CHAPTER IX.
SYMPATHY WITH CHILDHOOD.
The dominant element in Dickens's character was sympathy _with_ childhood,not merely for it. He had the productive sympathy that feels and thinksfrom the child's standpoint.
The illustration just given of Major Jackman's co-operative sympathy withJemmy Lirriper in the perfect carrying out of what to most people wouldhave been only "the foolish ideas" of a child, as sincerely as if he hadbeen executing commissions from the prime minister, is an excellentexemplification of the true ideal of sympathy in practice. The Major wasnot working for Jemmy's amusement merely; he was a very active andgenuinely interested partner with Jemmy. "Jemmy was far outdone by theserious and believing ways of the Major" in the imaginative plays whichwere the most real life of Jemmy. Such was the sympathy of Dickens withhis own children; such sympathy he believed to be the most productivepower in the teacher or child trainer for beneficent influence on thecharacter of the child.
There is no other characteristic of his writings so marked as his broadsympathy with childhood. Sympathy was the origin of all he wrote againstcoercion in all its dread forms, of all he wrote about robbing children ofa real childhood, about the dwarfing of individuality, about thestrangling of the imagination, about improper nutrition, about all formsof neglect, and cruelty, and bad training. The more fully his nature isknown the more deeply he is loved, because of his great love for thechild.
From the beginning of his educational work his overflowing, practicalsympathy is revealed.
He tells us in the preface to Nickleby that his study of the Yorkshireschools and his delineation of the character of Squeers resulted from aresolution formed in childhood, which he was led to form by seeing a boy"with a suppurated abscess caused by its being ripped open by hisYorkshire guide, philosopher, and friend with an inky penknife."
The sympathy of Nicholas, and John Browdie, and the Cheeryble brotherswith Smike and all suffering childhood are strong features of the book.
Dickens's own sympathy has cleared his mind of many fogs that still lingerin some minds regarding a parent's rights in regard to his child, eventhough the parent has never recognised any of the child's rights. Themovement in favour of the recognition of the rights of children evenagainst their parents began with Dickens. When Nicholas discovered thatSmike was the son of his uncle, Ralph Nickleby, he went to consult brotherCharles Cheeryble in regard to his duty under the circumstances.
He modestly, but firmly, expressed his hope that the good old gentleman would, under such circumstances as he described, hold him justified in adopting the extreme course of interfering between parent and child, and upholding the latter in his disobedience; even though his horror and dread of his father might seem, and would doubtless be represented, as a thing so repulsive and unnatural as to render those who countenanced him in it fit objects of general detestation and abhorrence.
"So deeply rooted does this horror of the man appear to be," said Nicholas, "that I can hardly believe he really is his son. Nature does not seem to have implanted in his breast one lingering feeling of affection for him, and surely she can never err."
"My dear sir," replied brother Charles, "you fall into the very common mistake of charging upon Nature matters with which she has not had the smallest connection, and for which she is in no way responsible. Men talk of Nature as an abstract thing, and lose sight of what is natural while they do so. Here is a poor lad who has never felt a parent's care, who has scarcely known anything all his life but suffering and sorrow, presented to a man who he is told is his father, and whose first act is to signify his intention of putting an end to his short term of happiness by consigning him to his old fate, and taking him from the only friend he has ever had--which is yourself. If Nature, in such a case, put into that lad's breast but one secret prompting which urged him toward his father and away from you, she would be a liar and an idiot."
Nicholas was delighted to find that the old gentleman spoke so warmly, and in the hope that he might say something more to the same purpose, made no reply.
"The same mistake presents itself to me, in one shape or other, at every turn," said brother Charles. "Parents who never showed their love complain of want of natural affection in their children; children who never showed their duty complain of want of natural feeling in their parents; lawmakers who find both so miserable that their affections have never had enough of life's sun to develop them are loud in their moralizings over parents and children too, and cry that the very ties of Nature are disregarded. Natural affections and instincts, my dear sir, are the most beautiful of the Almighty's works, but, like other beautiful works of his, they must be reared and fostered, or it is as natural that they should be wholly obscured, and that new feelings should usurp their place, as it is that the sweetest productions of the earth, left untended, should be choked with weeds and briers. I wish we could be brought to consider this, and, remembering natural obligations a little more at the right time, talk about them a little less at the wrong one."
