The Sun.
London, England, 1865-01-16 00:00:00

Charles Dickens's New Serial Story,

No.

Our Mutual Friend. By Charles Dickens.
IX. Chapman and Hall.
The mystery as to John Rokesmith's identity
with John Harmon—a mystery but semi-transparent
from the very commencement—has here, in the cur-
rent number of " Our Mutual Friend" for January,
been cleared up altogether. Nevertheless, we must
acknowledge that, in this story, Mr. Dickens fairly
bewilders us. He bewilders us, we would say, quite
as much, in some parts, by his apparently precipitate
revelations in regard to the intricate scheme of his
plot, as he does at others by a sort of half reticence
that seems to throw a careless and merely partial
veil over motives, incidents, and characters, yet a
veil, too, that proves to be in its way—so far as our
great novelist wills it—utterly impenetrable. For
example, he lets us into his confidence (for reasons
of his own) completely—as to the fact (half suspected
all along) that the hero of the tale is, in Rip Van
Winkle's phrase, not himself but some one else ! He
turns out, in point of fact, to be, even more than
what Mrs. Malaprop wonderingly declared Captain
Absolute to be, that is, " three gentlemen at once,
like Cerberus !" The Hero of " Our Mutual Friend"
—Our Mutual Friend himself, in point of fact—we
now learn, as clearly as one of the most wonderful
and original soliloquies in the whole range of ima-
ginative literature could well explain anything, is
either actually, nominally, or ostensibly, at one and
the same time—

