Gilbert Keith Chesterton Part 2

If he desires that he shall read Chesterton superficially and yet understand, he will be doomed to disappointment. Perhaps of all writers Chesterton must be read with the head between the hands, with a fierce determination that the meaning veiled in brilliant paradox shall be sought out.

He is not only a keen critic, he is also a deliberate commentator. The difference is fundamental. The commentator builds upon the foundation the critic has erected; he does not merely state what he thinks about a book or character, rather he explains the criticism already made.

This is the method adopted with regard to d.i.c.kens. Chesterton has written a commentary on the soul of d.i.c.kens, he has not in any strict sense written a biography; this was not necessary; the difficulty of d.i.c.kens lies in the interpretation of his work; his life, though having a great influence on his writings, has been written so often that Chesterton has refrained from building on 'another's foundation.' In a word, it is an intensely original work, far more than our critic's companion book on Browning.

As was Browning born to a world in the throes of the aftermath of the French Revolution, so was d.i.c.kens. Chesterton lays great stress on the youth of d.i.c.kens; it is only right that he should do this; the early life of d.i.c.kens was probably responsible for the wonderful genius of his art. The blacking factory that nearly killed the physical d.i.c.kens gave birth to the literary d.i.c.kens. d.i.c.kens was, in fact, born at the psychological moment, which is not to say that we are born at the unpsychological moment, but that d.i.c.kens was born at a time that allowed his natural powers to be used to the best advantage.

Chesterton feels this strongly. 'The background of the d.i.c.kens era was just that background that was eminently suitable to him'; it was a background that needed a d.i.c.kens as much as the pagan world, with all its Greek philosophies, had needed a Christ.

He begins his study of d.i.c.kens with a keen survey of the d.i.c.kens period.

'It was,' he says, 'a world that encouraged anybody to anything. And in England and literature its living expression was d.i.c.kens. It is useless for us to attempt to imagine d.i.c.kens and his life unless we are able to imagine his confidence in common men.'

It is this supreme confidence in common men that was the keynote to the wonderful power of d.i.c.kens in making characters from those who were in a world sense undistinguished. On this position Chesterton lays great stress. It was this, he thinks, that made him an optimist. It was the same position that made Browning an optimist. It is the disbelief in the Divine image in Man that makes the cynic and the pessimist.

Swift hated men because they were capable of better things but would not realize it. d.i.c.kens knew men were kings, though ordinary men; the result was that he loved humanity. It is a queer point of psychology that with the same wish two such minds as Swift and d.i.c.kens came to the extremes of the emotions of love and hate.

In some ways d.i.c.kens was more than a maker of books, he was a maker of worlds; he tried to make 'not only a book but a cosmos.' This may be a curious and obscure kind of clericalism that popularly expresses itself as an effort to run with the hare and follow with the hounds, but is really an heroic attempt to see both sides of the question, and is not a cheap pandering after popularity.

Many critics have disliked d.i.c.kens because of this tendency of universalism, a tendency liable to intrude on minds of a giant intellect and a ready sympathy. Chesterton does not think that d.i.c.kens was right in this att.i.tude of universalism, and says so with, I think, a certain amount of cheap disdain. 'He was inclined to be a literary Whiteley, a universal provider.' Really d.i.c.kens wanted to have a say about everything, in which he is strangely like Chesterton.

The result of this was a result that meant the greatest value: it meant and was 'David Copperfield.' The book was for Chesterton a cla.s.sic, and it was so because it was an autobiography. It is in this work that d.i.c.kens makes his defence of the rather exaggerated situations in some of his books, for in this book d.i.c.kens proves that his greatest romance is based on the experiences of his own life. 'David Copperfield is the great answer of a romancer to the realists. David says in effect, "What!

you say that the d.i.c.kens tales are too purple really to have happened.

Why, this is what happened to me, and it seemed the most purple of all.

You say that the d.i.c.kens heroes are too handsome and triumphant! Why, no prince or paladin in Ariosto was ever so handsome and triumphant as the head boy seemed to me walking before me in the sun. You say the d.i.c.kens villains are too black. Why, there was no ink in the Devil's inkstand black enough for my own stepfather when I had to live in the same house with him."'

This is the point that Chesterton brings out so well. The d.i.c.kens characters are not overdrawn because, though they move between book covers, their originals have moved on the face of the earth; they have moved with d.i.c.kens and he has made them his own. His brilliant apology for this alleged 'overdrawing' is one of the most effective replies ever penned to superior d.i.c.kens detractors. It is effective because it is true; it is true because it is obvious that d.i.c.kens created that which lay hidden in his own mind, the misery of his factory days.

It is, I think, with this view in mind that Chesterton pays so much attention to that period of d.i.c.kens' life which he spent in the blacking factory, with its crude noise, its blatant vulgarity, its vile language that left the small boy d.i.c.kens' sick, but with a sickness that discovered his literary genius. The factory was the germ that made the great writer. Chesterton is a true critic of d.i.c.kens because he has this somewhat singular insight of seeing the importance of the early miseries of d.i.c.kens' life with regard to their influence on his literary output and his queerly favoured delineation of common folks, the sort of people we always meet but hardly ever talk about because we are foolish enough to think them ordinary.