It was chiefly to break the power of ignorant and cruel parenthood oversuffering childhood that Ralph Nickleby was painted with such dark andrepellent characteristics, and that poor Smike's sufferings were detailedwith such minuteness. The sympathy of the world was aroused against theone and in favour of the other, as a basis for the climax of thought whichbrother Charles expressed so truly and so forcefully.
The same thought was driven home by the complaint of Squeers about one ofthe boys in Dotheboys Hall.
"The juniorest Palmer said he wished he was in heaven. I really don't know, I do _not_ know what's to be done with that young fellow; he's always a-wishing something horrid. He said once he wished he was a donkey, because then he wouldn't have a father as didn't love him! Pretty wicious that for a child of six!"
It required the genius of Dickens to make such a clear picture of anunloving father.
Even before Nicholas Nickleby was written Dickens had revealed hissympathetic nature. Oliver Twist's story was written to stir the hearts ofhis readers in favour of unfortunate children. What a contrast is madebetween the hardening effects of his treatment by Bumble and the"gentleman in the white waistcoat," and the humanizing influence of RoseMaylie's tear dropped on his cheek.
Surely no sensitive little boy ever submitted to more unsympathetictreatment than poor Oliver.
When little Oliver was taken before "the gentlemen" that evening, and informed that he was to go that night as general house lad to a coffin maker's, and that if he complained of his situation, or ever came back to the parish again, he would be sent to sea, there to be drowned or knocked on the head, as the case might be, he evinced so little emotion that they by common consent pronounced him a hardened young rascal, and ordered Mr. Bumble to remove him forthwith.
For some time Mr. Bumble drew Oliver along, without notice or remark; for the beadle carried his head very erect, as a beadle always should; and, it being a windy day, little Oliver was completely enshrouded by the skirts of Mr. Bumble's coat as they blew open and disclosed to great advantage his flapped waistcoat and drab plush knee breeches. As they drew near to their destination, however, Mr. Bumble thought it expedient to look down and see that the boy was in good order for inspection by his new master: which he accordingly did, with a fit and becoming air of gracious patronage.
"Oliver!" said Mr. Bumble.
"Yes, sir," replied Oliver in a low, tremulous voice.
"Pull that cap off your eyes, and hold up your head, sir."
Although Oliver did as he was desired at once, and passed the back of his unoccupied hand briskly across his eyes, he left a tear in them when he looked up at his conductor. As Mr. Bumble gazed sternly upon him, it rolled down his cheek. It was followed by another, and another. The child made a strong effort,
but it was an unsuccessful one. Withdrawing his other hand from Mr. Bumble's, he covered his face with both, and wept until the tears sprung out from between his chin and bony fingers.
"Well!" exclaimed Mr. Bumble, stopping short, and darting at his little charge a look of intense malignity. "Well! Of _all_ the ungratefullest and worst-disposed boys as ever I see, Oliver, you are the----"
"No, no, sir," sobbed Oliver, clinging to the hand which held the well-known cane; "no, no, sir; I will be good indeed; indeed, indeed I will, sir! I am a very little boy, sir; and it is so--so----"
"So what?" inquired Mr. Bumble in amazement.
"So lonely, sir! So very lonely!" cried the child. "Everybody hates me. Oh, sir, don't, don't, pray, be cross to me!" The child beat his hand upon his heart, and looked in his companion's face with tears of real agony.
The poor boy was put to bed by Sowerberry the first night. His mastersaid, as they climbed the stairs:
"Your bed's under the counter. You don't mind sleeping among the coffins, I suppose? But it doesn't much matter whether you do or don't, for you can't sleep anywhere else. Come, don't keep me here all night!"
