as an artist in fiction dickens was great; but not because he had a correct theory of the technique of the novel, not because he always followed good rules and models in writing, nor because he was one
who saw life steadily and saw it whole.
on the contrary, his vision of life, though vivid, was almost always partial. he was capable of doing a great deal of bad work, which he himself liked. the plots of his novels, on which he toiled tremendously, are negligible; indeed it is often difficult to follow and impossible to remember them. the one of his books that is notably fine in structure and approximately faultless in technique—a tale of two cities—is so unlike his other novels that it stands in a class by itself, as an example of what he could have done if he had chosen to follow that line. in a way it is his most perfect piece of work. but it is not his most characteristic piece of work, and therefore i think it has less value for us than some of his other books in which his peculiar, distinctive, unrivalled powers are more fully shown.
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after all, art must not only interpret the world but also reveal the artist. the lasting interest of his vision, its distinction, its charm, depend, at least in some real degree, upon the personal touch. being himself a part of the things that are seen, he must “paint the thing as he sees it” if he wishes to win the approval of “the god of things as they are.”
now the artistic value of dickens’s way of seeing things lay in its fitness to the purpose which he had in mind and heart,—a really great purpose, namely, to enhance the interest of life by good enchantment, to save people from the plague of dulness and the curse of indifference by showing them that the world is full of the stuff for hearty laughter and deep sympathy. this way of seeing things, with constant reference to their humourous and sentimental potency, was essential to the genius of dickens. his method of making other people see it was strongly influenced, if not absolutely determined, by two facts which seemed to lie outside of his career as an author: first, his training as a reporter for the press; second, his favourite avocation as an amateur actor, stage-manager, and dramatic reader.
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the style of dickens at its best is that of an inspired reporter. it is rapid, graphic, pictorial, aiming always at a certain heightening of effect, making the shadows darker and the lights brighter for the purpose of intensifying sensation. he did not get it in the study but in the street. take his description in martin chuzzlewit of todgers’s boarding house with its complicated smells and its mottled shades of dinginess; or take his picture in little dorrit of marseilles burning in the august sunlight with its broad, white, universal stare. here is the art of journalism,—the trick of intensification by omission,—carried to the limit. he aims distinctly at a certain effect, and he makes sure of getting it.
he takes long walks in the heart of london, attends police courts, goes behind the scenes of theatres, rides in omnibuses, visits prisons and workhouses. you think he is seeking realism. quite wrong. he is seeking a sense of reality which shall make realism look cheap. he is not trying to put up canned goods which shall seem more or less like fresh vegetables. he is trying to extract the essential
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flavour of places and people so that you can taste it in a drop.
we find in his style an accumulation of details all bearing on a certain point; nothing that serves his purpose is overlooked; everything that is likely to distract the attention or obscure his aim is disregarded. the head-lines are in the text. when the brute, bill sykes, says to nancy: “get up,” you know what is coming. when mrs. todgers gives a party to mr. pecksniff you know what is coming. but the point is that when it comes, tragedy or comedy, it is as pure and unadulterated as the most brilliant of reporters could make it.
naturally, dickens puts more emphasis upon the contrast between his characters than upon the contrast within them. the internal inconsistencies and struggles, the slow processes of growth and change which are the delight of the psychological novelist do not especially interest him. he sees things black or white, not gray. the objects that attract him most, and on which he lavishes his art, do not belong to the average, but to the extraordinary. dickens is not a commonplace merchant.
