1837.

dealings with Mr. Macrone.

though I was glad to have been no party to a LONDON: price so exorbitant; which yet profited extremely Close of little the person who received it. He died in hardly more than two years; and if Dickens had enjoyed the most liberal treatment at his hands, he could not have exerted himself more generously for the widow and children.

His new story was now beginning largely to Oliver Twist. share attention with his Pickwick Papers, and it

was delightful to see how real all its people be

real to him.

self.

came to him. What I had most indeed to notice Characters in him, at the very outset of his career, was his indifference to any praise of his performances on the merely literary side, compared with the higher recognition of them as bits of actual life, with the meaning and purpose on their part, and the responsibility on his, of realities rather than creatures of fancy. The exception that might be drawn from Pickwick is rather in seeming than substance. A first book has its immunities, and the distinction of this from the rest of the writings appears in what has been said of its origin. The plan of Distinction it was simply to amuse. It was to string together from other whimsical sketches of the pencil by entertaining sketches of the pen; and, at its beginning, where or how it was to end was as little known to himself as to any of its readers. But genius is a

of Pickwick

works.

The

master as well as a servant, and when the laughter
and fun were at their highest something graver
made its appearance. He had to defend himself
for this; and he said that though the mere oddity
of a new acquaintance was apt to impress one at
first, the more serious qualities were discovered
when we became friends with the man. In other
words he might have said that the change was
become necessary for his own satisfaction.
book itself, in teaching him what his power was,
had made him more conscious of what would be
expected from its use; and this never afterwards
quitted him. In what he was to do hereafter, as
in all he was doing now, with Pickwick still to
finish and Oliver only beginning, it constantly at-
tended him. Nor could it well be otherwise, with
all those fanciful creations so real, to a nature in
itself so practical and earnest; and in this spirit
I had well understood the letter accompanying
what had been published of Oliver since its com-
mencement the preceding February, which reached
me the day after I visited him. Something to the
effect of what has just been said, I had remarked
publicly of the portion of the story sent to me;、
and his instant warm-hearted acknowledgment, of
which I permit myself to quote a line or two,
showed me in what perfect agreement we were

1837. C. D.

to

J. F.

"How can I thank you? Can I do better than by LONDON: "saying that the sense of poor Oliver's reality, "which I know you have had from the first, has "been the highest of all praise to me. None that "has been lavished upon me have I felt half so "much as that appreciation of my intent and "meaning. You know I have ever done so, for "it was your feeling for me and mine for you "that first brought us together, and I hope will "keep us so, till death do us part. Your notices "make me grateful but very proud; so have a care "of them."

with his

There was nothing written by him after this Help given date which I did not see before the world did, proofs. either in manuscript or proofs; and in connection with the latter I shortly began to give him the help which he publicly mentioned twenty years later in dedicating his collected writings to me. One of his letters reminds me when these corrections began, and they were continued very nearly to the last. They lightened for him at labour of which he had more than enough imposed upon him at this time by others, and they were never anything but an enjoyment to me. "I "have," he wrote, "so many sheets of the Miscel"lany to correct before I can begin Oliver, that I "fear I shall not be able to leave home this

C. D.

to

J. F.

1837.

LONDON: "morning. I therefore send your revise of the "Pickwick by Fred, who is on his way with it to "the printers. You will see that my alterations "are very slight, but I think for the better." This was the fourteenth number of the Pickwick Papers. Fred was his next younger brother, who lived with him at the time.

Pickwick

No. XIV.

C. D. to

J. F.

Writing

No. XV.

The number following this was the famous one in which the hero finds himself in the Fleet, and another of his letters will show what enjoyment the writing of it had given to himself. I had sent to ask him where we were to meet for a proposed ride that day. "HERE," was his reply. "I am slippered and jacketted, and, like that "same starling who is so very seldom quoted, "can't get out. I am getting on, thank Heaven, "like a house o' fire,' and think the next Pick"wick will bang all the others. I shall expect "you at one, and we will walk to the stable to"gether. If you know anybody at Saint Paul's, "I wish you'd send round and ask them not to "ring the bell so. I can hardly hear my own "ideas as they come into my head, and say what "they mean."

The exulting tone of confidence in what he had thus been writing was indeed well justified. He had as yet done nothing so remarkable, in

1837. The debtors' prison in - Pickwick.

blending humour with tragedy, as his picture of LONDON? what the poor side of a debtors' prison was in the days of which we have seen that he had himself had bitter experience; and we have but to recall, as it rises sharply to the memory, what is contained in this portion of a work that was not only among his earliest but his least considered as to plan, to understand what it was that not alone had given him his fame so early, but that in itself held the germ of the future that awaited him. Every point was a telling one, and the truthfulness of the whole unerring. The dreadful restlessness of the place, undefined yet unceasing, unsatisfying and terrible, was pictured throughout with De Foe's minute reality; while points of character were handled in that greater style which connects with the richest oddities of humour an insight into principles of character universal as nature itself. When he resolved that Sam Weller should be occupant of the prison with Mr. Pickwick, he was perhaps thinking of his favourite Smollett, and how, when Peregrine Pickle was inmate of the Fleet, Hatchway and Pipes refused to leave him; but Fielding himself might have envied his way of setting about it. Nor is any portion of his picture less admirable than this. The comedy gradually deepening into tragedy;

A recollection of Smollett.