The fireside Dickens. A cyclopedia of the best thoughts of Charles Dickens. Comprising a careful selection of his best writings. Arranged in subjects and in alphabetical order, with a complete index...

Front matter

CHARLES DICKENS.

^T. 53.

From a Photograph taken in England ^ 1865.

Introduction

The object of this volume is to present in a compact form — alphabetically arranged for Ready Reference and for Fireside Half-hour readings — a selection of the Best Thoughts of Charles Dickens. It is only a great genius — one which has identified itself with the reading millions — that will bear such a test. But when an author has become a fountain of phrases and characters, and for more than thirty-five years tinged our current literature with his personages and phraseology — when Pickwick and the Wellers ; Pecksniff and Mark Tapley; Dick Swiveller and the Marchioness; Peggotty and Barkis ; Susan Nipper and Dot ; Captain Cuttle and Wal'r ; Sairey Gamp and Mrs. Harris; Micawber and Mr. Turveydrop ; Little Nell, "Jo," and Paul; nay, the entire roll of fourteen hundred and twenty-five creations of his fancy, have become "as household words"— a collection of the *' Best Thoughts" of such an author will be neither unwelcome nor useless to those who admire the existing monuments of his literary labors.

A compilation of this kind, indeed, has long been a want, for Charles Dickens has so forcibly impressed his strong; individualities upon all he has written, that there is scarcely a profession, or trade, or stratum of society, or subject, which, touched by his artistic pen, has not received some new light or shadow that makes the picture more vivid than before. Hence, he who reads simply to converse well or quote aptly, or he who would

** Steal a thought and clip it round its edge, And challenge him whose 'twas, to swear to it,"

will find within these pages that which concerns every theme in life.

The Lawyer, Minister, Physician, Journalist, Artist, Actor, Author, Orator, Inventor, Musician, Architect, School-master, Philanthropist, Life Insurance Agent, Broker, Auctioneer, Collector, Short-hand Writer, Undertaker, Jailor, Executioner, Stage Driver, House-keeper, Nurse,— all these and more have their place in the intellectual phantasmagoria — all are the objects of unmistakable satire, humor, or pathos— all wilffind something within these pages which concerns their various callings. Critics may quarrel with the art of Dickens, but the people will always admire his genius. Regarded from any point of view, his works constitute a unique gallery of portraits, wherein one may enjoy sympathy with all that is tender and true in humanity, or, on the other hand, find not extravagant illustrations of that which is false and forbidding.

The author dwells among powerful contrasts. Oliver Wendell Holmes has described him as "a kind of Shakespeare, working in terra cotta instead of marble ;" while M. Taine, in his History of English Literature, alleges that he "contains an English painter," who, with passionate art, gives a voice to matter, and makes imaginary objects equivalent to realities.

Whatever Dickens has described, is impressed upon the imagination with all the detail and truth of a living presence. Is it the massive machinery of a *'Dock Yard"— you hear the "scrunch" of the power-press. Is it the wind— you witness the "small tyranny with which it wreaks its vengeance on the fallen leaves, and then goes whirling among the crazy timbers 6i a steeple to mingle its moans with the Voices of the Bells." Is it an English home, at Christmas— you are sitting at the same board with Tiny Tim and Bob Cratchit, and there is not a detail of the feast missing, from the aroma of the annual pudding to the brewing of the punch. Does he paint a portrait—his masterly touches fasten upon memory the hypocrisy of PecksniflE,

INTRODUCTION.

Chadband, and Stiggins ; the rude devotion of Captain Cuttle, Sani Weller, and Mark Tapley; the sturdy strength of Boythorn; the villainy of Carker, Jonas Chuzzlewit, Fagin, and Sikes ; the noble generosity of the Cheeryble Brothers ; the selfish obstinacy of Dombey and Gradgrind ; the imperiousness of Bounderby ; the dying face of Stephen Blackpool, turned to the star that *' ha' shined upon me in my pain and trouble down below ;" the simplicity of Tom Pinch, and the sweet child-life of Paul Dombey, Florence, and Little Nell !

