Dickens continually holds to the immediate scene, even when his object
is undramatic; he is always readier to work in action and dialogue than
to describe at large; he is happier in placing a character there before
us, as the man or woman talked and behaved in a certain hour, on a
certain spot, than in reflecting a long impression of their manner of
living. In Thackeray's hands the life of Miss Flite, for instance, would
have become a legend, recalled and lingered over, illustrated by passing
glimpses of her ways and oddities. With Dickens she is always a little
human being who figures upon a scene, in a group, a visible creature
acting her small part; she is always dramatic.
And Dickens, using this method everywhere, even in such a case as
hers--even where his purpose, that is to say, is pictorial, to give
the sense of a various and vivacious background--is forced to
crystallize and formulate his characters very sharply, if they are to
make their effect; it is why he is so often reduced to the expedient
of labelling his people with a trick or a phrase, which they have to
bring with them every time they appear. Their opportunities are
strictly limited; the author does not help them out by glancing freely
into their lives and sketching them broadly. Flite, Snagsby, Chadband
and the rest of them--whatever they are, they must be all of it within
narrow bounds, within the few scenes that can be allotted to them; and
if one of them fails now and then it is not surprising, the wonder is
that most of them succeed so brilliantly.
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