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he is a dealer in oddities and rarities, in fact the keeper of an “old curiosity shop,” and he knows how to set forth his goods with incomparable skill.
his drawing of character is sharp rather than deep. he makes the figure stand out, always recognizable, but not always thoroughly understood. many of his people are simply admirable incarnations of their particular trades or professions: mould the undertaker, old weller the coachman, tulkinghorn the lawyer, elijah program the political demagogue, blimber the school-master, stiggins the religious ranter, betsey prig the day-nurse, cap’n cuttle the retired skipper. they are all as easy to identify as the wooden image in front of a tobacconist’s shop. others are embodiments of a single passion or quality: pecksniff of unctuous hypocrisy, micawber of joyous improvidence, mr. toots of dumb sentimentalism, little dorrit of the motherly instinct in a girl, joe gargery of the motherly instinct in a man, mark tapley of resolute and strenuous optimism. if these persons do anything out of harmony with their head-lines, dickens does not tell of it. he does not care for the incongruities, the
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modifications, the fine shadings which soften and complicate the philosophic and reflective view of life. he wants to write his “story” sharply, picturesquely, with “snap” and plenty of local colour; and he does it, in his happiest hours, with all the verve and skill of a star reporter for the morning journal of the enchanted city.
in this graphic and emphatic quality the art of dickens in fiction resembles the art of hogarth in painting. but dickens, like hogarth, was much more than a reporter. he was a dramatist, and therefore he was also, by necessity, a moralist.
i do not mean that dickens had a dramatic genius in the greek sense that he habitually dealt with the eternal conflict between human passion and inscrutable destiny. i mean only this: that his lifelong love for the theatre often led him, consciously or unconsciously, to construct the scenario of a story with a view to dramatic effect, and to work up the details of a crisis precisely as if he saw it in his mind’s eye on the stage.
notice how the dramatis personæ are clearly marked as comic, or tragic, or sentimental. the
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moment they come upon the scene you can tell whether they are meant to appeal to your risibilities or to your sensibilities. you are in no danger of laughing at the heroine, or weeping over the funny man. dickens knows too much to leave his audience in perplexity. he even gives to some of his personages set phrases, like the musical motifs of the various characters in the operas of wagner, by which you may easily identify them. mr. micawber is forever “waiting for something to turn up.” mr. toots always reminds us that “it’s of no consequence.” sairey gamp never appears without her imaginary friend mrs. harris. mrs. general has “prunes and prism” perpetually on her lips.
observe, also, how carefully the scene is set, and how wonderfully the preparation is made for a dramatic climax in the story. if it is a comic climax, like the trial of mr. pickwick for breach of promise, nothing is forgotten, from the hysterics of the obese mrs. bardell to the feigned indignation of sergeant buzfuz over the incriminating phrase “chops and tomato sauce!”
if it is a tragic climax, like the death of bill sykes,
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a score of dark premonitions lead up to it, the dingiest slum of london is chosen for it, the grimy streets are filled with a furious crowd to witness it, and just as the murderer is about to escape, the ghostly eyes of his victim glare upon him, and he plunges from the roof, tangled in his rope, to be hanged by the hand of the eternal judge as surely as if he stood upon the gallows.
or suppose the climax is not one of shame and terror, but of pure pity and tenderness, like the death of little nell. then the quiet room is prepared for it, and the white bed is decked with winter berries and green leaves that the child loved because they loved the light; and gentle friends are there to read and talk to her, and she sleeps herself away in loving dreams, and the poor old grandfather, whom she has guided by the hand and comforted, kneels at her bedside, wondering why his dear nell lies so still, and the very words which tell us of her peace and his grief, move rhythmically and plaintively, like soft music with a dying fall.
close the book. the curtain descends. the drama is finished. the master has had his way with
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us; he has made us laugh; he has made us cry. we have been at the play.
but was it not as real to us while it lasted as many of the scenes in which we actors daily take our parts? and did it not mellow our spirits with mirth, and soften our hearts with tears? and now that it is over are we not likely to be a little better, a little kinder, a little happier for what we have laughed at or wept over?
ah, master of the good enchantment, you have given us hours of ease and joy, and we thank you for them. but there is a greater gift than that. you have made us more willing to go cheerfully and companionably along the strange, crowded, winding way of human life, because you have deepened our faith that there is something of the divine on earth, and something of the human in heaven.