Dickens pitied children for the terrors with which they were threatened,as Oliver was threatened by the board, and he pitied them also for theterrors that their imaginations brought to them at night. Sowerberry'slack of sympathy was as great as Bumble's. When one of his own childrenshowed evidence of dread of retiring alone, Dickens sat upstairs with hisfamily in the evenings afterward. He did not tell the child the reason,but she was saved from terror.
Oliver ran away from Sowerberry's, and when passing the workhouse hepeeped between the bars of the gate into the garden. A very little boy wasthere who came to the gate to say "Good-bye" to him. He had been one ofOliver's little friends.
"Kiss me," said the child, climbing up the low gate and flinging his little arms round Oliver's neck: "Good-bye, dear! God bless you!"
The blessing was from a young child's lips, but it was the first that Oliver had ever heard invoked upon his head; and through the struggles and sufferings and troubles and changes of his after-life he never once forgot it.
When Oliver was taken to commit burglary by Bill Sykes, and was woundedand brought into the home he was assisting to rob, the good lady of thehouse sent for a doctor. The doctor dressed the arm, and when the boy fellasleep he brought Mrs. Maylie and Rose to see the criminal.
Rose sat down by Oliver's bedside and gathered his hair from his face.
As she stooped over him her tears fell upon his forehead.
The boy stirred and smiled in his sleep, as though these marks of pity and compassion had awakened some pleasant dream of a love and affection he had never known. Thus a strain of gentle music, or the rippling of water in a silent place, or the odour of a flower, or the mention of a familiar word, will sometimes call up sudden dim remembrances of scenes that never were in this life; which vanish like a breath; which some brief memory of a happier existence, long gone by, would seem to have awakened; which no voluntary exertion of the mind can ever recall.
"What can this mean?" exclaimed the elder lady. "This poor child can never have been the pupil of robbers!"
"Vice," sighed the surgeon, replacing the curtain, "takes up her abode in many temples; and who can say that a fair outside shall not enshrine her?"
"But at so early an age!" urged Rose.
"My dear young lady," rejoined the surgeon, mournfully shaking his head, "crime, like death, is not confined to the old and withered alone. The youngest and fairest are too often its chosen victims."
"But can you, oh, can you really believe that this delicate boy has been the voluntary associate of the worst outcasts of society?" said Rose.
The surgeon shook his head in a manner which intimated that he feared it was very possible, and, observing that they might disturb the patient, led the way into an adjoining apartment.
"But even if he has been wicked," pursued Rose, "think how young he is; think that he may never have known a mother's love, or the comfort of a home; that ill usage and blows, or the want of bread, may have driven him to herd with men who have forced him to guilt. Aunt, dear aunt, for mercy's sake think of this, before you let them drag this sick child to a prison, which in any case must be the grave of all his chance of amendment. Oh! as you love me, and know that I have never felt the want of parents in your goodness and affection, but that I might have done so, and might have been equally helpless and unprotected with this poor child, have pity upon him before it is too late!"
"My dear love," said the elder lady, as she folded the weeping girl to her bosom, "do you think I would harm a hair of his head?"
"Oh, no," replied Rose eagerly.
"No, surely," said the old lady; "my days are drawing to their close, and may mercy be shown to me as I show it to others. What can I do to save him, sir?"
Dickens used the doctor to rebuke the large class of people who are everready to believe the worst about a boy, and who are always looking for hisdepravity instead of searching for the divinity in him.
Rose's plea for kind treatment for the boy, "even if he has been wicked,"was a new doctrine propounded by Dickens. The worst boys at home or inschool need most sympathy. Mrs. Maylie's attitude was in harmony withChrist's teaching, but quite out of harmony with much that was calledChristian practice at the time Dickens wrote Oliver Twist. He taught thedoctrine that children were turned into evil ways and confirmed in themthrough lack of sympathy. Poor Nancy said to Rose Maylie:
"Lady," cried the girl, sinking on her knees, "dear, sweet, angel lady, you _are_ the first that ever blessed me with such words as these; and if I had heard them years ago, they might have turned me from a life of sin and sorrow; but it is too late, it is too late!"