As the diamond-cutter chips from the rough stone an angle here and an angle there to give perfection to the brilliant, so did Dickens develop thought until it became prismatic and picturesque, each character standing out as the incarnation of some virtue, vice, or absurdity.

Nor was the satire of Dickens without a healthful purpose. His descriptions of Debtor's Prisons, the Court of Chancery, the Yorkshire schools and school-masters, the circumlocution Office, the spurious philanthropists, hypocritical pretenders to goodness, organized business swindlers, stony-hearted capitalists, and brutal hospital nurses, illustrate the power with which he thrust his victim through and through until life was extinct. His irony and ridicule thus concentrated upon all the classes of institutions which he exposed, directed public attention to the existing evils, and resulted in reform.

In the language of Thackeray, "As for the charities of Mr. Dickens, the multiplied kindnesses which he has conferred upon us all, upon our children, upon people educated and uneducated, upon the myriads who speak our common tongue, have not you, have not I, all of us, reason to be thankful to this kind friend, who soothed and charmed so many hours ; brought pleasure and sweet laughter to so many homes ; made such multitudes of children happy ; endowed us with such a sweet store of gracious thoughts, fair fancies, soft sympathies, hearty enjoyments ? There are creations of Mr. Dickens which seem to me to rank as personal benefits ; figures so delightful that one feels happier and better for knowing them, as one does

for being brought into the society of very good men and women

Thankfully I take my share of the feast of love and kindness which this gentle, and generous, and charitable soul has contributed to the happiness of the World. I take and enjoy my share, and say a benediction for the meal."

No novelist has been more thoroughly identified and associated with the illustrations originally made for his books than Charles Dickens. No author has ever been more fortunate and happy in the artists employed to embody and carry out to the eye the creations of his fancy, and rarely have illustrations been designed which have appealed more forcibly to the imagination of the reader.

Unlike most book illustrations, where the designers have been chosen by the publisher, the original artists for illustrating Dickens' works were chosen by the author himself, and most of the subjects were by him selected and carefully considered.

The pictures throughout this volume are not only faithful realizations of the Author's fancies, but they are exquisite designs in themselves — artistic and graceful, tender and touching, dramatic and painful, humorous and comic in the highest degree — while conveying a definite and truthful idea of the period and the times in which the stories were written.

This *' Cyclopedia of Best Thoughts" contains upwards of fifteen hundred selections and embodies a versatility of thought and felicity of expression that make it the cream of the works of the popular novelist. It is therefore earnestly commended not only to those who have complete editions and desire a companion volume for ready reference, but to the general reader who may seek the pleasure that is to be derived from an irregular and cursory perusal of these '' Best Thoughts."

August I, 1883. F. G. De Fontaine.

Artist's Suggestions for the Head of Mr. Domhky Submitted to Dickens, for his Sklection.

THE

BEST THOUGHTS OF CHARLES DICKENS.

"So live thy better— let thy worst thoughts die."

Sir Walter Balbish.

ABBEY-Nell in tlie old.

Already impressed, beyond all telling, by the silent building and the peaceful beauty of the spot in which it stood — majestic age surrounded by perpetual youth — it seemed to her, when she heard these things, sacred to all goodness and virtue. It was another world, where sin and sorrow never came ; a tranquil place of rest, where nothing evil entered.

When the bachelor had given her in connection with almost every tomb and flat gravestone some histoiy of its own, he took her down into the old crypt, now a mere dull vault, and showed her how it had been lighted up in the time of the monks, and how, amid lamps depending from the roof, and swinging censers exhaling scented odors, and habits glittering with gold and silver, and pictures, and precious stuffs, and jewels all flashing and glistening through the low arches, the chaunt of aged voices had been many a time heard there, at midnight, in old days, while hooded figures knelt and prayed around, and told their rosaries of beads. Thence, he took her above ground again, and showed her, high up in the old walls, small galleries, where the nuns had been wont to glide along — dimly seen in their dark dresses so far off — or to pause, like gloomy shadows, listening to the prayers. He showed her, too, how the warriors, whose figures rested on the tombs, had worn those rotting scraps of armor up above — how this had been a helmet and that a shield, and that a gauntlet — and how they had wielded the great two-handed swords, and beaten men down with yonder iron mace.

