ANOTHER MAN 101Dickens’s letters reveal a man who prided himself on the loyalty and affec-
tion that were indeed strong forces in his friendships. They also show a strong
tendency to rivalry and an instinct for triangulation, whether the triangles
included an actual woman or not. Rivalry sits very close to identification in
his consciousness: those beloved friends have a tendency to turn into rejected
parts of himself when he writes to them, or to a third party about them. René
Girard’s notion of triangular desire can help to suggest the potential volatility
in such situations: Girard emphasizes that desire for an object (which may or
may not be a person) is generated by envious identification with a media-
tor who is also experienced as a rival (Girard 7, 10). Dickens’s zest for such
situations comes through in his relationship with the de la Rue couple, when
he became obsessed by his mesmeric relationship with the wife, all the while
earnestly reporting the results of their sessions to the husband. In the months
before he left England for the Italian journey on which he would meet the
de la Rues, he had played out another set of relationships in which the roles
of mediator and rival were almost indistinguishable.
The Christiana Weller Affair
In February 1844, when Dickens had just turned thirty-two, he traveled
north to deliver speeches at the Liverpool Mechanics’ Institution and the
Birmingham Polytechnic. The occasion is notable to begin with because it
introduced him to the thrill of speaking to huge, wildly enthusiastic audi-
ences. It is more deeply predictive because in the flush of fame and publicity,
Dickens was suddenly infatuated with an eighteen-year-old girl who was also
a performer. Christiana Weller, a child prodigy pianist, had been concertiz-
ing with her sister since the age of nine. A year before Dickens’s appearance
in Liverpool, her father had made contact with the creator of the Pickwick
Wellers, trading on the coincidence of the name and requesting an autograph
for his daughter, who was by then an acclaimed concert pianist on the north-
ern provincial circuit. Thus, Christiana’s name was not entirely unknown
to Dickens when she played a solo on the program after his speech. He was
instantly smitten, met the father, and invited himself to lunch the next day,
along with his Yorkshire friend Thomas James Thompson. After the lunch
Dickens sent Christiana “a bit of doggerel” that plays further with the Weller
name, ending “I find to my cost, that One Weller I lost./ Cruel Destiny so to
arrange it!/ I love her dear name which has won me some fame/ But Great
Heaven how gladly I’d change it!” (4.54 and n.). It is a tricky little ditty,
which relies on the girl’s understanding that he flirted as befit the status of