In The Old Curiosity Shop Dickens gave a beautiful picture of asympathetic teacher in Mr. Marton. His school was not well lighted orproperly ventilated, the furniture was poor, there was no apparatusexcept a dunce's cap, a cane, and a ruler, his methods were old-fashioned,but he possessed the greatest qualification of a good teacher, deepsympathy with childhood. This was shown by the erasure of the blot fromthe sick boy's writing; by his asking Nell to pray for the boy; by hisappreciation of the boy's love; by his hoping for his recovery against theunfavourable reports; by his favourable interpretation of the worst signs;by his absent-mindedness in school; by his giving the boys a half holidaybecause he could not teach; by his asking them to go away quietly so asnot to disturb the sick scholar; by his saying "I'm glad they didn't mindme" when the jolly boys went shouting away; by his telling the sick boythat the flowers missed him and were less gay on account of his absence;by his hanging the boy's handkerchief out of the window at his request, asa token of his remembrance of the boys playing on the green; by the lovingway in which he embraced the dying boy, and held his cold hand in hisafter he was dead, chafing it, as if he could bring back the life into it.
Dombey and Son is full of appeals for the tender sympathy of adulthood forchildhood. The story of Florence Dombey longing for the one look oftenderness, the one word of kindly interest, the one sympathetic caressfrom her father, which never came to her during her childhood, is one ofthe most touching stories ever written. It was written to show thatchildren in the most wealthy homes need sympathy as much as any otherchildren, and that they are often most cruelly neglected by their parents.
Floy pleaded to be allowed to lay her face beside her baby brother'sbecause "she thought he loved her."
The love that is given back in exchange for loving interest is shown byPaul's loving gratitude to Floy for her interest in him, which led her tospend her pocket money in books, so that she might help him with hisstudies that confused him so.
And high was her reward, when one Saturday evening, as little
Paul was sitting down as usual to "resume his studies," she sat down by his side and showed him all that was rough made smooth, and all that was so dark made clear and plain, before him. It was nothing but a startled look in Paul's wan face--a flush--a smile--and then a close embrace; but God knows how her heart leaped up at this rich payment for her trouble.
"Oh, Floy," cried her brother, "how I love you! How I love you, Floy!"
"And I you, dear!"
"Oh, I am sure, sure of that, Floy!"
He said no more about it, but all that evening sat close by her, very quiet; and in the night he called out from his little room within hers, three or four times, that he loved her.
There is no higher reward than that of the sympathetic teacher who for thefirst time lets light into a dark mind or heart.
The lady whom Florence overheard talking to her little orphaned nieceabout her father's cruel coldness toward her truly said: "Not an orphan inthe wide world can be so deserted as the child who is an outcast from aliving parent's care."
As Dickens was one of the first to urge that children had rights, so hewas one of the first to show that there had been altogether too muchthought about the duty of children to parents, and too little about theduty of parents to children. Alice Marwood, one of the characters inDombey and Son, said to Harriet Carker:
"You brought me here by force of gentleness and kindness, and made me human by woman's looks and words and angel's deeds; I have felt, lying here, that I should like you to know this. It might explain, I have thought, something that used to help to harden me. I had heard so much, in my wrongdoing, of my neglected duty, that I took up with the belief that duty had not been done to me, and that as the seed was sown the harvest grew."
One other point in regard to sympathy was made in Dombey and Son, that arough exterior may cover a sympathetic heart.
Long may it remain in this mixed world a point not easy of decision, which is the more beautiful evidence of the Almighty's goodness: the delicate fingers that are formed for sensitiveness and sympathy of touch, and made to minister to pain and grief, or the rough, hard Captain Cuttle hand, that the heart teaches, guides, and softens in a moment!
In the model school of Dickens Doctor Strong is said to have been "theidol of the whole school"; and David adds, "it must have been a badlycomposed school if he had been anything else, for he was the kindest ofmen." Doctor Strong's wife, who had been his pupil in early life, said:
"When I was very young, quite a little child, my first associations with knowledge of any kind were inseparable from a patient friend and teacher--the friend of my dead father--who was always dear to me. I can remember nothing that I know without remembering him. He stored my mind with its first treasures, and stamped his character upon them all. They never could have been, I think, as good as they have been to me, if I had taken them from any other hands."
