive
essays. The "Sketches of London," mainly because of their

number, are used to show Dickens working separately with

132

133

the various elements of fiction to be found in these

writings. Coming at the end of the period covered by this
chapter, the ”Scenes and Characters" afford proof, both in
Dickens's first use of certain advanced techniques in the

seven essays and in his uniting of the various elements of
fiction in the five tales, of the value of Dickens's "exercises"
in advancing him as a writer of fiction and moving him closer
to the time when he would be ready to write longer and more
complex works of fiction.

Even before ”The Steam Excursion" and the two parts
of "A Passage in the Life of Mr. Watkins Tottle" made their
appearance in the Monthly Magazine, Charles Dickens had
written Henry Kolle that he might need to find a new place
for his sketches as the "Monthly people" were "rather
backward in coming forward with the needful."l He was
then considering the Metropolitan Magazine as a possibility.
Several months later, however, in August, 1834, he was
hired as a Parliamentary reporter by the Morning Chronicle,
and it was here during the last three months of 1834 that
Dickens's first five essays appeared under the heading
"Street Sketches,” signed as by "Boz," his recently acquired

2
pseudonym.

 

lNonesuch Let., I, 29, to Henry Kolle, [1834].

2"Omnibuses," September 26: “Shops and Their Tenants,"
October 10: ”The Old Bailey“ (retitled ”Criminal Courts“ in
the Second Series of fig, the title by which I shall refer to
it), October 23: "Shabby-Genteel People,“ November 5: and
"Brokers' and Marine—Store Shops," December 15. Dickens
first used "Boz" as his pseudonym at the end of the second
part of "The Boarding House,“ in the Monthlnyagazine,
August, 1834.

134

In writing what he referred to as his "light papers,"3

Dickens naturally accepted certain conventional techniques,
procedures, and subjects that one expects to find in essays.
Fortunately, he seems generally to have selected the best
characteristics of the periodical essay of the eighteenth
century, the familiar essay of the early nineteenth century,
and the periodical article of the popular press of his own
period (exemplified by one of his closest sources, the N§y_
Monthly Magazine papers of John Poole). As indicated in
Chapter I of this study, he was thoroughly familiar with

all of these from his voluminous reading.4 Dickens some-
times utilizes the eighteenth century essayist's realistic
and objective approach, achieved largely through detailed
descriptions of daily life and of typical figures of society
(usually treated satirically), and sets as his purpose the

reform of manners and morals. Elsewhere, even within the

 

3Nonesuch Let., I, 41, to George Hogarth, 1/20/35.

4See Marie Hamilton Law, The English Familiar Essay
in the Early Nineteenth Century: The Elements Old and New
Which Went into Its Making as Exemplified in the Writings
of Hunt, Hazlitt, and Lamb (Philadelphia: University of
Pennsylvania, 1934): George S. Marr, The Periodical Essayists
of the Eighteenth Century (New York: D. Appleton and Company,
1924): Melvin R. Watson, ”The Spectator Tradition and the
Development of the Familiar Essay,” ppg, XIII (1946), 189-215:
Charles E. Whitmore, ”The Field of the Essay," PMLA, XXXVI
(1921), 551-564. For a study and its rejoinder of the
influence of Washington Irving upon Dickens, see Boll,
"Charles Dickens and Washington Irving,“ pp. 453-467, and
Wegelin, "Dickens and Irving: the Problem of Influence,"
pp. 83-91. For brief discussions of the influence of Poole
on Dickens, see Chapter Two and also Section ii of this
chapter.

 

 

135

same essay, he finds use for the digressive, conversational,
and imaginative charm of the nineteenth century essayists,

as well as for their sympathetic portrayal of humble life,
their melancholy sentiment, and their greater freedom of
length, fancy, subject matter, and form.5 The fact that

his essays embody characteristics of both traditions should
be thus noted, for it is the conflict and the juncture of
these traditions, modified by the requirements of the popular
press, where “variety, simplicity, and brevity were the

rule,"6

that characterize, that give form, substance, and
tone to Dickens's essays, and that in various ways helped

to prepare him to write good fiction.

The form of these early essays is, generally speaking,

pretty much determined by Dickens's purpose to amuse his

readers rather than to attempt to reform their manners and

 

5These characteristics are selected from those dis—
cussed by Marie Hamilton Law, pp. 8-13, and do not include
those characteristics of both traditions that are not common
to Dickens's essays. I have not taken into consideration
some differences of opinion among scholars as to the exact
characteristics of each, nor do I intend to compare and con-
trast Dickens with his predecessors and contemporaries,
for it is an easy enough task to do either. Leigh Hunt, for
example, has occasionally been mentioned as an essayist whom
Dickens imitated. A few of Hunt's essays do bear a resemblance
of one kind or another to Dickens's (see, for example, "Of
the Sight of Shops,“ "Walks Home by Night: Watchmen,“ "The
Old Gentleman," ”The Old Lady,“ ”Coaches,“ "The Waiter," and
”Getting Up on Cold Mornings,” in Essays bygLeigh Hunt, ed.
Arthur Symons [London: The Walter Scott Publishing Co., Ltd.,
n.d.]), but they also hear many dissimilarities, and others
show no similarities at all. If one reads a different
selection of Hunt's essays, he might justifiably conclude
that Hunt had virtually no influence upon Dickens.

6Richard D. Altick, The English Common Reader, p. 369.

136

morals. In this respect he is closer to his nineteenth
century compeers than to his eighteenth century models,
though even in amusing he usually works with a somewhat
serious theme. "It is very generally allowed that public
conveyances afford an extensive field for amusement and
observation,“ Dickens begins in "Omnibuses" (NLE, I, i, 171),
thereby setting in his opening sentence the form that the
sketch will take. He will present his observations in a
more or less organized fashion with an occasional, clearly
indicated digression, attempting in the process to amuse his
readers. His purpose to amuse will determine the tone as
well as the subjects of his essays and, more importantly,
will virtually require him to fill them with descriptive
passages, with narrative and dramatic scenes, with plotted
anecdotes, and with colorful characterizations. While
"Omnibuses' consists mainly of a lengthy scene, "Shops

and Their Tenants" is developed by a series of descriptions
to support Dickens's general and more specific themes:
"What inexhaustible food for speculation do the streets of
London afford!" and "One of our principal amusements is

to watch the gradual progress--the rise and fall--of parti-
cular shops“ (NLE, I, i, 75, 76). “Criminal Courts"
progresses by a series of scenes, 'Brdkers' and Marine-
Store Shops“ by a series of descriptions, and "Shabby-
Genteel People," in supporting the statement, “There are

certain descriptions of people who, oddly enough, appear

to appertain exclusively to the metropolis" (NLE, I, i, 328),

137

by a series of descriptive characterizations followed by a
detailed portrait of a certain shabby-genteel man whom
Dickens apparently knew from the Reading Room of the British
Museum. The form, then, of these "Street Sketches" forces
Dickens to continue working, though in an incidental way,
with the elements of fiction.

Another important general characteristic of Dickens's
essays is the air of reality given to them by the descriptions,
narratives, and character studies they contain, even though
some of the details may actually be fictional. It is this
air of veracity that George Gissing sees as the greatest
merit of Dickens's sketches. Dickens, he states, “has not
as yet developed his liking for the grotesque, the extra-
vagant: he pictures the commonplace, with no striving for

effect, and admirably succeeds.'7

What Gissing does not
point out is that the substance of a descriptive essay
virtually demands the emphasis on reality. Reinforcing this
emphasis in Dickens's sketches is the noticeable absence of
lengthy philosophical ruminations, elaborate analogies,
scholarly allusions, and literary quotations, predominantly
classical, that decorate the essays of Addison and Steele,

of Hunt and Lamb, and even of John Poole. As a result,

Dickens's descriptions, narratives, and character studies

 

7George Gissing, Charles Dickens, A Critical Study
(New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1898): P. 47. Gissing,
as do most critics, is speaking generally of the collected
Sketches by Boz, but his remark is apropos to the five
Morning Chronicle essays.

 

138

are presented directly, concisely, and with great effect.
Most important of all, however, is that one does frequently
recognize the people, places, and scenes in these essays
as those of Dickens's own life. As John Forster states:

Things are painted literally as they are: and,
whatever the picture, whether of every-day vulgar,
shabby genteel, or downright low, with neither the
condescending air which is affectation, nor the too
familiar one which is slang. . . . Of course, there
are inequalities in it, and some things that would
have been better away: but it is a book that might
have stood its ground, even if it had stood alone,
as containing unusually truthful observation of a
sort of life between the middle class and the low,
which, having few attractions for bookish observers,
was quite unhacknied ground. It had otherwise also
the very special merit of being in no respect bookish
or commonplace in its descriptions of the old city
with which its writer was so familiar. It was a
picture of every-day London at its best and worst,
in its humours and enjoyments as well as its
sufferings and sins. . . .8

Dickens's occupation as a reporter for the Morning
Chronicle between 1834 and 1836 must surely have been an
important influence upon the realistic substance of his
essays. Dickens himself concluded in later life: "To
the wholesome training of severe newspaper work, when I
was a young man, I constantly refer my first successes,"9
and Forster, analyzing this statement, concluded that it

opened for Dickens "a wide and varied range of experience,

which his wonderful observation, exact as it was humorous,

 

8Forster, pp. 76-77. Like Gissing, he is speaking
of §§ in general, but his comments, too, are appropriate to
the Morning Chronicle "Street Sketches.“

9Stated by Dickens at a banquet in his honor given
by the New York press, April 18, 1868. In Sppeches, p. 379.

139

10 But the influence of Dickens's

made entirely his own."
journalistic career upon his writing is not merely the
tenuous one of making new experiences available to him.
Chesterton saw Dickens's novels as "outgrowths of the original
notion of taking notes, splendid and inspired notes, of what
happens in the street."11 In a way, this is literally true.
Taking notes in the street is almost exactly what Dickens
as a newspaper reporter was sometimes called upon to do.
His reportorial tasks were mainly devoted to recording
Parliamentary debates, but occasionally he was sent on
out—of-town assignments that involved some original
reporting in addition to the recording of speeches. The
substance of such writing is very close to that of his
descriptive essays, as witness the following report of a
“promenade" for the benefit of the Blind Asylum, the Deaf
and Dumb Institution, and the House of Refuge in Edinburgh,
apparently Dickens's first piece of descriptive reporting:
[This promenade] was most respectably attended,

but a lamentably dull affair. A marquee was erected

in the centre of a parched bit of ground, without

a tree or shrub to intercept the rays of a burning

sun. Under it was a military band, and around it

were the company. The band played and the company

walked about: and when the band were tired, a piper

played by way of variation, and then the company
walked about again, and when the piper was tired,

 

10Forster, p. 61.

11G. K. Chesterton, Appreciations and Criticisms of
the Works of Charles Dickens (London: J. M. Dent & Sons,
Ltd.’ 1911), pp. 117-118.

140

such of the visitors as could find seats sat down,
and those who could not looked as if they wished
they had not come: and the poor blind-school pupils,
who occupied the warmest seats in the enclosure,
were very hot and uncomfortable, and appeared very
glad to be filed off from a scene in which they
could take little interest, and with which their
pensive careworn faces painfully contrasted.12

A few days later, Dickens wrote the introductory paragraph

to a lengthy report by himself and Charles Beard, his
colleague and friend, of the Edinburgh banquet honoring

Lord Grey on his retirement from the office of Prime Minister:

It had been announced that the dinner would take
place at five o'clock precisely: but Earl Grey, and
the other principal visitors, as might have been expect-
ed, did not arrive until shortly after six. Previous
to their arrival, some slight confusion, and much
merriment, was excited by the following circumstance:--
A gentleman who, we presume, had entered with one of
the first sections, having sat with exemplary patience
for some time in the immediate vicinity of cold fowls,
roast beef, lobsters, and other tempting delicacies
(for the dinner was a cold one), appeared to think that
the best thing he could possibly do, would be to eat
his dinner, while there was anything to eat. He
accordingly laid about him with right good-will,
the example was contagious, and the clatter of
knives and forks became general. Hereupon,
several gentlemen, who were not hungry, cried
out "Shame!“ and looked very indignant: and several
gentlemen who were hungry, cried "Shame!" too, eating
nevertheless, all the while, as fast as they possibly
could. In this dilemma, one of the stewards mounted
a bench, and feelingly represented to the delinquents
the enormity of their conduct, imploring them, for
decency's sake, to defer the process of mastication
until the arrival of Lord Grey. This address was
loudly cheered, but totally unheeded: and this is,
perhaps, one of the few instances on record of a

 

12Walter Dexter, "Charles Dickens: Journalist,"
Nineteenth Century and After, CXV (1934), 709. The
article appeared in the Morning Chronicle on September 17,
1834, datelined September 13.

141
dinner having been virtually concluded before it
began.13

One recognizes in these two early samples of
Dickens's reportorial writing what would later be called
characteristic “Dickensian" touches—-the absurd situation,
the contrast between what one professes and what one does,
the conflict between natural behavior and social mannerisms,
the verbal cleverness, and even the touch of sentiment in
the earlier piece. Yet one also knows that the substance
of these two paragraphs (the scenes, the people, the places
described) is factual. There is perhaps even a'possibility
that Dickens's success with such colorful reporting may have
led to his suggestion or to the suggestion of his editor
that he write a series of descriptive sketches for the
newspaper. At any rate, the source of the unadorned, factual
substance of his essays undoubtedly must be attributed
to his newspaper writing. Despite Dickens's later attraction
to comic and pathetic exaggeration, his characters, scenic
descriptions, and narrative episodes will always have'the
touch of reality at their core: the realistic bent of Dickens's
later writing seems to be in the process of formation at this
early moment in his literary career.

Finally, the tone of Dickens's essays is the result

of a combination of influences. The detached superior

 

13Carlton, Charles Dickens,,Shorthand Writer, pp. 107-108.
The article covered eleven closely-printed columns in the
September 18, 1834, issue of the Morning Chronicle, Carlton
reports (p. 106).

 

142

narrator and the frequently satirical tone of his observations
mark the eighteenth century influence but may also be due,

as Chesterton suggests, to Dickens's personal background.

The critic saw in the Sketches by Boz "all the peculiar
hardness of youth: a hardness which in those who have in

any way been unfairly treated reaches even to impudence.

It is a terrible thing for any man to find out that his

elders are wrong. And this almost unkindly courage of

youth must partly be held responsible for the smartness of
Dickens, that almost offensive smartness which . . . some-

times irritates us like the showy gibes in the tall talk

14

of a schoolboy." The following passages from "Shops and

Their Tenants” reflects the tone that may be an eighteenth-
century influence or one from Dickens's personal life,
perhaps both:

One of our principal amusements is to watch the
gradual progress--the rise or fa11--of particular
shops. We have formed an intimate acquaintance with
several, in different parts of town, and we are
perfectly acquainted with their whole history. We
could name offhand, twenty at least, which we are
quite sure have paid no taxes for the last six years.
They are never inhabited for more than two months
consecutively, and, we verily believe, have witnessed
every retail trade in the directory.

There is one, whose history is a sample of the
rest, in whose fate we have taken especial interest,
having had the pleasure of knowing it ever since it
has been a shop. . . . It was originally a sub—
stantial, good-looking private house enough: the
landlord got into difficulties, the house got into
Chancery, the tenant went away, and the house went
to ruin. At this period, our acquaintance with it
commenced. . . . (NLE, I, i, 76)

 

l4Chesterton, Appreciations and Criticisms, pp. 6-7.

143

On the other hand, Dickens's occasional melancholic reflections
on the effects of time passing, on the pathos of the human
condition, and on the picturesque though dirty sights of
London more closely mirror the influence of the Pre-
Romantics and Romantics than of the early eighteenth
century essayists, an influence that can be felt even in
the flippant tone of the passage quoted above. The journal—
istic influence may be present in the rapidity with which
the prose moves, the verbal economy with which Dickens pre—
sents his ideas and illustrations, and the vividness pro-
duced by the rapidity, the economy, and (in passages more
descriptive than the ones above) the color of the writing.
The five "Street Sketches" may be Dickens's earliest
published essays, but they are by no means amateurish.
On the contrary, they reveal the happy influence of the
eighteenth and nineteenth century essay traditions and the
nineteenth century journalistic tradition upon the form,
substance, and tone of the essays Dickens was writing for
the popular press. They also show Dickens ready to use
the techniques he had learned from his models to produce
essays that, in moments of high creativity, could compete
with those of his more famous predecessors. But my con-
cern is not so much with Dickens's essays as essays but as
writings in which, through his descriptions, examples,and
illustrations, he continued to practice the various techniques

associated with the writing of fiction and to improve in

144

his use of them. The series of twenty essays Dickens wrote
for the Evening Chronicle should present a clear picture

of Dickens's progress during 1835 in the craft of fiction.

The Evening Chronicle "Sketches of London"

By mid-January of 1835 Dickens's reputation as an
essayist had apparently been made with the five "Street
Sketches“ he had just published in the Morning Chronicle,
for George Hogarth, the editor of the forthcoming Evening
Chronicle, had proposed that Dickens write a sketch for the
first issue. In this issue, published January 31, of this
thrice-weekly offshoot of the Morning Chronicle, Dickens
published the first of twenty essays under the running title
”Sketches of London."15 Despite the young reporter's
growing reputation, the essays are by no means consistently

brilliant. Although Dickens later revised them more than

 

15"Hackney-Coach Stands,” January 31: "Gin Shops,"
February 7: "Early Coaches,“ February 19: 'The Parish" (later
subtitled "The Beadle--The Parish Engine--The Schoolmaster"),
February 28: "The House" (reprinted in the Second Series of
.§§ in combination with "Bellamy's" as “A Parliamentary
Sketch--with a few Portraits,” considerably revised), March
7: "London Recreations," March 17: "Public Dinners," April
7: "Bellamy's" (see comment on "The House“), April 11:
"Greenwich Fair,“ April 16: “Thoughts about People,“ April
23: "Astley's,” May 9: "Our Parish” (later subtitled
"The Curate--The Old Lady--The Captain"), May 19: "The
River," June 6: 'Our Parish" (later subtitled "The Four
Sisters,"), June 18: "The Pawnbroker's Shop,“ June 30:
"Our Parish“ (later subtitled "The Election for Beadle?),
July 14: ”The Streets--Morning," July 21: "Our Parish"
(later subtitled ”The Broker's Man“), July 28: "Private
Theatres,” August 11: and "Our Parish" (later subtitled
"The Ladies' Societies”), August 20.

145

once, mainly for style, even in their revised forms the
sketches exhibit at times what Edgar Johnson refers to as
"polysyllabic turgidness," "showy and cocksure jibing,“
"flip puns,” and "knowing word-plays."l6 Yet sometimes
theme, tone, illustrations, and style merge in imaginative,
vivid, exciting sketches that contemporary reviewers praised
and that, according to one recent scholar, "stood out con-

"17 More importantly,

spicuously among the writings of 1834-35.
for the purposes of this study of Dickens's advancement as a
writer of fiction, in the process of writing these essays,
Dickens developed some of those characteristics that critics
and readers in general recognize in his novels as peculiarly
his. And in writing descriptive essays rather than tales,
Dickens was also able to practice certain techniques of
fiction at a relatively simple level.

The firstiDickensian" touch, the reality of his
subject matter, as already mentioned, grew out of his career
as a reporter. The ”Sketches of London," like the "Street
Sketches,“ are notable for their obviously greater reliance
on the realities of the city that Dickens observed around

him. ”It was no coincidence," Johnson writes, “that the

reviews [of Sketches by Boz] all emphasized Dickens's

 

16Johnson, p. 112. Nevertheless, one suspects that
the confidence underlying such pretentious stylistic in-
felicities may very likely explain Dickens's rapid and
certain rise as a creative writer as much as do the years
of practice, experimentation, and polish.
l7Stevenson, "An Introduction to Young Mr. Dickens,"
p. 112.

146

knowledge of his subjects and his closeness of observation.
The subtitles of the Sketches proclaimed them 'illustrative
of Everyday Life and Everyday People,‘ and more than half
the contents strictly deserved that description. They

are facts--of street and shop and tavern and jail--reported
with extraordinary precision and vivacity."18 One encounters
in these sketches the various circles in which Dickens moved,
socially and professionally, the middle class world of the
Beadnell family, the virtually classless world of his
financially impoverished parents, and the world of law
clerks, reporters, and musicians with whom he and his family
were acquainted, a world of Parliament, law courts, public
dinners, theaters, and concert halls. In addition, what
Lionel Stevenson refers to as Dickens's "sociable and
energetic” activities reveal another world of people and
places that Dickens saw and sometimes became involved with
in what students of Dickensian topography love to call

his "rambles” about London: Greenwich Fair, Astley's,
private theaters, public gardens, inns, gin shops, pawn
shops, public dinners, coach stands, the streets--morning,
noon, and night. These, Stevenson states, "were his favorite
haunts and topics, for these were the places of crowds and
gaiety and an inexhaustible display of human types.

'Somehow, we never can resist joining a crowd,‘ he remarks

in one of his Sketches, but the admission is not necessary,

 

18Johnson, p. 110.

147

for the fact is revealed in almost every page of the
book. . . ."19
F. J. H. Darton states that in his writing of the

sketches for the Morning Chronicle and the Evening7Chronic1e

 

Dickens really began ”drawing upon his unconsciously ab-
sorbed experience, so exuberant when released, of the truer

realities of London life."20

Certainly it is this reality
of subject matter that elevated Dickens's writing above
that of such other authors of lower and middle class London
life as Pierce Egan, Robert Surtees, and Theodore Hook.
"One is completely convinced," Stevenson states, "that
[Dickens] delineated the people he actually encountered in
his daily work, whereas the other writers were obviously

following stilted old conventions. . . ."21

 

9Stevenson, p. 113.
20Darton, Dickens, Positively the First Appearance,
p. 81.

21Stevenson, p. 112. One notable exception was J.
Wight, a police court reporter for the Morning Herald,
whose reports were immensely popular in the 1820's. He
grossly but cleverly exaggerated "whatever grotesque or
unusual cases came before the magistrate." A selection of
these reports, whose exaggerations and inaccuracies were
eventually outlawed by the court, was first published in
1824 as Mornings at Bow Street with illustrations by
Cruikshank (see Grant, The Newppaper Press, I, 318-319).
Dickens was familiar with the selection, perhaps even
with the reports as they appeared in the Morninngerald
(See Nonesuch Let., I, 702, to Miss Coutts, 9/17/45). Butt
and Tillotson (p. 40, n. 6) and Dibelius (p. 80) see some
influence of Wight upon Dickens, particularly, according to
Dibelius, in both authors' emphasis upon a quite specific
London milieu. In the "Advertisement” to the fourth edition

 

 

148

Perhaps even more significant to Dickens's develop-
ment as a creative artist than his restriction of the subjects
of his essays to the world he knew is the increasingly con-
sistent way in which he approached his subjects. His fre—
quent return to the same topics, the same situations, shows,
Ernest Boll states, that these situations "represent a habit

of mind, that they are the repeated expressions of the same

personality."22 That is, Dickens not only reported what

he saw, he had an individual way of looking at it. Here

lies the germ of his later fictional treatment of essentially
the same subjects. Note, for example, what Dickens does

with his topic in the following passage from a letter he
wrote to a friend while covering a provincial election:

Yesterday I had to start at 8 o'clock for
Braintree--a place 12 miles off: and being unable
to get a saddlehorse, I actually ventured on a gig,--
and what is more, I actually did the four and twenty
miles without upsetting it. I wish to God you could
have seen me tooling in and out of the banners, drums,
conservative emblems, horsemen, and go-carts with
which every little green was filled as the processions
were waiting for Sir John Tyrell and Baring. Every
time the horse heard a drum he bounced into the
hedge, or to the left side of the road: and every
time I got him out of that, he bounded into the
hedge at the right side. When he gag go, however, he

 

of his work (London: Thomas Tegg & Son, 1838), Wight echoes
what one suspects was frequently Dickens's practice:

". . . the dramatis personae are actual existences, and the
scenes real occurrences: affording specimens of our national
humour which is perhaps to be found genuine only among the
uncultivated classes of society. In copying these the author's
chief aim has been to preserve the character and spirit of the
originals" (p. vi).

22Boll, "The Sketches by 'Boz,'“ p. 71.

149

went along admirably. The road was clear when I
returned, and with the trifling exception of break-
ing my whip, I flatter myself I did the whole thing in
something like style.23
It is not so much the ride itself that makes this passage
exciting description as it is the coloring, verbal and
descriptive, the exaggeration of the horse's movements, the
unexpected detail of the broken whip, and the partly comic
and partly egotistical portrait that Dickens paints of
himself. The result, in this letter, in his essays, and
ultimately in his fiction, is a heightened picture of
reality, a detailed impression, perhaps, rather than a
statistical record. "To treat the fictions as a hidden
hunting ground of mere fact is of course a distortion of

Dickens's true genius,‘ states Edgar Johnson, alluding to
the numerous studies of the "originals" of people and places
in Dickens's works,'hnd yet it is rooted in a significant
feature of his way of working. No writer takes more pains
to seize upon the most striking characteristics of actual
places and people and incorporate them into the creatures of
his imagination.“24
Strongly contributing to the molding of the "Dickensian"

approach during this period of essay writing for the Evening

Chronicle is Dickens's development of a more definite point

 

23Nonesuch Let., I, 39, to Thomas Beard, 1/9/35.
This letter was written from the Black Boy Hotel, Chelmsford,
where Dickens had been sent to cover the election for the
Morning,Chronicle.

24

 

Johnson, pp. 110-111.

150

of View toward people, situations, and social conditions,
particularly as found in direct statements of his themes
and, somewhat more subtly, in the mood or tone of the
essays. Occasionally, as in the concluding paragraph

from "Gin Shops," Dickens's attitude is clearly and rather
crudely stated, justifying Stevenson's comment that in the

Sketches bnyoz he "adjusted his sights for the forthcoming

sniping" in the novelszs:

We have sketched this subject very slightly, not
only because our limits compel us to do so, but be-
cause, if it were pursued farther, it would be painful
and repulsive. Well-disposed gentlemen, and charitable
ladies, would alike turn with coldness and disgust
from a description of drunken besotted men, and
wretched broken-down miserable women, who form no
inconsiderable portion of the frequenters of
these haunts: forgetting, in the pleasant conscious-
ness of their own rectitude, the poverty of the
one, and the temptation of the other. Gin-drinking
is a great vice in England, but wretchedness and dirt
are a greater: and until you improve the homes of
the poor, or persuade a half-famished wretch not to
seek relief in the temporary oblivion of his own
misery, with the pittance which, divided among his
family, would furnish a morsel of bread for each,
gin-shops will increase in number and splendour. If
Temperance Societies would suggest an antidote against
hunger, filth, and foul air, or could establish dis-
pensaries for the gratuitous distribution of bottles of
Lethe-water, gin-palaces would be numbered among the
things that were. (app, I, 232-233)

Here, obviously, is a manifestation of the "flickering
flame-tongues of wrath" that Edgar Johnson sees as an

animating force in Didkens's work even as early as Sketches

 

by Bo .26
25Stevenson, p. 114.
26

Johnson, p. 317. Also see pp. 111-112.

151

Most of the "Street Sketches" and the "Sketches of
London," however, are not so dependent upon the bitterness
of irony and invective as is the conclusion of "Gin Shops."
As mentioned earlier, "amusement" is a key word in under-
standing Dickens's purpose in most of these essays. The
effect he achieves lies closer to humor than to satire or
irony. As defined by Frances Russell, humor is "the comic
sense which is amused by things as they are," which is
"allied to the actual more than to the fanciful," and which
"uses the method of simple disclosure rather than caricature."
Its function is that of "showing wherein lurks the spirit
of the laughable, however grave and solemn the appearance
to the unseeing eye."27 This definition would seem to
characterize Dickens's intentions in such a fine sketch
as "Hadkney-Coach Stands.” The assumed superiority with
which the narrator (presumably "Boz") views the passing
scene dominates the tone of the early portions of the
essay:

Take a regular, ponderous, rickety, London

hackney-coach of the old school, and let any man
have the boldness to assert, if he can, that he ever
beheld any object on the face of the earth which at
all resembles it, unless, indeed, it were another
hackney-coach of the same date. We have recently
observed on certain stands, and we say it with

deep regret, rather dapper green chariots, and
coaches of polished yellow, with four wheels,

of the same colour as the coach, whereas it is
perfectly notorious to every one who has studied

 

27Frances Theresa Russell, Satire in the Victorian
Novel (New York: Macmillan Company, 1920), P. 86.

152

the subject, that every wheel ought to be of a

different colour, and a different size. These are

innovations, and, like other miscalled improvements,

awful signs of the restlessness of the public mind,

and the little respect paid to our time-honoured

institutions. Why should hackney-coaches be clean?

Our ancestors found them dirty, and left them so.

Why should we, with a feverish wish to “keep

moving," desire to roll along at the rate of six

miles an hour, while they were content to rumble

over the stones at four? These are solemn consid-

erations. Hackney-coaches are part and parcel of

the law of the land: they were settled by the

Legislature: plated and numbered by the wisdom of

Parliament. (NLE, I, i, 101-102)
The note of satire in this passage is partly dependent upon
the pseudo-patriotic tone with which Dickens invests the
paragraph and partly dependent upon the obvious eccentricity
of his support of run-down, dirty, slow hackney-coaches.
The essay consists of three parts. In the first, Dickens
speaks of his own extensive acquaintance with hackney-
coaches: in the second, he describes one such coach standing
beneath the window at which he is writing, into which a
daughter, four grandchildren, and a servant-girl put a
grandmother and her baggage: in the third, he describes
a wedding—party taking another such coach to the church.
Yet, as the essay progresses, the satire is modified by an
apparent love of humanity that "Boz,“ the man-of-the-world,

the sophisticated and objective observer of life, finds

difficult to disguise,28 as is evident in the scene of

 

281 am here utilizing C. B. Cox's interpretation of
the nature of Dickens's comic perception of man (in his
"Comic Viewpoints in Sketches by Egg," pp. 132-135). Dickens,
he suggests, sees man as a fool, but he also sees that man's
love of life and man's exuberant and unhypocritical accep-
tance of life are what at the-same time redeem him from
utter futility.

153

the grandmother's leave-taking:

The servant-girl, with the pink ribbons, at
No. 5, opposite, suddenly opens the street-door,
and four small children forthwith rush out, and
scream "Coach!" with all their might and main.
The waterman darts from the pump, seizes the horses
by their respective bridles, and drags them, and
the coach, too, round to the house, shouting all
the time for the coachman at the very top or
rather very bottom of his voice, for it is a
deep bass growl. A response is heard from the
tap-room: the coachman, in his wooden-soled
shoes, makes the streets echo again as he runs
across it: and then there is such a struggling,
and backing, and grating of the kennel, to get
the coach-door opposite the house-door, that
the children are in perfect ecstasies of delight.
What a commotion! (NLE, I, i, 103-104)

This active scene contains a certain amount of humor, but
of humor dependent not so much upon satire as upon a slightly
heightened picture of reality and upon what Harold Nicolson

might call ”high spirits,” one of the causes he lists for

29
spontaneous amusement.

After the children and their mother have seen the
grandmother into the coach, along with ”a little basket,
which we could almost swear contains a small black bottle,
and a paper of sandwich," Dickens concludes the scene:

Up go the steps, bang goes the door, "Golden Cross,
Charing Cross, Tom," says the waterman: ”Goodbye,
grandma,“ cry the children, off jingles the coach
at the rate of three miles an hour, and the mamma
and children retire into the house, with the
exception of one little villain, who runs up the
street at the top of his speed, pursued by the
servant: not ill-pleased to have such an oppor-
tunity of displaying her attractions. She brings

 

29Harold Nicolson, The English Sense of Humour and
Other Essays (London: Constable and Company, Ltd., 1956),
p. 27.

154

him back, and, after casting two or three gracious
glances across the way, which are either intended
for us or the pot-boy (we are not quite certain
which), shuts the door, and the hackney-coach
stand is again at a standstill. (NLE, I, i, 104)

It is, in the end, the picture of the "little villain"
pursued by the flirtatious servant-girl with the pink ribbons
that establishes the tone and the authorial attitude in this
passage. We see human foibles, but they are so amusingly
presented that we smile in delight rather than in derision.
And, despite the humor achieved through exaggeration, we
see that the specific and carefully selected details give
the scene the color of reality and the characters a touch
of human nature.

In the next paragraph, Dickens describes a wedding
party that has hired a hackney-coach for the ride to the
church:

There were the bride, with a thin white dress, and
a great red face: and the bridesmaid, a little,
dumpy, good-humoured young lady, dressed, of course,
in the same appropriate costume: and the bridegroom
and his chosen friend, in blue coats, yellow waist-
coats, white trousers, and Berlin gloves to match.
They stopped at the corner of the street, and
called a coach with an air of indescribable dignity.
The moment they were in, the bridesmaid threw a

red shawl, which she had, no doubt, brought on
purpose, negligently over the number on the door,
evidently to delude pedestrians into the belief
that the hackney-coach was a private carriage:

and away they went, perfectly satisfied that the
imposition was successful, and quite unconscious
that there was a great staring number stuck up
behind, on a plate as large as a schoolboy's
Slate. (_NL__§_( I, it 105)

To this point the scene is satirical: a few additional

touches could easily make the scene a relatively sharp exposé

155

of human pretentiousness. But such is not Dickens's purpose.
In keeping with his intention to amuse his readers, Dickens
needs to modify the satire already present in the para—
graph by a touch of sentiment. His actual concluding sen-
tence puts the entire scene into proper focus: "A shilling
a mile!-—the ride was worth five, at least, to them."
This highly effective combination of satire with sentiment
is, certainly, characteristic of the later, more famous
works of Dickens, where one finds it used for characteri-
zation as well as for mood. Here, in these early sketches,
one can observe this important "Dickensian" characteristic
in formation.

Dickens's advancement in his use of description,
the descriptive (as opposed to the "dramatic") scene,
and characterization also contribute to the development of
the ”Dickensian" approach to fiction during this period of
his career. Also important is the background of buildings,
people, incidents, and attitudes as viewed from a specific
point of view that Dickens creates in the "Our Parish"
sketches. In addition, however, Dickens is usually able
in these essays to deal with these aspects of the craft of
fiction in relative isolation from one another and as
a result to advance more rapidly as a craftsman than if
he had continued to wrestle with the more complex form of
the tale.

Because these are, after all, descriptive essays,

Dickens was able to work far more extensively with the

156

techniques of description to set and to develop his scenes
in his "Sketches of London" than he had earlier in the
Monthlpragazine tales. Sometimes his descriptions are
little more than itemized lists. In "The Pawn-broker's
Shop,” for example, his depiction of the exterior and
interior of the shop usually lapses into a mere listing of
the articles displayed in the window or behind the counter.
Yet he had more consciously created an atmosphere in the

earlier Morning Chronicle sketch, "Brokers' and Marine-

 

Store Shops, where, in describing and humanizing the
articles in the shop, he related them to the lives of the
people who had once owned them. Generally speaking, most

of his descriptions in the essays are of fairly high caliber,

equal to the best passages in the Monthleragazine tales and

 

not inferior to many of the descriptions in Pickwick Papers.
The following passage from ”Hackney-Coach Stands" might very
well have begun a scene in which Mr. Pidkwick and his
company take a hackney-coach to some new destination and
some new adventure. Dickens's use of specific detail, a
certain amount of exaggeration for effect, some imagery,

and even an occasional bit of pathetic fallacy characterizes
most of his early and late description, as do his concern
with the sounds, colors, and pictures created by certain
words (as ”lumbering,” for example) and his fascination

with various rhetorical devices:

157

There is a hackney-coach stand under the very
window at which we are writing: there is only one
coach on it now, but it is a fair specimen of the
class of vehicles to which we have alluded—-a great,
lumbering, square concern of a dingy yellow colour
(like a bilious brunette), with very small glasses,
but very large frames: the panels are ornamented with
a faded coat of arms, in shape something like a
dissected bat, the axletree is red, and the majority
of the wheels are green. The box is partially covered
by an old great-coat, with a multiplicity of capes,
and some extraordinary-looking clothes: and the straw,
with which the canvas cushion is stuffed, is sticking
up in several places, as if in rivalry of the hay,
which is peeping through the chinks in the boot.

The horses, with drooping heads, and each with a

mane and tail as scanty and as straggling as those

of a worn-out rocking-horse, are standing patiently
on Some damp straw, occasionally wincing, and
rattling the harness: and now and then, one of them
lifts his mouth to the ear of his companion, as if he
were saying, in a whisper, that he should like to
assassinate the coachman. (app, I, i, 103)

Occasionally, as in ”The Streets-—Morning" or in
"Greenwich Fair,“ Dickens writes an essay whose purpose is
mainly descriptive. In the former, Dickens depicts the
streets of London, recreating their changing scenes and
moods at various hours and half-hours as the morning
progresses. For the most part the details are effective
if conventiona1--the drunken man staggering home, a police-
man, market carts, laborers on their way to work, the con-
fusion in Covent Garden Market, the servants and apprentices,
the opening of the shops, stage coaches arriving and
departing. But occasionally a more truly imaginative
picture emerges, such as that of the "rakish-looking” cat
that "runs stealthily across the road and descends his own
area with as much caution and slyness--bounding first on

the water—butt, then on the dust-hole, and then alighting

158

on the f1ag-stones--as if he were conscious that his
character depended on his gallantry of the preceding night
escaping public notice“ (NLE, I, i, 62).

If Dickens can isolate and individualize such a
minor detail in one essay in order to establish a mood,
in others he can deal as adequately with crowds. In the
following passage from "Greenwich Fair" his details are
meant to convey a general impression, but the specificity
with which the fragments of the scene are described is
responsible for creating the mood of bustle and gaiety that
pervades the entire sketch:

The road to Greenwich during the whole of Easter
Monday, is in a state of perpetual bustle and noise.
Cabs, hackney-coaches, "shay" carts, coal—waggons,
stages, omnibuses, sociables, gigs, donkey-chaises--
all crammed with people (for the question never is,
what the horse can draw, but what the vehicle will
hold), roll along at their utmost speed: the dust
flies in clouds, ginger-beer corks go off in volleys,
the balcony of every public-house is crowded with
people, smoking and drinking, half the private houses
are turned into tea-shops, fiddles are in great re-
quest, every little fruit-shop displays its stall
of gilt gingerbread and penny toys: turnpike men are
in despair: horses won't go on, and wheels will come
off: ladies in "carawans" scream with fright at every
fresh concussion, and their admirers find it necessary
to sit remarkably close to them, by way of encourage-
ment: servants of all work, who are not allowed
to have followers, and have got a holiday for the day,
make the most of their time with the faithful admirer
who waits for a stolen interview at the corner of the
street every night, when they go to fetch the beer--
apprentices grow sentimental, and straw-bonnet makers
kind. Everybody is anxious to get on, and actuated
by the common wish to be at the fair, or in the park,
as soon as possible. (NLE, I, i, 138-139)

Frequently Dickens mixes description and action in

a virtually inseparable combination to produce the effect

159

described by Percy Lubbock in his The Craft of Fiction as
"pictorial,” that is, “the reflection of events in the
mirror of somebody's receptive consciousness" rather than
”a scene which might be put upon the stage" (which is
"dramatic").3O In his novels Dickens naturally will use the
pictorial method to move his story rapidly through time or
space from one "dramatic" scene to another or to speed

up time slightly within such a scene. He will also use
the pictorial method for humor, for presentation of minor,
particularly comic, characters, and to describe comic and
melodramatic action. His use of this method can be
illustrated by an examination in some detail of one of the
"Sketches of London.”

”Early Coaches" is Dickens's narrative description
of a trip to the booking-office to purchase a place on the
six a.m. coach for a trip out of town, the going to bed
and the difficulty of sleeping, the inconvenience of arising
at five o'clock on a frosty morning, the trek through the
streets of London to the booking-office, the wait for the
coach, and the departure in the coach. The result is pic-
torial, for, though his intention is, in a way, dramatic,
Dickens's approach (because he is writing an essay and not

a tale) is descriptive. Yet action seems to be taking place

 

30Percy Lubbock, The Craft of Fiction (New York:
The Viking Press, 1957), pp. 69, 70. I am obviously more
indebted to Lubbock's classic work than to any other study
of fictional techniques even though my indebtedness does
not always find overt expression in the footnotes.

160

in the sketch: it is not merely being described. Perhaps
the following paragraph, containing a picture of the
streets as seen from "Boz's" window at five o'clock

in the morning, will afford a satisfactory illustration:

A thaw, by all that is miserable! The frost
is completely broken up. You look down the long
perspective of Oxford Street, the gas-lights mourn-
fully reflected on the wet pavement, and can discern
no speck in the road to encourage the belief that there
is a cab or a coach to be had--the very coachmen have
gone home in despair. The cold sleet is drizzling
down with that gentle regularity, which betokens a
duration of four-and-twenty hours at least: the
damp hangs upon the house-tops and lamp-posts,
and clings to you like an invisible cloak. The
water is ”coming in" in every area, the pipes
have burst, the water-butts are running over: the
kennels seem to be doing matches against time,
pump-handles descend of their own accord, horses
in market-carts fall down, and there's no one to
help them up again, policemen look as if they had
been carefully sprinkled with powdered glass: here
and there a milk-woman trudges slowly along, with a
bit of list round each foot to keep her from slipping:
boys who "don't sleep in the house," and are not
allowed much sleep out of it, can't wake their
masters by thundering at the shop-door, and cry
with the cold--the compound of ice, snow, and water
on the pavement, is a couple of inches thick--
nobody ventures to walk fast to keep himself warm,
and nobody could succeed in keeping himself warm if
he did. (NLE, I, i, 168)

The vividness of the description and Dickens's use of the
present tense and of the ”you" who is not exactly the
narrator and not exactly the reader give this passage the
immediacy of a dramatically conceived scene. The active,
highly descriptive verbs also contribute to this effect:
the sleep "drizzling down," the water "running," the horses
"falling down,” the milkwoman "trudging slowly along,“

the apprentices "thundering” and “crying" at the doors.

161

The paragraph still remains basically descriptive, and
therefore pictorial, however. The passage that follows,
which describes the trip to the booking—office, though
technically still pictorial, is dramatic in intent:

You enter a mouldy-looking room, ornamented with
large posting-bills: the greater part of the place
enclosed behind a huge lumbering rough counter, and
fitted up with recesses that look like the dens of
the smaller animals in a travelling menagerie, without
the bars. Some half-dozen people are “booking" brown-
paper parcels, which one of the clerks flings in

the aforesaid recesses with an air of recklessness
which you, remembering the new carpet—bag you bought
in the morning, feel considerably annoyed at: porters,
looking like so many Atlases, keep rushing in

and out, with large packages on their shoulders:

and while you are waiting to make the necessary
inquiries, you wonder what on earth the booking-
clerks can have been before they were bookingeoffice
clerks: one of them with his pen behind his ear and
his hands behind him, is standing in front of the fire,
like a full-length portrait of Napoleon: the other
with his hat half off his head, enters the passengers'
names in the books with a coolness which is in-
expressibly provoking: and the villain whistles--
actually whistles--while a man asks him what the
fareis outside, all the way to HolyheadE—-in frosty
weather, too! They are clearly an isolated race,
evidently possessing no sympathies or feelings in
common with the rest of mankind. Ybur turn comes

at last, and having paid the fare, you tremblingly
inquire--“What time will it be necessary for me to be
here in the morning?"--'Six o'clock," replies the
whistler, carelessly pitching the sovereign you have
just parted with, into a wooden bowl on the desk.
"Rather before than arter,“ adds the man with the
semi-roasted unmentionables, with just as much ease
and complacency as if the whole world got out of

bed at five. You turn into the street, ruminating

as you bend your steps homewards on the extent to
which men become hardened in cruelty, by custom.

 

31§L§, I, 1, 165-166. An interesting parallel to
the above passage can be quoted to show Dickens in relation-
ship to one of his contemporaries and to show, to some
extent, the quality of Dickens's description as well as the
effectiveness of his use of the pictorial method for this

L'-

162

 

particular scene. John Poole's essay, entitled "Early
Rising: 'I'll Pack My Portmanteau'," which originally
appeared in the New Monthly Magazine, and was reprinted
by Poole in his Sketches and Recollections I, 17-38, was
apparently used as a model by Dickens. While there are
certain significant differences between the two essays,
Dickens's essay, the later of the two, strikingly resembles
Poole's essay at times. One can only hope that Dickens's
sketch was a conscious attempt to expand the scope of
Poole's subject and to improve its quality. Nevertheless,
in places Dickens comes dangerously close to plagiarism,
as, I believe, the following passage from Poole's essay
will illustrate:

. . . I went into the coach-office, expecting to
be told, in answer to my very first question, that
the advertisement [for a coach leaving at five
o'clock in the morning], was altogether a ruse g; guerre.

"So, sir,“ said I, to the book-keeper, "you start
a coach to London at five in the morning?”

“Yes, sir,“ replied he--and with the most
perfect nonchalancei

"You understand me? At five? in the MORNING?"
rejoined I, with an emphasis sufficiently expressive
of doubt.

"Yes, sir, five to a minute-—two minutes later
you'll lose your place."

"And would you, now, venture to book a place
for me?"

“Let you know directly, sir.--(Hand down the
'Wonder' Lunnun-book, there.)--When for, sir?"

I stood aghast at the fellow's coolness.

After a momentary pause, “For to-morrow," said I.

”Full outside, sir: just one place vacant in."

The very word, ”outside,” bringing forcibly to
my mind the idea of ten or a dozen shivering creatures
being induced, by any possible means, to perch them-
selves on the top of a coach, on a dark, dull, dingy,
drizzling morning in January, confirmed me in my
belief that the whole affair was, what is vulgarly
called, a “take-in.‘

"So you will venture then to book a place for me?“

"Yes, sir, if you please."

“And, perhaps, you will go so far as to receive
half my fare?”

“If you please, sir--one pound two."

”Well, you are an extraordinary person! Perhaps
now--pray be attentive-~perhaps, now you will carry on
the thing so far as to receive the whole?"

"If you please, sir-—two pound four."

 

163

There is, obviously, very little need for a dramatically
conceived scene at this point in Dickens's essay: thus, the
pictorial approach is highly effective.32 In addition,
because Dickens (i.e., the narrator, the "you") is speaking
in his own voice, he can be humorous through his comments
on the action or on the characters, and he can effectively
summarize, at any one point, action that is apparently con-
tinuous throughout the scene, such as the book-keeper's
whistling. The pictorial technique, whether tending toward
the dramatic, is one that Dickens will always find exceeding
useful and effective for the obviously necessary fore—
shortening of action but also as a means of achieving comic
and pathetic effects.

In regard to characterization, as in regard to
subject matter, theme and tone, description, and pictorial
scene, the Dickens who wrote the "Sketches of London" is
closer to achieving those qualities that will come to

characterize his writing as “Dickensian" than was the Dickens

 

I paid him the money, observing, at the same time,
and in a tone calculated to impress his imagination
with a vivid picture of attorneys, counsel, judge,
and jury-—"You shall hear from me again.“

“If you please, sir: to-morrow morning, at
five punctua1-—start to a minute, sir--thank'ee, sir--
good morning, sir.”

And this he uttered, without a blush!!!

"To what expedients," thought I, as I left
the office, 'willrnen resort, for the purpose of
injuring their neighbours!"

(Sketches and Recollections, I, 25-27)

32Contrast the relative ineffectiveness of Poole's
scene quoted in footnote 31, above.

164

who wrote the Monthly Magazine tales. As a matter of fact,
while writing these essays, he seems to have developed
significantly his concept of characterization: certainly

an examination of the various fictitious personages who fill
the pages of these essays will reveal some characters who

would not be out of place in Pickwick Papers and who could

 

have made the early tales sparkle with brilliance.

One reason for the improved characters in the
“Sketches of London" may be due to the fact that they appear
in essays rather than tales. They have the advantage of
being based upon real people, for the essays are mainly on
subjects related in one way or another to Dickens's personal
experience and observation. In transposing the real people
into fictitious personages, Dickens touches them up: combines
parts of one person with parts of another: exaggerates
speech peculiarities, mannerisms, or physical traits in
order to achieve the characters he needs: and even generalizes
their characteristics sufficiently to make use of the
created figures as types rather than as individuals
(though by no means the superficially conceived types of
the early tales). Another product of the fact that these
characters appear in descriptive essays is that most of the
figures are "minor" ones, and therefore easier to create.

If dealt with to the same length in a novel, they would
merely be people who inhabit a landscape or briefly fill

a lull in the actions of the main characters. Even in a

165

short story, they would play roles of scarcely greater
importance. Yet because they serve as relevant examples in
the essays of the expository ideas with which Dickens works,
they are created with careful attention to detail. Some-
times a quick physical description is all that the essay
requires: at other times, frequently within the space of a
sentence or two, Dickens must begin to establish a mood,
add a touch of humor, relate the characterization to the
theme, establish an attitude toward another character, tone
down a satirical portrait with a touch of humor, or give
the final twist to the developing picture of a hypocrite.
As examples rather than as fully conceived personages, they
are easier for Dickens to develop satisfactorily than if
they were characters interacting with other characters with-
in a scene, busily working out the predetermined story.
That Dickens will give the same careful attention to
such minor characters who will later appear briefly in his
novels not only explains why he creates so many memorable
characters in any given story but also suggests that he
early learned the value of such quick, characterizing
description. Because of his extremely limited space and
because of the expository emphasis in the sketches, Dickens's
accomplishments are not sensational, but they are substantial.
One sees him by the middle of 1835 well on his way to
writing Pickwick Papers.

Examining the naturecfiEDickens's new characters in

more detail, one particularly notices Dickens's much greater

166

use of mannerisms and actions, dialogue and dialect to
delineate his characters, what Walter Bagehot refers to
as his “vivification of character, or rather of character—
istics," the process by which Dickens "expands traits into
people."33 One recalls the servant-girl with the pink
ribbons running down the street in "Hackney—Coach Stands,"
the whistling booking—clerk in "Early Coaches," and the
brief picture, in “Gin Shops," of the two old washerwomen
who "are rather overcome by the headdresses and haughty
demeanour of the young ladies who officiate. The first
two examples have already been used in this chapter. In
the last, the old women receive their half-quartern of gin
and peppermint, with considerable deference, prefacing a
request for 'one of them soft biscuits,' with a 'Jist be
good enough, ma'am.'“ (NLE, I, i, 231). Dialogue and
dialect are also used fairly often by Dickens in these
sketches to give an individualizing touch to a character.
In "Gin Shops," for example, one finds a cleverly handled
scene between one of the female gin dispensers and an
impudent young man in "a brown coat and bright buttons,"
who

ushering in his two companions, and walking up to

the bar in as careless a manner as if he had been

used to green and gold ornaments all his life, winks
at one of the young ladies with a singular coolness,

 

33Walter Bagehot, "Charles Dickens (1858)," in his
Literary Studies (London: J. M. Dent & Sons, 1911 [Every—
man's Library]), II, 176 and 180.

167

and calls for a "kervorten and a three-out—glass,“
just as if the place were his own. "Gin for you,
sir?" says the young lady when she has drawn it:
carefully looking every way but the right one, to show
that the wink had no effect upon her. "For me,
Mary, my dear,” replies the gentleman in brown.
”My name an't Mary as it happens," says the young
girl, rather relaxing as she delivers the change.
"Well, if it an't, it ought to be,” responds the
irresistible one: “all the Marys as ever I see,
was handsome gals." (NEE, I, i, 231)

The combination of realistic speech patterns with the
characterizing mannerisms not only creates a humorous
incident but also, despite the virtually complete absence of
physical description, creates two believable characters
within the scope of about one hundred words.

Occasionally, as in parts of "The Pawnbroker's

Shop,’ and "Astley's,' somewhat more fully developed scenes
enable Dickens to do greater justice to a few characters.
In "Astley's” the description of the family consisting of
father, mother, nine or ten children, and a governess is
worthy of the later Dickens in its delicate touches of
humor, its minute details, and, despite Dickens's claim

that he is describing ”our beau ideal of a group of Astley's

 

visitors,‘ its individualized characterizations. One
finds, for example, "a child in a braided frock, and a

high state of astonishment, with very large round eyes,
opened to their utmost width,“ who is lifted over the

seats, "a process which occasioned a considerable display of

little pink legs, and an eldest son, “a boy of fourteen

years old, who was evidently trying to look as if he did

168

not belong to the family" (NLE, I, i, 105). The entire group
is best captured in the following paragraph:

The play began, and the interest of the little boys
knew no bounds. Pa was clearly interested, too,
although he very unsuccessfully endeavoured to look
as if he wasn't. As for ma, she was perfectly over-
come by the drollery of the principal comedian, and
laughed till every one of the immense bows on her ample
cap trembled, at which the governess peeped out from
behind the pillar again, and whenever she could catch
ma's eye, put her handkerchief to her mouth, and
appeared, as in duty bound, to be in convulsions of
laughter also. Then when the man in the splendid
armour vowed to rescue the lady or perish in the
attempt, the little boys applauded vehemently,
especially one little fellow who was apparently on

a visit to the family, and had been carrying on a
child's flirtation, the whole evening, with a small
coquette of twelve years old, who looked like a model
of her mamma on a reduced scale: and who, in common
with the other little girls (who generally speaking
have even more coquettishness about them than much
older ones), looked very properly shocked, when

the knight's squire kissed the princess's confidential
chambermaid. (NLE, I, 1, 131-132)

In addition to the new richness that one finds in
the characters who appear in the "Sketches of London,"
Dickens seems to be more consciously creating the effect
he achieves with each character or group of characters in
these essays. That he created the characters to illustrate
specific expository ideas undoubtedly contributes greatly
to the consistency of their personalities and the attitude
he has toward them. For example, most of the people he
describes are treated humorously. Dickens forces the reader
to laugh at the family in Astley's audience and even,
perhaps, in doing so, to laugh at. himself: at the same
time, however, the joyous outing of the family leaves the

reader with a refreshing sense of the occasional splendor

169

of the human condition. Dickens's attitude toward such
characters is reflected in his remark in "Thoughts about
People," that he admires his "very particular friends,"
the hackney-coachmen, cabmen, and cads of London, "in
proportion £6 the extent of their cool impudence and perfect
self-possession" (NLE, I, i, 272). That he was conscious
(at least by 1836) of his attitude toward such characters
is evident in the revised ending that he wrote for this
essay for the first series of Sketches by Boz. Having
described a group of London apprentices with a touch of
satirical humor, a certain sentimental affection, and
perhaps a remembrance of his own recent past as a clerk
for Ellis and Blackmore, Dickens concludes:

We may smile at such people, but they can never
excite our anger. They are usually on the best of
terms with themselves, and it follows almost as a
matter of course, in good-humour with every one
about them. Besides, they are always the faint
reflection of higher lights: and, if they do display
a little occasional foolery in their own proper persons,
it is surely more tolerable than precocious puppyism
in the Quadrant, whiskered dandyism in Regent

Street and Pall Mall, or gallantry in its dotage
anywhere.34

 

34NLQ, I, i, 274. The original conclusion was, Butt

and Tillotson indicate, "much more clearly partisan than the
revised version of 1836“ and less urbane, the revised version
substituting “the bland smile of the periodical essayist for
the glare of the propagandist.“ A part of the omitted
passage, reprinted by Butt and Tillotson (p. 46), follows:
. . . we see no reason why the same gentleman of
enlarged and comprehensive views who proposes to
Parliament a measure for preserving the amusements of
the upper classes of society, and abolishing those
of the lower, may not with equal wisdom preserve the
former more completely, and mark the distinction be-
tween the two more effectually, by bringing in a Bill
"to limit to certain members of the hereditary peerage

170

While Dickens creates most of his characters as
humorous personages, others are produced by a much more
bitter, more pessimistic point of view. One manifestation
of this approach is to be found in "The Pawnbroker's Shop,"
in which the satirical treatment of the pawnbroker, his
clerks, an old, "sallow-looking” woman, a "slipshod" woman,
and an unshaven, dirty, "sottish-looking" fellow is un-
relieved by the least hint of humor. Dickens here gives
expression to a darker view of human nature than in most
of the sketches: in so doing, he creates several striking
characters, developed through direct statement, physical
description, gestures, mannerisms, speech, thought, and the
impressions of other characters, as illustrated in the
following passage:

”What do you strike the boy for, you brute?"
exclaims a slipshod woman, with two flat-irons in a
little basket. "Do you think he's your wife, you
willin?“ "Go and hang yourself!“ replies the
gentleman addressed, with a drunken look of savage
stupidity, aiming at the same time a blow at the
woman which fortunately misses its object. "Go and
hang yourself: and wait till I come and cut you
down."--"Cut you down,“ rejoins the woman, “I wish
I had the cutting of you up, you wagabond! (loud.)
Oh! you precious wagabond! (rather louder.)
Where's your wife, you willin? (louder still: women
of this class are always sympathetic, and work
themselves into a tremendous passion on the
shortest notice.). . . . 'An't it shocking?"
she continues, turning round, and appealing to an
old woman who is peeping out of one of the little

 

of this country and their families, the privilege of
making fools of themselves as often and as egregiously
as to them shall seem meet". Precedent is a great
thing in these cases, and Heaven knows he will have
precedent enough to plead.

171

closets we have before described, and who has not the

slightest objection to join in the attack, possessing,

as she does, the comfortable conviction that she

is bolted in. 'An't it shocking, ma'am?" (Dreadful!

says the old woman in a parenthesis, not exactly

knowing what the question refers to.)

(M: I, i, 239)

The parenthetical explanation of the slipshod woman's
passionate outburst is unfortunate, for it tells what Dickens
effectively reveals by other, subtler means. But apart
from this, the bitterness of the satire to which Dickens
treats his characters is particularly successful in rein-
forcing the picture of pawnshops that Dickens had initially
proposed in the sketch: "Of the numerous receptacles for
misery and distress with which the streets of London unhappily
abound, there are, perhaps, none which present such striking
scenes as the pawnbrokers' shops" (NLE, I, i, 233).

Another manifestation of Didkens's early pessimistic
attitude toward life is to be found in the characters he
presents in “Thoughts about People.” "It is strange," he
begins in this sketch, ”with how little notice, good, bad,
or indifferent, a man may live and die in London. He
awakens no sympathy in the breast of any single person:
his existence is a matter of interest to no one save him-
self: he cannot be said to be forgotten when he dies, for
no one remembered him when he was alive" (NLE, I, i, 268).
Such a character as the shabby-genteel man, who is_a product,

as Dickens sees him, of man's indifference to other men,

will appear over and over again in Didkens's later works.

172

In Pickwick Papers, the interpolated tales and the chapters
devoted to Mr. Pickwick's incarceration in the Fleet prison
abound with such creatures. Other earlier examples may
also be found in “Gin Shops,” "London Recreations,” "The
Pawnbroker's Shop,“ and one or two of the "Our Parish"
sketches in Sketches by Boz. The sentimental mood with
which Dickens surrounds such characters at times disguises
the underlying bitterness of Dickens's opinion of man: in
such later works as Bleak House and Our Mutual Friend, how-
ever, even the sentimental mood will be gone.

But Dickens's development of the character of the
shabby-genteel man reveals more than the philosophic basis
(however crudely he may have formulated it at this stage
of his career) of Dickens's handling of characterization.
It also more specifically reveals at least one method by
which the young author's characters come into existence.

In this sketch, he starts with the idea, already mentioned,
that many Londoners live and die unnoticed. Next, he
searches for possible examples in real life to illustrate

the idea: "We were seated in the enclosure of St. James's
Park the other day, when our attention was attracted by a

man whom we immediately put down in our own mind as one

of this class." Having selected his model, Dickens

describes his physical appearance, which naturally reinforces
the initial concept Dickens began with. The reader by now
has a relatively clear, relatively complete picture of the

external man, a picture that shows he must indeed be one

173

of the unfortunate, unnoticed people of London. Dickens

does not stop here, however. "There was something," he

continues, "in the man's manner and appearance which told

us, we fancied, his whole life, or rather his whole day,

for a man of this sort has no variety of days.” At this

point, then, Dickens calls his imagination into use:

speculating about the man's life, he projects in great

detail a day in it that, in various ways--through the man's

actions, his occupation, his behavior, his mannerisms, his

tthoughts, all the minutiae of his life--reveals the essence

of a type of human being.35
By August 20, 1835, when the last of his "Sketches

of London" appeared in the Evening Chronicle, Dickens had

come a long way in his understanding of the needs of

effective characterization and his ability to use at least

the important basic techniques to achieve such characteri-

zations. How bad the creations of the early farcical tales

are can easily be seen by contrasting them with the personages

that Dickens created in order to illustrate his descriptive

essays. Dickens has not as yet created a character approach—

ing the scope and depth of a Mr. Pickwick or a Sam Weller,

say, or even an Alfred Jingle or a Fat Boy: he would need

the length of space that only a novel could give him for

such an achievement. Yet in the "Sketches of London,"

 

BSNLE' I, 1: 268-271.

174

he is at least beginning to have a better understanding of
what genuinely comic, more bitterly satiric, and more senti—
mentally conceived characters require if they are to be

more than stick figures or stock types. He is beginning

to breathe some life into them, minor though they still are.
In the tales and character studies he will shortly write

for Bell's Life in London and in the somewhat longer tales

he will write for the first series of Sketches by Boz and

 

for the Libraryiof Fiction, he will have an opportunity at
least to use the length of a short storyin which to develop
a few characters more fully than he has to this point. In
the light of what he was able to accomplish in the way of
characterization in the essays that he wrote for the Morning

Chronicle and the Evening Chronicle, these somewhat later

 

achievements will be sufficiently notable to suggest that
he is ready by early 1836 to write Pickwick Papers.

Finally, six of the Evening Chronicle essays merit

 

singling out. Dickens collected them in the first series
of Sketches by Boz (February, 1836) under the heading of
"The Parish," with which they had all been titled upon
their initial appearances, giving them the specific sub—
titles by which they are now known. Presumably in the
tradition of Mary Mitford's Our Village. Sketches of Rural
Character and Scenery (5 vols., London, 1824-1832) and John

36

Galt's Annals of the Parish (Edinburgh, 1821), the sketches

 

36Butt and Tillotson, p. 41, n. 2, suggest that
Dickens's series was "probably intended as a novel variation"
of Miss Mitford's "popular series.“ The title of Galt's
work, though in reference to a Scottish parish, naturally
suggested itself.

175

were from the beginning37 intended to form a series that
depicted through description, characterization, and dramatic
scene the essence of an urban parish. Taken as a whole,
these six essays (with a seventh, "Our Next Door Neighbour,"
that Dickens first published in the second series of Sketches
by Boz) are significant because they show Dickens creating

a setting--a background of buildings, people, and attitudes-—
that is seen through a limited point of View (the editorial
"we") and against which the main characters of a novel

could perform. The number of pages, the sheer length
occupied by these sketches, is in itself important, for here
Dickens is working with the proportions of a novel. The
parish setting, if it were part of a novel, would be one

of the areas in which action important to the plot would

take place. The characters who inhabit the sketches—-the
Beadle, the four sisters, the Curate, the Old Lady, the
Captain, Mr. Bung, the members of the Ladies' Societies,

even, in some of the sketches, the narrator himself38--would

 

37Dickens was apparently making plans for the series
as early as late 1833 or early 1834, for in discussing his
future writing plans with Henry Kolle, he stated, "I shall
then, please God, commence a series of papers (the materials
for which I have been noting down for some time) called The
Parish." (Nonesuch Let., I, 29, to Henry Kolle, [1834]).

38The narrator, presumably "Boz," appears most
prominently as a character in ”The Four Sisters," the humor
of the sketch depending largely upon his personality. His
assumed naivete maintains a certain suspense for the reader
as to which of the four sisters actually is married to Mr.
Robinson and as to how soon it will be before the "clever"
narrator will realize what the reader is pretty certain of,
that Mrs. Robinson, whichever one of the sisters she is,
is obviously pregnant. See NLE, I, i, l7-23.

176

form an associated group of minor characters, comparable,

for example, to the Dingley Dell group in Pickwick Papers,

 

the Yarmouth group in David Copperfield, or the Bleeding

Heart Yard group in Little Dorrit. They have life as

 

individuals, but also as a group occupying a particular
part of the total landscape of a novel.

One can see, then, that between September 26, 1834,
when the first of Dickens's five "Street Sketches“ appeared
in the Morning Chronicle, and August 20, 1835, when the last
of his twenty "Sketches of London" appeared in the Evening
Chronicle, Dickens developed considerably in the art of
description (scenic and narrative) and in the other elements
the descriptive essay holdsin common with the fictional tale:
setting, incident, authorial attitude, point of view, tone
and characterization. Interestingly enough, in turning
from the farcical tales in order to write a series of twenty—
five essays, DiCkens prepared himself not only to write
sometimes excellent descriptive essays but also far more
effective tales than he had done. He is obviously much
better prepared to return to fiction.

The ”Scenes and Characters" in
Bell's Life in London

Dickens returns to the farcical tale in some of
the twelve "Scenes and Characters" that he contributed to

the weekly Bell's Life in London and Sporting Chronicle

177

between September 27, 1835, and January 17, 1836.39 Its

editor, Vincent Dowling, was a former colleague of Dickens
in the Parliamentary galleries and, according to Frederic
G. Kitton, “is credited with being one of the first to
discern Dickens's genius for descriptive writing and
character-sketching, and was apparently instrumental in
securing the young writer's services on behalf of that popu-
lar periodical."40 When Dickens grouped the contents of
his two series of Sketches by Boz under headings for the
collected edition (published in monthly parts, 1837-1839,
and in volume form, 1839), he placed three of these

twelve sketches--"Seven Dials," ”The Last Cab-Driver and
the First Omnibus Cad," and ”The Streets by Night"-—under
the heading of "Scenes” and the rest under that of
"Characters,” but this division does not characterize these

sketches as adequately as one might like. Five of the

 

39"Seven Dials," September 27: "Miss Evans and the
Eagle," October 4: "The Dancing Academy," October 11: "Making
a Night of It," October 18: "Love and Oysters"(retitled "The
Misplaced Attachment of Mr. John Dounce” in the second series
of §§), October 25: “Some Account of an Omnibus Cad" (enlarged
and retitled "The Last Cab-Driver and the First Omnibus
Cad" in the second series of SB), N0vember l: ”The Vocal
Dress—Maker“ (retitled “The Mistaken Milliner--A Tale of
Ambition" in the second series of SB), NOvember 22: "The
Prisoners' Van,“ November 29: ”The Parlour" (retitled "The
Parlour Orator" in the second series of §§), December 13:
"Christmas Festivities" (retitled "A Christmas Dinner“ in
the first series of SB), December 27, 1835: "The New Year,“
January 3: and ”The Streets at Night" (retitled “The Streets
by Night“ in the second series of s5 and later "The Streets--
Night"), January 17, 1836.

40Kitton, The Minor Writings of Charles Dickens, p. 7.

178

sketches are actually tales. The remaining seven sketches
are, structurally speaking, at least, essays, but essays
developed mainly through scenic descriptions, dramatic
scenes, or character studies. The series title, "Scenes

and Characters,‘ is revealing: it strongly suggests that
Dickens wrote these sketches with two important aspects of
fictional craftsmanship consciously in mind. By this time
he also may have realized that the sketches I have described
as tales, because they are like the earlier pieces he him-
self had so designated, were more character studies than
plotted stories.

As is true of the essays Dickens wrote for the Morning
Chronicle and the Evening Chronicle, those in Bell's Life
in London contain passages of description, characterization,
and even an occasional scene. ”Seven Dials" and "The Streets
by Night," for example, are largely developed through des-
criptions of various buildings, streets, shops, and people,
and are endowed with the colorful and realistic details
that already characterized the writing of young Dickens.
"The Parlour Orator' and “The Prisoners' Van” are developed
mainly through dramatic scenes dependent upon strong
characterizations for their effect. The former contains
an excellent satire of an argumentative, red-faced man
accustomed to having his own way on political topics who
is put down by a little greengrocer using the orator's own
major argumentative technique of "Prove it!" The three

remaining essays are also interesting studies of characters.

179

"The New Year" and that portion of "The Last Cab-Driver

and the First Omnibus Cad” (the second half) that was
originally published in Bell's Life in London41 deal at some
length with mainly one character each, the former with a
most sociable man by the name of Winkles in the original

and Tupple in the revised version and the latter with a
roguish omnibus cad by the name of "Bill Boorker" (William
Barker). A number of the characters described in these
essays will also make brief appearances in Pickwick Papers,
as anyone familiar with the work must know. So will many

of the characters in ”A Christmas Dinner, which contains a
large cast, all members of a family, from a comical grand-
father to the melancholic daughter who has been disowned
by her father (the grandfather) and mother for having
married a poor man. The essay, too, ranges from the
extreme of farce to the extreme of sentimentality. Most
noticeably, it is told almost completely in non-dramatic
narrative, as Mr. Gabriel Parson's tale of his wedding
night had been. One senses that Dickens is becoming aware
that this method of narration suits the requirements of
both the comic and the pathetic moods, where the author
occasionally needs tighter control over his materials

than a dramatically presented scene can give him. A

pictorially conceived scene enables him to use not only

irony but also suggestion through the presence and point

 

41See Butt and Tillotson, pp. 42 and 54.

180

of view of the narrator and through direct statement.

In the earlier "Street Sketches" and "Sketches of
London,“ Dickens had begun, as "Boz,” to assume the role
of the superior, sophisticated observer of human behavior,
but the journalistic nature of these sketches prevented
him from obtruding too much as narrator. The essays he
wrote for Bell's Life in London, however, seem to have been
initially conceived by him as essays of greater "literary"
quality. Influenced, no doubt, by his favorite eighteenth
century essayists, he made his narrator (to whom, borrowing
from Goldsmith, he gave the pseudonym ”Tibbs") not only a
recorder of what he saw but a presumably omniscient evaluator
of it. "Christmas time! That man must be a misanthrope
indeed, in whose breast something like a jovial feeling is
not aroused--in whose mind some pleasant associations are
not awakened-—by the recurrence of Christmas,“ he begins
"A Christmas Dinner,“ and concludes his opening paragraph
with an exhortation to his readers redolent of patriarchal
wisdom: “Dwell not upon the past. . . . Reflect upon
your present blessings--of which every man has many--not upon
your past misfortunes, of which all men have some. Fill
your glass again,with a merry face and contented heart.
Our life on it, but your Christmas shall be merry, and your
new year a happy one!” (NLE, I, i, 274-275). Also clever-—
almost too clever--is the disdainful "Pooh!" to which he

builds the second paragraph of "Seven Dials":

181

We boldly aver that we doubt the veracity of

the legend to which we have adverted. We can

suppose a man rash enough to inquire at random—-

at a house with lodgers too--for a Mr. Thompson, with

all but the certainty before his eyes of finding

at least two or three Thompsons in any house of

moderate dimensions: but a Frenchman--a Frenchman

in Seven Dials! Pooh! He was an Irishman. Tom

King's education had been neglected in his infancy,

and as he couldn't understand half the man said,

he took it for granted he was talking French.

(M: I: i: 87)
However much one may dislike the archness of the narrator's
style, he is observing an author consciously developing a
style, formulating an attitude toward his subject, and
working with a predetermined point of view in his narrator.
Dickens will abandon the flippant tone following Oliver
Twist, but it will characterize his writing until that time.
If in these seven sketches from Bell's Life in London,

one can see Dickens continuing to develop as a conscious
technician, the five remaining "Scenes and Characters,"
which are like the type of farcical tale he wrote for the
MonthlyyMagazine, illustrate his further development as a
creative writer. These five—-”Miss Evans and the Eagle,"
"The Dancing Academy," “Making a Night of It,” "The Mis-
placed Attachment of Mr. John Dounce," and “The Mistaken
Milliner--A Tale of Ambition"--are much better written
than the earlier tales, partly, one suspects, because of
the fictional techniques that Dickens had mastered in the
process of writing the twenty—five essays for the Mgggigg
Chronicle and the Evening Chronicle.

His plots are still rather weak, sometimes because

they lack that element of suspense created by the conflict

182

inherent in the structure of an effective story, sometimes
because, although the conflict may be present, it is aWk-
wardly developed, and its resolution comes too abruptly.
"Miss Evans and the Eagle" contains a certain amount of
conflict. In the story, Mr. Wilkins calls for Miss Evans
with plans to take her to the Eagle, apparently a minor
sort of Vauxhall Gardens. On their way they meet another
couple, of Miss Evans's acquaintance, with whom they stop
at the Crown for a drink. Following a few drinks, they
proceed to the Eagle where, after still more drinks, the two
escorts become incensed by the attentions two other gentle-
men are paying to Miss Evans and her friend. A verbal
exchange gives way to fisticuffs, and Mr. Wilkins and his
fellow beau are bested by the other gentlemen, who, upon
the shrieks of the two women, disappear into the night.
Miss Evans and her friend end the evening by being carried
home, by hackney-coach, in ”a state of insensibility,
compounded of shrub, sherry, and excitement" (NLE, I, i, 293).
The tale obviously lacks the requisite structural conflict,
for the abortive flight that ends the tale is not really
the logical result of earlier determined behavior or
deliberate scheming. The reader may recognize the lower
class characteristics of the characters by the touches of
dialect Dickens gives them, and he knows from the tone of
the story that comic action will ensue, but these are no

indication, for example, that the two women will necessarily

183

be easy marks for the two rakish gentlemen, or that Mr.
Wilkins and Co. will be motivated to violence by the
attentions of the gentleman in the whiskers or the one in
the plaid waistcoat. In other words, Dickens does not
adequately prepare the reader for what is to come in the
story. The same structural deficiencies will also be found-
in most of the other tales.

By way of contrast, the encounter of Mr. Pickwick
and Sam Weller with Mr. Jingle and Job Trotter at Eatanswill
(Chapter XVI, in NLE, II, i, 274-299) is quite adequately
plotted. Sam and Mr. Pickwick are out for revenge but
have forgotten the devious cleverness of the two men whom
they are dealing with. As a result, Mr. Pickwick, the hero
who has gone to warn the young ladies about Mr. Jingle's
bad reputation, finds himself in the awkward position of
having to explain what he is doing in the back garden of the
Westgate House Establishment for Young Ladies at night.

He is finally rescued when his friends come to vouch for
his character, but he and Sam Weller realize that they have
been duped:

”Jingle suspected my design, and set that fellow

on you with this story, I suppose?" said Mr. Pickwick,
half choking.

“Just that, sir," replied Mr. Weller.

"It was all false, of course?"

“All, sir," replied Mr. Weller. "Reg'lar do,

sir: artful dodge."
"I don't think he'll escape us quite so easily
the next time, Sam?" said Mr. Pickwick.
'I don't think he will, sir.“
“Whenever I meet that Jingle again, wherever it is,"

said Mr. Pickwick, raising himself in bed, and indent-
ing his pillow with a tremendous blow, "I'll inflict

184

personal chastisement on him, in addition to the
exposure he so richly merits. I will, or my name is
not Pickwick."

"And wenever I catches hold 0' that there melancholly
chap with the black hair," said Sam, "if I don't bring
some real water into his eyes for once in a way, my
name an't Weller. Good night, sir." (NLE, II, i, 299)

Given the characters of the four men, the revenge planned
by Sam and Mr. PiCkwick has to end asignominiousLyas it does.
Besides, Dickens intends the innocence reflected in Mr.
Pickwick to be ineffective when it comes up against men
such as Jingle who are wise to the ways of the world and
live in harmony with such ways. Not even the experience
of Sam Weller is always sufficient to save Pickwick. Yet,
as a result of what happens in Chapter XVI, Pickwick and
Sam have learned another lesson in life: it seems likely
that the vows they make at the end of the chapter will be
fulfilled at some time later in the novel.

As scenes, however, or as incidents that reveal the
true natures of the characters involved, the tales in Bell's
Life in London are better than their predecessors. Except
that it still bears touches of the early Dickens, the
episode described in ”Miss Evans and the Eagle" could,
with little difficulty, be fit into an early Dickens
novel and not seem completely out of place. The same is
true of "Making a Night of It," which, while it lacks plot
in the conventional sense, is an amusing anecdote of two

clerks' evening out. It ends, not surprisingly, in the

police court. The effectiveness of these tales as "scenes"

185

or "episodes" has nothing to do with plot, however: one must
examine the characterization, the description, narration,
point of view, and tone of these five tales in order to
discover those qualities that make them notable improvements
over the MonthlyyMagazine pieces and that move Dickens

closer to the writing of Pickwick Papers.

 

If one approaches these tales as character studies,
the structure that Dickens has given them makes somewhat
more sense. From this point of view, the tales become
gradual revelations of the true personalities of certain
characters. In ”Miss Evans and the Eagle," we see, as a
result of the action in the story, that Miss Evans and her
friends are flirtatious by nature (at least after a few
drinks) and are by no means the quiet, delicate, fragile
creatures that the narrator archly pretends they are. In
"The Dancing Academy," Dickens reveals the foolish behavior
that results from a young man's social pretensions, but
he also uncovers the disgusting motivations of Signor
Billsmethi and his family, who, as one shortly discovers,
play upon the vanities of foolish young men. In "The
Mistaken Milliner--A Tale of Ambition," the reader makes
almost parallel discoveries about foolish Miss Amelia
Martin, who is convinced by the Rodolphs that she is good
enough to be a professional singer, and about predatory
Mr. and Mrs. Rodolph, who build up their own reputations

as judges of talent and also get Miss Martin, in gratitude

186

for their attentions, to sew elegant costumes for Mrs.
Rodolph. “The Misplaced Attachment of Mr. John Dounce" is
even more obviously a character study from the beginning,
for the opening paragraphs are in the essay mode, Dickens
beginning with a discussion of old gentlemen, of whom he
presents Mr. Dounce as a representative. The whole purpose
of the piece is to illustrate the foolishness of "old boys,"
just as in I'Making a Night of It" the purpose is to show

the comic foolishness of “young" boys.

Most of these characters may be types, but they are
far superior to the types who inhabit the pages of the earliest
tales Dickens wrote. Mr. Dounce, for example, though his
story is brief, is more thoroughly delineated than his earlier
prototype, Mr. Watkins Tottle, whose story is rather too
long and who, himself, as discussed in Chapter Two of this
study is not only inconsistently but also inadequately
characterized by Dickens. One certainly cannot see Mr.
Dounce as a "round" character, but he does have the advantage
over Mr. Tottle, at least in regard to comic action, of
being motivated by love, or what he conceives to be love,
rather than money. Even if it is merely the pretty face
and the pleasing manner of the young lady in the oyster
shop that attract Mr. Dounce, the reader at least sympathizes
with the aging gentleman's all too human foibles. One
laughs at him but also feels a certain sympathy, motivated,
perhaps, by the cruelty of the lady's treatment of him, by

his loss of friends and daughters, and by his unfortunate

187

marriage to his cook, a final punishment not quite as
drastic as that of Mr. Tottle.

One might also investigate the characters in "The
Dancing Academy.” Mr. Augustus Cooper, though one of many
young men in Dickens's tales, is a new character, a new
type for Dickens. Perhaps we get an earlier suggestion of
him in the apprentices briefly glimpsed in "Thoughts about
People”: he may also have a resemblance to some of the
frustrated amateurs in ”Private Theatres." He is definitely
a predecessor of Mr. Winkle. But he is not the typical
young man of the Monthly Magazine tales, such as Percy
Noakes, Horatio Sparkins, or Theodosius Butler, who seems
to have been attractive to Dickens earlier. Mr. Cooper,
Mr. Wilkins of "Miss Evans and the Eagle,“ and Mr. Potter
and Mr. Smithers of ”Making a Night of It," all "heroes"
in their respective stories, are comic figures. As such,
they deserve whatever satire Dickens treats them to: they
are, to be more precise, defined as characters by such
satire. And yet, while they are intended by Dickens as
figures who embody human foibles, there is a certain jgig
.gg.yiy£§ in their actions that keeps them from being merely
farcical creations. The reader must not forget just how
naive, how foolish, how stupid Mr. Cooper is in the story,
but he must also remember, after all, that Mr. Cooper joined
the dancing academy to show his independence of a domineering

mother who had forgotten that her little son had grown up:

188

his return to her care after the incident at the dancing
school merits, at least to some extent, the sympathetic
reaction of the reader. In addition, the Billsmethi family
has victimized him to the tune of some twenty pounds.

Still more interesting is the fact that even as the
reader hesitantly extends his sympathy to Mr. Cooper, this
does not necessarily unleash his disgust upon the Billsmethi
family. Like other rogues who will, later, strut through
Dickens's novels, they, too, have a certain dash, a certain
‘igig‘ggwyiyrg, about themselves:

After the practising was over, Signor Billsmethi,
and Miss Billsmethi, and Master Billsmethi, and a
young lady, and the two ladies, and the two gentle-
men, danced a quadrille--none of your slipping and
sliding about, but regular warm work, flying into
corners, and diving among chairs, and shooting out
at the door,—-something like dancing! Signor
Billsmethi in particular, notwithstanding his having
a little fiddle to play all the time, was out on the
landing every figure, and Master Billsmethi, when
everybody else was breathless, danced a hornpipe,
with a cane in his hand, and a cheese—plate on his
head, to the unqualified admiration of the whole
company. Then Signor Billsmethi insisted, as they
were so happy, that they should all stay to supper,
and proposed sending Master Billsmethi for the

beer and spirits, whereupon the two gentlemen swore,
“strike 'em wulgar if they'd stand that:” and were
just going to quarrel who should pay for it, when
Mr. Augustus Cooper said he would, if they'd

have the kindness to allow him--and theygacl the
kindness to allow him: and Master Billsmethi brought
the beer in a can, and the rum in a quart pot.

They had a regular night of it: and Miss Billsmethi
squeezed Mr. Augustus Cooper's hand under the table:
and Mr. Augustus Cooper returned the squeeze, and
returned home too, at something to six o'clock in
the morning, when he was put to bed by main force
by the apprentice, after repeatedly expressing an
uncontrollable desire to pitch his revered parent

189
out of the second-floor window, and to throttle the
apprentice with his own neck-handkerchief.42
Reinforcing Dickens's gradual movement away from

the use of the simple, typed character of the Monthly
Magazine tales is the greater emphasis on realistic and
sometimes exaggerated details of characterization in these
slightly later tales. As discussed earlier in this chapter,
Dickens's use of colorful details was first noticeable in
the necessarily descriptive ”Street Sketches" and "Sketches

of London, where they gave the characters in his illustra-
tions, minor though many of them are, usually simple but always
striking appearances, mannerisms,,speech, and personalities.
This practice, soon to become one of the qualities which
thousands of readers would adore in Dickens, is extended

to the main characters of the tales in Bell's Life in Londonv
Previously, Dickens had seldom taken space to go into such
minute detail as he does, for example, in his description

of Mr. Samuel Wilkins's face as being "round and shiny, and
his hair carefully twisted into the outer corners of each
eye, till it formed a variety of that description of semi-

curls, usually known as 'aggerawators'" (NLE, I, i, 287),

or in this one of Miss Evans wearing "a white muslin gown

 

42NLE, I, i, 324-325. To examine the extent to
which the more “villainous" characters in this tale are given
humorous rather than bitter treatment, one may wish to con-
trast them to the Rodolphs in ”The Mistaken Milliner—-A
Tale of Revenge." Dickens does little or nothing to mitigate
the harshness of their characterizations, nor does he do
much to attract the reader's sympathy to Miss Amelia
Martin.

 

190

carefully hooked and eyed, a little red shawl, plentifully
pinned, a white straw bonnet trimmed with red ribbons, a
lsmall necklace, a large pair of bracelets, Denmark satin
shoes, and open—worked stockings: white cotton gloves on
her fingers, and a cambric pocket-handkerchief, carefully
folded up, in her hand--all quite genteel and ladylike"
(_N_L_§. I, i, 289).

But Dickens's techniques of characterization go
beyond mere detailed physical description. As the quotations
above show, he is already using such descriptions for the
pre-setting, through suggestion rather than through direct
statement, of his characterizations. We know, certainly,
that both Mr. Wilkins and Miss Evans (or “Miss Ivins,"
as her family calls her and as Dickens revealingly insists
on referring to her in the tale) are to be comic rather
than heroic figures. Mr. Wilkins's size, for example,
borders upon the "dwarfish," his ”sabbath waistcoats"

are "dazzling,' and he talks "domestic economy" with Mrs.
Evans while waiting for Miss Evans to dress: when Dickens
has him leave with his beloved "J'mima" for the Eagle,
one reads: ”And away went Miss J'mima Ivins and Mr.
Samuel Wilkins, and a dress-cane with a gilt knob at the
top. . . .' (NLE, I, i, 289). Mr. Wilkins's self-satis-
faction, his pretentiousness, his ostentation are all

suggested in the quick but characterizing descriptive touches,

particularly in the seemingly self-propelled cane, and these

191

characteristics Dickens gives to Mr. Wilkins will inevitably
motivate him into the altercation that closes the tale.
Although the reader has no reason for noticing it at the time,
the behavior of the young woman in the oyster shop in "The
Misplaced Attachment of Mr. John Dounce" is also carefully
pre—set by Dickens in the light of her later flippant
rejection of Mr. Dounce:

Behind . . . the barrels was a young lady of
about five-and-twenty, all in blue, and all alone-—
splendid creature, charming face and lovely figure!
It is difficult to say whether Mr. John Dounce's
red countenance, illuminated as it was by the
flickering gas-light in the window before which he
paused, excited the lady's risibility, or whether a
natural exuberance of animal spirits proved too
much for that staidness of demeanour which the forms
of society rather dictatorially prescribe. But
certain it is, that the lady smiled: then put her
finger upon her lip, with a striking recollection
of what was due to herself: and finally retired, in
oyster—like bashfulness, to the very back of the
counter. The sad-dog sort of feeling came strongly
upon John Dounce: he lingered--the lady in blue made
no sign. He coughed--still she came not. He entered
the shop.

Sometimes these touches are exaggerated for the sake
of more immediate characterization--as well as for the
sake of humor, of course--as in the picture of the drunken
Mr. Smithers in "Making a Night of It," "embellishing the
theatre by falling asleep, with his head and both arms
gracefully drooping over the front of the boxes" (NLE, I,

i, 337). At other times, the descriptions of mannerisms,

 

4BNLE, I, i, 309. Mr. Dounce's foolish behavior had
likewise been established even earlier in the tale. See
NLE; I, i. 244-2470

192

speech, or gestures display significant personality traits.
The following passage from "The Mistaken Milliner-—A Tale

of Ambition" pinpoints the pretentiousness and self-delusion
of Mr. and Mrs. Rodolph upon their first appearance as the
"musical friends" of Miss Martin's wedded friends:

To hear them sing separately was divine, but when

they went through the tragic duet of "Red Ruffian,
retire!” it was, as Miss Martin afterwards remarked,
“thrilling." And why (as Mr. Jennings Rodolph observed)
why were they not engaged at one of the patent theatres?
If he was to be told that their voices were not power-
ful enough to fill the Heuse, his only reply was,

that he would back himself for any amounttn fill
Russell Square--a statement in which the company,
after hearing the duet, expressed their full belief:
so they all said it was shameful treatment: and

both Mr. and Mrs. Jennings Rodolph said it was
shameful too: and Mr. Jennings Rodolph looked very
serious, and said he knew who his malignant opponents
were, but they had better take care how far they went,
for if they irritated him too much he had not quite
made up his mind whether he wouldn't bring the

subject before Parliament: and they all agreed

that it ”'ud serve 'em quite right, and it was

very proper that such people should be made an

example of.” So Mr. Jennings Rodolph said he'd

Certainly missing from the various passages quoted
above and, in general, from the tales themselves are the
crudities that earlier marred Dickens's characterizations.

No longer does he inevitably summarize in direct statement

the impression that he wants a character to have upon his
reader: suggestion, humor, tone, carefully selecteddetails,
and even the remarks of others now reveal this character tothe
reader. He does not, for example, converse monotonously

upon irrelevant topics. If, as mentioned below, there is

far less dialogue, that now present is there for the purpose

193

of characterization as well as for moving along what plot
there is. Finally, Dickens makes far less use of elaborate
stage directions in conjunction with the speeches of his
actors than he had earlier, relying more upon a careful
selection of language and upon other characterizing devices
(such as synecdoche in the following passage where he
refers to the various members of the audience by the kinds
of beverages they are drinking) than upon the elaborate

speech tags that fill the Monthly Magazine tales. In this

 

fragment of a scene from ”The Mistaken Milliner--A Tale of
Ambition," in which, upon her first public appearance in a
duet with Mr. Rodolph, Miss Amelia Martin has just revealed
the lamentable weakness of her singing voice, the character-
ization, the effectiveness of the scene depend far more

upon the speeches and the colorful descriptions than upon
speech tags that smack of stage directions:

“Sing out”--shouted one gentleman in a white great-
coat. "Don't be afraid to put the steam on, old
gal,” exclaimed another. "S—s-s-s-s-s-s"--went the
five-and-twenty bottled ales. "Shame, shame!" remon-
strated the ornamental painter's journeyman's party--
"S-s-s-s" went the bottled ales again, accompanied
by all the gins, and a majority of the brandies.

“Turn them geese out," cried the ornamental
painter's journeyman's party, with great indignation.

"Sing out,” whispered Mr. Jennings Rodolph.

"So I do," responded Miss Amelia Martin.

”Sing louder,“ said Mr. Jennings Rodolph.

“I can't,“ replied Miss Amelia Martin.

"Off, off, off," cried the rest of the audience.

"Bray-v0!” shouted the painter's party. It
wouldn't do--Miss Amelia Martin left the orchestra,
with much less ceremony than she had entered it: and,
as she couldn't sing out, never came out.

(M, I, i. 255)

194

Obviously, in putting the characters he had created
for the essays for the Mbrning7Chronicle and the Evening
Chronicle into the tales he wrote shortly thereafter, Dickens
did not lose any of the vitality, the color, or the indivi-
dualizing traits that made them notable. In expanding a_
character, in developing a portrait to greater descriptive
and psychological fullness, he moved another step closer
to the kind and scope of character and to the variety of
techniques of portrayal that he would need in order to write
a novel.

Another important feature of these five tales is
Dickens's almost complete use of the pictorial rather than
the dramatic scene, the latter of which predominated in the
early Monthly Magazine tales. The influence responsible
for this change may very likely be of the young author's
own making: that is, in these five tales, he continues to
use the methods of descriptive narrative that characterize
the twenty-five essays he wrote just prior to his association
with Bell's Life in London. The intervention of the essays:
the time he had to devote to his other journalistic tasks:
the evenings he spent writing in his rooms, covering a
Parliamentary session, or journeying out of town on some
reportorial mission:44 and the less time he devoted, as a

result, to attending the theaters may also have been

 

44See Walter Dexter, ed. Mr. & Mrs. Charles Dickens,
His Letters to Her (London: Constable & Co. Ltd., 1935)
for glimpses of his activities during this period.

 

195

responsible for the noticeable lessening of the influence
of the one-act farce that had tended to mar the Monthly
Magazine tales. Under this influence, his earlier tendency
had been to develop scenes dramatically through action,
certainly, but mainly through tedious, irrelevant dialogue,
even when there was no structural necessity for such scenes.
Dickens almost goes to the other extreme in the five tales
among the “Scenes and Characters": one occasionally wishes
for a scene developed along somewhat more dramatic lines.45
Yet the technical ability evident in Dickens's pictorial
scenes, as discussed earlier in this chapter in regard to the
"Sketches of London," makes more frequent dramatic scenes
unnecessary.

When such a scene is necessary to maintain the
complex movement or rhythm of a story, Dickens writes it.
In the admirable 'kaing a Night of It," he does not need
to develop the scene in the inn dramatically. To begin
with,Dickens describes only Mr. Smithers and Mr. Potter.
His purpose in the scene is to show them gradually getting
drunk enough to get into trouble later, an end that he
can achieve more humorously through a description of their

behavior than through what they might say to each other or

 

451 do not mean to imply that Dickens could not
create a dramatic scene. A very fine one is presented in
"The Parlour Orator" as seen through the point of view of
a narrator present in the scene but not an active partici-
pant in it (NLE, I, i, 293-299).

196

possibly to a waiter or other customers in the inn. Such
conversation could only quickly become monotonous and might,
as the young men become more vociferous, make them less
sympathetic characters than Dickens would want. In the
following description of their behavior in the inn, Dickens
uses verbal humor that he could not have employed had the
scene been dramatic. This verbal humor is important, for,
while it points up the silliness of the men's actions, it
does not exactly suggest that one must therefore condemn
their behavior. We smile at them, but, as Dickens concludes

about the group of apprentices he describes in "Thoughts

about People," "they can never excite our anger”:46

When the cloth was removed, Mr. Thomas Potter
ordered the waiter to bring in two goes of his best
Scotch whiskey, with warm water and sugar, and a couple
of his “very mildest" Havannahs, which the waiter did.
Mr. Thomas Potter mixed his grog, and lighted his
cigar: Mr. Robert Smithers did the same: and then
Mr. Thomas Potter jocularly proposed as the first
toast, “the abolition of all offices whatever" (not
sinecures, but counting-houses), which was immediately
drunk by Mr. Robert Smithers, with enthusiastic
applause. So they went on, talking politics, puffing
cigars, and sipping whiskey-and-water, until the
"goes”--most appropriately so called-—were both
gone, which Mr. Robert Smithers perceiving,
immediately ordered in two more goes of the best
Scotch whiskey, and two more of the very mildest
Havannahs: and the goes kept coming in, and the
mild Havannahs kept going out, until what with the
drinking, and lighting, and puffing, and the stale
ashes on the table, and the tallow-grease on the
cigars, Mr. Robert Smithers began to doubt the

 

4§NL§, I, i, 274. This is a revised passage from

the first series of SB (February, 1836).

197

mildness of the Havannahs, and to feel very much as
if he had been sitting in a hackney-coach with his
back to the horses.

As to Mr. Thomas Potter, he would keep laughing
out loud, and volunteering inarticulate declarations
that he was "allxight:" in proof of which he feebly
bespoke the evening paper after the next gentleman,
but finding it a matter of some difficulty to dis-
cover any news in its columns, or to ascertain dis—
tinctly whether it had any columns at all, walked
slowly out to look for the moon, and, after coming
back quite pale with looking up at the sky so long,
and attempting to express mirth at Mr. Robert
Smithers having fallen asleep, by various galvanic
chuckles, laid his head on his arm, and went to
sleep also. (NLE, I, i, 335-336)

As the tale builds to a climax, Dickens has the
young men who are "making a night of it," progress to the
theater. Both are now considerably under the influence of
the pots of stout and the glasses of whiskey-and-water.
Mr. Smithers promptly falls asleep again, but Mr. Potter
is ripe for trouble. At this point the narrative, rising
to a climax of outrageous drunken behavior, slips momentarily
and almost imperceptibly into a dramatic scene as Mr. Potter

stirs up the audience:

On his first entry, he contented himself by earnestly
calling upon the gentlemen in the gallery to "flare
up,” accompanying the demand with another request,
expressive of his wish that they would instantaneous-
ly "form a union,” both of which requisitions were
responded to, in the manner most in vogue on such
occasions.

"Give the dog a bone!“ cried one gentleman
in his shirt-sleeves.

”Where have you been a-having half a pint of
intermediate beer?" cried a second. "Tailor!"
screamed a third. "Barber's clerk!” shouted a
fourth. "Throw him o--VER!' roared a fifth: while
numerous voices concurred in desiring Mr. Thomas
Potter to "go home to his mother!" All these taunts
Mr. Thomas Potter received with supreme contempt,
cocking the low-crowned hat a little more on one
side, whenever any reference was made to his personal

198

appearance, and, standing up with his arms a-kimbo,
expressing defiance melodramatically.
(NLE. I; i1 337-338)

The scene is brief, quickly moving back into the pictorial
mode in a brilliantly comic paragraph:

The overture--to which these various sounds had
been an ad libitum accompaniment--concluded, the
second piece began, and Mr. Thomas Potter, emboldened
by impunity, proceeded to behave in a most unprecedented
and outrageous manner. First of all, he imitated the
shake of the principal female singer: then, groaned
at the blue fire: then, affected to be frightened
into convulsions of terror at the appearance of the
ghost: and, lastly, not only made a running commentary,
in an audible voice, upon the dialogue on the stage,
but actually awoke Mr. Robert Smithers, who, hearing
his companion making a noise, and having a very
indistinct notion where he was, or what was required
of him, immediately, by way of imitating a good
example, set up the most unearthly, unremitting, and
appalling howling that ever audience heard. It was
too much. ”Turn them out!" was the general cry.

A noise, as of shuffling of feet, and men being knocked
up with violence against wainscoting, was heard:

a hurried dialogue of ”Come out!'--"I won't!"--

"You shall!"--"I shan't!'-—"Give me your card, Sir!"--
“You're a scoundrel, Sir!“ and so forth, succeeded.

A round of applause betokened the approbation of the
audience, and Mr. Robert Smithers and Mr. Thomas
Potter found themselves shot with astonishing swift-
ness into the road, without having had the trouble of
once putting foot to ground during the whole progress
of their rapid descent. (NLE, I, i, 338-339)

Having attained a rhythmic peak of movement, the tale
concludes in three swift paragraphs of action even more
selectively summarized as, under the impetus of their
experiences in the theater, Mr. Potter and Mr. Smithers
continue to look for trouble, find it, are packed off
by the police, spend the night in jail, are found guilty

of drunken assault, and are reprimanded and fined in Police

199

Court the following morning.47

If one sees these five tales more as character
studies than tales, as small fragments, in a way, of a
lengthy novel, he sees that Dickens is justified in the pictorial
approach he takes in narrating the action. Such episodes
would not be important scenes in novels, so that to have
developed them dramatically would have been to distort the
emphasis of the novels in which they might have appeared.
Besides, since much of the humor in these five tales is
dependent not so much upon what the characters say or
converse about but upon what they do, it is most effectively
achieved through description liberally sprinkled with verbal
witticisms and elaborate, attention-attracting rhetorical
devices, as in the paragraphs above from “Making a Night
of It." In addition, as I have indicated earlier in this
chapter, Dickens developed the ability in his "Street

Sketches” and in his ”Sketches of London" to write description

 

47For sheer comic brilliance, the following paragraph
from Pickwick Papers illustrates what use Dickens makes of
summarized action. Mr. Dowler, certain that Mr. Winkle is
having an affair with Mrs. Dowler--a horrible mistake,
naturally, on Mr. Dowler's part--takes out after Mr. Winkle
with a "small supper-knife":

But Mr. Winkle didn't wait for him. He no sooner
heard the horrible threat of the valorous Dowler, than
he bounced out of the sedan, quite as quickly as he
had bounced in, and throwing off his slippers into
the road, took to his heels and tore round the Crescent,
hotly pursued by Dowler and the watchman. He kept
ahead: the door was open as he came round the second
time: he rushed in, slammed it in Dowler's face,
mounted to his bed-room, locked the door, piled a
washhand—stand against it, and packed up a few
necessaries ready for flight with the first ray of
morning." (NLE, II, ii, 147)

 

200

filled with action, of which the last passage quoted above
is an especially fine example. In writing these tales,
Dickens apparently discovered that, in using the pictorial
rather than the dramatic approach to his subject, he
could present a wider range of details and actions with more
economy, more humor, and, therefore, more effectiveness.
Dickens's almost complete use of the pictorial
method in these five tales contributes also to his attain—
ment of a more unified purpose than he had achieved in the
earlier tales. He continues, though perhaps somewhat more
unobtrusively in the tales than in the sketches he wrote
for Bell's Life in London, the role of narrator that he had
assumed in his newspaper sketches. Thus, the stories are
told from a controlling point of view just as the contents
of the essays among the “Scenes and Characters" had been
described by the same sort of narrator. This point of view
combines objectivity with sentiment, humor with pathos,
and worldly amusement at the foibles of man with a kind
of naive but pleasant enjoyment of the genuinely comic.
The results, in both the essays and the tales, is a
sketch or a story that amuses the reader, that occasionally
satirizes human behavior, and that almost as often softens
the satire by making the faults of the characters eminently
human. The less bitter endings obviously contribute to the
production of this more characteristically Dickensian approach
to reality. Miss Evans, for example, may be carried home

drunk at the end of an exciting evening, but she will

201

certainly live to flirt again. Mr. Cooper may return home
to his mother, Mr. Potter and Mr. Smithers may be heavily
fined after a night in jail and vow never to make "another

night of it, Mr. Dounce may be taken in marriage by his
cook and live "a henpecked husband, a melancholy monument
of antiquated misery, and a living warning to all uxorious
old boys" (NLE, I, i, 312), and Miss Martin may find it
convenient to give up her hopes for a singing career some-
what abruptly, but these are all harmless punishments, or
at least ones meted out with some satiric justice--almost
what one might have expected in a humorous story. Certainly
no one commits suicide, as Mr. Tottle had done, or gets
involved in an unhappy marriage that leads to disgust,
desertion, or debtors' prison. It is true that, like Mr.
Calton in part one of "The Boarding House" (and later,
like Mr. Pickwick), Mr. Cooper is sued for breach of
promise, but a comic rather than a bitterly ironic effect
is intended, as is the case with Mr. Dounce's marriage.

The relatively complex humor that Dickens worked into
these five tales and that is an inheritance from the essays
he had written earlier does more than characterize the
dominant mood or tone of Dickens's writings of late 1834
and of 1835. It also contributes to the impression the
reader receives of the tales' intimate association with
reality, an impression not produced earlier by the artificial,

stagy Mbnthly Magazine tales. In making his readers laugh

202

or even sneer at the behavior of his characters and then
sympathize with their resulting downfalls, Dickens makes

his readers more aware of the fallibility of human nature,
thus achieving the air of reality that characterizes these
tales. Combined with this is the sheer volume of the details
Dickens uses to describe characters, actions, and settings.
The more specific and detailed the writing becomes, the

more the readers suspect, however faulty such ”logic" may
be, that Dickens is frequently describing people, places,
and events that are related in some way to his personal
observation as he traversed the streets of London and to the
experience of his family, his friends, and himself. The
observations involve an accuracy of perception that can

only come, one senses, from actually having been there at
the time. In the same way, the perception of human behavior
behind the creation of hischaracterstells one that the
author is a man sensitive to nuances of speech and gestures,
to mannerisms, and to the comic and pathetic in the human
condition. The vividness and sheer wit of much of the des-
cription, the colorful and often exaggerated personalities
of the characters, and even the exuberance and vitality of
the actions themselves lend a sense of joyous, heightened
life to these stories and sketches. Finally, the personality
of the narrator himself, who seems to be the author (that
is, “Tibbs,“ and ultimately Charles Dickens) and not some

fictitious creation, also adds a sense of reality to these tales.

203

He is a never tiring observer of men and events, sometimes
a crusader in their behalf against the inhumanity of other
men and institutions (this last is found in the sketches of
"Scenes and Characters” but not in the tales themselves),
frequently an exposer of their shortcomings, but always a
supporter of their participation in the fullness of life.
By January 17, 1836, when the last of his “Scenes
and Characters" appeared in Bell's Life in London, Dickens
seemed to be ready for more important literary work.
Since the time of his Monthly Magazine tales, and mainly as
a result of the twenty-five essays he had written for the

Morning Chronicle and the Evening Chronicle, he had shown

 

considerable improvement in the arts of description and
narration, of tone, mood, and point of view, of characteri-
zation, and of thematic consistency. His writing of the
"Street Sketches," the “Sketches of London,” and some of

the "Scenes and Characters“ enabled him to work to a large
extent with these various elements of fiction at a relatively
simple level and frequently with single elements in isolation
from the others, as in a descriptive illustration, an
anecdote, or a brief character study. When he did, once

' return to

again, in five of the "Scenes and Characters,‘
character studies that bore certain resemblances to the
episodic MonthlyyMagazine tales, he was much better equipped

technically to produce tales that had an air of reality

about them and a sustained tone that often combined the

204

comic with the sentimental. Obviously, Dickens is now almost
ready to write a novel. His final preparations, conscious
and unconscious, which filled the months of late 1835 and

of most of 1836, will form the subject of the following--

and concluding--chapter of this study of the contribution of
Dickens's Sketches by Boz to his gradual development into

a novelist.

CHAPTER IV

SKETCHES BY BOZ--CONCLUSIONS AND PERSPECTIVES

“A Visit to Newgate" and Three Tales

It was in the year 1836, upon being appointed by
my kind friend John Black, the editor of the Morning
Chronicle, to the office of assistant sub-editor of
that influential journal, in conjunction with Mr.
George Hogarth, that I first made the acquaintance
of Charles Dickens. I was then in my twenty-second
year, and Mr. Dickens was two years my senior. We
were both of us comparatively unknown in literature,
but Dickens had acquired some reputation as the author
of some lively sketches which he contributed to the
Evening Chronicle . . . under the celebrated signature
of "Boz." He was one of the twelve parliamentary
reporters of the Chronicle, and had the reputation
of being the most rapid, the most accurate, and the
most trustworthy reporter then engaged on the London
press, and was consequently in high favour with his
employers. He earned a salary of five guineas a week
in that capacity, supplemented by an extra salary of
two guineas for his brilliant sketches of London
life and manners. . . .

It was part of my duty as sub-editor to confer
with Mr. Hogarth and Mr. Black on the employment of
the Parliamentary reporters during the recess, when
Parliament was not in session, and to utilize their
services in the general work of the paper,--such as
attendance at public meetings, reviews of books,
or notices of new plays at the theatres. Mr.

Black desired to spare Mr. Dickens as much as
possible from all work of this kind, having the
highest opinion of his original genius, and a con-
sequent dislike to employ him on what he considered
the very inferior work of criticism. "Any fool,"
he said, in his usual broad Scotch, "can pass judgment,
morecnrless just or unjust, on a book or a play--
but 'Boz' can do better things: he can create works
for other people to criticize. Besides, he has
never been a great reader of books or plays,

and knows but little of them, but has spent his

205

206

time in studying life. Keep 'Boz' in reserve for

great occasions. He will ayg be ready for them."1
Black may have been mistaken about Dickens's education, but
his realization that “Boz" was ready for great occasions and
could create books for other people to criticize indicates
the reputation Dickens had assuredly made for himself among
his journalistic colleagues. More important, however, is
that by the autumn of 1835, as F. J. H. Darton states,
Dickens "must have begun to take himself a little more
seriously as an original writer, or to think more clearly
of prospects in that capacity."2 He had not as yet written
a novel, but he had planned to write one from perhaps as
early as late 1833 or early 1834,3 and he had been developing
as a creator of fiction through the sketches and tales he
had been writing for various periodicals and newspapers. He
produced additional pieces in late 1835 (overlapping the
"Scenes and Characters” he was also writing then for Bell's

Life in London) and throughout 1836, all but one of which,

 

" were reprinted or first printed

4

"The Tuggses at Ramsgate,

in the first or second series of Sketches by Boz.

 

lA reminiscence of Mr. Charles MaCkay, quoted in
Kitton's Charles Dickens by Pen and Pencil, pp. 133-134.

2Darton, "Dickens the Beginner: 1833-1836,” p. 65.

3Nonesuch Let., I, 29, to Henry Kolle, [1834].

 

4Information about earliest publication follows the
title: “A Visit to Newgate,” SB, lst ser., Feb.: "The Black
Veil,"_§§, lst ser., Feb.: "The Great Winglebury Duel," SB,
lst ser., Feb.: "The Tuggses at Ramsgate,” Library of Fiction,
April: "A Little Talk about Spring, and the Sweeps" (re-
titled “The First of May" in SB, 2nd ser., Dec.), Library of

207

The three pieces that Dickens wrote especially for
the first series of Sketches by Boz ("A Visit to Newgate,"
"The Black Veil,“ and “The Great Winglebury Duel"5) in
combination with "The Tuggses at Ramsgate," which he wrote
early in February, 1836, form a convenient and climactic
group. The essay and the three tales represent the last
of Dickens's writing prior to the offer extended by Chapman
and Hall on February 10 to write what was shortly thereafter
to be known as the Pickwick Papers. The other essays and
tales he would write in the remaining ten months of 1836
would fade into insignificance in the shadow of the increas-
ing popularity of his comic novel. But the four remaining
pieces written prior to February 10 were seen by Dickens and

his literary friends-oJohn Macrone, George HOgarth, John

 

Fiction, June: "The Hospital Patient,” Carlton Chronicle,
Aug. 6: “Meditations in Monmouth-Street," Mbrning,Chronicle,
Sept. 24: "Scotland-Yard," Morning Chronicle, Oct. 4: "Doctors'
Commons,” MorningyChronicle, Oct. 11: "Vauxhall-Gardens by
Day,“ MorningyChronicle, Oct. 26: "Our Next—Door Neighbours"
(the seventh "Our Parish“ sketch), SB, 2nd ser., Dec.: and
PThe Drunkard's Death,“ SB, 2nd ser., Dec., 1836. Some of
these were reprinted, prior to book publication, in the
EveninggChronicle (authorized), the Carlton Chronicle
(unauthorized), and Bell's Life in London (unauthorized)--
see Hatton and Cleaver, pp. 99-103, for more complete
details.

5"The Great Winglebury Duel” had actually been
written for the Monthly Magazine for December, 1835, then
under the editorship of James Grant, whom Dickens had
known from the galleries of Parliament, but, as had been
the case with the magazine in 1833 and 1834, its funds were
so limited that it could not afford to pay Dickens what he
asked for his story. Accordingly, the tale did not appear
in print prior to SB, lst ser. See Nonesuch Let., I, 47, to
John Macrone, [10/27/35].

 

 

 

208

Black, William Ainsworth--significant literary achievements.
About ”A Visit to Newgate" they were particularly
specific. Even in late October, 1835, when Dickens was
contemplating a tour of the prison to acquire material for
this fine descriptive sketch, he was confident himself that
it would ”tell extremely well."6 When he finished the essay
on the evening of November 19, he immediately showed it
to George Hogarth, his prospective father-in-law and

editor of the Evening Chronicle. Hegarth, as Dickens

 

informed John Macrone the following day, "perused it very
carefully last night and bid me tell you that it would 'make'
any book--an opinion which Black more than confirms}.7
Macrone, in turn, though he apparently suggested certain
revisions and additions, also praised the sketch, as did
Ainsworth.8 When Hogarth came to review the first series
of Sketches by Boz, he referred to "A Visit to Newgate" as
the "most remarkable paper in the book," and compared it

favorably to Victor Hugo's "Dernier jour d'un condamne."9

 

6Nonesuch Let., I, 47, to John Macrone, [10/27/35].

7Nonesuch Let., I, 53, to John Macrone, [ll/20/35].
Dickens apparently showed the sketch to Black, editor of the
Morning Chronicle, that night also or else early the follow-
ing morning, for the letter is headed ”Friday Morning."

8Nonesuch Let., I, 56, to John Macrone, [12/9/35]:
I, 61, to John Macrone, [1/7/36]. Ainsworth, as Dickens
states in the latter letter, had taken a "very kind
interest . . . in our proceedings” (p. 61).

 

 

9In the Morning Chronicle the first week in February.
Quoted in D[exter], "The Reception of Dickens's First Book,"
p. 44.

209

Dickens had long projected sketching the interior of
Newgate prison, but when the time came to write he had some
trouble putting what he had seen on paper, as he indicated
to Catherine Hogarth in apologizing for not calling on her:

I have made considerable progress in my "Newgate"
Sketch, but the subject is such a very difficult one
to do justice to, and I have so much difficulty in
remembering the place, and arranging my materials,
that I really have no alternative but to remain at
home to-night, and "get on" in good earnest. You
know I have frequently told you that my composition
is peculiar: I never can write with effect--especially
in the serious way--until I have got my steam up, or
in other words until I have become so excited with my
subject that I cannot leave off: and hoping to arrive
at this state to-night, I have, after a great deal

of combating with my wish to see you, arrived at the
determination I have just announced--I hope to do a
good deal.10 .

Dickens did, apparently, become excited with his subject
despite his difficulties, for he managed to write the sketch
in about two days.11

"A Visit to Newgate" is about twice as long as earlier
sketches Dickens wrote and, from the comments in Dickens's
letters to Macrone already referred to, was a conscious
attempt on the author's part to produce an essay of definite

literary merit. Particularly noticeable is the variety

that characterizes the work. Dickens's purpose, as it had

 

10Dexter, ed. Mr. & Mrs. Charles Dickens, pp. 35-36.
The date of the letter was probably ll/18/35.

lJ'Nonesuch Let., I, 53, to John Macrone, [ll/20/35].
"A day's time," he had earlier written Macrone, "is a
handsome allowance for me--much [more] than I frequently
had when I was writing for the Chronicle" (Nonesuch Let.,
I, 47, to John Macrone, [10/27/35]).

210

been in the sketches he had previously written, is certainly
to amuse. His first reaction to Newgate itself, described

in a letter he wrote to Catherine immediately after touring
the prison buildings, was that he had "lots of anecdotes to
tell" her, some of which he found "rather amusing: at least
to me, for I was intensely interested in everything I saw."12
This interest is reflected in the paper itself, in which he
states that, having made a visit to Newgate--"in an amateur
capacity of course, . . . we proceed to lay its results
before our readers, in the hope-—founded more upon the nature
of the subject, than on any presumptious confidence in our

own descriptive powers--that this paper may not be found

wholly devoid of interest" (BBB, I, i, 250). The reader
familiar with the later Dickens might have expected that

after the dash following the word "hope" Dickens would have
included some strong moral preachment, would have required

his readers to share in the sympathy and horror aroused

in him by the visit and to act to alleviate whatever conditions
he might have found there. But he does not do any of these,
because he intends the essay to be descriptive and literary
rather than didactic. Replying to Macrone's query about the
omission of some description of the prison kitchen, Dickens

9

wrote: ”Again, about the Kitchen. I know no place in which

 

12Dexter, ed. Mr. & Mrs. Charles Dickens, pp. 34-35.
The letter was probably written early in N0vember, 1835.

211

I could introduce the fact without weakening my subsequent
description, and I left it out lest scrupulous ninnies who
do not see these things as you and I do, should think there
was something disgusting in the idea, and repulsive."l3
Here, obviously, is the craftsman at work, less concerned
about complete realism than about the effect the work will
have on his readers. The same comments apply about Dickens's
justification, in the same letter, for his omission of a
section about the House of Correction in the essay and his
refusal to write a separate piece on the subject: 'YOu
cannot throw the interest over a year's imprisonment, however
severe, that you can cast around the punishment of death.
The Tread-Mill will not take the hold on men's feelings
that the gallows does: and Hogarth--whose judgment in these
matters from long experience is not to be despised--says
that he thinks the insertion of another Prison paper would
decidedly detract from the 'hit' of the first."14
Yet, as suggested by his desire to work with his
readers' feelings, Dickens cannot, and presumably does not
want to dissociate himself entirely from suggestions for

reform. George Hogarth indicates in his review of the first

series of Sketches by Boz that ”A Visit to Newgate" is

 

written throughout "in a tone of high moral feeling, and

with great eloquence, and must leave a deep and lasting

 

l3Nonesuch Let., I, 56, to John Macrone, [12/9/35].

l4Nonesuch Let., I, 56, to John Macrone, [12/9/35].

212

15

impression on the mind of every reader." By "high moral

feeling," Hogarth is presumably not referring to the indig-
nation of a reformer, for such is scarcely emphasized in
the essay,16 but to the horror (and the resulting pathos)
created not so much by conditions in the prison itself as
by its inhabitants and the actions that have brought them
there. Dickens's comments about a girl with "pinched—up

half-starved features, who is visiting her mother in the

jail, provides an illustration:
The girl belonged to a class—-unhappily but too

extensive-~the very existence of which should make
men's hearts bleed. Barely past her childhood, it

 

15Quoted in D[exter], ”The Reception of Dickens's
First Book,“ p. 44.

16One does find a criticism, quite general in nature,
concluding Dickens's description of the prison chapel, but
even this is virtually unique:
At one time--and at no distant period either—-

the coffins of the men about to be executed, were

placed in the pew [for condemned prisoners], upon

the seat by their side, during the whole service.

It may seem incredible, but it is true. Let us

hope that the increased spirit of civilisation and

humanity which abolished this frightful and degrading

custom, may extend itself to other usages equally

barbarous: usages which have not even the plea of

utility in their defence, as every year's experience

has shown them to be more and more inefficacious.

(gig, I. i, 260)

That Dickens perhaps had reform as an underlying but scarcely
obvious purpose is suggested by a footnote he added in a
later edition. The footnote, however, reflecting Dickens's
somewhat later interest in prison reform, may have little
or no connection with Dickens's intentions when he first
wrote the essay: “The regulations of the prison relative
to the confinement of prisoners during the day, their
sleeping at night, their taking their meals, and other
matters of gaol economy, have been all altered--greatly
for the better--since this sketch was first published.
Even the construction of the prison itself has been
changed. ' (NLE, I, i, 257)

213

required but a glance to discover that she was one
of those children, born and bred in neglect and vice,
who have never known what childhood is: who have
never been taught to love and court a parent's smile,
or to dread a parent's frown. The thousand nameless
endearments of childhood, its gaiety and its innocence,
are alike unknown to them. They have entered at once
upon the stern realities and miseries of life, and to
their better nature it is almost hopeless to appeal
in after-times, by any of the references which will
awaken, if it be only for a moment, some good feel—
ing in ordinary bosoms, however corrupt they may have
become. Talk to them of parental solicitude, the
happy days of childhood, and the merry games of
infancy! Tell them of hunger and the streets,
beggary and stripes, the gin-shop, the station—house,
and the pawnbroker's, and they will understand you.
(BBB, I, i, 254-255)

The tone, too, as it reflects Dickens's changing
attitudes toward the objects of his description, shows
considerable variety. If he can sympathize with such people
as the girl above or the men awaiting the gallows (see
BBB, I, 1, 259-263), he can also describe others in a tone
predominantly objective with perhaps a touch of sarcasm
or even disgust, as in his study of the boys under fourteen
years of age in the schoolroom:

There were fourteen of them in all, some with

shoes, some without: some in pinafores without
jackets, others in jackets without pinafores, and
one in scarce anything at all. The whole number,
without an exception we believe, had been committed
for trial on charges of pocket-picking: and fourteen
such terrible little faces we never beheld. There
was not one redeeming feature among them—-not a
glance of honesty--not a wink expressive of anything
but the gallows and the hulks, in the whole collection.
As to anything like shame or contrition, that was
entirely out of the question. They were evidently
quite gratified at being thought worth the trouble
of looking at: their idea appeared to be, that we
had come to see Newgate as a grand affair, and that
they were an indispensable part of the show: and
every boy as he "fell in" to the line, actually

214

seemed as pleased and important as if he had done
something excessively meritorious in getting there
at all. We never looked upon a more disagreeable
sight, because we never saw fourteen such hopeless
creatures of neglect, before. (BBB, I, i, 257-258)

If Dickens excluded certain scenes he had witnessed at
Newgate from his essay because he felt they would offend
the sensibilities of his readers, he did so partly because
he feared such offence would destroy the effect he was
working for and partly, perhaps, because he believed that
in his unpleasantly realistic treatment of such scenes

as the one above he had achieved the satiric, ironic,
possibly even pathetic effect without actually turning
away his readers. In one or two other places in "A Visit
to Newgate,” Dickens drops into the somewhat artificial,
somewhat irritating jocularity that occasionally mars other
essays:

Following our conductor by a door opposite to that
at which we had entered, we arrived at a small room,
without any other furniture than a little desk, with
a book for visitors' autographs, and a shelf, on
which were a few boxes for papers, and casts of the
heads and faces of the two notorious murderers,
Bishop and Williams: the former, in particular,
exhibiting a style of heat and set of features,
which might have afforded sufficient moral grounds
for his instant execution at any time, even had
there been no other evidence against him. Leaving
this room also, by an opposite door, we found
ourselves in the lodge which opens on the Old
Bailey: one side of which is plentifully garnished
with a choice collection of heavy sets of irons,
including those worn by the redoubtable Jack
Sheppard--genuine: and those said to have been
graced by the sturdy limbs of the no less
celebrated Dick Turpin—-doubtful.

(M. I, i, 251)

215

Mbstimpressive in the essay is the scene with which
Dickens concludes. Having described the rows of condemned
cells, Dickens states, ”Conceive the situation of a man
spending his last night on earth in this cell." From this
point on, putting himself in a position of such a man--as
he no doubt actually did when he wrote the scene--Dickens
utilizes the melodramatic techniques that he was shortly to
become noted for in his novels, most noteworthy of which
is his early use of a mixture of description, unexpected
sounds such as the ticking and chiming of a clock, various
rhetorical devices, hallucinations, reminiscence, and other
devices to produce an effect slightly related to stream of
consciousness (BBB, I, i, 264-267):

Seven hours left! He paces the narrow limits of

his cell with rapid strides, cold drops of terror
starting on his forehead, and every muscle of his
frame quivering with agony. Seven hours! He suffers
himself to be led to his seat, mechanically takes the
bible which is placed in his hand, and tries to read
and listen. No: his thoughts will wander. The
book is torn and soiled by use-—and like the book

he read his lesson in, at school, just forty years
ago! He has never bestowed a thought upon it,
perhaps, since he left it as a child: and yet the
place, the time, the room--nay, the very boys he
played with, crowd as vividly before him as if they
were scenes of yesterday. . . . The voice of the
clergyman recalls him to himself. He is reading
from the sacred book its solemn promises of

pardon for repentence, and its awful denunciation

of abdurate man. He falls upon his knees and clasps
his hands to pray. Hush! What sound was that? He
starts upon his feet. It cannot be two yet. Hark!
Two quarters have struck:--the third--the fourth.

It is! Six hours left. Tell him not of repentence!
Six hours' repentence for eight times six years of
guilt and sin! He buries his face in his hands, and
throws himself on the bench. (BBB, I, i, 265-266)

216

In ”A Visit to Newgate," then, in addition to such
a specialized technique as that used in the preceding passage,
one can see the development of that sometimes crude, some-
times subtle combination of pathos, melodrama, sentimentality,
realistic objectivity, and even waggery that will characterize
much of what Dickens will write in the future. In addition,
one finds created here a fully realized setting with an at-
tendant atmosphere or mood—-not always consistently maintained
and not as yet achieved through the great organizing,
recurrent images as the fog in Bleak House, the chains and
other symbols of imprisonment in Little Dorrit, and the dust
and water in Our Mutual Friend. All that the essay needs
is a group of more fully developed characters and a plot
in order to become a highly effective melodramatic chapter
in a novel, related, say, to that of Pickwick's incarcer-
ation in the Fleet, that of Fagin's last night alive, or,
with a different setting, that of Jonas Chuzzlewit's murder
of Tigg with his accompanying twinges of conscience evoked
and paralleled by the setting itself. Once again, if
one finds echoes in "A Visit to Newgate“ of what Dickens
will later write, he also finds here the early preparation
that will enable Dickens to create such scenes, characters,
and settings.

Perhaps the most noteworthy of the three tales that

JDickens wrote in late 1835 and early 183617 is "The BlaCk

‘

17"The Great Winglebury Duel“ was completed by
(3ctober 27, probably a week or so earlier (see Nonesuch Let.,

217

Veil." A melodramatic story strongly reminiscent of the
Gothic romances, it may very likely have been suggested to
Dickens by his visit to Newgate prison and may have been a
product of the thought processes out of which he created “A
Visit to Newgate” and "The Prisoners' Van," both of which
he wrote immediately before "The Black Veil." However much
one may dislike the artificialities of Gothic tales, depen—
dent as they are upon the rankest melodrama and exaggerated
sentiment, he must concede that in this tale Dickens makes a
significant advance in his handling of plot--even of structure,
in which plot, the balancing of narrative and descriptive
passages, characterization, point of view, setting, and tone
combine to produce the effect initially desired by the author.
The earlier deficiencies in this respect, as has been con-
sistently pointed out in the preceding chapters of this
study, are suddenly, almost surprisingly overcome.

The plot itself is simple, but it is EEEEE- A dis-
traught woman wearing a black veil appears in the office
of a surgeon, requesting his services in a matter of life
or death, but on the following morning. Mystified by the
apparent lack of urgency and the woman's refusal to explain

the situation, the surgeon agrees to attend upon the unknown

I, 47, to John Macrone, [10/27/351): "The Black Veil" was
written in late November, apparently shortly after Dickens

had finished "A Visit to Newgate” and ”The Prisoners' Van,"
the latter being one of the "Scenes and Characters“ for Bell's
Life in London (see Butt and Tillotson, p. 42, and Dexter, ed.
Mr. & Mrs. Charles Dickens, p. 34): and “The Tuggses at
Ramsgate" was probably completed on February 11, 1836, the
deadline the publishers of the Library of Fiction had set

(see Nonesuch Let., I, 65, to Catherine Hogarth, [2/10/361).

 

 

218

personage. The following morning, after certain delays, he
is brought to the bedside of the patient. Here he discovers
not only that his patient is dead but also that the dead
man is the woman's son, who had been hanged that morning
for a crime he had committed. She, in her delusion and
resulting madness, had hoped that through some miracle, or
at least through some oversight or haste on the part of the
executioner, a spark of life might have remained and that
a skillful surgeon could have fully restored the son.
observed structurally, the plot is simply that of a mystery
finally revealed. What conflict there is resides in the
surgeon's (and the reader's) not knowing until the climax
of the story why the woman requires his services.

Yet the story is more interesting and more suspense-
ful than an examination of the plot reveals, for the plot
is bolstered, reinforced, given dimension by the other
aspects of Dickens's craftsmanship. One evening in
November, 1835, Dickens wrote Catherine Hogarth, "an
extraordinary idea for a story of a very singular kind
occurred to me this morning, and I am anxious to commit it
to paper before the impression it made upon me is lost."18

Whatever his "extraordinary” idea may have been, it

clearly involved more than the plot itself. The whole

 

18I am accepting Butt and Tillotson's suggestion
that the tale referred to is ”The Black Veil" (p. 42).
The letter, dated only "Friday Evening,” is included among
the letters the editor has attributed to Nevember, 1835, in
Dexter, ed., Mr. & Mrs. Charles Dickens, pp. 36-37.

219

artist--the conscious craftsman--becomes totally involved
at this point.

To begin with, the characters, the surgeon and the
woman wearing the black veil, even the man who answers the
door of the house in Walworth, are created to reinforce
the effect Dickens hoped to achieve in the story. The
black veil hides the woman's secret from the reader as well
as from the surgeon, at the same time suggesting death, or
perhaps some unknown horror connected with the grave:

It was a singularly tall woman, dressed in deep
mourning, and standing so close to the door that her
face almost touched the glass. The upper part of her
figure was carefully muffled in a black shawl, as if
for the purpose of concealment: and her face was
shrouded by a thick black veil. She stood perfectly
erect, her figure was drawn up to its full height, and
though the surgeon felt that the eyes beneath the
veil were fixed on him, she stood perfectly motionless,
and evinced, by no gesture whatever, the slightest
consciousness of his having turned toward her.

(NLE, I, ii, 48-49)

Since Dickens uses her not to achieve an impression of
reality in the story but to create suspense, mystery, and
terror, the woman is an exceptionally ”flat” character.
Her speech is in the fine old melodramatic tradition, as
are her actions:

”It is not for myself, or on my own behalf . . .

that I come to you. If I laboured under bodily
disease, I should not be out, alone, at such an hour,
or on such a night as this: and if I were afflicted
with it, twenty-four hours thence, God knows how gladly
I would lie down and pray to die. It is for another
that I beseech your aid, sir. I may be mad to ask
it for him--I think I am: but, night after night,
through the long dreary hours of watching and
weeping, the thought has been ever present to my
mind: and though even B see the hopelessness of

220

human assistance availing him, the bare thought of

laying him in his grave without it makes my blood

run cold!“ And a shudder, such as the surgeon

well knew art could not produce, trembled through

the speaker's frame. (NLE, I, ii, 50)
There is ”a desperate earnestness" in her actions, she
"passionately" clasps her hands, she "bursts" into tears,
weeps "bitterly," sobs hysterically, conveys a "convulsive
attitude of grief,“ rushes ”frantically” to the bedside of
her dead son and flings herself on her knees at the bedside,
she “starts" to her feet, beating her hands together, she
responds “with a burst of passion, amounting almost to
frenzy," she chafes the hands, breast, and forehead of
“the senseless form before her,“ she throws herself before
the surgeon to prevent him from letting light into the room,
she exhibits “a nervous contortion of the lip and an unnatural

fire in her eye,”

and she finally falls senseless at the
feet of the surgeon, incurably insane (BBB, I, ii, 50-52,
58-60).

The surgeon himself, though his actions are at times
also derived from the melodramatic tradition, is essentially
a straight-forward creation. His characteristics do not
seem to be exaggerated, he is a "serious" as opposed to a
"comic" character, he speaks the language of educated
people (as do the other characters in the story), he is
poor but respectable, and he is an intelligent and sympathetic
gentleman at all times. Like the adult David Copperfield,

he is more an observer of the action than a participant in

it, a focal point for the author's point of View. This is

221

the first such character in Dickens's writings. The
surgeon plays a further role in the story, however, for it
is through his eyes and his mind that the reader sees much
of the story, a technique that Dickens uses to increase

the suspense of the story. Following the opening scene in
which the surgeon accedes to the woman's entreaty for his
help on the following day, the surgeon speculates upon what
her request might signify, thus heightening the sense of
mystery already aroused in the reader:

This woman . . . spoke of another person-—a man:
and it was impossible to suppose that a mere dream or
delusion of fancy would induce her to speak of his
approaching dissolution with such terrible certainty
as she had spoken. It could not be that the man
was to be murdered in the morning, and that the
woman, originally a consenting party, and bound
to secrecy by an oath, had relented, and, though
unable to prevent the commission of some outrage
on the victim, had determined to prevent his
death if possible, by the timely interposition of
medical aid? The idea of such things happening
within two miles of the metropolis appeared too
wild and preposterous to be entertained beyond
the instant. . . . (BBB, I, ii, 53)

In another place, while the surgeon is waiting in the
house at Walworth, the arrival of the son's body is given
a more vivid effect by being described from the surgeon's

point of view:

The young surgeon sat down by the fireplace, to
await the result of his first professional visit.
He had not remained in this position many
minutes when the noise of some approaching vehicle
struck his ear. It stopped: the street-door was
opened: a low talking succeeded, accompanied with
a shuffling noise of footsteps, along the passage

and on the stairs, as if two or three men were
engaged in carrying some heavy body to the room
above. The creaking of the stairs, a few
seconds afterward, announced that the new-comers

222

having completed their task, whatever it was, were
leaving the house. The door was again closed, and
the former silence was restored.
(E: I, ii. 57-58)
Obviously, Dickens uses this restricted point of View to
increase the element of suspense, the air of mystery in the
story, in preparation for its dramatic climax.

The transitions from pure description to pictorial
scene to dramatic scene are not only smoother in this story
than in the tales Dickens had earlier written for the
Monthly Magazine and Bell's Life in London, but each type
of description or narration serves a purpose. The two
dramatic scenes contain the two most important moments in
the plot, that in which the woman first approaches the
surgeon, where the action to follow is carefully prepared
for, and that in which the surgeon is brought to use his
skill on the son's body, the climactic moment of the story.
The pictorial scenes, occurring mainly between these two
dramatic ones, are used to get the surgeon from one day to
the next, to move him from one area of London to another,
to paint the various settings in which the action takes
place, and to lengthen the space between one dramatic
scene and another in order to increase the suspense.

Finally, the setting itself contributes to the
structure of "The Black Veil." Dickens had earlier used
setting, in an incidental way, to establish the mood of a

particular scene, but in this story he uses it in several

places to maintain the mood he needs for the entire story.

223

Each setting--the surgeon's office, Walworth, the drawing
room of the house in Walworth, and the bedroom upstairs-—
helps to establish the mood. The opening paragraph of the
story, in emphasizing the dismal weather outside, subdues
the relative cheerfulness of the parlour inside, preparing
for the entrance of the mysterious woman:

One winter's evening, toward the close of the
year 1800, or within a year or two of that time,
a young medical practitioner, recently established
in business, was seated by a cheerful fire in his
little parlour, listening to the wind which was
beating the rain in pattering drops against the
window, or rumbling dismally in the chimney. The
night was wet and cold: he had been walking through
mud and water the whole day, and was now comfortably
reposing in his dressing-gown and slippers, more
than half asleep and less than half awake, revolving
a thousand matters in his wandering imagination.
First, he thought how hard the wind was blowing,
and how the cold, sharp rain would be at that moment
beating in his face, if he were not comfortably housed
at home. Then his mind reverted to his annual
Christmas visit to his native place and dearest
friends: he thought how glad they would all be to
see him, and how happy it would make Rose if he could
only tell her that he had found a patient at last,
and hoped to have more, and to come down again, in a
few months' time, and marry her, and take her home
to gladden his lonely fireside. . . .

(BBB, I, ii, 47-48)
The surgeon's reflections about friends and sweetheart will
serve as a contrast, certainly, to the situation of the
woman in the black veil, but even the cheerful fireside
at which he is doing his dreaming becomes, in the course
of the paragraph, a "lonely” one. Because the woman her—
self, her actions, and her story, as well as the surgeon's
speculations upon her visit, maintain the mood of disturbing

mystery, of some nameless, foreboding terror, to the

224

end of the scene, Dickens has no need for further elabora-

tion of the setting.

The second scene begins with a description of
Walworth on the following day:

The appearance of the place through which he
walked in the morning, was not calculated to raise
the spirits of the young surgeon, or to dispel
any feeling of anxiety or depression which the
singular kind of visit he was about to make, had
awakened. Striking off from the high road, his
way lay across a marshy common, through irregular
lanes, with here and there a ruinous and dismantled
cottage fast falling to pieces with decay and neglect.
A stunted tree, or pool of stagnant water, roused
into a sluggish action by the heavy rain of the
preceding night, skirted the path occasionally:
and, now and then, a miserable patch of garden-
ground, with a few old boards knocked together
for a summer-house, and old palings imperfectly
mended with stakes pilfered from the neighbouring
hedges, bore testimony, at once to the poverty
of the inhabitants, and the little scruple they
entertained in appropriating the property of
other people to their own use. Occasionally a
filthy-looking woman would make her appearance
from the door of a dirty house, to empty the con—
tents of some cooking utensil into the gutter in
front, or to scream after a little slip-shod
girl who had contrived to stagger a few yards
from the door under the weight of a sallow infant
almost as big as herself: but scarcely anything
was stirring around: and so much of the prospect
as could be faintly traced through the cold damp
mist which hung heavily over it, presented a
lonely and dreary appearance perfectly in keeping
with the objects we have described.

(E. 1, ii; 54-55)

Three sentences in the above paragraph, the first, the
second half of the third, and the last, clearly indicate
the conscious uses to which Dickens puts his description.
Parts of the setting reveal the characters of the people
inhabiting the area, the entire setting is meant to reflect

the mood of the surgeon as well as of the story, and the

225

meteorological atmosphere reflects the symoblic atmosphere
produced by the physical surroundings of the area.

The exterior of the house is "desolate and unpromising,"
the house itself being low, standing "at an angle of a narrow

lane,’ appearing closed up and withdrawn, too, from the
other buildings in the vicinity, there being ”no other
habitation in sight” (NLE, I, ii, 55). The man who lets
the surgeon in is "a tall, ill-favoured man, with black
hair, and a face as the surgeon often declared afterwards,
as pale and haggard as the countenance of any dead man he
ever saw” (NLE, I, ii, 56). He directs the young man to
wait in the back parlour. Dickens's description of this
room continues to reinforce the cold, desolate, lonely,
frightening atmosphere of the tale:
It was a little cold room, with no other

furniture than two deal chairs, and a table of

the same material. A handful of fire, unguarded

by any fender, was burning in the grate, which

brought out the damp if it served no more

comfortable purpose, for the unwholesome moisture

was stealing down the walls, in long, slug-like

tracks. The window, which was broken and patched

in many places, looked into a small enclosed piece

of ground, almost covered with water. Not a

sound was to be heard, either within the house

or without. (NLE, I, ii, 57)
The bedroom upstairs receives only the most cursory descrip—
tion. Like the room downstairs, it is poorly furnished:
in addition, the dim light from the curtained window
"rendered the objects in the room so indistinct, and
communicated to all of them so uniform a hue,“ that the

surgeon has some difficulty seeing the people in the room

(NLE, I, ii, 58). At this point, however, further

226

description is unnecessary to establish the tale's dominating
mood, for the woman's speeches and actions, culminating in
swooning and madness, achieve the same end more dramatically.
Interesting to observe, in all but the last setting,
is the emphasis on water: on rain and mud in the first
scene, on mist and pools of stagnant rain in the second, and
on the dampness in the parlour and the water in the yard in
the third. Dickens's use of the adjective "unwholesome"
to describe the moisture on the parlour walls reveals the
effect he hoped to achieve through the water. Also notice-
able, though not in every scene, is Dickens's reliance on
loneliness, bareness, dirtiness, crookedness, and silence
to reinforce the mood. Certainly one finds in this early
work a rudimentary and surely a conscious use of weather,
geography, and other physical surroundings to create an
atmosphere. In the later novels such descriptions will form
images that not only convey mood and reveal character and
environment, but also comment upon institutions and social
systems, upon the nature of man, and upon man's relation-
ship to greater, more spiritual forces loose in the universe.
"The Black Veil,“ for all its melodramatic effectiveness
(if a modern reader can stomach such melodrama) lacks the
social and philosophical insights of the later novels.
Actually, it makes no attempt to deal with them: the tale
is an effective piece of mystery, suspense, and horror, but

nothing more. Nevertheless, one can observe Dickens already

227

making conscious and effective use of techniques that will
later artistically reinforce more profound themes in his
novels.

"The Great Winglebury Duel" and "The Tuggses at
Ramsgate," the two remaining tales that Dickens wrote
prior to beginning Pickwick Papers, return him, in a way,
to the start of his career as a professional author.
Superficially similar to the early farcical stories he

wrote for the MonthlyyMagazine, they are about the same

 

length: they are mainly developed by dramatic scenes rather
than the pictorial ones that predominate in the tales for
Bell's Life in London: they still bear a strong influence
from the farcical drama of the period: and the author's
purpose is still to present a picture of human foibles.
Although they lack the caliber of conception and of style
of Dickens's novels, including even the Pickwick Papers,
they are noticeable improvements over the first tales that
Dickens wrote. As a result, they clearly indicate Dickens's
development in the craft of fiction between 1833 and 1836.
In regard to plot and structure, they can scarcely
avoid advancing beyond the design of the earlier tales.
F. J. H. Darton's comments about the significant revisions
Dickens made in ”Mr. Minns and His Cousin? sometime in 1836
(see chapter two of this study for an analysis of these
revisions) apply to the general improvement in Dickens's

writing ability also:

228

[Bletween the autumn of 1833 and that of 1836 he
had begun to study the art of literary form. He
had learnt that if you approach the task of
writing, and committing what you have written to
the judgment of others, "with fear and trembling,"
you yet can, by taking pains, foresee some of the
faults which others may perceive in it. To carry
that foresight too far bears the danger of producing
hack-work, of finding a sterile self-expression
through mere technique. But to temper spontaneity
with foresight is the beginning of imaginative
victory.19
"The Great Winglebury Duel," written by late October, 1835,
and therefore earlier than "The Black Veil," already
exhibits Dickens's concern with ”literary form.” One may
look with distaste upon the conventionally mechanical plot
revolving around a classic case of mistaken identity, but
he must also appreciate the fact once again that the story
has a plot at all: this fact indicates an advancement in
Dickens's craftsmanship. Later, the more mature, more
technically experienced author will formulate his plots
with greater finesse and surer skill, and will pay more
heed to the plot techniques of Fielding and Smollett than
to those of the popular story writers and dramatists of the
early nineteenth century. In the meantime, the emphasis
Dickens gives to the plot of "The Great Winglebury Duel"
shows his new interest in this aspect of fiction. Follow-
ing a picturesque and somewhat lengthy introduction, Mr.

Alexander Trott is delivered the challenge from Horace

Hunter, his rival for the affections of Miss Emily Brown.

 

19
pp. 76-770

Darton, Dickens, Positively_the First Appearance,

229

This challenge initiates the action that follows and creates
the suspense that will continue through the story as the
reader waits to discover exactly how Trott will manage to
avoid the duel promised in the title. The co-ordinate

plot, of which Miss Julia Manners is the protagonist, also
moves forward at the same time. Her arrival at the inn by
coach preceded the delivery of Mr. Trott's letter, and
Dickens continues her story immediately following the scene
in which Mr. Trott makes preparations to avoid the duel. Her
plans, as well as those of Trott, involve the mayor of

Great Winglebury, a fact that, to one familiar with such
intricately plotted tales, strongly suggests a clever working
out of the scheme. The promised duel never comes off, and
the mix—up occasioned by the mayor's mistaking Trott for
Lord Peter is never straightened out in time for the
original marital plans of Mr. Trott and Miss Manners to be
fulfilled. Instead, as a result of the mayor's mistake,
finding themselves in the coach on the way to Gretna Green,
Mr. Trott and Miss Manners decide that since each has the
characteristics the other requires in a mate, it would

be a pity, as Dickens's concludes, "to have all this trouble
and expense for nothing: and that as they were so far on

the road already, they had better go to Gretna Green, and
marry each other: and they did so“ (BBB, 1, ii, 112).

The twist that Dickens gives to the tale is highly clever,

for even as he manipulates the plot to comment upon human

230

nature, he manages to bring the tale to at least an ostensibly
happy ending for these two thwarted lovers.20

The plot of "The Tuggses at Ramsgate" lacks the
suspense and complexity of that of "The Great Winglebury
Duel": as a matter of fact, it is somewhat close to that of
the Monthly Magazine tales but even more so to that of the
tales of Bell's Life in London, being more an episode than
an intricately plotted piece. Having inherited a large
sum of money, Mr. Tuggs gives up his grocery business and
takes his family on a vacation to Ramsgate. What follows,
in more or less picaresque fashion, depends upon their
gullibility, their lack of social graces, and their newly
reinforced class snobbery. One discovers at the end of the

tale that what happens to Simon Tuggs (or "Cymon, as he
prefers), the son of the family, has been prearranged by

the scheming Captain Walters, his wife, and a subordinate
officer. But this discovery is not sufficiently exciting to
compensate for the annoying episodic nature of the tale.

On the other hand, despite its episodic nature, the tale

moves more inevitably toward its predetermined end than do

 

20The plot of “The Strange Gentleman," the "comic
burletta" that Dickens wrote sometime in late 1835 or early
1836 (it was finished by early February--see Nonesuch Let.,
I, 66, to Chapman and Hall, [2/18/36]) is even more
complicated than that of "The Great Winglebury Duel,‘ upon
which the play was based (see BBB, XVIII, ii, 277-316),
involving the manipulation of some thirteen characters
through their dramatic paces. Here, too, one may find,
obviously, Dickens acquiring additional practice in plot
construction and characterization--and on a more advanced
level than that in the tales-—all in preparation for the
novels to come.

231

Dickens's earlier, relatively plotless stories. Given
Simon Tuggs's romantic nature, his social pretensions, his
father's inheritance of twenty thousand pounds, and as
Dickens would have one believe, his "tendency to weakness
in his interesting legs" (BBB, I, ii, 1), one suspects
that not only is he due for a downfall later in the story,
but the downfall will somehow result from these character-
istics. Having sent the Tuggses to Ramsgate, where they
presumably will be out of their social depth, Dickens has
obvious plans to dabble in slapstick and satire. When
he introduces the Tuggses to Captain and Mrs. Waters and
causes "Cymon" to fall immediately in love with Mrs. Waters,
as any reader of eighteenth century novels or a viewer of
eighteenth and early nineteenth century comedies knows,
Dickens is preparing for the pledge of hopeless love, the
unexpected return of the husband, the innocent but com-
promising situation, the attempts to hide, and the discovery,
followed by a duel if the story is serious, or by farcical
disgrace and perhaps (as in "The Tuggses at Ramsgate") by
the surprise revelation of a successful confidence game.
Certainly the combination of techniques in which
Dickens had shown considerable improvement between 1833 and
1836 at least to some extent rescues "The Great Winglebury
Duel" and 'The Tuggses at Ramsgate" from their still some-
what inadequate plots. One is not surprised to find effective

scenes, humorous and relatively well developed characters,

232

a fairly artistic handling of descriptive and narrative
techniques, and a tone and atmosphere consistent with the
author's intentions. Dickens had, after all, been acquiring
considerable practice in these techniques during the course
of writing the earlier tales and particularly the descriptive
essays that appeared in the Morning Chronicle, the Evening

Chronicle, and Bell's Life in London, as indicated in

 

 

chapter three of this study. In these two tales, Dickens
also handles dialogue more brilliantly than he had in his
earlier tales and essays--to develop his characters fully

in "The Tuggses at Ramsgate“ and to aid in forwarding the
intricacies of the plot in "The Great Winglebury Duel."

It is less stilted than it had been earlier, perhaps less
dependent upon word play of one kind or another and more
dependent upon Dickens's developing ”ear" for speech patterns,
nuances, and dialects. One even notices a more successful
attempt by Dickens to separate clearly the speech of one
character from another. In ”The Tuggses at Ramsgate,“ for
example, the Waterses speak fluent, educated English for the
most part while the Tuggses frequently lapse into colloquial—
isms and slang expressions that betray their lower class
origins. Captain Waters, though suave in his speech, is
sometimes blustery: on the other hand, Mrs. Waters, who

is appropriately named Belinda, has a tendency to use words
with highly sentimental connotations almost every time she
speaks. In addition to being more fully formulated through

speech than before, Dickens's characterizations rely more

233

heavily in these later stories on action as well as on
description, which itself more carefully particularizes
appearance, mannerisms, and attitudes. One recalls the
comic donkey ride made by Simon Tuggs, his sister, and Mrs.

Waters:

"Kim up!" shouted one of the boys who followed
behind, to propel the donkeys, when Belinda Waters
and Charlotta Tuggs had been hoisted, and pushed,
and pulled, into their respective saddles.

"Hi--hi--hi!” groaned the other boy behind Mr.
Cymon Tuggs. Away went the donkey, with the stirrups
jingling against the heels of Cymon's boots, and
Cymon's boots nearly scarping the ground.

'Way--way! Wo--o--o--o--!" cried Mr. Cymon Tuggs
as well as he could, in the midst of the jolting.

“Don't make it gallop!” screamed Mrs. Captain
Waters, behind.

“My donkey will go into the public-house!" shrieked
Miss Tuggs in the rear. . . .

Everything has an end, however: even the galloping
of donkeys will cease in time. The animal which
Mr. Cymon Tuggs bestrode, feeling uncomfortable tugs
at the bit, the intent of which he could by no
means divine, abruptly sidled against a brick wall,
and expressed his uneasiness by grinding Mr. Cymon
Tuggs's leg on the rough surface. Mrs. Captain
Waters's donkey, apparently under the influence of
some playfulness of spirit, rushed suddenly, head
first, into a hedge, and declined to come out
again: and the quadruped on which Miss Tuggs was
mounted, expressed his delight at this humorous
proceeding by firmly planting his fore-feet
against the ground, and kicking up his hind—legs
in a very agile, but somewhat alarming manner.

This abrupt termination to the rapidity of the
ride naturally occasioned some confusion. . . .

The efforts of the boys, however, assisted by the
ingenious expedient of twisting the tail of the most
rebellious donkey, restored order in a much shorter
time than could have reasonably been expected, and
the little party jogged slowly on together.

"Now let 'em walk,“ said Mr. Cymon Tuggs.

"It's cruel to overdrive 'em.” (BBB, I, ii, 16-17)

The picture of long-legged Mr. Tuggs on the short—legged

donkey, his obvious inexperience in riding such beasts, the

234

suggested characterizations of the donkeys themselves, the
comic tableau of chaos and confusion that temporarily ends
the ride, and the implications of Mr. Tuggs's last remark
contribute not only to Dickens's characterization of the
young man's pretentiousness but also explodeit. In
addition, each of these details, in common with others, of
course, contributestx>the unified, consistent comic con-
ception of the story. Merely one episode in a tale of many
episodes, this scene does little to forward the plot. For
that matter, though it bolsters what is already known it
does not reveal anything new about Cymon Tuggs that

Dickens has not already presented in the opening scene of
the story. Yet its function is important, for it contri-
butes an additional layer of detail, character, incident,
and comedy to an already relatively massive accumulation of
such material. More specifically, nothing at Ramsgate,
obviously, is going to turn out well for the social—
climbing Tuggses, which comes very close to being what the
story is all about.

In places this rich concoction is considerably re—
inforced by the settings Dickens creates to contain the
action of his stories. He has paid little attention to
setting during his first year as a writer: as a result his
earlier works lack the color and sense of place that add
depth to his later tales. When G. K. Chesterton concludes
that Dickens's farcical tales (he is rather indiscriminantly

referring to ”Horatio Sparkins" as well as to "The Tuggses

(3

235

at Ramsgate"), despite their lack of "that verbal felicity
or fantastic irony that Dickens afterwards developed,"
have something in them that "there k5 not in the ordinary

stock comedies of that day: an indefinable flavour of

emphasis and richness, a hint as of infinity of fun,"21

he is touching upon precisely the atmosphere, the air of
expectation that one encounters just as the action begins
in "The Great Winglebury Duel”:

The day was hot and sunny, the town in the zenith
of its dulness, and with the exception of [a] few
idlers, not a living creature was to be seen. Sudden-
ly the loud notes of a key-bugle broke the monotonous
stillness of the street: in came the coach, rattling
over the uneven paving with a noise startling enough
to stop even the large-faced clock itself. Down got
the outsides, up went the windows in all directions,
out came the waiters, up started the ostlers, and
the loungers, and the post-boys, and the ragged boys,
as if they were electrified——unstrapping, and un—
chaining, and unbuckling, and dragging willing
horses out and forcing reluctant horses in, and
making a most exhilarating bustle.

(EL—E! I; ii; 92‘93)

The description of the Winglebury Arms, immediately preceding
the above passage, prepares the reader, by a kind of
associative process, for all kinds of picaresque compli-
cations and delights plucked from the pages of Fielding and
Smollett, or later Dickens:
The house is a large one, with a red brick and stone
front: a pretty spacious hall, ornamented with ever-
green plants, terminates in a perspective view of
the bar, and a glass case, in which are displayed a

choice variety of delicacies ready for dressing,
to catch the eye of a new-comer the moment he enters,

 

21
pp. 7-8.

Chesterton, Appreciations and Criticisms,

236

and excite his appetite to the highest possible pitch.
Opposite doors lead to the “coffee" and "commercial"
rooms: and a great wide, rambling staircase--three
stairs and a landing-—four stairs and another landing--
one step and another landing—-ha1f—a—dozen stairs and
another landing—-conducts to galleries of bedrooms,
and labyrinths of sitting-rooms, denominated
“private,” where you may enjoy yourself, as privately
as you can in any place where some bewildered being
walks into your room every five minutes, by mistake,
and then walks out again, to open all the doors along
the gallery until he finds his own.

(NLE, I, ii, 92)

The rest of the story unfortunately does not continue
with the richness of action, characterization, comic situation,
and authorial comment that one expects from a novel by
Fielding or Smollett and that one does find, though in bits
and pieces, in some of the essays Dickens had written prior
to this tale. Dickens will not get too far into the
writing of Pickwick Papers, however, before he will have
mastered at least the important techniques of picaresque
richness and structure as well as of serial publication,
advancing far beyond the comic sporting works of Surtees
and others upon which Seymour had originally intended the
work to be modelled. In "The Great Winglebury Duel" and
”The Tuggses at Ramsgate," Dickens is at least beginning
to move within the circle of influence from better models.
He seems to be thinking of himself no longer as the journalist
but as the man of letters, the novelist. Also important
is the fact that one can observe him in these two tales,
as well as in “The Black veil," more effectively (though

still awkwardly at times) merging the elements of fiction

into a unified work of literature. His intentions seem

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