DICKENS AND THACKERAY

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 864, 9 July 1910, Page 11

DICKENS AND THACKERAY

In his prefaco to the Volume pf Selections from Thackeray in tlic "Masters of Literaturfc" series- Mr. ' ; G. K. Chesterton discusses the difference between Thackeray and Dickens.-• He findt that the latter may be distinguished by his conciseness, the former by his diifuseness. Dickons, "by. a. sort of extravagant lucidity, by a grotesque symbolism" almost like that of heraldry," stamps and. brands on the' brain in a few words all that it is essential to say about anybody. ■ _ But Thackeray, works entirely by difiuscness, "by a thousand touches scattered. through a thousand pages." This method, Mr. Chesterton suggests, is admirably suited to Thackeray's particular purpose, that of. "hall'-ircnically worming himself into the centre of a subject, politely insinuating himself into the secrets of everybody before he begins to treat them satirically." The point is illustrated further: "Brevity, may be the soul of wit, but it would be quite as true to say in such cases that lengthiiicss is tlio soul of satire. To batter the worldly castle with the artillery of open derision, as Dickens did, is a much swifter task than to blow it no from within with one 1 carefully constructed bomb of irony. 'Jin's was indeed one of the essentials of Thackeray's power and position; ho

was. attacking 'Vanity Fair' from tho inside, and must have bean at least sufficiently polite to got insido it. Some might even liavo said that ho was betraying his class; there is no doubt at .least that 110 was betraying himself. That noblo title, 'Tho .Book of Snobs,' wquld not liavo been so effective if he had not been able to add 'By Ono of Themselves.' By t'lio very nature of. his satire it had to bo a slow satiro. Ho could exhibit n' stir of an l ger at tho luxury 'of tho rich. But ho could not pretend to exhibit a start of surprise at it as Dickens could. Ho could not.speak of ladies and gentlemen as monsters whom 110 had just met 011 his travels;', that was the great specialty of Dickens.' He has awakened to tho evil of his world; but it is essential'to his method that 110 should have awakened slowly; therefore it is natural that the method of satiric revelation should bo also slow. Even tho bodily description of his charactcrs is scattered and disseminated. The Dickons method is to say: 'Lord Jones, a tall man with a book nose and a white pointed beard, entered the . room.' Thackeray's method is to say, in Chapter I: 'Lord Jones, being very tall, had just knocked his head against tho chandelier, and was in 110 very agreeable temper'; in .Chapter VII: 'What jokes Jemima made about Sir Henry's bald head, Lord Jones's hooked nose, and so on'; and in Chapter XXIII: 'Little Mr. Frizzle, tho hairdresser, had pursued Jones for years, advising his lordship to blacken artificially the whito pointed beard that lie wore.'"