John Rokesmith !
Julius Handford !!
John Harmon !! !—and—
George Radfoot ! !!!
Otherwise to put it—Pa's Lodger—Mr. Boffin's
Secretary—the Golden Dustman's heir (supposed
to be murdered)—and, the Third Mate (of a home-
ward bound passenger ship) who really is mur-
dered ! Never, we believe, even in the happiest
instances that could be adduced from Shakspere,
has there been penned by a writer of genius a more
admirable exemplification of what a Soliloquy ought
to be, namely, just simply thinking aloud ! Our
Mutual Friend, tangled as he is in a wonderful
maze of difficulties--Lbewildering even at moments,
as this maze is even to himself—endeavours, so far
as he possibly can, to systematise, or as we may
otherwise express it, to arrange in due consecutive
order, the events that have occurred to him since his
return homewards : arranging them, as he recalls
them to mind, in proper sequence, one by one, out
of the haze and jumble of his recollections. A haze
and a jumble that are, in truth, only perfectly natural
and reasonable under the circumstances—seeing
that at the first and the most imminent crisis
among all these confusions, " Our Mutual Friend,"
upon the very morrow of his return to England,
immediately after the Golden Dustman's death,
gets drugged in a low den, down by the water-
side, among the amphibious Birds of Prey nesting
there along shore, creatures haunting the foulest and
dingiest back among all slums of Limehouse Hole.
Pieceing together his various broken recollections of
events occurring thereabouts, Our Mutual Friend
contrives with some difficulty to get his thoughts
gradually into order, while thus thinking aloud (soli-
loquising as we have it)—making everything clear
and comprehensible, the while, to the reader's mind as
he reads on. Yet—even then—when all is said and
done, apparently, in regard to the blurting out thus
ingenuously by John Harmon of the whole secret of
his mystery—we are as entirely baffled as ever we
were, in our attempt to get at the inner meaning of
the plot of " Our Mutual Friend"—meaning not the
Man himself, but the Book. We are completely at fault
even in our most strenuous efforts to conjecture the
precise drift of the narrative, the exact destina-
tion towards which the various characters and
incidents of the tale are tending. It is in this com-
plete setting at naught of all our most searching in-
vestigations as to what may really and truly be his
design in constructing the elaborate machinery of
his plot, that we again recognise in " Our Mutual
Friend," what we have so often before recognised in
other works of fiction from the same master hand,
namely, the intuitive perception and -the acquired
skill of the consummate Artist. The Genius of Mr.
Dickens, he reveals whensoever he lists—obtaining
the recognition of it (far more than through any
words of praise that we could utter) through our
tears and through our laughter. But, his intui-
tive perception and his acquired skill as a consum-
mate Artist, he manifests, upon especial occasions,
in a manner that is still, to us—hackneyed novel
readers though we be—full of its surprises. Occa-
sionally he has done this—what we are here more
particularly alluding to—years ago in some of his
earlier fictions. It is, to this day, in fact, a surprise
to us, in the mere recollection of it—the revelation
towards the close of " Nicholas Nickleby" that
Smike is the son of Ralph! As it was afterwards,
also, a truly wonderful surprise to us, in " Bar-
naby Rudge," when we discovered, in the midst of
the smoking ruins of Dlr. Haredale's country man-
sion down by Chigwell, that the murdered man (as
he was supposed to be) was, in point of fact, after
all, himself the murderer ! Among all these surprises,
however, the very last adventured upon by Mr. Dickens
was, beyond a doubt of it, far and away the most
startling—namely, the disclosure at the top of that
windy staircase, upon a stormy night, at Pip's cham-
bers in the Temple, the astounding disclosure that
the shuddering Convict of the Marshes, and not Miss
Havisham, was the real Patron and Benefactor of the
hero of the story---La story so admirably well called, by
reason of the whole plot of it, " Great Expectations."
Whatever surprises of another kind may be in store
for us in the after chapters of " Our Mutual Friend"
we know not. But, already, the story, so far as it
has yet gone, has completely baffled our utmost in-
genuity in the way of conjecture as to the ulterior
design here held in view by the Novelist. New cha-
racters are even yet continually being introduced to
us, although nearly one-half of the work has
already made its appearance. The— first chap-
ter in the January number under notice, now,
relates, with all Mr. Dickens's minutely graphic
power, to the loves and heart-burnings of Brad-
ley Headstone the schoolmaster, Miss Peecher
the schoolmistress, Jennie Wren and Lizzie Hexam.
Chapter twelve " More Birds of Prey," and Chapter
thirteen " A Solo and a Duett " are the features
of the number—the last mentioned, more par-
ticularly the solo in it, being wonderfully
effective. There is a bit of still life (at p. 272)
in the scene that takes place in the house-room
at Miss Riderhood's that no other hand could
have touched off as it is there touched off in a
few words by Mr. Dickens. It relates to the critical
moment in the talk that takes place between Mr.
Riderhood and the Unknown Seafarer with the
oakum beard and whiskers.—where, among other
homely objects hanging up half revealed in
the dimly lighted kitchen, there is noticeable " a
shining black sou'-wester suit and hat, looking very
like a clumsy mariner with his back to the company,
who was so curious to overhear, that he paused
for the purpose, with his coat half pulled on, and
his shoulders up to his ears, in the uncompleted
action." The mysterious sailor's careless attitude,
moreover, " with the hand curved half open and half
shut, as if it had just let go a rope"—Miss :Rider-
hood's habit of " winding herself up" after the
fashion of the-other ladies of the Hole, who, on the
occasion of a fight or other disturbance in those
localities, " would be seen flocking from all quarters,
universally twisting their backhair as they came
along, many of them, in the hurry of
the moment carrying their hairs - combs in
their mouths !" Riderhood's indignation at
the absurdity of the question put to him, " Are
you thirsty ?" " Why, nat'rally, ain't I always
thirsty ?"—his protest against Pollparroting—above
all, every minute hint, word, mere parenthesis, in
John Harmon's Soliloquy—no other hand but
Dickens's could have so lightly and yet so vividly pen-
cilled—pencilled with all the lightness and all the
vividness of actual photography ! Mr. Marcus Stone's
illustrations, by the way, are just as bad as ever.
To realise how bad they are, as illustrations to
Charles Dickens, it is only necessary to turn over
for a few moments those wonderful illustrations to
" Oliver Twist," etched by the needle of George
Cruikshank.

Can You Forgive Her ? By Anthony Trollope,

No. XII. Chapman and Hall.
Lady Glencora all but commits herself at Lady
Monk's Party--as a matter of cow-Be with Burgo