Percy Fitzgerald

“ A spacious saloon bar flooded with glaring light, with modern furniture and appliances, is to take the place of the old rooms, coffee-room, billiard-room, and bar. In fact, it is to become a modern hotel. The change is quite enough to make the shade of Dickens arise. As John Forster has told us, the great novelist loved this old chop-house, and, after a ramble on the Heath, often adjourned here for a good, wholesome dinner. ”

“ The Gazette, it is true, first burst open the breach, in which Pickwick threw himself, waving his flag on high, and led us on to victory. Of course, our verminous contemporary, the Independent, will scoff, and wipe its shoes on the illustrious dead. Of course, the mangey creature—ceasing the while from its perennial self-scratching—will hoot something derogatory. Let it sneer, yelp aloud in its impotent hog-like manner; let it root with its filthy snout among the heaps of garbage where it loves to make its unclean haunt in unspeakable Buffery. ”

“ III.—Boz and Bath
After his brilliant, genial view of the old watering-place, it is a surprise to find Boz speaking of it with a certain acerbity and even disgust. Over thirty years later, in 1869, he was there, and wrote to Forster: “The place looks to me like a cemetery which the dead have succeeded in rising and taking. Having built streets of their old gravestones, they wander about scantly, trying to look alive—a dead failure.” ”

“ York and Manchester stir no memories, and are unvisited by pilgrims, because they are not in Pickwick. Boz seems to have found the true interpretation and inner meaning of each place, and has actually preserved the tone and flavour that existed in his own time. This continues even now. As we stroll through Rochester or Ipswich, Bath or Bury, Pickwick and his friends walk with us. And, as if well contented to rest under the spell, these antique towns have made no effort at change, but remain much as they were. ”

“ Pickwick was enthusiastic: “I know her,” he said, “to be a very, very amiable and lovely girl; I admire, love, and esteem her.” At the close he prayed that Wardle’s daughter “might enjoy all the happiness that even he could desire.” Not that he was sure of, but that he could desire. But Trundle, the cypher, no one thought of him, no one cared about his speech. Most likely, in his “nervousness,” he mumbled forth some indistinct words which no one could hear, so it was best and most charitable to pass him by altogether in the report. ”

“ One member of the Club alone is invisible—the one beyond Tupman—all that is seen of him is a hand holding a tumbler as if about to drink. The Dodderer is applauding; so are the Jew, Blotton and Tupman; so is the round-faced man, just beyond the invisible one.
Mr. Pickwick and his three friends being removed or absent, and Blotton expelled, out of the fourteen members there were left but nine, whereof we reckon four or five as Pickwickians and the rest as Blottonites. ”

“ Were I the proprietor I would assuredly have the room arranged exactly as in Phiz’s picture—the two old-fashioned four-posts with the dimity curtains, the rush light and shade on the floor, the old glass on the dressing-table. To be even more realistic still there might be added Mr. Pickwick’s night-capped head peeping out, and the lean presentment of the lady herself, all, say, in wax, à la Tussaud. What a show and attraction that would be!
The author’s ingenuity was never at fault in the face of a difficulty. Mr. Pickwick was to be got to Nupkins’ in a sedan chair, a grotesque incident ”

“ A question that has often exercised ingenious folk is, why did Mr. Pickwick choose to live in Goswell Street? rather, why did Boz select such a quarter for him? Of course, at that time, it was really a “genteel” neighbourhood, as anyone can see who walks along the desolate streets and terraces, the forlorn squares and enclosures that are close by, and where the New River runs. Nothing is more depressing than the aspect of these fallen places; but, in Mr. Pickwick’s time, they had not been very long erected. ”

“ Pickwick. Though the music was the immortal “Passion” of Bach, my eyes were travelling all the while from one piece of faded rococo work and decoration. Boz never fails to secure the tone of any strange place he is describing. We all, for instance, have that pleased, elated feeling on the first morning after our arrival over night at a new place—the general brightness, surprise, and air of novelty. We are willing to be pleased with everything, and pass from object to object with enjoyment. ”

