Posted on 01/15/2002 6:52:03 AM PST by tberry
The Tough-Minded Charles Dickens: Libertarian and Copperhead
by Joe Pryce
In the aftermath of the "Great War" of 1914-1918 many of the most highly-revered Victorian idols were dragged from their pedestals by the deracinated members of the "Bloomsbury" coterie and by marxisant wise-guys, who sneered and snickered as they launched their thunder-bolts and bellowed their bulls against their vile forefathers. Predictably, Charles Dickens was on the receiving end of much of this abuse, and it must have seemed to many a post-war iconoclast that the destruction of his reputation had been accomplished with astonishing ease…
However, Charles Dickens was reinstated at the pinnacle of literary fame in a matter of moments, and when F. R. Leavis subsequently hailed Dickens as the Shakespeare of the novel as well as one of mankind’s bravest and brightest spirits – and greatest intellects – only fools and fakers lamented. As the great G. K. Chesterton had insisted all along, Dickens was indeed "the last of the heroes," and soon the bold iconoclasts who had mounted their coup with such high hopes of success were retreating to the bitter obscurity of the fading footnote and the sophomoric Oxbridge anecdote.
The proposition that Dickens was a great creative spirit is now disputed only by the perverse and the disingenuous, of course; but was he also a great intellect? Now Dr. Leavis’s "placing" of Dickens as the Shakespeare of the novel is crucial in this regard, for the Cambridge critic discovered a toughness and depth in Dickens that invited comparison with Shakespeare. Dickens was now back in town, with a vengeance, and his image was bigger and bolder than it had been before Bloomsbury sought to lay felonious hands upon it.
But if Dickens did indeed possess a probing and magisterial intellect, how best can that intellect be characterized? Is it not the case that Dickens was a mere tear-jerking sentimentalist whose views on social question are risible in the extreme? Let us examine, as a sort of test-case, a tale that is often considered, even by Dickens’s staunchest admirers, to be his most sentimental creation, viz., A Christmas Carol . Let us cite a passage that embodies both the Dickensian endorsement of Christian charity as well as his – libertarianism.
Libertarianism? Consider the implications of the following scene in STAVE ONE, which transpires after an irate Scrooge bids his nephew an angry farewell, and just as two unwelcome visitors arrive:
"They were portly gentlemen, pleasant to behold, and now stood with their hats off, in Scrooge’s office. They had books and papers in their hands, and bowed to him.
" ‘Scrooge and Marley’s, I believe,’ said one of the gentlemen, referring to his list. ‘Have I the pleasure of addressing Mr. Scrooge, or Mr. Marley?’
" ‘Mr. Marley has been dead these seven years,’ Scrooge replied. ‘He died seven years ago, this very night.’
" ‘We have no doubt his liberality is well represented by his surviving partner,’ said the gentleman, presenting his credentials.
"It certainly was; for they had been two kindred spirits. At the ominous word ‘liberality,’ Scrooge frowned, and shook his head, and handed the credentials back.
" ‘At this festive season of the year, Mr. Scrooge,’ said the gentleman, taking up a pen, ‘it is more than usually desirable that we should make some slight provision for the poor and destitute, who suffer greatly at the present time. Many thousands are in want of common necessaries; hundreds of thousands are in want of common comforts, sir.’
" ‘Are there no prisons?’ asked Scrooge.
" ‘Plenty of prisons,’ said the gentleman, laying down the pen again.
" ‘And the Union workhouses?’ demanded Scrooge. ‘Are they still in operation?’
" ‘They are. Still,’ returned the gentleman, ‘I wish I could say they were not.’
" ‘The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigor, then?’ said Scrooge.
" ‘Both are very busy, sir.’
" ‘Oh! I was afraid, from what you said at first, that something had occurred to stop them in their useful course,’ said Scrooge. ‘I’m very glad to hear it.’
" ‘Under the impression that they scarcely furnish Christian cheer of mind or body to the multitude,’ returned the gentleman, ‘a few of us are endeavoring to raise a fund to buy the poor some meat and drink, and means of warmth. We choose this time, because it is a time, of all others, when Want is keenly felt, and Abundance rejoices. What shall I put you down for?’
