Dickens Again

 I am sorry that the comic costume festival which was organized for Christmas by one of the chief Dickensian societies has unavoidably fallen through. It is not for me to reproach those traitors¹ who found it impossible to turn up: for I was one of those traitors myself. Whatever character it was that I was expected to appear in—Jingle, I suppose, or possibly Uriah Heep—was, under a final press of business, refused by me. These Dickensian enthusiasts² were going to have a Christmas party at Rochester, where they would brew³ punch and drink punch, and drive coaches and fall off coaches, and do all the proper Pickwickian things. How many of them were ready to make a hole in the ice, to be wheeled about in a wheelbarrow, or to wait all night outside a ladies’ school, the official documents have not informed me. But I would gladly take a moderate part. I could not brew punch for the Pickwick Club; but I could drink it. I could not drive the coach for the Pickwick Club—or, indeed, for any club except the Suicide Club; but I could fall off the coach amid repeated applause and enthusiastic encores. I should be only too proud if it could be said of me, as of Sam’s hyperbolical old gentleman who was tipped into the hyperbolical canal, that “'is 'at was found, but I can’t be certain 'is 'ead was in it.” It seems to me like a euthanasia: more beautiful than the passing of Arthur.

But though the failure of this particular festivity was merely accidental (like my own unfortunate fall off the coach), it is not without its parallel in the present position of Dickensians and Christmas. For the truth is that we simply cannot recreate the Pickwick Club—unless we have a moral basis as sturdy as that of Dickens, and even a religious basis as sturdy as that of Christmas. Men at such a time turn their backs to the solemn thing they are celebrating, as the horses turn their backs to the coach. But they are pulling the coach. And the best of it is this: that so long as the Christmas feast had some kind of assumed and admitted meaning, it was praised, and praised sympathetically, by the great men whom we should call most unsympathetic with it. That Shakespeare and Dickens and Walter Scott should write of it seems quite natural. They were people who would be as welcome at Christmas as Santa Claus. But I do not think many people have ever wished they could ask Milton to eat the Christmas pudding. Nevertheless, it is quite certain that his Christmas ode is not only one of the richest but one of the most human of his masterpieces. I do not think that anyone specially⁵ wanting a rollicking article on Christmas would desire, by mere⁴ instinct, the literary style of Addison. Yet it is quite certain that the somewhat difficult task of really liking⁶ Addison is rendered easier by his account of the Coverley Christmas than by anything else he wrote. I even go so far as to doubt whether one of the little Cratchits (who stuffed their spoons in their mouths lest they should scream for goose) would have removed the spoon to say, “Oh, that Tennyson were here!” Yet certainly Tennyson’s spirits do seem to revive in a more or less real way at the ringing of the Christmas bells in the most melancholy⁷ part of In Memoriam. These great men were not trying to be merry: some of them, indeed, were trying to be miserable⁸. But the day itself was too strong for them; the time was more than their temperaments¹⁰; the tradition was alive. The festival was roaring in the streets, so that prigs and even prophets (who are sometimes worse still) were honestly carried off their feet.

The difficulty with Dickens is not any failure in Dickens, nor even in the popularity of Dickens. On the contrary, he has recaptured his creative reputation and fascination¹¹ far more than any of the other great Victorians. Macaulay, who was really great in his way, is rejected; Cobbett, who was much greater, is forgotten. Dickens is not merely alive: he is risen from the dead. But the difficulty is in the failing under his feet, as it were, of that firm historic platform on which he had performed his Christmas pantomimes: a platform of which he was quite as unconscious as we, most of us, are of the floor we walk about on. The fact is that the fun of Christmas is founded on the seriousness of Christmas; and to pull away the latter support even from under a Christmas clown is to let him down through a trap-door. And even clowns do not like the trap-doors that they do not expect. Thus it is unfortunately true that so glorious a thing as a Pickwick party tends to lose the splendid quality of a mere Mummery, and become that much more dull and conventional thing, a Covent Garden Ball. We are not ourselves living in the proper spirit of Pickwick. We are pretending to be old Dickens characters, when we ought to be new Dickens characters in reality.

The conditions are further complicated by the fact that while reading Dickens may make a man Dickensian, studying Dickens makes him quite the reverse. One might as well expect the aged¹² custodian¹³ of a museum of sculpture to look (and dress) like the Apollo Belvedere, as expect the Pickwickian qualities in those literary critics who are attracted by the Dickens fiction as the materials for a biography or the subject of a controversy¹⁴; as a mass of detail; as a record and a riddle¹⁵. Those who study such things are a most valuable class of the community, and they do good service to Dickens in their own way. But their type and temperament⁹ are not, in the nature of things, likely to be full of the festive¹⁶ magic of their master. Take, for example, these endless discussions about the proper ending of Edwin Drood. I thought Mr. William Archer¹⁷’s contributions to the query¹⁸ some time ago were particularly able and interesting; but I could not, with my hand on my heart, call Mr. William Archer a festive gentleman, or one supremely¹⁹ fitted to follow Mr. Swiveller as Perpetual Grand of the Glorious Apollos. Or again, I see that Sir William Robertson Nicoll has been writing on the same Drood mystery; and I know that his knowledge of Victorian literature is both vast and exact. But I hardly think that a Puritan Scot with a sharp individualistic philosophy would be the right person to fall off the coach. Sir William Nicoll, if I remember right, once forcibly described his individualist philosophy as “firing out the fools.” And certainly the spirit of Dickens could be best described as the delight in firing them in. It is exactly because Christmas is not only a feast of children, but in some sense a feast of fools, that Dickens is in touch with its mystery.