David said, when telling the story of his first introduction to Mr.Murdstone:
"God help me, I might have been improved for my whole life, I might have been made another creature, perhaps, for life, by a kind word at that season. A word of encouragement and explanation, of pity for my childish ignorance, of welcome home, of reassurance to me that it was home, might have made me dutiful to him in my heart henceforth, instead of in my hypocritical outside, and might have made me respect instead of hate him."
In Bleak House Dickens gave in Esther the most perfect type of humansympathy, and by his pathetic pictures of poor Jo, Phil, the Jellybychildren, the Pardiggle children, and others, stirred a great wave offeeling, which led to a recognition of the duty of adulthood to childhood,and taught the value of sympathy in the training of children.
Esther laid down a new law, revealed by Froebel, but given to the Englishworld by Dickens in the weighty sentence, "My comprehension is quickenedwhen my affection is."
The lack of sympathy in adulthood is revealed for the condemnation of hisreaders in Mrs. Rachael's parting from Esther.
Mrs. Rachael was too good to feel any emotion at parting, but I was not so good, and wept bitterly. I thought that I ought to have known her better after so many years, and ought to have made myself enough of a favourite with her to make her sorry then. When she gave me one cold parting kiss upon my forehead, like a thaw drop from the stone porch--it was a very frosty day--I felt so miserable and self-reproachful that I clung to her and told her it was my fault, I knew, that she could say good-bye so easily.
"No, Esther!" she returned. "It is your misfortune!"
Poor child, she cried afterward because Mrs. Rachael was not sorry to partwith her.
What a different parting she had when leaving the Miss Donnys' school,where for six years she had been a pupil, and for part of the time ateacher!
She received a letter informing her that she was to leave Greenleaf.
Oh, never, never, never shall I forget the emotion this letter caused in the house! It was so tender in them to care so much for me; it was so gracious in that Father who had not forgotten me, to have made my orphan way so smooth and easy, and to have inclined so many youthful natures toward me, that I could hardly bear it. Not that I would have had them less sorry--I am afraid not; but the pleasure of it, and the pain of it, and the pride and joy of it, and the humble regret of it, were so blended, that my heart seemed almost breaking while it was full of rapture.
The letter gave me only five days' notice of my removal. When every minute added to the proofs of love and kindness that were given me in those five days; and when at last the morning came, and when they took me through all the rooms that I might see them for the last time; and when some one cried, "Esther, dear, say good-bye to me here, at my bedside, where you first spoke so kindly to me!" and when others asked me only to write their names, "With Esther's love"; and when they all surrounded me with their parting presents, and clung to me weeping, and cried, "What shall we do when dear, dear Esther's gone!" and when I tried to tell them how forbearing and how good they had all been to me, and how I blessed and thanked them every one--what a heart I had!
And when the two Miss Donnys grieved as much to part with me as the least among them; and when the maids said, "Bless you, miss, wherever you go!" and when the ugly lame old gardener, who I thought had hardly noticed me in all those years, came panting after the coach to give me a little nosegay of geraniums, and told me I had been the light of his eyes--indeed the old man said so!--what a heart I had then!
This was intended to show the results of her sympathy toward the pupilsand everybody connected with the school.
Mrs. Jellyby is an immortal picture of the woman who neglects her familyon account of her interest in Borrioboola Gha, or some other place forwhich her sympathy is aroused. Dickens held that a woman's first duty isto her children. The wretched Mr. Jellyby, almost distracted by the poormeals, the disorder of his home, and the wild condition of his unfortunatefamily, said to his daughter, "Never have a mission, my dear."
Caddy emphasized the thought Dickens had given in Dombey and Son throughAlice Marwood when she said to Esther:
"Oh, don't talk of duty as a child, Miss Summerson; where's ma's duty as a parent? All made over to the public and Africa, I suppose! Then let the public and Africa show duty as a child; it's much more their affair than mine. You are shocked, I dare say! Very well, so am I shocked, too; so we are both shocked, and there's an end of it!"
