Juke 12, ISSo.] 



♦ KNOV/LEDGE ♦ 



493 



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!LLLL?TRATF.D 



.hZINE OF SCIENCE^' 



FL-yNLYWORDED-EXACTLYD^CRIBED 



LOXDOX ; FRIDAY, JFXE 12, 18S5. 



Contests of No. 189. 



?1GB 



Sickens ind Th»ckcr«T. Br R. A. 



Proctor .". 4S>3 



Th» ToQne Electrici«n. (lUiit.) 



BtW. SIin»o 494 



To Strengthen the Arms. By R. 



A. Proctor 496 



The PhUosophT of Clothini;. X. 



Bv W. M»tti"en Williams 1:": 



Watchmaking at the Invent 



Eihibition. (iJ/iu.l 



XervotisEihanslion. ByE.Wo„u;, 



The Bonlder-Clav ef Cheshire oirj 



Krst Star Lessons. {With Map.) 



By Bicbard A. Proctor 602 



PAGE 



ShootinR Stars 602 



Nobert's Killing Machine. By John 



Marall, jnn 504 



Editorial Gossip 505 



Reviews: — Prehistoric America — 



Some Books on Our Table 506 



Our Inventors' Column 5C8 



(Correspondence : The Ruddy 

 Kclipsed Moon — Matter for 

 Kellection — Is Darwinism Doubt- 

 ful ? — Double Consciousness — 



Cosmical Movements, &e iiOO 



Our Whist Column 513 



Our Chess Colonm 514 



DICKENS AND THACKERAY. 



By Richard A. Proctor. 



ME. THURLOW "WEED, the American politician, 

 once expressed surprise at the circumstance that 

 in England Dickens does not seem to be at present held in 

 such high esteem as in America. He remarked that, to 

 him, there seemed no comparison between Thackeray and 

 Dickens, so far at least as their power of enchaining the 

 attention was concerned. I propose to point out some 

 considerations which appear to me to justify the opinion 

 which is now generally entertained in England respecting 

 Dickens' writings. It also should, however, be understood 

 that those who recognise most clearly the shortcomings of 

 Dickens even as a humourist (using this word in the wide 

 sense in which Thackeray has employed it in his lectures 

 on writers of the last century), feel too deeply the debt of 

 gratitude the world owes to Dickens to desire in any way 

 to be-little a name which men will always hold in high 

 esteem. 



It may be convenient, though there are objections to 

 such a course, to follow i\Ir. Thurlow Weed in making 

 comparison between Dickens and Thackeray. It will be 

 noticed that though he says there is no comparison he, in 

 that very remark, makes very definite comparison between 

 the two writers. The practice of instituting such compari- 

 sons is not a pleasing one. We may praise or, if occasion 

 arise, blame, a writer, a painter, a sculptor or a man of 

 science, without inquiring whether he deserves more or less 

 praise or blame than some other worker in his own line. I 

 have noted cases where comjjarisons, unnecessarily intro- 

 duced into critici.sms, seem as though specially intended, as 

 certainly they are calculated, to excite ill-will between the 

 persons compared ; and it would be well if a system of 

 criticism were adopted from which all such comparisons 

 should be rigidly excluded as mischievous and offensive. 

 But in considering the work of two such writers as Dickens 

 and Thackeray comparison can hardly be avoided, thotigh 

 often the study of their writings suggests rather contrast 

 than comparison. 



So far as the construction of their stories is concerned) 

 neither Dickens nor Thackeray has shown s))ncial skill. 

 But there is one marked iliircienco between them in this 

 respect : Thackeray deliberately rejected tiio old-fashioned 

 method of constructing a plot. His stories are pictures 

 from real life, and were meant to be such, lie no more 

 attempts artistic arrangement than Hogarth aimed at 

 colour eflects in his paintings. In fact, at times, when ho 

 finds his events moving toward an effective situation, 

 Thackeray deliberately interrupts the current of his narra- 

 tive to call attention to the opportunity thus offered for 

 fine writing, of which, however, ho refuses to avail himself. 

 I could cite several instances, but will content myself by 

 mentioning the scene where I'hilip Firmin breaks in u|)on 

 the group of angry persons on Mme. Smolensk's staircase. 

 "Here, I prote-st," he says, or to that eff'ect — " here, I pro- 

 test, is a fine situation," and he proceeds to sketch in the 

 details ; but in order rather to make a grotesque than an 

 effective picture — though there arc few passages more 

 beautiful than the closing lines of that description. 



With Dickens the case is altogether diff'enmt. It is 

 true that " Pickwick " was purjuisely written without any 

 definite plot ; but Dickens was then writing to order. In 

 all his other stories he manifestly aimed at the construction 

 of an attractive plot, after the old-fashioned manner, the 

 story to come to a close with the marriage of the hero and 

 heroine, the good characters to get their proper reward, the 

 villains to be duly punished. He not only failed, but it is 

 noteworthy that not one of his heroes or heroines, and 

 scarcely one of his very good and very villainous characters 

 is well painted. His heroes, indeed, are, for the most part, 

 like that youth of the Chuzzlewit family, who had no out- 

 line, or rather they may be described as Mantalini described 

 two of his imaginary conquests, of whom one "had no out- 

 line at all," and the other "hadademned outline." Clen- 

 nam and Walter Gay are of the no outline sort ; Nickleby, 

 Harmon, and Chuzzlewit belong to the other category. 



It is in fact in the presentation of character that the 

 contrast between Thackeray and Dickens is most marked. 

 It appears to me that Thackeray stands among the very 

 first of our English writers in this respect, even if, so far 

 as novel writing is concerned, he is not absolutely first. 

 Macaulay would have set Jane Austen before Thackeray, 

 because of the skill with which she delineated characters 

 closely akin. But the range of Miss Austen's jiortraiture 

 was so small compared with that of Thackeray's, that he 

 must be set above her on this account alone, unless it 

 could be shown that she would have been as successful on 

 the large scale as she certainly was in the few cabinet 

 pictures on which she exercised her powers. 



I am particularly struck by Thackeray's skill in giving 

 life and reality to his leading characters (we must not say 

 heroes and heroines, since Thackeray tells us ho knew of 

 none and pretended to describe none), because it is in this 

 that novelists chiefly fail. What a vague and shadowy set 

 are Scott's heroes and most of his heroines, though it must 

 be admitted that Rebecca, Di Vernon, and .lulia Manner- 

 ing are charmingly delineated. On the contrary, Esmond, 

 the two Virginians, the other Warrington, Pendennis, Clive 

 Newcome, Philip Firmin and dear old Dobbin — all these 

 are men, not (like most of our story heroes) mere names 

 tacked on to descriptions with which they do not in the 

 least correspond. 



But even more striking, though less generally recognised, 

 or in general denied altogether, is Thackeray's power of 

 poi'traying women. I find it perfectly amazing that so 

 many deny Thackeray's power in this respect, where he is 

 almost without a rivaL Repeatedly we hear it said that 

 he could only draw two sorts of women — Becky Sharpes 