The very light coming through sunken windows, seemed old and gray, and the air, redolent of earth and mould, seemed laden with decay, purified by time of all its grosser particles, and sighing through arch, and aisle, and clustered pillars, like the breath of ages gone ! Here was the broken pavement, worn so long ago by pious feet that Time, stealing on the pilgrims' steps, had trodden out their track, and left but cntmbling stones. Here were the rotten beam, the sinking arch, the sapped and mouldering wall, the lowly trench of earth, the stately tomb on which no epitaph remained — all, marble, stone, iron, wood, and dust, one common monument of ruin. The best work and the worst, the plainest and the richest, the stateliest and the least imposing — both of Heaven's work and man's — all found one common level here, and told one common tale.

Some part of the edifice had been a baronial chapel, and here were effigies of warriors stretched upon their beds of stone with folded hands — crost-legged, those who had fought in the Holy Wars — girded with their swords, and cased in armor as they had lived. Some of these knights had their own weapons, helmets, coats of mail, hanging upon the walls hard by, and dangling from rusty hooks. Broken and dilapidated as they were, they yet retained their ancient form, and something of their ancient aspect. Thus violent deeds live after men upon the earth, and traces of war and bloodshed will survive in mournful shapes long after those who worked the desolation are but atoms of earth themselves.

The child sat down, in this old silent place, among the stark figures on the tombs — they made it more quiet there than elsewhere, to her fancy — and gazing round with a feeling of awe, tempered with a calm delight, felt that now she was happy, and at rest. She took a Bible from the shelf, and read ; then, laying it down, thought of the summer days and the bright springtime that would rome — of the rays of sun that would fall in aslant upon the sleeping forms — of the leaves that would flutter at the window, and play in glistening shadows on the pavement — of the songs of birds, and growth of buds and blossoms out of doors — of the sweet air that would steal in and gently wave the tattered banners overhead. What if the spot awakened thoughts of death ! Die who would, it would still remain the same ; these sights and sounds would still go on as happily as ever. It would be no pain to sleep amidst them.

ABILITY— Misdirected. (Stryver.)

When his host followed him out on the staircase with a candle, to light him down the stairs, the day was coldly looking in through its grimy windows. When he got out of the house, the air was cold and sad, the dull sky overcast, the river dark and dim, the w^hole scene like a lifeless desert. And wreaths of dust were spinning round and round before the morning blast, as if the desert-sand had risen far away, and the first spray of it, in its advance, had begun the ovcKivhelming of the city.

Waste forces within him, and a desert all around, this man stood still on his way across a silent terrace, and saw for a moment, lying in the wilderness before him, a mirage of honorable ambition, self-denial, and perseverance. In the fair city of this vision there were airy gal-

ACTOR

ACTOa leries from which the loves and graces looked upon him, gardens in which the fruits of life hung ripening, waters of hope that sparkled in his sight. A moment, and it was gone. Climbing to a high chamber in a well of houses, he threw Himself down in his clothes on a neglected bed, and its pillow was wet with wasted tears.

Sadly, sadly, the sun rose ; it rose upon no sadder sight than the man of good abilities and good emotions, incapable of their directed exercise, incapable of his own help and his own happiness, sensible of the blight on him, and resigning himself to let it eat him away.

ACTOR— The Dying-.

" I kept my promise. The last four-and-twenty hours had produced a frightful alteration. The eyes, though deeply sunk and heavy, shone with a lustre frightful to behold. The lips were parched, and cracked in many places ; the dry hard skin glowed with a burning heat, and there was an almost unearthly air of wild anxiety in the man's face, indicating even more strongly the ravages of the disease. The fever was at its height.

" I took the seat I had occupied the night before, and there I sat for hours, listening to sounds which must strike deep to the heart of the most callous among human beings — the awful ravings of a dying man. From what I had heard of the medical attendant's opinion, I knew there was no hope for him : I was sitting by his death-bed. I saw the wasted limbs, which, a few hours before, had been distorted for the amusement of a boisterous gallery, writhing under the tortures of a burning fever — I heard the clown's shrill laugh, blending with the low murmurings of the dying man.