On another occasion, overcome by emotion at the thought of her mother'sneglect, she said to Esther:
"I wish I was dead. I wish we were all dead. It would be a great deal better for us."
In a moment afterward she kneeled on the ground at my side, hid her face in my dress, passionately begged my pardon, and wept. I comforted her, and would have raised her, but she cried, No, no; she want
ed to stay there!
"You used to teach girls," she said. "If you could only have taught me, I could have learned from you! I am so very miserable, and like you so much!"
How the Jellyby children loved and trusted Esther! How all children lovedand trusted her for her true sympathy!
Poor Jo swept the steps at the graveyard where the friend who spoke kindlyto him lay buried, and he always said of him, "He wos wery good to me, hewos."
And Jo's other friends, Mr. Snagsby, whose sympathy drew half crowns fromhis pocket, and Mr. George, and Doctor Woodcourt, and Mr. Jarndyce, andEsther, showed their kindly sympathy for the wretched boy so fully thatthe reading world loved them as real friends, and this loving admirationled the Christian world to think more clearly in regard to Christ'steachings about the little ones.
No heart can resist the plea for sympathy for such as Jo in thedescription of his last illness and death. When the end was very near, asAllan Woodcourt was watching the heavy breathing of the sufferer,
After a short relapse into sleep or stupor he makes of a sudden a strong effort to get out of bed.
"Stay, Jo! What now?"
"It's time for me to go to that there berryin'-ground, sir," he returns with a wild look.
"Lie down, and tell me. What burying-ground, Jo?"
"Where they laid him as wos wery good to me, wery good to me indeed, he wos. It's time fur me to go down to that there berryin'-ground, sir, and ask to be put along with him. I wants to go there and be berried. He used fur to say to me, 'I am as poor as you to-day, Jo,' he ses. I wants to tell him that I am as poor as him now, and have come there to be laid along with him."
"By and bye, Jo. By and bye."
"Ah! P'raps they wouldn't do it if I was to go myself. But will you promise to have me took there, sir, and laid along with him?"
"I will, indeed."
"Thank'ee, sir. Thank'ee, sir. They'll have to get the key of the gate afore they can take me in, for it's allus locked. And there's a step there, as I used for to clean with my broom.--It's turned wery dark, sir. Is there any light a-comin'?"
"It is coming fast, Jo."
Fast. The cart is shaken all to pieces, and the rugged road is very near its end.
"Jo, my poor fellow!"
"I hear you, sir, in the dark, but I'm a-gropin'--a-gropin'--let me catch hold of your hand."
"Jo, can you say what I say?"
"I'll say anythink as you say, sir, for I knows it's good."
"OUR FATHER."
"Our Father!--yes, that's wery good, sir."
"WHICH ART IN HEAVEN."
"Art in Heaven--is the light a-comin', sir?"
"It is close at hand. HALLOWED BE THY NAME!"
"Hallowed be--thy----"
The light is come upon the dark benighted way. Dead!
Dead, your majesty. Dead, my lords and gentlemen. Dead, right reverends and wrong reverends of every order. Dead, men and women, born with heavenly compassion in your hearts. And dying thus around us every day.
One of the best of Dickens's illustrations of gratitude for sympathy isthe case of Phil Squod, Mr. George's assistant in the shooting gallery. Hewas a mere child in everything but years of hard experiences, but he wasdevoted heart and soul to Mr. George for a kindly word of hearty sympathy.So devoted was he that he attached himself to Mr. George and became hisfaithful servant, and found his truest happiness in his service of love.
Phil recalled the story to Mr. George.
"It was after the case-filling blow-up when I first see you, commander. You remember?"
"I remember, Phil. You were walking along in the sun."
"Crawling, guv'ner, again a wall----"
"True, Phil--shouldering your way on----"
"In a nightcap!" exclaims Phil, excited.
"In a nightcap----"
"And hobbling with a couple of sticks!" cries Phil, still more excited.