" ‘Nothing!’ Scrooge replied.
" ‘You wish to be anonymous?’
" ‘I wish to be left alone,’ said Scrooge. ‘Since you ask me what I wish, gentlemen, that is my answer. I don’t make merry myself at Christmas, and I can’t afford to make idle people merry. I help to support the establishments I have mentioned – they cost enough; and those who are badly off must go there.’
" ‘Many can’t go there, and many would rather die.’
" ‘If they would rather die,’ said Scrooge, ‘they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.’ "
Is it not clear that the unregenerate Scrooge of this citation is explicitly affirming his allegiance – somewhat querulously it is true, as is the habit with most taxpayers! – to the State-administered "charities" and relief-institutions? The whole point of this passage is to reveal what Dickens clearly saw as the sanctity of voluntary charity and the viciousness of the State-controlled ersatz version. The two gentlemen who function as the agents of true, voluntary charity explicitly condemn the State’s counterfeit version as incompetent to achieve its stated aims.
When his vastation is ended and he has at long last seen the light, Scrooge adopts precisely the voluntary charity that the two visitors had urged upon him – and he makes amends with grace and nobility for his blindness and lack of heart. Does he propose a bit of poor-relief legislation to the Commons? No, he admits his errors, decides that he will now pay his staff the wages to which he – and not some busybodying Sir Talbot Buxtomley or Plantagenet Palliser – thinks that they are entitled. He buys a magnificent bird for the Cratchets’ Christmas feast – and then – at last confirming his communal and familial ties – he finally visits his nephew, who has always loved him in spite of everything, in order to celebrate Christmas as he has not celebrated it for far too many years. I’ve always felt that one of the most dazzling achievements of Dickens is this deftly-drawn rendition of Scrooge’s transformation from a bitter skin-flint into a man of joy who can laugh and hoof it with the best, a wise man who now pays attention to his fellow man – and who can actually admit that he was wrong (O rara avis!).
Now, a certain type of libertarian might object that the regenerate Scrooge’s affirmation of charity is ultimately destructive of productive commerce. William Graham Sumner, for instance, has often been interpreted as condemning charity tout court, especially in his "What Social Classes Owe Each Other." Nevertheless, although Sumner and Dickens may well have differed regarding this matter, one thing is certain: neither would have sought the nanny-state’s assistance in putting down his rival. However, Dickens certainly would have rebuked Sumner for his blind and rabid hostility towards the Confederate States and all that they stood for.
What? Dickens was pro-Confederacy? Dickens’s biographers engage in all manner of contortions and tergiversations in order to avoid arriving at that conclusion, but if we let Dickens himself comment on this matter, it is certainly clear, at the very least, that he utterly despised the North and all its pretensions:
"Any reasonable creature may know, if willing, that the North hates the Negro, and that until it was convenient to make a pretence that sympathy with him was the cause of the war, it hated the abolitionists and derided them up hill and down dale…As to Secession being Rebellion, it is distinctly possible by state papers that Washington considered it no such thing – that Massachusetts, now loudest against it, has itself asserted its right to secede, again and again."
Dickens was certain that slavery had nothing to do with the war, and that the North was illicitly harping on this matter solely because the more heavily industrialized, and far more militarily powerful, North wished to prevent the South from recovering its old political might.
As Leavis said of Charles Dickens – a great creative artist and a great intellect!
January 15, 2001
"Any reasonable creature may know, if willing, that the North hates the Negro, and that until it was convenient to make a pretence that sympathy with him was the cause of the war, it hated the abolitionists and derided them up hill and down dale…As to Secession being Rebellion, it is distinctly possible by state papers that Washington considered it no such thing – that Massachusetts, now loudest against it, has itself asserted its right to secede, again and again."
Very possibly so; but writing for magazines he was paid 'by the word', with the unfortunate consequence that his novels are about fifty percent longer than their plots.
Dickens is, besides Shakespeare, my favorite writer, A Tale Of Two Cities, my favorite novel.
It is interesting to note, that while Dickens chose to write about the French Revolution, he depicted the revolutionaries as utterly vile and ruthless human beings, less worthy even than the heartless and self-indulgent fops of the upper class.
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