“ Yet, gay and sprightly as was his account of Bath, there may have been a reason why Boz may have not recalled the place with pleasurable feelings. It will be recollected that, after giving a few lines to the account of Mr. Pickwick and friends being set down at the White Hart, he carries them off at once to lodgings in the Crescent. That first-class hotel was, alas! not open to the poor, over-worked reporter; and he could tell of nothing that went on within its portals. Hotel life on a handsome scale was not for him, and he was obliged to put up at far humbler quarters, a sort of common inn. ”

“ For observe, when Tupman showed the folly of wearing a “two inch tail” to the brigand’s coat, Mr. Pickwick was furious, told him he was too old and too fat; but when someone remarks on his silk stockings he gets deeply offended. His vanity is touched, there should have been no remark, or, at least, only of admiration. He was, in fact, one of those flattered and spoiled personages who cannot see any harm in their doing what they reprove in others. Many a really great character is weak in this direction. Observe the disingenuousness of the great man ”

“ It does not strike every one that Mr. Pickwick, under ordinary circumstances, would have taken off his “things” before the fire just as the lady did, in the free and open space, and not huddled up in a dark corner. However, as Mr. Weller says: “It wos to be, and—it wos,” or we should have had no story and no laugh.
There is a pleasant story—quite akin to Mr. Pickwick’s adventure—of what befell Thackeray when travelling in America. Going up to bed, he mistook the floor, and entered a room the very counterpart of his own. ”

“ No group of architectural objects is more effective or touches one more nearly than the buildings gathered about the Baths. There is something quaint and old-fashioned in the arrangement, and I am never tired of coming back to the pretty, open colonnade, the faded yet dignified Pump-room, with the ambitious hotel and the solemn Abbey rising solemnly behind. ”

“ Pickwick so oddly found in the drawer of his inkstand at Mrs. Craddock’s, Royal Crescent, Bath, offered another instance of Boz’s ingenious methods of introducing episodical tales into his narrative. He was often hard put to it to find an occasion: they were highly useful to fill a space when he was pressed for matter. He had the strongest penchant for this sort of thing, and it clung to him through his life. Those in “Pickwick” are exceedingly good, full of spirit and “go,” save one, the “Martha Lobbs” story, which is a poorish thing. ”

“ As all the world knows, the “Great White Horse” is found in the good old town of Ipswich, still flourishes, and is scarcely altered from the days when Mr. Pickwick put up there. Had it not been thus associated, Ipswich would have remained a place obscure and scarcely known, for it has little to attract save one curious old house and some old churches; and for the theatrical antiquary, the remnant of the old theatre in Tacket Street, where Garrick first appeared as an amateur under the name of Lyddal, about a hundred and sixty years ago, and where now the Salvation Army “performs” in his stead. ”

“ When Jingle affronted the great man by calling his friend “Tuppy,” Mr. Pickwick, we are told, “hurled the inkstand madly forward and followed it up himself.” This hurling of things at offenders was a common incident, particularly in quarrels at table, when the decanter was frequently so used, or a glass of wine thrown in the face. After the adventure at the Boarding School, Mr. Pickwick “indented his pillow with a tremendous blow,” and announced that, if he met Jingle again, he would “inflict personal chastisement on him”; while Sam declared that he would bring “real water” into Job’s eyes. ”

“ Winkle’s escapade here is extraordinarily vivid, and so protracted, while Mrs. Dowler was waiting in her sedan for the door to be opened, that it has the effect of imprinting the very air, look, and tone of the Royal Cresent on us. We seem to be waiting with her and the chair-man. It seems the most natural thing in the world. The houses correspond almost exactly with Phiz’s drawing.
Pickwick, it has been often pointed out, is full of amusing “oversights,” which are pardonable enough, and almost add to the “fun” of the piece. ”

“ Here, then, it was that Boz put up, and here are preserved traditions and relics of his stay. One of the tales is that, after some exuberant night in the election time, he would get his candle and, having to cross the court, would have it blown out half a dozen times, when he would go back patiently to relight it. They show his chair, and a jug out of which he drank, but one has not much faith in these chairs and jugs; they always seem to be supplied to demand, and must be found to gratify the pilgrims. ”