"With a couple of sticks. When----"
"When you stops, you know," cries Phil, putting down his cup and saucer, and hastily removing his plate from his knees, "and says to me, 'What, comrade! You have been in the wars!' I didn't say much to you, commander, then, for I was took by surprise that a person so strong and healthy and bold as you was should stop to speak to such a limping bag of bones as I was. But you says to me, says you, delivering it out of your chest as hearty as possible, so that it was like a glass of something hot: 'What accident have you met with? You have been badly hurt. What's amiss, old boy? Cheer up, and tell us about it!' Cheer up! I was cheered already! I says as much to you, you says more to me, I says more to you, you says more to me, and here I am, commander! Here I am, commander!" cries Phil, who has started from his chair and unaccountably begun to sidle away. "If a mark's wanted, or if it will improve the business, let the customers take aim at me. They can't spoil _my_ beauty. _I'm_ all right. Come on! If they want a man to box at, let 'em box at me. Let 'em knock me well about the head. _I_ don't mind! if they want a light weight, to be throwed for practice, Cornwall, Devonshire, or Lancashire, let 'em throw me. They won't hurt _me_. I have been throwed all sorts of styles all my life!"
Pip said in Great Expectations:
It is not possible to know how far the influence of any amiable, honest-hearted, duty-doing man flies out into the world; but it is very possible to know how it has touched one's self in going by, and I know right well that any good that intermixed itself with my apprenticeship came of plain contented Joe, and not of restless aspiring discontented me.
Dear, simple-hearted Joe Gargery! When every one else was abusing Pip atthe great dinner party, he showed his sympathy for him by putting somemore gravy on his plate.
In Our Mutual Friend Lizzie Hexam, sympathizing with her father so muchthat she would not learn to read because he was bitterly prejudicedagainst education, but sympathizing so much with her brother Charley thatshe had him educated secretly so that he might become a teacher, is anillustration of nearly perfect sympathy.
The happiness of the little "minders" at old Betty Higden's is in sharpcontrast to the misery of the boarders of the respectable (?)establishment of Mrs. Pipchin. In the one case was abject poverty andloving sympathy, in the other plenty and cruel selfishness. When Mr. andMrs. Boffin were adopting Johnnie from Betty Higden's care, the brave oldwoman said:
"If I could have kept the dear child without the dread that's always upon me of his coming to that fate I have spoken of, I could never have parted with him, even to you. For I love him, I love him, I love him! I love my husband long dead and gone, in him; I love my children dead and gone, in him; I love my young and hopeful days dead and gone, in him. I couldn't sell that love, and look you in your bright kind face. It's a free gift."
Betty was not a logically reasoning woman, but God is good, and hearts may count in heaven as high as heads.
Dickens spoke with great enthusiasm in his American Notes of the practicalsympathy of Doctor Howe with all afflicted children, especially with blindchildren, closing his sketch of the wonderful work he had done with thesentence: "There are not many persons, I hope and believe, who afterreading these passages can ever hear that name with indifference." Henoted that Laura Bridgman had a special desire for sympathy.
She is fond of having other children noticed and caressed by the teachers, and those whom she respects; but this must not be carried too far, or she becomes jealous. She wants to have her share, which, if not the lion's, is the greater part; and if she does not get it, she says, "_My mother will love me_."
Dickens's types of sympathy with children grew more perfect as he grewolder. In his later years his head began to catch up with his heart.Major Jackman, Mrs. Lirriper, and Doctor Marigold are among his mostwonderfully sympathetic
characters.
What an ideal sending away to school Jemmy Lirriper had!
