1838-9. Sydney LONDON: denial, though without a particle of splendour or even good looks about them, except what an eye as fine as their own feelings might discern. "My friends," wrote Sydney Smith, describing to Dickens the anxiety of some ladies of his acquaintance to meet him at dinner, "have not the smallest ob"jection to be put into a number, but on the con"trary would be proud of the distinction; and "Lady Charlotte, in particular, you may marry to "Newman Noggs." Lady Charlotte was not a more real person to Sydney than Newman Noggs; and all the world that Dickens attracted to his books could draw from them the same advantage as the man of wit and genius. It has been lately objected that humanity is not seen in them in its highest or noblest types, and the assertion may hereafter be worth considering; but what is very certain is, that they have inculcated humanity in familiar and engaging forms to thousands and tens of thousands of their readers, who can hardly have failed each to make his little world around him somewhat the better for their teaching. From first to last they were never for a moment alien to either the sympathies or the understandings of any class; and there were crowds of people at this time that could not have told you what imagination meant, who were adding month by month to their limited stores the boundless gains of imagination. LONDON: 1838-9. Creevy. Advantage oneself. One other kindliest product of humour in Nickleby, not to be passed over in even thus briefly recalling a few first impressions of it, was the good little miniature painter Miss La Creevy, Miss La living by herself, overflowing with affections she has nobody to bestow on, but always cheerful by dint of industry and good heartedness. When she is disappointed in the character of a woman she has been to see, she eases her mind by saying a very cutting thing at her expense in a soliloquy: and thereby illustrates one of the ad- of living by vantages of having lived alone so long, that she made always a confidant of herself; was as sarcastic as she could be, by herself, on people who offended her; pleased herself, and did no harm. Here was one of those touches, made afterwards familiar to the readers of Dickens by innumerable similar fancies, which added affection to their admiration for the writer, and enabled them to anticipate the feeling with which posterity would regard him as indeed the worthy companion of the Goldsmiths and Fieldings. There was a piece of writing, too, within not many pages of it, of which Leigh Hunt exclaimed on reading it that Remark of Leigh Hunt. it surpassed the best things of the kind in Smol 1838-9. LONDON: lett that he was able to call to mind. This was the letter of Miss Squeers to Ralph Nickleby, giving him her version of the chastisement inMiss Squeers. flicted by Nicholas on the schoolmaster. "My pa "requests me to write to you, the doctors con"sidering it doubtful whether he will ever recuvver "the use of his legs which prevents his holding a "pen. We are in a state of mind beyond every"thing, and my pa is one mask of brooses both "blue and green likewise two forms are steepled "in his Goar. . . . Me and my brother were then "the victims of his feury since which we have "suffered very much which leads us to the arrow"ing belief that we have received some injury in "our insides, especially as no marks of violence "are visible externally. I am screaming out loud "all the time I write and so is my brother which "takes off my attention rather and I hope will "excuse mistakes" Early and later books. Thus rapidly may be indicated some elements that contributed to the sudden and astonishingly wide popularity of these books. I purposely reserve from my present notices of them, which are biographical rather than critical, any statement of the reasons for which I think them inferior in imagination and fancy to some of the later works; but there was continued and steady growth in 1838-9. Character of the them on the side of humour, observation, and LONDON: character, while freshness and raciness of style continued to be an important help. There are faults of occasional exaggeration in the writing, but none that do not spring from animal spirits and good humour, or a pardonable excess, here and there, on the side of earnestness; and it has the rare virtue, whether gay or grave, of being always thoroughly intelligible and for the most part thoroughly natural, of suiting itself without effort to every change of mood, as quick, warm, and comprehensive, as the sympathies it is taxed to express. The tone also is excellent. We are never repelled by egotism or conceit, and mis- writing. placed ridicule never disgusts us. When good is going on, we are sure to see all the beauty of it; and when there is evil, we are in no danger of mistaking it for good. No one can paint more picturesquely by an apposite epithet, or illustrate more happily by a choice allusion. Whatever he knows or feels, too, is always at his fingers' ends, and is present through whatever he is doing. What Rebecca says to Ivanhoe of the black knight's mode of fighting would not be wholly inapplicable to Dickens's manner of writing. "There is more than mere strength, there seems "as if the whole soul and spirit of the champion 1838-9. Pictures of LONDON: "were given to every blow he deals." This, when a man deals his blows with a pen, is the sort of handling that freshens with new life the oldest facts, and breathes into thoughts the most familiar an emotion not felt before. There seemed to be not much to add to our knowledge of London until his books came upon us, but each in this respect outstripped the other in its marvels. In Nickleby the old city reappears under every aspect; and whether warmth and light are playing over what is good and cheerful in it, or the veil is uplifted from its darker scenes, it is at all times our privilege to see and feel it as it absolutely is. Its interior hidden life becomes familiar as its commonest outward forms, and we discover that we hardly knew anything of the places we supposed that we knew the best. Materials gathered in Yorkshire. Of such notices as his letters give of his progress with Nickleby, which occupied him from February 1838 to October 1839, something may now be said. Soon after the agreement for it was signed, before the Christmas of 1837 was over, he went down into Yorkshire with Mr. Hablot Browne to look up the Cheap Schools in that county to which public attention had been painfully drawn by a law case in the previous year; which had before been notorious for cruel |