- 87 - Miss Sophy bit her lip and affected to look with great interest after Mr Cheggs, who was quaffing lemonade in the distance. "I came here", said Dick, rather oblivious of the purpose with which he had really come, "with my bosom expanded, my heart dilated, and my sentiments of a corresponding description. I go away with feelings that may be conceived, but cannot be described: feeling within myself the desolating truth that my best affections have experienced, this night, a stifler"! From this we see, surely, that what Dickens liked in the sort of song Dick quotes is not so much its merits as its demerits: its potential for absurdity when used outside the enclosed world it creates for itself. We can see Dickens enjoying liking something for the wrong reasons when we move once again into the field of architecture, and look at what he said about his house in Devonshire Terrace. Writing to Forster when considering leasing it, he declares, "A house of great promise (and great premium), "undeniable" situation, and excessive splendour, is in view". Though doubtless he really did appreciate the grandeur of place (after modest Doughty Street), what Dickens clearly most appreciates here is posturing as someone for whom such terms as "'undeniable' situation" matter. Though he did not carry the joke so far as choosing to surround himself with ugliness, Dickens was evidently able to derive a great deal of enjoyment from such a quality in furniture and fittings. Consider his description of Mr Podsnap's plate: Hideous solidity was the characteristic of the Podsnap plate. Everything was made to look as heavy as it could, and to take up as much room as possible. Everything said boastfully, "Here you have as much of me in my ugliness as if I were only lead; but I am so many ounces of precious metal worth so much an ounce;-wouldn't you like to melt me down"? A corpulent straddling epergne, blotched all over as if it had broken out in an eruption rather than been ornamented, delivered this address from an unsightly silver platform in the centre of the table. Four silver wine-coolers, each furnished with four staring heads, each head obtrusively carrying a big silver ring in each of its ears, conveyed the sentiment up and down the table, and handed it on to the pot-bellied silver salt-cellars. All the big silver spoons and forks widened the mouths of the company expressly for the purpose of thrusting the sentiment down their throats with every morsel they ate. The majority of the guests were like the plate, and included several heavy articles weighing ever so much. Dickens's disapproval of Podsnappery doesn't conceal his robust enjoyment of getting his mind around its separate ingredients. The fun Dickens got out of dandyism is demonstrated, I think, in some of the perplexities of Mr Toots in Dombey and Son Notwithstanding his modest confidence in himself, Mr Toots appeared to be involved in a good deal of uncertainty whether, on the whole, it was judicious to button the bottom button of his waistcoat, and whether, on a calm revision of all the circumstances, it was best to wear his wristbands turned up or turned down. Observing that Mr Feeder's were turned up, Mr Toots turned his up; but the wristbanks of the next arrival being turned down, Mr Toots turned his down. The differences in point of waistcoat buttoning, not only

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The Dutch Dickensian | 1988 | | pagina 93