II. To Charles Dickens - Page 2

confidence of youth, often venture on remarkable confessions.
In your 'Natural History of Young Ladies' I do not remember that you describe
the Humorous Young Lady (1). She is a very rare bird indeed, and humour
generally is at a deplorably low level in England.

(1) I am informed that the _Natural_History_of_Young_Ladies_ is attributed,
by some writers, to another philosopher, the author of _The_Art_of_Pluck_.

Hence come all sorts of mischief, arisen since you left us; and, it may be
said, that inordinate philanthropy, genteel sympathy with Irish murder and
arson, Societies for Badgering the Poor, Esoteric Buddhism, and a score of
other plagues, including what was once called Aestheticism, are all,
primarily, due to want of humour. People discuss, with the gravest faces,
matters which properly should only be stated as the wildest paradoxes. It
naturally follows that, in a period almost destitute of humour, many
respectable persons 'cannot read Dickens,' and are not ashamed to glory in
their shame. We ought not to be angry with others for their misfortunes; and
yet when one meets the _cre'tins_ who boast that they cannot read Dickens, one
certainly does feel much as Mr. Samuel Weller felt when he encountered Mr. Job
Trotter.

How very singular has been the history of the decline of humour. Is there any
profound psychological truth to be gathered from consideration of the fact
that humour has gone out with cruelty? A hundred years ago, eighty years ago
--nay, fifty years ago--we were a cruel but also a humorous people. We had
bull-baitings, and badger-drawings, and hustings, and prize-fights, and
cock-fights; we went to see men hanged; the pillory and the stocks were no
empty 'terrors unto evil-doers,' for there was commonly a malefactor occupying
each of these institutions. With all this we had a broad blown comic sense. We
had Ho-garth, and Bunbury, and George Cruik-shank, and Gilray; we had Leech
and Surtees, and the creator of Tittlebat Titmouse; we had the Shepherd of the
'Noctes,' and, above all, we had _you_.

From the old giants of English fun--burly persons delighting in broad
caricature, in decided colours, in cockney jokes, in swashing blows at the
more prominent and obvious human follies--from these you derived the splendid
high spirits and unhesitating mirth of your earlier works. Mr. Squeers, and
Sam Weller, and Mrs. Gamp, and all the Pickwickians, and Mr. Dowlet, and John
Browdie--these and their immortal companions were reared, so to speak, on the
beef and beer of that naughty, fox-hunting, badger-baiting old England, which
we have improved out of existence. And these characters, assuredly, are your
best; by them, though stupid people cannot read about them, you will live
while there is a laugh