“ Pickwick’s funeral a gentleman of unobstrusive exterior, who seemed to be vainly seeking his place, and to whom our representative offered his services. It turned out that his name was Trundle, and that he was one of the appointed pall-bearers, but that he had been unaccountably overlooked, and his place taken by someone else. Mr. Trundle made no complaint, but our representative thought it his duty to mention the circumstance to Mr. Wardle, who, it appears, is his father-in-law, but who only smiled, good-humouredly saying “O, Trundle, to be sure. No one minds him and he won’t mind.” ”

“ He would not hear him; he ought to be ashamed of himself. “Would you believe it,” went on Mr. Pickwick, “this is a person who was actually expelled—yes, expelled—from a club—the well-known Pickwick Club of which I was the founder. Let him deny it if he dare.” Here the individual called out “Bill Stumps! Tell ’em about that.” “I will not tell ’em, sir,” said Mr. Pickwick, warmly; “they know it too well. It shall be known as long as my name is known and when this person is consigned to the gutter whence he came.” “It’s all Humbug,” said Mr. Blotton, “humbug you were and humbug you ever will be.” ”

“ Pickwick, in a very peremptory tone. Mr. Tupman had contemplated a laugh, but he found it was a serious matter, so he looked grave, and said they were a pretty pattern. How natural is all this! And still more so his leader’s reply. “I hope they are,” he said, fixing his eyes upon his friend, “You see nothing extraordinary in the stockings, as stockings, I trust, sir.” The frightened Tupman said, “Certainly not, Oh, certainly not,” and walked away. Mr. Pickwick’s face resumed its customary benign expression. This little picture of weakness in an eminent man is characteristic. ”

“ Mr. Pickwick was a City man, and his club met in Huggin Lane, in the City. He generally put up, or, as Bob Sawyer had it, “hung out,” at the “George and Vulture,” also in the City. One side of Goswell Street, in those days—a road ascending to the old Angel Inn—faced, near the top, a number of the pretentious squares and terraces I have been describing. That interesting old theatre, Sadler’s Wells, was in the rear, and the New River passed beneath it or beside it, and, quite uncovered in those days, rippled along on its course from the country.
All the houses were private houses. ”

“ He was permeated with the Johnsonian ether; that detail, that description of trifling things which was in Boswell, attracted him, and he felt it; and the fact remains that Pickwick is written on the principles—no copy—of the great biography, and that Boz applied to a mere fictional story what was related in the account of a living man. And it is really curious that Boswell’s “Life of Johnson” should be the only other book that tempts people to the same rage for commentary, illustrations, and speculations. ”

“ The election matters were also particular memories of his own, so was the scene of the ghostly mail coaches. Then there was the hideous recollection of the life in a debtors’ prison, of which he had such sad personal experience, with much more. He recalled the time when he had a miserable lodging in Lant Street, Borough, and Lant Street was for him always a fixed point in his memory, and grew in size and importance. ”

“ We find ourselves ever looking at the animal with interest—as he effects his trot, one leg bent. The porch, and horse above it, have a sort of sacred character. I confess when I saw it for the first time I looked at it with an almost absurd reverence and curiosity. The thing is so much in keeping, one would expect to see the coach laden with Pickwickians drive up.
Mr. Pickwick’s adventure, his losing his way in the passages, &c., might occur to anyone. ”

“ III.—Horses and Driving in “Pickwick.”
For one who so modestly disclaimed all knowledge of sporting and country tastes, Boz shows a very familiar acquaintance with horses and their ways. He has introduced a number of these animals whose points are all distinctly emphasized: a number of persons are shown to be interested in horses, who exhibit their knowledge of and sympathise with the animals, a knowledge and sympathy which is but a reflection of his own. The cunning hand that could so discriminate between shades of humorous characters would not be at a loss to analyse traits of equine nature. ”