" It is a touching thing to hear the mind reverting to the ordinary occupations and pursuits of health, when the body lies before you weak and helpless ; but when those occupations are of a character the most strongly opposed to anything we associate with grave or solemn ideas, the impression produced is infinitely more powerful. The theatre, and the public-house, were the chief themes of the wretched man's wanderings. It was evening, he fancied ; he had a part to play that night ; it was late, and he must leave home instantly. Why did they hold him, and prevent his going ? — ^he should lose the money — he must go. No ! they would not let him. He hid his face in his burning hands, and feebly bemoaned his own weakness, and the cruelty of his persecutors. A short pause, and he shouted out a few doggerel rhymes — the last he had ever learnt. He rose in bed, drew up his withered limbs, and rolled about in uncouth positions — he was acting — he was at the theatre. A minute's silence, and he murmured the burden of some roaring song. He had reached the old house at last : how hot the room was. He had been ill, very ill, but he was well now, and happy. Fill up his glass. Who was that, that dashed it from his lips ? It was the same persecutor that had followed him before. He fell back upon his pillow and moaned aloud. A short period of oblivion, and he was wandering through a tedious maze of low-arched rooms — so low, sometimes, that he must creep upon his hands and knees to make his way along ; it was close and dark, and every way he turned, some obstacle impeded his progress. There were insects too, hideous, crawling things, with eyes that stared upon him, and filled the very air around — glistening horribly amidst the thick darkness of the place. The walls and ceiling were alive with reptiles — the vault expanded to an enormous size — frightful figures flitted to and fro — and the faces of men he knew, rendered hideous by gibing and mouthing, peered out from among them — they were searing him with heated irons, and binding his head with cords till the blood started — and he struggled madly for life.

" At the close of one of these paroxysms, when I had with great difficulty held him down in his bed, he sank into what appeared to be a slumber. Overpowered with watching and exertion, I had closed my eyes for a few minutes, when I felt a violent clutch on my shoulder. I awoke instantly. He had raised himself up, so as to seat himself in bed — a dreadful change had come over his face, but consciousness had returned, for he evidently knew me. The child, who had been long since disturbed by his ravings, rose from his little bed, and ran towards its father, screaming with fright — the mother hastily caught it in her arms, lest he should injure it in the violence of his insanity ; but, terrified by the alteration of his features, stood transfixed by the bedside. He grasped my shoulder convulsively, and, striking his breast with the other hand, made a desperate attempt to articulate. It was unavailing — he extended his arm towards them, and made another violent effort. There was a rattling noise in the throat — a glare of the eye — a short stifled groan, and he fell back — dead ! " — Pick., Chap. 3.

ACTOR— His Reading- of Hamlet.

" How did you like my reading of the character, gentlemen ?" said Mr. Waldengarver, almost, if not quite, with patronage.

Herbert said from behind (again poking me), " massive and concrete." So I said boldly, as if I had originated it, and must beg to insist upon it, " massive and concrete."

" I am glad to have your approbation, gentlemen," said Mr. Waldengarver, with an air of dignity, in spite of his being ground against the wall at the time, and holding on by the seat of the chair.

" But I'll tell you one thing, Mr. Waldengarver," said the man who was on his knees, " in which you're out in your reading. Now mind ! I don't care who says contrairy ; I tell you so. You're out in your reading of Hamlet when you get your legs in profile. The last Hamlet as I dressed made 'the same mistakes in his reading at rehearsal, till I got him to put a large red wafer on each of his shins, and then at that rehearsal (which was the last) I went in front, sir, to the back of the pit, and whenever his reading brought him into profile, I called out, ' I don't see no wafers ! ' And at night his reading was lovely."

******

When we were in a side alley, he turned and asked, " How do you think he looked ? — 1 dressed him."

I don't know what he had looked like, except a funeral ; with the addition of a large Danish sun or star hanging round his neck by a blue ribbon, that had given him the appearance

ACTOR

ADJECTIVES of being insured in some extraordinary Fire Office. But I said he had looked very nice.

