favourite characters in them, as I did, and by putting Mr. and Miss Murdstone into all the bad ones, which I did, too. I have been Tom Jones-a child's Tom Jones, a harmless creature for a week together. I have sustained my own idea of Roderick Random for a month at a stretch, I verily believe. "Let us end with the Boy's story," said Mrs. Lirriper, " for the Boy's story is the best that is ever told." There are no other stories so enchanting, or so stimulating, as the stories that fill the imaginations of childhood. CHAPTER IX. SYMPATHY WITH CHILDHOOD. THE dominant element in Dickens's character was sympathy with childhood, not merely for it. He had the productive sympathy that feels and thinks from the child's standpoint. The illustration just given of Major Jackman's cooperative sympathy with Jemmy Lirriper in the perfect carrying out of what to most people would have been only "the foolish ideas" of a child, as sincerely as if he had been executing commissions from the prime minister, is an excellent exemplification of the true ideal of sympathy in practice. The Major was not working for Jemmy's amusement merely; he was a very active and genuinely interested partner with Jemmy. "Jemmy was far outdone by the serious and believing ways of the Major" in the imaginative plays which were the most real life of Jemmy. Such was the sympathy of Dickens with his own children; such sympathy he believed to be the most productive power in the teacher or child trainer for beneficent influence on the character of the child. There is no other characteristic of his writings so marked as his broad sympathy with childhood. Sympathy was the origin of all he wrote against coercion in all its dread forms, of all he wrote about robbing children of a real childhood, about the dwarfing of individuality, about the strangling of the imagination, about improper nutrition, about all forms of neglect, and cruelty, and bad training. The more fully his nature is known the more deeply he is loved, because of his great love for the child. From the beginning of his educational work his overflowing, practical sympathy is revealed. 66 He tells us in the preface to Nickleby that his study of the Yorkshire schools and his delineation of the character of Squeers resulted from a resolution formed in childhood, which he was led to form by seeing a boy with a suppurated abscess caused by its being ripped open by his Yorkshire guide, philosopher, and friend with an inky penknife." The sympathy of Nicholas, and John Browdie, and the Cheeryble brothers with Smike and all suffering childhood are strong features of the book. Dickens's own sympathy has cleared his mind of many fogs that still linger in some minds regarding a parent's rights in regard to his child, even though the parent has never recognised any of the child's rights. The movement in favour of the recognition of the rights of children even against their parents began with Dickens. When Nicholas discovered that Smike was the son of his uncle, Ralph Nickleby, he went to consult brother Charles Cheeryble in regard to his duty under the circumstances. He modestly, but firmly, expressed his hope that the good old gentleman would, under such circumstances as he described, hold him justified in adopting the extreme course of interfering between parent and child, and upholding the latter in his disobedience; even though his horror and dread of his father might seem, and would doubtless be represented, as a thing so repulsive and unnatural as to render those who countenanced him in it fit objects of general detestation and abhorrence. "So deeply rooted does this horror of the man appear to be," said Nicholas, "that I can hardly believe he really is his son. Nature does not seem to have implanted in his breast one lingering feeling of affection for him, and surely she can never err." 66 66 My dear sir," replied brother Charles, you fall into the very common mistake of charging upon Nature matters with which she has not had the smallest connection, and for which she is in no way responsible. Men talk of Nature as an abstract thing, and lose sight of what is natural while they do so. Here is a poor lad who has never felt a parent's care, who has scarcely known anything all his life but suffering and sorrow, presented to a man who he is told is his father, and whose first act is to signify his intention of putting an end to his short term of happiness by consigning him to his old fate, and taking him from the only friend he has ever had-which is yourself. If Nature, in such a case, put into that lad's breast but one secret prompting which urged him toward his father and away from you, she would be a liar and an idiot." Nicholas was delighted to find that the old gentleman spoke so warmly, and in the hope that he might say something more to the same purpose, made no reply. 66 "The same mistake presents itself to me, in one shape or other, at every turn," said brother Charles. Parents who never showed their love complain of want of natural affection in their children; children who never showed their duty complain of want of natural feeling in their parents; lawmakers who find both so miserable that their affections have never had enough of life's sun to develop them are loud in their moralizings over parents and children too, and cry that the very ties of Nature are disregarded. Natural affections and instincts, my dear sir, are the most beautiful of the Almighty's works, but, like other beautiful works of his, they must be reared and fostered, or it is as natural that they should be wholly obscured, and that new feelings should usurp their place, as it is that the sweetest productions of the earth, left untended, should be choked with weeds and briers. I wish we could be brought to consider this, and, remembering natural obligations a little more at the right time, talk about them a little less at the wrong one." It was chiefly to break the power of ignorant and cruel parenthood over suffering childhood that Ralph Nickleby was painted with such dark and repellent characteristics, and that poor Smike's sufferings were detailed with such minuteness. The sympathy of the world was aroused against the one and in favour of the other, as a basis for the climax of thought which brother Charles expressed so truly and so forcefully. The same thought was driven home by the complaint of Squeers about one of the boys in Dotheboys Hall. "The juniorest Palmer said he wished he was in heaven. I really don't know, I do not know what's to be done with that young fellow; he's always a-wishing some thing horrid. He said once he wished he was a donkey, because then he wouldn't have a father as didn't love him! Pretty wicious that for a child of six! " It required the genius of Dickens to make such a clear picture of an unloving father. Even before Nicholas Nickleby was written Dickens had revealed his sympathetic nature. Oliver Twist's story was written to stir the hearts of his readers in favour of unfortunate children. What a contrast is made between the hardening effects of his treatment by Bumble and the "gentleman in the white waistcoat," and the humanizing influence of Rose Maylie's tear dropped on his cheek. Surely no sensitive little boy ever submitted to more unsympathetic treatment than poor Oliver. When little Oliver was taken before "the gentlemen that evening, and informed that he was to go that night as general house lad to a coffin maker's, and that if he complained of his situation, or ever came back to the parish again, he would be sent to sea, there to be drowned or knocked on the head, as the case might be, he evinced so little emotion that they by common consent pronounced him a hardened young rascal, and ordered Mr. Bumble to remove him forthwith. For some time Mr. Bumble drew Oliver along, without notice or remark; for the beadle carried his head very erect, as a beadle always should; and, it being a windy day, little Oliver was completely enshrouded by the skirts of Mr. Bumble's coat as they blew open and disclosed to great advantage his flapped waistcoat and drab plush knee breeches. As they drew near to their destination, however, Mr. Bumble thought it expedient to look down and see that the boy was in good order for inspection by his new master: which he accordingly did, with a fit and becoming air of gracious patronage. 99 "Oliver! Isaid Mr. Bumble. 66 66 sir." 'Yes, sir,” replied Oliver in a low, tremulous voice. Although Oliver did as he was desired at once, and passed the back of his unoccupied hand briskly across his eyes, he left a tear in them when he looked up at his conductor. As Mr. Bumble gazed sternly upon him, it rolled |