It is from the account of the early life of d.i.c.kens that Chesterton gently leads us to the birth of the immortal Mr. Pickwick, that supreme Englishman who is a byword amongst even those who scarcely know d.i.c.kens.

The birth pangs of the advent of Pickwick was a sharp quarrel 'that did no good to d.i.c.kens, and was one of those which occurred far too frequently in his life.'

Without any hesitation for Chesterton, 'Pickwick Papers' is d.i.c.kens'

finest achievement, which is a pleasant enough problem if we happen to remember that he also wrote 'David Copperfield.' Possibly it is really unfair to compare them. 'Pickwick Papers' is not in the strict sense a novel; 'David Copperfield' is a novel even if it is an autobiography. At any rate Pickwick was a fairy, and as fairies are pretty elastic he probably was in that category of beings, but he was even more a royal fairy, none other than the 'fairy prince.'

In Pickwick, d.i.c.kens made a great discovery, which was that he could write ordinary stuff like the 'Sketches by Boz,' and also could produce Mr. Pickwick and write 'David Copperfield,' which was to say that d.i.c.kens discovered he had a good chance of being the Shakespeare of literature.

'It is in "Pickwick Papers" that d.i.c.kens became a mythologist rather than a novelist; he dealt with men who were G.o.ds.' That is, no doubt, that they became household G.o.ds; in other words, as familiar as the characters of Shakespeare.

There is one tremendous outstanding characteristic of d.i.c.kens which Chesterton brings out with considerable force. It is that above all things d.i.c.kens created characters. It is almost as if the setting of his books were on a stage where the environment changes but the essentials of the characters remain unchanged.

The story is almost subordinated to the drawing of the princ.i.p.al character; it is almost a modern idea of the psychoa.n.a.lytical kind of novel that our young novelists love to draw. But still there is the great difference that the characters of d.i.c.kens pursue there own way regardless of the trend of events round them.

Naturally the modern novel is inferior to some of d.i.c.kens' works, but they do not deserve the hard things Chesterton says about them. Thus he remarks in pa.s.sing that the modern novel is 'devoted to the bewilderment of a weak young clerk who cannot decide which woman he wants to marry or which new religion he believes in; we still give this knock-kneed cad the name of hero.'

This is, I think, unfair. The modern novel is very often still a good healthy love tale; the hero is more often than not a gentleman who has not the brains to be a cad; his trouble about marriage is that he wants to marry the right woman to their mutual well being; he is neither a cad nor a hero, but an ordinary Englishman whom we need not walk half a mile to see; he usually marries a girl who can be seen in any suburb or at any church bazaar. I have dwelt on this at some length, as Chesterton has a tendency to despise modern novelists while being one himself.

At this period, when 'Pickwick' had once and for all brought fame to d.i.c.kens, it will be interesting to see why d.i.c.kens attained the enormous popularity he did. He was, our critic thinks, a 'great event not only in literature but also in history.'

He considers that d.i.c.kens was popular in a sense that we of the twentieth century cannot understand. In fact, he goes so far as to say that there are no really popular authors to-day.

This is probably not entirely true. When we say an author is popular we do not mean that necessarily, as Chesterton seems to suggest, he is a 'best seller'; rather we call him popular in the sense that a large number of people find pleasure in reading him, even if the subject is not a pleasant one. d.i.c.kens was popular in a different way: he was read by a public who wished his story might never end. They not only loved his books, they loved his characters even more. No matter that there might be five sub-stories running alongside of the main one, the central character retained the public affection. His characters were known outside their particular stories, and not only that, this was by no means confined to the princ.i.p.al ones.

They were known, as Chesterton points out, as Sherlock Holmes is known to-day. But even so there is again a difference. People do not speak of the minor characters of Conan Doyle's tales as they do, for instance, of Smike.

It is now convenient to turn to the Christmas literature of d.i.c.kens. I am convinced that Chesterton has very badly misconstrued the character of Scrooge, that delightful person whose one virtue was consistency.

Above everything, Scrooge was consistent; he hated Christmas as we hate anything that does not agree with our temperament. Merry Christmas was nonsense to him because he did not know how to be merry. He was a cold, cynical bachelor, and at that, so far, was perfectly within the law, moral and legal.

But Chesterton, by rather an unfortunate attempt to be too original, has turned him into a filthy hypocrite who needed no appearances of spirits whatever; for he says of Scrooge, 'He is only a crusty old bachelor, and had, I strongly suspect, given away turkeys secretly all his life.'

When Chesterton says that Scrooge gave away turkeys secretly all his life it is merely saying that the whole att.i.tude of Scrooge to life was a silly and unmeaning pose, which makes him ridiculous, and robs the 'Christmas Carol' of all its real worth, that of the miraculous conversion of Scrooge.

But, then, the actual story does not mean much for Chesterton: 'the repentance of Scrooge is highly improbable.' If it is true that Scrooge really did give away turkeys secretly, then it is quite obvious that Scrooge never did repent; he was past it. But I fancy that Chesterton has erred badly here; he has attempted without success to put a secret meaning into a simple and beautiful story.

