Part 30 (1/2)
The Jellyby children had a slight chance to turn out moderately well, but the Pardiggle children were certain to be morose, hypocritical, and vicious. They were certain to hate all forms of Christian philanthropy.
Mrs. Pardiggle's intentions were undoubtedly good, but she destroyed the character of her children, nevertheless.
”These, young ladies,” said Mrs. Pardiggle with great volubility, after the first salutations, ”are my five boys. You may have seen their names in a printed subscription list (perhaps more than one) in the possession of our esteemed friend Mr. Jarndyce. Egbert, my eldest (twelve), is the boy who sent out his pocket money, to the amount of five and threepence to the Tockahoopo Indians. Oswald, my second (ten and a half), is the child who contributed two and ninepence to the Great National Smithers Testimonial. Francis, my third (nine), one and sixpence halfpenny; Felix, my fourth (seven), eightpence to the Superannuated Widows; Alfred, my youngest (five), has voluntarily enrolled himself in the Infant Bonds of Joy, and is pledged never through life to use tobacco in any form.”
We had never seen such dissatisfied children. It was not merely that they were weazened and shrivelled--though they were certainly that too--but they looked absolutely ferocious with discontent. At the mention of the Tockahoopo Indians I could really have supposed Egbert to be one of the most baleful members of that tribe, he gave me such a savage frown. The face of each child as the amount of his contribution was mentioned darkened in a peculiarly vindictive manner, but his was by far the worst. I must except, however, the little recruit into the Infant Bonds of Joy, who was stolidly and evenly miserable.
”You have been visiting, I understand,” said Mrs. Pardiggle, ”at Mrs.
Jellyby's?”
We said yes, we had pa.s.sed one night there.
”Mrs. Jellyby is a benefactor to society, and deserves a helping hand.
My boys have contributed to the African project--Egbert, one and six, being the entire allowance of nine weeks; Oswald, one and a penny halfpenny, being the same; the rest, according to their little means.
Nevertheless, I do not go with Mrs. Jellyby in all things. I do not go with Mrs. Jellyby in her treatment of her young family. It has been noticed. It has been observed that her young family are excluded from partic.i.p.ation in the objects to which she is devoted. She may be right, she may be wrong; but, right or wrong, this is not my course with _my_ young family. I take them everywhere.”
I was afterward convinced (and so was Ada) that from the ill-conditioned eldest child these words extorted a sharp yell. He turned it off into a yawn, but it began as a yell.
”They attend matins with me (very prettily done) at half past six o'clock in the morning all the year round, including, of course, the depth of winter,” said Mrs. Pardiggle rapidly, ”and they are with me during the revolving duties of the day. I am a school lady, I am a visiting lady, I am a reading lady, I am a distributing lady; I am on the local linen box committee, and many general committees; and my canva.s.sing alone is very extensive--perhaps no one's more so. But they are my companions everywhere; and by these means they acquire that knowledge of the poor, and that capacity of doing charitable business in general--in short, that taste for the sort of thing--which will render them in after life a service to their neighbours, and a satisfaction to themselves. My young family are not frivolous; they expend the entire amount of their allowance in subscriptions, under my direction; and they have attended as many public meetings, and listened to as many lectures, orations, and discussions as generally fall to the lot of few grown people. Alfred (five), who, as I mentioned, has of his own election joined the Infant Bonds of Joy, was one of the very few children who manifested consciousness on one occasion, after a fervid address of two hours from the chairman of the evening.”
Alfred glowered at us as if he never could, or would, forgive the injury of that night.
”You may have observed, Miss Summerson,” said Mrs. Pardiggle, ”in some of the lists to which I have referred, in the possession of our esteemed friend Mr. Jarndyce, that the names of my young family are concluded with the name of O. A. Pardiggle, F. R. S., one pound. That is their father. We usually observe the same routine. I put down my mite first; then my young family enrol their contributions, according to their ages and their little means; and then Mr. Pardiggle brings up the rear. Mr. Pardiggle is happy to throw in his limited donation, under my direction; and thus things are made, not only pleasant to ourselves, but, we trust, improving to others.”
Mrs. Pardiggle invited Esther and Ada to go out with her to visit a ”wicked brickmaker” in the neighbourhood. Ada walked ahead with Mrs.
Pardiggle and Esther followed with the five children. She had an interesting experience.
