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analysis and expedience, the circus is at the other pole, supplying what is
missing - entertainment, laughter, freedom. And it is they who show up the
experienced attitudes of this fallen world.
And as for idealising this circus family, Dickens certainly doesn't do that.
How does he present their "Innocence"? Here for instance:
There were 2 or 3 handsome young women among them, with their
2 or 3 husbands, and their 2 or 3 mothers, and their 8 or 9
little children, who did the fairy business when required. The
father of one of the families was in the habit of balancing the
father of another of the families on the top of a great pole;
the father of a third family often made a pyramid of both those
fathers, with Master Kidderminster as the apex, and himself for
the base; all the fathers could dance upon rolling casks, stand
upon bottles, catch knives and balls, twirl hand-basins, ride
upon anything, jump over everything, and stick at nothing, (p.35).
In what sense can we call this lot innocent? They stick at nothing. Is that
innocent? Is this a Garden of Eden attitude? Obviously not. But there is no
calculation among them, no deceit. They were not at all orderly, says Dickens,
in their domestic arrangements, and they had "a special inaptitude for any
sharp practice". They no doubt follow their somewhat unruly passions, but do
not know hypocrisy. To be innocent is not to be untouched by misery and woe. As
Blake himself puts it:
A truth that's told with bad intent
Beats all the Lies you can invent.
It is right it should be so:
Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely got (from "Auguries of Innocence").
Safe against the calculators. And that's what the circus people are. They could
never tell a truth with bad intent. They could suffer, but not be hypocritical.
Deceit, deception, is a quality of the fallen world, of experience.
Here we have Louisa's brother:
It was very remarkable that a young gentleman who had been brought
up under one continuous system of unnatural restraint, should be
a hypocrite; but it was certainly the case with Tom. It was very
strange that a young gentleman who had never been left to his own