" When he come to the grave," said our conductor, " he showed his cloak beautiful. But, judging from the wing, it looked to me that when he see the ghost in the queen's apartment, he might have made more of his stockings." Great Expectations, Chap. 31.

ACTOR-** Feelingr a part."

" We had a first-tragedy man in our company once, who, when he played Othello, used to black himself all over. But that's feeling a part and going into it as if you meant it ; it isn't usual — more's the pity."

ACTORS— A g-athering: of.

A pretty general muster of the company had by this time taken place ; for besides Mr. Lenville and his friend Tommy, there were present, a slim young gentleman with weak eyes, who played the low-spirited lovers and sang tenor songs, and who had come arm-in-arm with the comic countryman — a man with a tumed-up nose, large mouth, broad face, and staring eyes. Making himself very amiable to the Infant Phenomenon, was an inebriated elderly gentleman in the last depths of shabbiness, who played the calm and virtuous old men ; and paying especial court to Mrs. Crummies was another elderly gentleman, a shade more respectable, who played the irascible old men — those funny fellows who have nephews in the army, and perpetually run about with thick sticks to compel them to marry heiresses. Besides these, there was a rovinglooking person in a rough great-coat, who strode up and down in front of the lamps, flourishing a dress-cane, and rattling away, in an undertone, with great vivacity, for the amusement of an ideal audience. He was not quite so young as he had been, and his figure was rather running to seed ; but there was an air of exaggerated gentility about him, which bespoke the hero of swaggering comedy.

ACaUAINTANCE-The art of extendiAgr.

Sir Barnet's object in life was constantly to extend the range of his acquaintance. Like a heavy body dropped into water — not to disparage so worthy a gentleman by the comparison — it was in the nature of things that Sir Barnet must spread an ever-widening circle about him, until there was no room left. Or, like a sound in air, the vibration of which, according to the speculation of an ingenious modern philosopher, may go on travelling for ever through the interminable fields of space, nothing but coming to the end of his mortal tether could stop Sir Barnet Skettles in his voyage of discovery through the social system.

Sir Barnet was proud of making people acquainted with people. He liked the thing for its own sake, and it advanced his favorite object too. For example, if Sir Barnet had the good fortune to get hold of a raw recruit, or a country gentleman, and ensnared him to his hospitable villa. Sir Barnet would say to him on the morning after his arrival, " Now, my dear Sir, is there anybody you would like to know? Who is there you would wish to meet ? Do you take any interest in writing people, or in painting or sculpturing people, or in acting people, or in anything of that sort ? " Possibly the patient answered yes, and mentioned somebody of whom Sir Barnet had no more personal knowledge than of Ptolemy the Great. Sir Barnet replied, that nothing on earth wa^s easier, as he knew him very well : immediately called on the aforesaid somebody, left his card, wrote a short note : — " My dear Sir — penalty of your eminent position — friend at my house naturally desirous — Lady Skettles and myself participate — trust that genius being superior to ceremonies, you will do us the distinguished favor 0.4 giving us the pleasure," etc., etc. — and so killed a brace of birds with one stone, dead as doornails. — Dombey and Son, Chap. 24.

ACaUAINTANCE-A Charity to Mr. Toots

" Captain Gills," blurted out Mr. Toots, one day all at once, as his manner was, " do you think you could think favorably of that proposition of mine, and give me the pleasure of your acquaintance ? "

" Why, I tell you what it is, my lad," replied the Captain, who had at length concluded on a course of action ; " I've been turning that there over."

" Captain Gills, it's very kind of you," retorted Mr. Toots. " I'm much obliged to you. Upon my word and honor. Captain Gills, it would be a charity to give me the pleasure of your acquaintance. It really would."

"You see, Brother," argued the Captain slowly, " I don't know you."

" But you never can know me. Captain Gills," replied Mr. Toots, steadfast to his point, " if you don't give me the pleasure of your acquaintance." — Dombey and Son, Chap. 39.

