8 KNOWING DICKENS
was forced to resign from his position as Professor of Medicine at the Uni-
versity of London when he became too interested in the curative powers of
mesmerism. Dickens himself became a mesmerist under Elliotson’s direction,
and conducted his own experiments on family members and friends. But
his library of mental philosophy was not confined to that subject; it included
Dugald Stewart’s Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind (1792), Robert
Macnish’s Philosophy of Sleep (1830), and John Abercrombie’s Inquiries Con-
cerning the Intellectual Powers and Investigation of Truth (1843), along with stud-
ies of insanity and essays demonstrating the physiological sources of appari-
tions. George Henry Lewes’s The Physiology of Common Life (1859) and E. S.
Dallas’s The Gay Science (1866) were late additions to the collection.
Dickens made use of such influences in a number of ways. His interest in
the trance-like state between sleeping and waking, twice described in Oliver
Twist, predated his acquaintance with Dr. Elliotson, and occasioned a special
query from George Henry Lewes, who had enthusiastically reviewed Dick-
ens’s early books in December 1837. Still in his pre–George Eliot days, Lewes
was rather like Dickens: he too came from an obscure background, virtually
educated himself, and made his way as aspiring writer and amusing raconteur
in London’s journalistic milieu. It is not surprising that his praise led Dickens
to suggest a meeting; Lewes’s review asserts that “ ‘Boz’ should be compared
to no one since no one has ever written like him—no one has ever combined
the nicety of observation, the fineness of tact, the exquisite humour, the wit,
heartiness, sympathy with all things good and beautiful in human nature, the
perception of character, the pathos, and accuracy of description, with the
same force that he has done” (Collins 1971, 65). In a letter of June 1838 we
find Dickens responding to a question put by Lewes, who was already inter-
ested in the philosophy of mind, about the waking-sleep states in Oliver Twist.
“I scarcely know what answer I can give you,” Dickens returned. “I suppose
like most authors I look over what I write with exceeding pleasure and think
(to use the words of the elder Mr. Weller) ‘in my innocence that it’s all wery
capital.’ I thought that passage a good one when I wrote it, certainly, and I felt
it strongly (as I do almost every word I put on paper) while I wrote it, but how
it came I can’t tell. It came like all my other ideas, such as they are, ready made
to the point of the pen—and down it went. Draw your own conclusion and
hug the theory closely” (1.403).
It is a suggestive answer, both for what Dickens insists on and for what he
conceals. He backs resolutely away from naming a source or conceding to
an intellectual interest in mental phenomena, emphasizing instead the mys-
terious nature of writing and its emotional sources. In the face of Lewes’s
philosophical inclinations, he deflects attention from theory to the practice