Winter 2006 no.59
vorige romans verteld en terwijl de smaak van
het publiek zich in een nieuwe richting ont
wikkelde zou Dickens niet meer de capaciteit
hebben gehad om deze richting mede vorm te
geven. Latere critici zijn minder negatief en
zien dit werk als een mijlpaal van Dickens
latere sterk sociaal getinte werk. Er rust dus
een stevige last op onze schouders. Niet alleen
zullen we onze eigen mening moeten vergelij
ken met die van deze critici, maar het boek
behoort ook nog eens tot de dikkere werken
van Dickens. De editie waar de redactie zich
over heeft ontfermd beslaat bijna negenhon
derd bladzijden bedrukt met een klein letter
type. Voorwaar een kloek werk; dus wat dat
betreft zullen de donkere dagen in dit jaarge
tijde goed gevuld zijn.
Ter afsluiting volgen hier twee eigentijdse cri
tici van Charles Dickens die een volstrekt
tegengestelde mening over dit boek hebben.
13
The Dutch Dickensian Volume XXVI
E.S. Dallas in The Times, 29 November
i865?(..."we class it with Mr. Dickens's
best works."
So far we have dealt with the mere
onlookers of the story, not with the story
itself; and we say deliberately that we have
read nothing of Mr. Dickens's which has
given us a higher idea of his power than this
last tale. It would not be wonderful if so vol
uminous an author should now show some
signs of exhaustion. On the contrary, here he
is in greater force than ever, astonishing us
with a fertility in which we can trace no signs
of repetition. We hear people say, "he has
never surpassed Pickwick." They talk of
Pickwick as if it were his masterpiece. We do
not yield to any one in our enjoyment of that
extraordinary work. We never tire of it. We
are of those who can read it again and again,
and can take it up at any page with the cer
tainty of finding in it the most merry-making
humour. But we refuse to measure a work of
art by the amount of visible effect which it
produces; and we are not going to quarrel
with tragedy because it is less mirthful than
comedy. What if we allow that Our Mutual
Friend is not nearly so funny as Pickwick? It
is infinitely better than Pickwick in all the
higher qualities of a novel, and, in spite of the
dead weight of "The Social Chorus," we class
it with Mr. Dickens's best works.
Henry James in The Nation 21
December i865?(..."the poorest of Mr.
Dickens's works.")
Our Mutual Friend is, to our perception, the
poorest of Mr. Dickens's works. And it is poor
with the poverty not of momentary embar
rassment, but of permanent exhaustion. It is
wanting in inspiration. For the last ten years
it has seemed to us that Mr. Dickens has been
unmistakably forcing himself. Bleak House
was forced; Little Dorrit was labored; the
present work is dug out as with a spade and
pickaxe. Of course to anticipate the usual
argument who but Dickens could have
written it? Who, indeed? Who else would
have established a lady in business in a novel
on the admirably solid basis of her always
putting on gloves and tieing a handkerchief
round her head in moments of grief, and of
her habitually addressing her family with
"Peace! hold!" It is needless to say that Mrs.
Reginald Wilfer is first and last the occasion
of considerable true humor. When, after con
ducting her daughter to Mrs. Boffin's carria
ge, in sight of all the envious neighbors, she is
described as enjoying her triumph during the
next quarter of an hour by airing herself on
the door-step "in a kind of splendidly serene
trance," we laugh with as uncritical a laugh
as could be desired of us. We pay the same
tribute to her assertions, as she narrates the
glories of the society she enjoyed at her
father's table, that she has known as many as
three copper-plate engravers exchanging the
most exquisite sallies and retorts there at one
time. But when to these we have added a
dozen more happy examples of the humor
which was exhaled from every line of Mr.
Dickens's earlier writirigs, we shall have clo
sed the list of the merits of the work before us.
To say that the conduct of the story, with all
its complications, betrays a long-practised
hand, is to pay no compliment worthy the
author. If this were, indeed, a compliment,
we should be inclined to carry it further, and
congratulate him on his success in what we