So the Major being gone out and Jemmy being at home, I got the child into my little room here and I stood him by my chair and I took his mother's own curls in my hand and I spoke to him loving and serious. And when I had reminded the darling how that he was now in his tenth year, and when I had said to him about his getting on in life pretty much what I had said to the Major, I broke to him how that we must have this same parting, and there I was forced to stop, for there I saw of a sudden the well-remembered lip with its tremble, and it so brought back that time! But with the spirit that was in him he controlled it soon, and he says gravely, nodding through his tears: "I understand, Gran--I knew it _must_ be, Gran--go on, Gran, don't be afraid of _me_." And when I had said all that ever I could think of, he turned his bright steady face to mine, and he says just a little broken here and there: "You shall see, Gran, that I can be a man, and that I can do anything that is grateful and loving to you; and if I don't grow up to be what you would like to have me--I hope it will be--because I shall die." And with that he sat down by me, and I went on to tell him of the school, of which I had excellent recommendations, and where it was and how many scholars, and what games they played as I had heard, and what length of holidays, to all of which he listened bright and clear. And so it came that at last he says: "And now, dear Gran, let me kneel down here where I have been used to say my prayers, and let me fold my face for just a minute in your gown and let me cry, for you have been more than father--more than mother--more than brothers, sisters, friends--to me!" And so he did cry, and I too, and we were both much the better for it.
Dear old Doctor Marigold, the travelling auctioneer, in his tendersympathy for his little girl when her mother was so cruel to her,whispering comforting words in her ear as he was calling for bids on hiswares while she was dying, and afterward loving the deaf-mute child whomhe adopted in memory of his own child whom he had lost, has made thousandsmore kindly sympathetic with children.
In the novel that he was writing when he died Dickens makes CanonCrisparkle say to Helena Landless: "You have the wisdom of Love, and itwas the highest wisdom ever known upon this earth, remember."
David Copperfield said, "I hope that real love and truth are stronger inthe end than any evil or misfortune in the world."
The effect of lack of true sympathy on the heart that should have felt andshown it is revealed in what Sydney Carton said to Mr. Lorry: "If youcould say with truth to your own solitary heart to-night, 'I have securedto myself the love and attachment, the gratitude and respect, of no humancreature; I have won myself a tender place in no regard; I have donenothing good or serviceable to be remembered by,' your seventy-eight yearswould be seventy-eight curses; would they not?"
The contrast between the coldness and heartlessness of his parents orguardians and the encouraging sympathy of his teacher is one of thestrongest features in the story of Barbox Brothers (Mugby Junction).
"You remember me, Young Jackson?"
"What do I remember if not you? You are my first remembrance. It was you who told me that was my name. It was you who told me that on every 20th of December my life had a penitential anniversary in it called a birthday. I suppose the last communication was truer than the first!"
"What am I like, Young Jackson?"
"You are like a blight all through the year to me. You hard-lined, thin-lipped, repressive, changeless woman with a wax mask on! You are like the Devil to me--most of all when you teach me religious things, for you make me abhor them."
"You remember me, Mr. Young Jackson?" In another voice from another quarter:
"Most gratefully, sir. You are the ray of hope and prospering ambition in my life. When I attended your course I believed that I should come to be a great healer, and I felt almost happy--even though I was still the one boarder in the house with that horrible mask, and ate and drank in silence and constraint with the mask before me every day. As I had done every, every, every day through my school time and from my earliest recollection."
"What am I like, Mr. Young Jackson?"
"You are like a Superior Being to me. You are like Nature beginning to reveal herself to me. I hear you again as one of the hushed crowd of young men kindling under the power of your presence and knowledge, and you bring into my eyes the only exultant tears that ever stood in them."
"You remember Me, Mr. Young Jackson?" In a grating voice from quite another quarter:
"Too well. You made your ghostly appearance in my life one day, and announced that its course was to be suddenly and wholly changed. You showed me which was my wearisome seat in the Galley of Barbox Brothers. You told me what I was to do, and what to be paid; you told me afterward, at intervals of years, when I was to sign for the Firm, when I became a partner, when I became the Firm. I know no more of it, or of myself."
"What am I like, Mr. Young Jackson?"
"You are like my father, I sometimes think. You are hard enough and cold enough so to have brought up an acknowledged son. I see your scanty figure, your close brown suit, and your tight brown wig; but you, too, wear a wax mask to your death. You never by a chance remove it; it never by a chance falls off; and I know no more of you."
Dickens As an Educator Page 12