'Chimes' is, for Chesterton, an attack on cant. It was a story written by d.i.c.kens to protest against all he hated in the nature of oppression. d.i.c.kens hated the vulgar cant that only helps to bring self-advertis.e.m.e.nt: the ethic that the poor must listen to the rich, not because the rich are the best law-givers, but because society is at present so const.i.tuted that no other method can be adopted.

d.i.c.kens loved the att.i.tude the poor always take to Christmas; it is that att.i.tude which is the proof that at its bedrock humanity is extremely lovable. Chesterton is entirely in agreement with d.i.c.kens on this matter. 'There is nothing,' he says, 'upon which the poor are more criticized than on the point of spending large sums on small feasts; there is nothing in which they are more right.'

d.i.c.kens did not in any way forget that the real spirit of Christmas is to be found in the cheery group round the blazing fire. 'The Cricket on the Hearth' is a pleasant tale about all that we a.s.sociate with Christmas, that very thing that has made Hearth and Christmas synonymous; yet Chesterton considers this one of the weakest of the d.i.c.kens' stories, which is a surprising criticism for a writer who really loves Christmas as he does.

In a later period of d.i.c.kens, Chesterton informs us of his brief entry into the complex and exciting world that has its headquarters in Fleet Street. For a short period d.i.c.kens occupied the editorship of the _Daily News_, but the environment was not a very congenial one. d.i.c.kens was unsettled with that strange restlessness that seizes all literary men at some time or other. This was the time that saw the publication of 'Dombey and Son.' Chesterton thinks that the essential genius found its most perfect expression in this work though the treatment is grotesque.

This book is almost, so our critic thinks, 'a theological one: it attempts to distinguish between the rough pagan devotion of the father and the gentler Christian affection of the mother.'

The grotesque manner of treatment of this work was as natural as the employment of the grotesque by Browning. d.i.c.kens must work in his own way, in the manner that suited his inmost soul; he could not be made to write to order. In a brilliant paradox Chesterton says of 'Dombey and Son': the 'story of Florence Dombey is incredible, although it is true,'

which is what many people feel about Christianity. 'Dombey and Son' was the outlet for that curious psychology of d.i.c.kens which could get the best out of a pathetic incident by approaching it from a grotesque angle. It came, as Chesterton points out in his own inimitable way, 'into the inner chamber by coming down the chimney.' Which demonstrates the ever nearness of pathos to humour, of the absurd to the pathetic.

It will not be out of place to refer at this time to some of the defects with which people have charged d.i.c.kens. Chesterton does not agree with the critics on these points, but admits that these charges have been levelled against d.i.c.kens. It will be advisable to take one or two examples of these alleged flaws.

There is that most popular thing of which d.i.c.kens is accused, that of exaggeration. Many people are quite incredulous that there could ever have existed such a character as Little Nell. Chesterton, however, thinks that d.i.c.kens did know a girl of this nature, and that Little Nell was based on her. Little Nell is not really more improbable than 'Eric,'

the famous hero of Dean Farrar, and he was certainly based on a living boy.

People who live in these enlightened days are piously shocked at the amount of drinking described by d.i.c.kens. Well-bred and garrulous ladies have shuddered at the scenes described, and have declared that d.i.c.kens was at least fond of the Baccha.n.a.lian element. So he was, but the reason was not that he loved hard drinking, but that, as our critic brings out, drinking was the symbol of hospitality as roast beef is the symbol of a Sunday in a thousand English rectories. As d.i.c.kens described the social life of England he could not leave out its most characteristic feature and shudder in pious horror that the red wine dyed old England a merry crimson.

It would be no doubt an exaggeration to call d.i.c.kens a socialist. What he saw was that there was a ma.s.s of beings that was called humanity, that the two ends of the political pole were indifferent to this ma.s.s.

The party to which a man gave his allegiance did not matter as long as that party worked for man's ultimate good. Chesterton is quite sure that d.i.c.kens was not a socialist; he was not the kind that ranted at street corners and dined in secret at the Ritz, nor was he of the kind who said all men are equal but I am a little better. He was a socialist in the sense that he hated oppression of any kind.

'Hard Times' strikes a note that is a little short of being harsh. The reason that d.i.c.kens may have exaggerated Bounderby is that he really disliked him. The d.i.c.kensian characters undoubtedly suffered from their delineator's likes and dislikes.

About this time d.i.c.kens wrote a book that was unique for him; it was a book that dealt with the French Revolution, and was called 'The Tale of Two Cities.' Chesterton does not think that d.i.c.kens really understood this gigantic upheaval; in fact, he says his att.i.tude to it was quite a mistaken one. Even, thinks our critic, Carlyle didn't know what it meant. Both see it as a b.l.o.o.d.y riot, both are mistaken. The reason that Carlyle and d.i.c.kens didn't know all about it was that they had the good fortune to be Englishmen; a very good supposition that Chesterton has still something to learn of that Revolution.