WHAT WOULD DICKENS DO?

With research by Stephen Brownlee.

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Title Page

Introduction

Friendship

Love and Marriage

Family

Children

Work

Home and Travel

Practical Advice for Social Situations

Pastimes and Celebrations

Fashion and Beauty

Food and Drink

Money

The Darker Side of Man

Health and Infirmity

The Written Word

Philosophical Thoughts

Honesty - and Dishonesty

How to Live Well

INTRODUCTION

When life gets difficult and we find ourselves in need of guidance, it’s often hard to know who to turn to. When friends can’t provide the answers to our dilemmas, sometimes we find ourselves turning to the great inspirational thinkers from past eras.

Charles Dickens is one such person. Considered by many to be the greatest author of the Victorian period, he rose from humble beginnings and poverty to a position of great influence and respect. His work represented and cultivated the conscience of Victorian England, dealing with social issues big and small with a rigour and humour that still resonates today in the twenty-first century.

Reflecting the experiences of his life, Dickens’ writing encompasses many themes and settings, from child poverty to the convoluted British legal system to the conflicts of family life. From his debut novel, The Pickwick Papers, up to the unfinished and posthumously published The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Charles Dickens’ work offers an unmatched combination of humour, intrigue and pathos, and insight into the human condition.

With this in mind, what better author could there be to guide us through the trials and tribulations of everyday (and not-so-everyday) life? Who else is there who can teach us the benefits of being a madman, how to gain a free meal with rhetoric and why one should never visit the county town of Essex?

That was a memorable day to me, for it made great changes in me. But, it is the same with any life. Imagine one selected day struck out of it, and think how different its course would have been. Pause you who read this, and think for the moment of the long chain of iron or gold, of thorns or flowers, that would never have bound you, but for the formation of the first link on one memorable day.

GREAT EXPECTATIONS

Every day is precious and every decision possibly life-changing. So why not take a moment and ask yourself: What Would Dickens Do?

‘Mr Quilp may be a very nice man,’ said this lady, ‘and I supposed there’s no doubt he is, because Mrs Quilp says he is, and Mrs Jiniwin says he is, and they ought to know, or nobody does. But still he is not quite a – what one calls a handsome man, nor quite a young man neither, which might be a little excuse for him if anything could be; whereas his wife is young, and is good-looking, and is a woman – which is the greatest thing after all.’

‘He is the greatest tyrant that ever lived, she daren’t call her soul her own, he makes her tremble with a word and even with a look, he frightens her to death, and she hasn’t the spirit to give him a word back, no, not a single word.’

‘MI DEER JO i OPE U R KR WITE WELL i OPE i SHAL SON B HABELL 4 2 TEEDGE U JO AN THEN WE SHORL B SO GLODD AN WEN i M PRENGTD 2 U JO WOT LARX AN BLEVE ME INF XN PIP.’

I grieve to hear that you have been ill, but I hope that the spring, when it comes, will find you blooming with the rest of the flowers.

‘Fan the sinking flame of hilarity with the wing of friendship; and pass the rosy wine.’

‘Esther, it’s enough to make anybody but me jealous,’ said Caddy, laughing and shaking her head; ‘but it only makes me joyful, for you are the first friend I ever had, and the best friend I ever can have, and nobody can respect and love you too much to please me.’

‘I never had one hour’s happiness in her society, and yet my mind all round the four-and-twenty hours was harping on the happiness of having her with me unto death.’

There is no school in which a pupil gets on so fast, as that in which Kit became a scholar when he gave Barbara the kiss. He saw what Barbara meant now – he had his lesson by heart all at once – she was the book – there it was before him, as plain as print.

‘If the law supposes that,’ said Mr Bumble, squeezing his hat emphatically in both hands, ‘the law is a ass – a idiot. If that’s the eye of the law, the law is a bachelor; and the worst I wish the law is, that his eye may be opened by experience – by experience.’

All the housemaid hopes is, happiness for ‘em – marriage is a lottery, and the more she thinks about it, the more she feels the independence and the safety of a single life.

‘The lady is a going to give her ‘and where she has already given her ‘art, next Monday.’

‘Mr Wegg,’ said Venus, ‘as I did name to you, I think, on a former occasion, if not on former occasions… what the nature of the lady’s objection was, I may impart, without violating any of the tender confidences since sprung up between the lady and myself, how it has been met, through the kind interference of two good friends of mine: one, previously acquainted with the lady: and one, not. The pint was thrown out, sir, by those two friends when they did me the great service of waiting on the lady to try if a union betwixt the lady and me could not be brought to bear… whether if, after marriage, I confined myself to the articulation of men, children, and the lower animals, it might not relieve the lady’s mind of her feeling respecting being as a lady – regarded in a bony light. It was a happy thought, sir, and it took root.’

‘Hear me, Pip! I adopted her, to be loved. I bred her and educated her, to be loved. I developed her into what she is, that she might be loved. Love her!’

She said the word often enough, and there could be no doubt that she meant to say it; but if the often repeated word had been hate instead of love – despair – revenge – dire death – it could not have sounded from her lips more like a curse.

The child looked frightened, but seemed not to understand him, which Mr Quilp observing, hastened to make his meaning more distinctly.

‘To be Mrs Quilp the second, when Mrs Quilp the first is dead, sweet Nell,’ said Quilp, wrinkling up his eyes and luring her towards him with his bent forefinger, ‘to be my wife, my little cherry-cheeked, red-lipped wife. Say that Mrs Quilp lives five year, or only four, you’ll be just the proper age for me. Ha ha! Be a good girl, Nelly, a very good girl, and see if one of these days you don’t come to be Mrs Quilp of Tower Hill.’

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION