moral: privation, constriction, dirt; hypocrisy, servility, meanness; devotion, philan-
thropy. We weep less easily than the Victorians, yet in the comedy and pathos of
Dickens’s first decade, the comic writing seems absolutely better: the outrageous
Martin Chuzzlewit, not the more kindly Nicholas Nickleby. Reading early Dickens is
like travelling in a coach, careering along in roughly the right direction, at very vari-
able speed, pulled along by emotional drive and personal energy, jostled by vividly
defined idiosyncratic characters. Critics praising Dickens are reduced to listing
favourite characters: Mr Jingle, Pecksniff, Micawber, Mrs Gamp, Wemmick and his
Aged P, Mrs Jellyby and her Telescopic Philanthropy, Flora Finching, Mr Podsnap.
This habit, mysterious to those who have not read Dickens (everyoneshould read
Dicke ns),simply acknowledges the delight given by his astonishing fertility of inven-
tion. He is a dramatic writer, and the hundreds of characters are stage creatures,
defined by a humour or an extraordinary habit; often caricatures or puppets, often
magnificent, sometimes malign. Few have internal consciousness and three dimen-
sions. All have life, few grow.David Copperfield
There is no answer ing the question whether this rich and copious writer is at his best
early or late, in parts or wholes, in comedy or drama. Only a few dishes can be
sampled here. His most delightful book may be David Copperfield, a lucid autobio-
gr aphical fairy tale.By a trick of narration we fully share the viewpoints both of the
child and of the adult looking back. We experience Steerforth’s seductiveness to
David,and see the casual rapacity behind it. We see with Dickens’s smile and
Dicke ns’s pity the child-bride Dora offering to help David by holding his pens. The
career of Steerforth, however, tests our ability to feel as Dickens wishes after the ruin
ofLittle Emily. Interest weakens.
The first writing in which everything tells is the briefA Christmas Carol of 1843,
a story known in some form to every British writer and reader of English literature.
A children’s story which secularizes Christmas, it has a clearly Christian morality,292 10 · FICTION
Charles Dickens, acting the part of
Captain Bobadil in Ben Jonson’s Every
Man in his Humourin 1845;
a painting by C. R. Leslie. The Charles
Dickens Museum.