It is Sissy Jupe who fancied, fancied mind
you, she would carpet her room with
representations of flowers and paper her
wall with horses - quadrupeds - that sho
wed the world the evils of the new educa
tional system of Coketown, where the pis
ton of the steam engine worked mono
tonously up and down like the head of an
elephant in a state of melancholy madness.
Look at little Paul Dombey, who asks his
father: 'Papa! what's money?' The abrupt
question had such immediate reference of
Mr. Dombey's thoughts that Mr. Dombey
was quite disconcerted. 'Whats money,
Paul?' he answered. 'Money?' 'Yes,' said
the child laying his hands upon the elbows
of his little chair and turning the old face
up towards Mr. Dombey's: 'what is mo
ney?' And when Mr. Dombey has recove
red and answers: 'Gold and silver and
copper, guineas, shillings, halfpence. You
know what they are?' little Paul says: 'Oh
yes I know what they are. I don't mean
that, papa. 1 mean what's money after all?'
'What is money after all!' said Mr. Dom
bey, backing his chair a little, that he
might the better gaze in sheer amazement
at the presumptuous atom that propounded
such an inquiry.
'I mean, Papa, what can it do?' returned
Paul, folding his arms (they were hardly
long enough to fold), and looking at the
fire and up at him, and at the fire, and up
at him again. Mr. Dombey drew his chair
back to its former place, and patted him
on the head. 'You'll know better by and
by, my man,' he said. 'Money, Paul, can
do anything.' He took hold of the little
hand and beat it softly against one of his
own, as he said so.
But Paul got his hand free as soon as he
could; and rubbing it gently to and fro on
the elbow of his chair, as if his wit were
in the palm, and he were sharpening it -
and looking at the fire again, as though the
fire had been his adviser and prompter -
repeated, after a short pause, -
'Anything, Papa?'
'Yes. Anything - almost,' said Mr. Dom
bey.
Anything means everything, don't it,
Papa?' asked his son, not observing, or
possibly not understanding, the qualifica
tion.
'It includes it; yes,' said Mr. Dombey.
'Why didn't money save me my mamma?'
returned the child, 'It isn't cruel, is it?'
'Cruel!' said Mr. Dombey, settling his
neckcloth, and seeming to resent the idea.
'No. A good thing can't be cruel.'
'If it's a good thing, and can do anything,'
said the little fellow thoughtfully, as he
looked back at the fire, '1 wonder why it
didn't save me my Mamma.'
This sort of conversation, these questions
of helpless timid children really discon
certed not only the rich in general, but
also the magistrates and brought about or
helped to bring about actual reform.
Dickens's children are all tragic children,
sickly and suffering; most of them die
very young but - in my opinion - they are
Dickens's real revolutionary rebels: the
Yorkshire schools were exposed by Smike,
the legal system by Jo - the crossing-swee
per - the prison system by little Dorrit;
little Paul Dombey dies young as does
little Nell (all of them are little)', tiny Tim
would also have died if Scrooge had persi
sted in his miserliness. They all suffer or
die and yet they win in the end because
they silence and disarm their opponents. In
his own personal history, the personal
history of David Copperfield, this is inimi
tably demonstrated by little David turning
up at his aunt's in Dover. Of course we
know that Betsey Trotwood turns out to be
a wonderful woman but little David at that
time did not know; he simply was agitated
and afraid when he stepped into her gar
den.
'Go away!' said Miss Betsey, shaking her
head, and making a distant chop in the air
with her knife. 'Go along! No boys here!'
I watched her with my heart at my lips, as
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