﻿6 



Indiana University Studies 



distant hearers to an outbreak of hostilities. If either speaker had addressed 

 the other by name, the advent of the Sergeant-at-arms would have been 

 the next thing looked for. 10 



Dickens thus depicts Mrs. Pawkins' feelings at dinner time. 



Great heaps of indigestible matter melted away as ice before the sun. 

 It was a solemn and awful thing to see. Dyspeptic individuals bolted their 

 food in wedges; feeding, not themselves, but broods of nightmares, who 

 were continually standing at livery within them. Spare men, with lank 

 and rigid cheeks, came out unsatisfied from the destruction of heavy dishes, 

 and glared with watchful eyes on the pastry. What Mrs. Pawkins felt 

 each day at dinner time is hidden from all human knowledge. But she 

 had one comfort. It was very soon over. 11 



Altho, on the whole, De Morgan seems closer to Dickens. 

 Thackeray writes in the same vein : 



We have all heard of the dying French Duchess, who viewed her coining 

 dissolution and subsequent fate so easily, because she said she was sure 

 that Heaven must deal politely with a person of her quality; — I suppose 

 Lady Kew had some such notions regarding people of rank: her long-suffering 

 towards them was extreme; in fact, there were vices which the old lady 

 thought pardonable, and even natural, in a young nobleman of high station, 

 which she would never have excused in persons of vulgar condition. 12 



In commenting on his characters, our novelist avoids a fault 

 that Thackeray often betrays. As we read the latter's works and 

 enjoy those charming remarks which he makes so felicitously, we 

 realize that his attitude is that of a showman to his puppets, and 

 sometimes we see him pull the string that moves them. At the 

 end of The Newcomes we find this flaw: 



Two years ago, walking with my children in some pleasant fields, near 

 to Berne, in Switzerland, I strayed from them into a little world; and, com- 

 ing out of it presently, told them how the story had been revealed to me 

 somehow, which for three-and-twenty months the reader has been pleased 

 to follow. As I write the last line with a rather sad heart, Pendennis and 

 Laura, and Ethel and dive, fade away into Fable-land. I hardly know 

 whether they are not true; whether they do not live near us somewhere. 



They were alive, and I heard their voices; but five minutes since was 

 touched by their grief. 



Dickens' conclusion of David Copperfteld has more of the 

 atmosphere of reality: 



And now my written story ends. I look back, once more — for the 

 last time — before I close these leaves. 



I see myself, with Agnes at my side, journeying along the road of life. 

 I see our children and our friends around us; and I hear the roar of many 

 voices, now indifferent to me as I travel on. 



10 Somchow Good, p. 155. 



u Martin Chuzzlewit, vol. I, chap. xvi. 



12 The Newcomes, vol. II, chap. xxii. 