ADAPT ABHilTY-

Gentlemen of the free and easy sort, who plume themselves on being acquainted with a move or two, and being usually equal to the time-of-day, express the wide range of their capacity for adventure by observing that they are good for anything from pitch-and-toss to manslaughter ; between which opposite extremes, no doubt, there lies a tolerably wide and comprehensive range of subjects. Without venturing for Scrooge quite as hardily as this, I don't mind calling on you to believe that he was ready for a good broad field of strange appearances, and that nothing between a baby and rhinoceros would have astonished him very much. — Chris. Carol, Stave 3.

ADDRESSES-Public.

Mayors have been knighted for " going up " with addresses : explosive machines intrepidly discharging shot and shell into the English Grammar. — Ed. Drood, Chap. 12.

ADJECTIVES— Bark's use of profane.

We enter, and Bark flies out of bed. Bark is a red villain and a wrathful, with a sanguine throat that looks very much as if it were expressly made for hanging, as he stretches it out, in pale defiance, over the half-door of his hutch. Bark's parts of speech are of an awful sort — principally adjectives. I won't, says Bark, have no adjective police and adjective strangers in my adjective premises ! I won't, by adjective and substantive I Give me my trousers, and I'll

A£)MIR£K

ADVERTISING send the whole adjective police to adjective and substantive ! Give me, says Bark, my adjective trousers ! I'll put an adjective knife in the whole bileing of 'em. I'll punch their adjective heads. I'll rip up their adjective substantives. Give me my adjective trousers ! says Bark, and I'll spile the bileing of 'em ! — On Duty with Inspector Field. Reprinted Pieces.

ADMIREB,— Qiuale as an indiscriminate.

While we were in London, Mr. Jarndyce was constantly beset by the crowd of excitable ladies and gentlemen whose proceedings had so much astonished us. Mr. Quale, who presented himself soon after our arrival, was in all such excitements. He seemed to project those two shining knobr, of temples of his into everything that went on, and to brush his hair farther and farthei back, until the very roots were almost ready lo fly out of his head in inappeasable philanthropy. All objects were alike to him, but he was always particularly ready for anything in the way of a testimonial to any one. His great power seemed to be his power of indiscriminate admiration. He would sit for any length of time, with the utmost enjoyment, bathing his temples in the light of any order of luminary. Having first seen him perfectly swallowed up in admiration of Mrs. Jellyby, I had supposed her to be the absorbing object of his devotion. I soon discovered my mistake, and found him to be train-bearer and organblower to a whole procession of people.

ADVERTISEMENTS— Pecnliarities of.

'• Dreaming, Tom ? "

" No," said Mr. Pinch, " No. I have been looking over the advertising sheet, thinking there might be something in it which would be likely to suit me. But, as I often think, the strange thing seems to be that nobody is suited. Here are all kinds of employers wanting all sorts of servants, and all sorts of servants wanting all kinds of employers, and they never seem to come together. Here is a gentleman in a public? office in a position of temporary difficulty, who wants to borrow five hundred pounds ; and in the very next advertisement here is another gentleman who has got exactly that sum to lend. But he'll never lend it to him, John, you'll find ! Here is a lady possessing a moderate independence, who wants to board and lodge with a quiet, cheerful family : and here is a family describing themselves in those very words, ' a quiet, cheerful family,' who want exactly such a lady to come and live with them. But she'll never go, John ! Neither do any of these single gentlemen who want an airy bed-room, with the occasional use of a parlor, ever appear to come to tenns with these other people who live in a rural situation, remarkable for its bracing atmosphere, within five minutes' walk of the Royal Exchange. Even those letters of the alphabet, who are always running away from their friends and being entreated at the tops of columns to come back, never do come back, if we may judge from the number of times they are asked to do it, and don't. It really seems," said Tom, relinquishing the paper, with a thoughtful sigh, " as if people had the same gratification in printing their complaints as in making them known by word of mouth ; as if they found it a comfort and consolation to proclaim, ' I want such and such a thing, and I can't get it, and I don't expect I ever shall ! ' " — Martin Chuzzlewit, Ch. 36.