I am very fond of being confided in by children, and am happy in being usually favoured in that respect, but on this occasion it gave me great uneasiness. As soon as we were out of doors, Egbert, with the manner of a little footpad, demanded a s.h.i.+lling of me, on the ground that his pocket money was ”boned” from him. On my pointing out the great impropriety of the word, especially in connection with his parent (for he added sulkily ”By her!”), he pinched me and said, ”Oh, then! Now! Who are you? _You_ wouldn't like it, I think! What does she make a sham for, and pretend to give me money, and take it away again?
Why do you call it _my_ allowance, and never let me spend it?” These exasperating questions so inflamed his mind, and the minds of Oswald and Francis, that they all pinched me at once, and in a dreadfully expert way; s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up such little pieces of my arms that I could hardly forbear crying out. Felix at the same time stamped upon my toes. And the Bond of Joy, who, on account of always having the whole of his little income antic.i.p.ated, stood, in fact, pledged to abstain from cakes as well as tobacco, so swelled with grief and rage when we pa.s.sed a pastry-cook shop, that he terrified me by becoming purple. I never underwent so much, both in body and mind, in the course of a walk with young people, as from these unnaturally constrained children, when they paid me the compliment of being natural.
In the brickmaker's hovel they heard something of how the very poor brought up children, or failed to bring them up, in d.i.c.kens's time. The brickmaker was lying at full length on the floor, smoking his pipe. He gave them no welcome.
I wants a end of these liberties took with my place. I wants a end of being drawed like a badger. Now you are a-going to poll-pry and question according to custom--I know what you're a-going to be up to.
Well! You haven't got no occasion to be up to it. I'll save you the trouble. Is my daughter a-was.h.i.+n'? Yes, she is a-was.h.i.+n'. Look at the water. Smell it! That's wot we drinks. How do you like it, and what do you think of gin, instead? An't my place dirty? Yes, it is dirty--it's nat'rally dirty, and it's nat'rally onwholesome; and we've had five dirty and onwholesome children, as is all dead infants, and so much the better for them, and for us besides.
The utter carelessness of some ”society gentlemen” in regard to the education of their children is referred to in the description Caddy Jellyby gave of her lover, the son of the great Turveydrop.
Caddy told me that her lover's education had been so neglected that it was not always easy to read his notes. She said if he were not so anxious about his spelling, and took less pains to make it clear, he would do better; but he put so many unnecessary letters into short words that they sometimes quite lost their English appearance. ”He does it with the best intention,” observed Caddy, ”but it hasn't the effect he means, poor fellow!” Caddy then went on to reason how could he be expected to be a scholar when he had pa.s.sed his whole life in the dancing school, and had done nothing but teach and f.a.g, f.a.g and teach, morning, noon, and night! And what did it matter? She could write letters enough for both, as she knew to her cost, and it was far better for him to be amiable than learned. ”Besides, it's not as if I was an accomplished girl, who had any right to give herself airs,”
said Caddy. ”I know little enough, I am sure, thanks to ma!”
The products of the fas.h.i.+onable education of d.i.c.kens's time (there is not so much of it now, thanks largely to d.i.c.kens) were shown in the cousins of Sir Leicester Dedlock.
The rest of the cousins are ladies and gentlemen of various ages and capacities; the major part, amiable and sensible, and likely to have done well enough in life if they could have overcome their cousins.h.i.+p; as it is, they are almost all a little worsted by it, and lounge in purposeless and listless paths, and seem to be quite as much at a loss how to dispose of themselves as anybody else can be how to dispose of them.
In Little Dorrit Mrs. General is used as a type of two varieties of false training. Her pupils were never to be allowed to know that there was anything vulgar or wrong in the world. She believed the good old theory, that adulthood had two duties in developing purity of character, one to prevent children knowing that there was any evil, the other to chain them back or beat them back from evil, if they accidentally found it and wished to investigate it. She never thought of training a child to do its part in reducing the evil around him. Seclusion and exclusion took the place of community in her perverted philosophy.
She believed, too, in educating the surface. She did not work from within intellectually or spiritually. She varnished the surface that it might receive the proper society polish, therefore neither heart nor head required much attention. According to her theory, young ladies should never be so unladylike as to have great purposes or great ideas.
Unfortunately some of her descendants are still living.