The Sun.
London, England, 1846-12-03 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

DOMBEY and SON.

No. 111. By Charles Dickens.

Son is developed in the eighth chapter to five years
old. Under the tutelage of one Mrs. Wickam and the
watchful eyes of Time—" so far," says the facetious
historian," another major"—little Paul is at that time
dreadful tardy in a physical and constitutional sense,
and dreadfully precocious in an intellectual one. "He
looked (and talked)," says the author, " like one of
those terrible little beings in the fairy tales who, at a
hundred and fifty or two hundred years of age, fan-
tastically represent the children for whom they have
been substituted." Mr. Dickens has, however, so
beautifully delineated the character of a child in this
same Paul Dombey, that we will transcribe an entire
scene from his pages :
" They were the strangest pair at such a time that
ever firelight shone upon. Mr. Dombey so erect and
solemn, gazing at the blaze; his little image, with an old,
old. face, peering into the red perspective with the fixed
and rapt attention of a sage. Mr. Dombey entertaining
complicated worldly schemes and plans•, the little image
entertaining Heaven knows what wild fancies, half-
formed thoughts, and wandering speculations. Mr.
Dombey stiff with starch and arrogance; the little image
by inheritance, and in unconscious imitation. The two
so very much alike, and yet so monstrously contrasted.
" On one of these occasions, when they had both been
perfectly quiet for a long time, and Mr. Dombey only
knew that the child was awake by occasionally glancing
at his eye, where the bright fire was sparkling like a
jewel, little Paul broke silence thus:
" ' Papa! what's money?'
" The abrupt question had such immediate reference
to the subject of Mr. Dombey's thoughts, that Mr.
Dombey was quite disconcerted.
" ' What is money, Paul?' he answered. Money?'
" ' Yes,' said the child, laying his hands upon the
elbows of his little chair, and turning the old face up
towards Mr. Dombey's, what is money?'
" Mr. Dombey was in a difficulty. He would have
liked to give him some explanation involving the terms
circulating-medium, currency, depreciation of currency,
paper, bullion, rates of exchange, value of precious
metals in the market, and so forth; but looking down at
the little chair, and seeing what a long way down it was,
he answered, Gold, and silver, and copper. Guineas,
shillings, halfpence. You know what they are?'
" Oh yes, I know what they are,' said Paul. I
don't mean that, Papa. I mean, what's money after all.'
" Heaven and Earth, how old his face was as he turned
it up again LUVVULum atswasv. a.
"' What is money after all!' said Mr. Dombey back-
ing his chair a little, that he might the better gaze in
sheer amazement at the presumptuous atom that pro-
pounded such an inquiry.
" mean, Papa, what can it do?' returned Paul, folding
his arms (they were hardly long enough to fold), and look-
ing at the fire, and up at him, and at the fire, and up at
him again.
" Mr. Dombey drew his chair back to its former place,
and patted him on the head. You'll know better bye-
and. bye, my man,' he said. Money, Paul, can do any-
thing.: He took hold of the little hand, and beat it
softly against one of his own as he said so.
" But Paul got his hand free as soon as he could; and
rubbing it gently to and fro on the elbow of his chair, as
if his wit were in the palm, and he were sharpening it—
and looking at the fire again, as though the fire had been
his adviser and prompter—repeated, after a short pause:
" Anything, Papa?'
" Yes. Anything—almost,' said Mr. Dombey.
" Anything means everything, don't it, Papa?' asked
his son: not observing, or possibly not understanding,
the qualification.
"' It includes it: yes,' said Mr. Dombey.
" ' Why didn't money save me my mamma?' returned
the child. It isn't cruel, is it?'
" Cruel !' said Mr. Dombey, settling his neckcloth,
and seeming to resent the idea. No. A good thing can't
be cruel.'
" If it's a good thing, and can do anything,' said e
little fellow thoughtfully, as he looked back at the fire, I
wonder why it didn't save me my mamma.'
"He didn't ask the question of his father this time.
Perhaps he had seen, with a child's quickness, that it
had already made his father uncomfortable. But he re-
peated the thought aloud, as if it were quite an old one to
him, and had troubled hire very much ; and sat with his
chin resting on his hand, still cogitating and looking fur
an explanation in the fire.
" Mr. Dombey having recovered from his surprise, not
to say his alarm (for it was the very first occasion on
which the child had ever broached the subject of his
mother to him, though he had had him sitting by his
side, in this same manner, evening after evening), ex-
pounded to him how that money, though a very potent
spirit, never to be disparaged on any account whatever,
could not keep people alive whose time was come to die;
and how that we must all die, unfortunately, even in the
city, though we were never so rich. But how that money
caused us to be honoured, feared, respected, courted, and
admired, and made us powerful and glorious in the eyes
of all men • and how that it could, very often, even keep
off death, for a long time together. How, for example,
it had secured to his mamma the services of Mr. Pilkins,
by which he, Paul, had often profited himself ; likewise
of the great Doctor Parker Peps, whom he had never
known. And how it could do all, that could be done.
This, with more to the same purpose, Mr. Dombey in-
stilled into the mind of his son, who listened attentively,
and seemed to understand the greater part of what was
said to
" It esin't make me strong and quite well, either, Papa;
L can it?' asked Paul, after a short silence ; rubbing his
' tiny hands.