1 traitors   

卖国贼( traitor的名词复数 )； 叛徒； 背叛者； 背信弃义的人

参考例句：

• Traitors are held in infamy. 叛徒为人所不齿。
• Traitors have always been treated with contempt. 叛徒永被人们唾弃。

2 enthusiasts   

n.热心人，热衷者( enthusiast的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• A group of enthusiasts have undertaken the reconstruction of a steam locomotive. 一群火车迷已担负起重造蒸汽机车的任务。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Now a group of enthusiasts are going to have the plane restored. 一群热心人计划修复这架飞机。 来自新概念英语第二册

3 brew   

v.酿造，调制

参考例句：

• Let's brew up some more tea.咱们沏些茶吧。
• The policeman dispelled the crowd lest they should brew trouble.警察驱散人群，因恐他们酿祸。

4 mere   

adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过

参考例句：

• That is a mere repetition of what you said before.那不过是重复了你以前讲的话。
• It's a mere waste of time waiting any longer.再等下去纯粹是浪费时间。

5 specially   

adv.特定地；特殊地；明确地

参考例句：

• They are specially packaged so that they stack easily.它们经过特别包装以便于堆放。
• The machine was designed specially for demolishing old buildings.这种机器是专为拆毁旧楼房而设计的。

6 liking   

n.爱好；嗜好；喜欢

参考例句：

• The word palate also means taste or liking.Palate这个词也有“口味”或“嗜好”的意思。
• I must admit I have no liking for exaggeration.我必须承认我不喜欢夸大其词。

7 melancholy   

n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的

参考例句：

• All at once he fell into a state of profound melancholy.他立即陷入无尽的忧思之中。
• He felt melancholy after he failed the exam.这次考试没通过，他感到很郁闷。

8 miserable   

adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的

参考例句：

• It was miserable of you to make fun of him.你取笑他，这是可耻的。
• Her past life was miserable.她过去的生活很苦。

9 temperament   

n.气质，性格，性情

参考例句：

• The analysis of what kind of temperament you possess is vital.分析一下你有什么样的气质是十分重要的。
• Success often depends on temperament.成功常常取决于一个人的性格。

10 temperaments   

性格( temperament的名词复数 )； （人或动物的）气质； 易冲动； （性情）暴躁

参考例句：

• The two brothers have exactly opposite temperaments: one likes to be active while the other tends to be quiet and keep to himself. 他们弟兄两个脾气正好相反， 一个爱动，一个好静。
• For some temperaments work is a remedy for all afflictions. 对于某些人来说，工作是医治悲伤的良药。

11 fascination   

n.令人着迷的事物，魅力，迷恋

参考例句：

• He had a deep fascination with all forms of transport.他对所有的运输工具都很着迷。
• His letters have been a source of fascination to a wide audience.广大观众一直迷恋于他的来信。

12 aged   

adj.年老的，陈年的

参考例句：

• He had put on weight and aged a little.他胖了，也老点了。
• He is aged,but his memory is still good.他已年老，然而记忆力还好。

13 custodian   

n.保管人，监护人；公共建筑看守

参考例句：

• Benitez believes his custodian is among the top five in world football.贝尼特斯坚信他的门将是当今足坛最出色的五人之一。
• When his father died his uncle became his legal custodian.他父亲死后，他叔叔成了他的法定监护人。

14 controversy   

n.争论，辩论，争吵

参考例句：

• That is a fact beyond controversy.那是一个无可争论的事实。
• We ran the risk of becoming the butt of every controversy.我们要冒使自己在所有的纷争中都成为众矢之的的风险。

15 riddle   

n.谜，谜语，粗筛；vt.解谜，给…出谜，筛，检查，鉴定，非难，充满于；vi.出谜

参考例句：

• The riddle couldn't be solved by the child.这个谜语孩子猜不出来。
• Her disappearance is a complete riddle.她的失踪完全是一个谜。

16 festive   

adj.欢宴的，节日的

参考例句：

• It was Christmas and everyone was in festive mood.当时是圣诞节，每个人都沉浸在节日的欢乐中。
• We all wore festive costumes to the ball.我们都穿着节日的盛装前去参加舞会。

17 archer   

n.射手，弓箭手

参考例句：

• The archer strung his bow and aimed an arrow at the target.弓箭手拉紧弓弦将箭瞄准靶子。
• The archer's shot was a perfect bull's-eye.射手的那一箭正中靶心。

18 query   

n.疑问，问号，质问；vt.询问，表示怀疑

参考例句：

• I query very much whether it is wise to act so hastily.我真怀疑如此操之过急地行动是否明智。
• They raised a query on his sincerity.他们对他是否真诚提出质疑。

19 supremely   

adv.无上地，崇高地

参考例句：

• They managed it all supremely well. 这件事他们干得极其出色。
• I consider a supremely beautiful gesture. 我觉得这是非常优雅的姿态。