THE FATHERS OF DICKENS.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXX, Issue 3522, 13 May 1912, Page 2

THE FATHERS OF DICKENS.

1 ■ 1 j (By Jessie Maekay.) j Even the hearty plaudits tlia-t have | greeted the'centenary of Dickens this year have failed to- obscure the strange and regrettable fact that Dickens was seemingly almost incap-" able of depicting a. mother who not either unworthy or absurd. Hw whole satiric -artillery was turned on j against them -in such studies as th. starchy and grandiloquent Airs AA’il- , Ter, the volatile and tangle-willed Airs Jellyhy. There is an adge beyond satire in -the creepy coquettnnness of the ancient siren “Cleopatra” who ruined the life,of stately Edith Dombey. It must be confessed that Airs Meagles justifies her existence, and some few mothers in low life, such as Polly Toodles and Airs Tetterby, do something to roll away wie material reproach. Dot Perrybingle, of course, is a delightful exception, and Clara Copporfiold is a tenderly pathetic and child-like figure, of little weight as woman, and yet a memory the reader, would not care to lose." But Airs'bleep, Airs Gnippy, Mrs Podsnap, Airs Pardiggle—what a scarecrow company, to be sure! It seems irreverent to pry into griefs that darkened for this kind, great soul the arcana of womanhood and left him a gibe where he should have found a sacrament. But ,at _ least we may.say that if Dickens did reflect on his pages the shifts, the littlenesses, the limitations that may have pinched his own life at the sensitive core, so much the less Dickens he !

AYliat did Dickens make of fatherhood? Did the paternal relation call forth the same emotions, ironic or saturmune, that so unaccountably invest liis .studies of the maternal?. In the first place, one may say that he did not shirk the conception in places where the mother’s part was dropped with faint excuse- or none. To sav that he felt on congenial and solid ground here would be an ’iteration of the obvious. Dickens himself excelled as a father. As guardian, guide, companion, and Trento- be was all in all to his _ children ; and it would be strange if he had strained at portraying so momentous a relation. AA'hile his mothers fail both maternally and humanly with such invidious frequency, one can almost fancy the master dipping his i>en in rosv ink with a debonair flourish, as if lie were saying. “See now, how a good father should be painted!” Not that his creations did not include some notably bad fathers. In high life Sir John Chester, father of Maypole Hugh, stands easily first. In low life Gaffer Rexam and Rogue Riderhood moun+ the pillory side by side, for their domestic asperities as for their nefarious partnership on business lines. The vague irresponsibility of AA'illiam Dorrit is well drawn ; it was easier for such a pupnet of misfortune to -play at oeing father of the Marshalsea than to work at being a father to poor little Amv Dorrit.

Alagnifv a hundredfold Air T)orrit’s irresponsibility and barren dignity of pose and von’ get the full flower of paternal turpitude of that magnificent parasite, Air Turveydrcp. Surely Dickens was in a mood one can only describe as Eumenicloan when he permanently afflicted two such gentle and amiable lovers as Caddy Jellybv and Prince Turveydron with two such domestic incubi as Caddy’s mother and Prince’s father. “Behold the moral, Pecksniff!”

Fatherhood plays ' a commending part in the moral make-up which shrouded the real Pecksniff on the stage of life, and it cerainiy sets the seafon his consummate rascality. The transaction bv which pretty mincing Mercy Pecksniff is allowed in cold blood to become the wedded bondslave of the unspeakable Jonas Chuzzlewit is not easily niuthed for sordidness. Tt is far more than matched, however, by Dickens himself in the-revolting selfishness of Mr Bray, who would have crowned bis daughter Madeline s filial martyrdom bv forcing her into a hated union with old Arthur Gride. Mr Dcmhey, avowedly set up as a parental failure, almost •overshoots the mark, being more typical than personal. , But when all is said and done, the o-nod—in gome cases the preternatural v wood—fathers in the world created.; stretch out in a line that seems endless. . . , , 1 Micavber, the optimist, who moved ia s in a fairy tale, scattering dropped speculations and pearls of rhetoiie as he walked, Micawbed was yet a good father and' Australia- most- certainly found him “a desirable immigrant,” even as he found Australia a ‘Tand of stability, where all things needful turn up” in time.- Such another cheery seeker of silver linings is the ] anm-hearted Mr Peggotty, on whom the” darkest clouds of disaster were doomed to break and fall.

f)r Manette is a gracious, ir sorrowful. figure, rounded and complete by suffering and by liis love of sweet Lucie. . , And who can resist Gabriel yard-en, the doting father of dainty the patient spouse of that sore “Protestant” saint, her mother t And is there not a bluff Saxon breeziness m Mr Wardle that would _ constrain the greenest-eyed Socialist to forgive his natural disability as a fore runner of the modern • ‘stelall pest” It is indeed ns the idolising fathers of daughters that Dickens loved to depict his most lovable men. Will Fern, prototype of the Keir Hardies and Will Crookses of in, later time,, touches one of those dark national blames-their great reformer never feared to scathe, and his flight with .little Lilian is one of the most soul-stirring episodes of the shorter masterpieces of Dickens. More flexible, more human, more gloriously mendacious is Caleb Plummer, father of blind Bertha, who actually fables a dreamland into reality for his beloved child. Perhaps Dickens meant the cherubic “R. W-,” that much-tried parent of saucy Bella Wilfer, for Ins crowning triumph as a paternal study. But he laid on the paint too thickly. Too often the sentiment in his domestic scenes degenerates into gush, and never ill a more pronounced fashion tli.an in the scenes between the Cherub and his imperious playmate and daughter. Yet they are a worshipful, companv, take them -all in all, these fliers of Dickens, and English literature would be infinitely the poorer without them,; not to say English life,, into which their essence has been pressed for two generations past-