" Why, you are strong and quite well,' returned Mr.
' Dombey. Are you not ?'
"' Oh ! the age of the face that was turned up again,
with an expression, half of melancholy, half of slyness,
on it!
" You are as strong and well as such little people
usually are ? Eh ?" said Mr. Dombey.
" Florence is older than I am, but I'm not as strong
and well as Florence, I know,' returned the child ; ' and
I believe that when Florence was as little as me, she
could play a great deal longer at a time without tiring
herself. lam so tired sometimes,' said little Paul, warm-
ing his hands, and looking in between the bars of the
grate, as if some ghostly puppet-show were performing
there, and my bones ache so (Wickam says it's my
bones), that I don't know what to do.'
" Aye! But that's at night,' said Mr. Dombey,
drawing his own chair closer to his son's, and laying his
hand gently on his back; ' little people should be tired
at night, for then they sleep well.'
" Oh, it's not at night, Papa,' returned the child, it's
in the day; and I lie down in Florence's lap, and she
sings to me. At night I dream about such cu-ri-ous
things!'
" And he went on, warming his hands again, and
thinking about them, like an old man or a young goblin.
Mr. Dombey was so astonished, and so uncomfort-
able, and so perfectly at a loss how to pursue the con-
versation, that he could only sit looking at his son by
the light of the fire, with his hand resting on his back,
as if it were detained there by some magnetic attraction.
Once he advanced his other hand, and turned the con-
templative face towards his own for a moment. But it
sought the fire again as soon as he released it; and re-
mained, addressed towards the flickering blaze, until the
nurse appeared, to summon him to bed.
"' want Florence to come for me, said Paul.
" Won't you come with your poor Nurse Wickam,
Master Paull' inquired that attendant, with great pathos.
"' No, I won't,' replied Paul, composing himself in
his arm-chair again, like the master of the house.
" Invoking a blessing. upon his innocence, Mrs. Wickam
withdrew, and presently Florence appeared in her stead.
The child immediately started up with sudden readiness
and animation, and raised towards his father in bidding
him good night, a countenance so much brighter,
so much younger, and so much more child-like altoge-
ther, that Mr. Dombey, while he felt greatly re-assured
by the change, was quite amazed at it.
After they had left the room together, he thought
he heard a soft voice singing; and remembering that
Paul had said his sister sung to him, he had the curiosity
to open the door and listen, and look after them. • She
was toiling up the greati.widei vacant staircase, with
him in her arms; his head -was lying on her shoulder,
one of his arms thrown negligently round her neck. So
they went, toiling up; she singing all the way, and Paul
sometimes crooning out a feeble accompaniment. Mr.
Dombey looked after them until they reached the top of
the staircase—not without halting to rest by the way—
and passed out of his sight; and then he still stood gaz-
ing upward, until the dull rays of the moon, glimmering
in a melancholy manner through the dim skylight, sent
him back to his own room."
The father is ultimately so alarmed on hearing
that his Son is in danger of losing the use of what
Miss Tox delicately describes as " his members"
that he has him dispatched forthwith to Brighton,
for the purpose of being dragged about the beach in
a little carriage drawn by a weazen, old, crab-faced
man, in a suit of battered oil-skin, who had got tough
and stringy from long pickling in salt water, and who
smelt like a weedy sea beach when the tide is out."
The dame, under whose protection Paul is placed at
Brighton, is an ogress yclept Mrs. Pipchin ; and both
herself and her house are such capital drawings from
the life that we must transfer them to our columns.
This celebrated Mrs. Pipchin was a marvellous
ill-
favoured, ill-conditioned old lady, of e. stooping figure,
with a mottled face, like bad marble, a hook nose
hard grey eye, that looked as if it might have been' andhama
mered at on an anvil without sustaining any injury.
Forty years at least had elapsed since the Peruvia-n.
mines had been the death of Mr. Pipchin ; but his relict
still wore black bombazeen, of such a lustreless, deep,
dead, sombre shade, that gas itself could'nt light her up
after dark, and her presence was a quencher to any
number of candles. She was generally- spoken of as
a great manager" of children ; and the secret of her
management was, to give them every thing that they
didn't like, and nothing that they did—which was found
to sweeten their dispositions very much. She was such
a bitter old lady, that one was tempted
of the Peru-
vian .to believe there
had been some mistake in the
application
machinery, and that all her waters of gladness and
milk of human kindness had been pumped out dry, in-
stead of the mines.
" The castle of this ogress and child-queller was in a
steep bye-street at Brighton ; where the toil was more
than usually chalky, flinty, and sterile, and the houses
were more than usually brittle and thin ; where the small
front-gardens had the unaccountable property of pro-
ducing nothing but marigolds, whatever wasrseodwhnoldin
.
them; and where snails were constantly discovi
ing on to the street doors, and other
nublic places they
were not expected to ornament, with the tenacity of
cupping-glasses. In the winter time the air could'nt be
got out of the castle, and in the summer time it couldn't
be got in. There was such a continual reverberation of
wind in it, that it sounded like a great shell, which the
inhabitents were obliged to hold to their
ears'
night and
day, whether they liked it or no. It was not, naturally,
a fresh-smelling-house ; and in the window of the front