THE STORY OF LAURA BRIDGMAN

     If you have come from Daily Kos to read the story of Laura Bridgman, you are in luck! I have copied and pasted it below this paragraph. A couple of short notes: (1) The story comes from Chapter III of Charles Dickens' book American Notes for General Circulation. That book is mostly a travelogue of his journeys in America in 1842, the year before he wrote A Christmas Carol. (2) The story of Laura Bridgman is so powerful that Dickens simply used much of what was written by Samuel Gridley Howe. The bit that I cut out starts out in Dickens' voice, though, with Howe's showing up as quoted material. Here it is:


It is a great and pleasant feature of all such institutions in America, that they are either supported by the State or assisted by the State; or (in the event of their not needing its helping hand) that they act in concert with it, and are emphatically the people's. I cannot but think, with a view to the principle and its tendency to elevate or depress the  character of the industrious classes, that a Public Charity is immeasurably better than a Private Foundation, no matter how munificently the latter may be endowed. In our own country, where it has not, until within these later days, been a very popular fashion with governments to display any extraordinary regard for the great mass of the people or to  recognise their existence as improvable creatures, private charities, unexampled in the history of the earth, have arisen, to do an incalculable amount of good among the destitute and afflicted. But the government of the country, having neither act nor part in them, is not in the receipt of any portion of the gratitude they inspire; and, offering very little shelter or relief beyond that which is to be found in the workhouse and the jail, has come, not unnaturally, to be looked upon by the poor rather as a  stern master, quick to correct and punish, than a kind protector, merciful and vigilant in their hour of need.

...

The Perkins Institution and Massachusetts Asylum for the Blind, at Boston, is superintended by a body of trustees who make an annual report to the corporation. The indigent blind of that state are admitted gratuitously. Those from the adjoining state of Connecticut, or from the states of Maine, Vermont, or New Hampshire, are admitted by a warrant from the state to which they respectively belong; or, failing that, must find security among their friends, for the payment of about twenty pounds English for their first year's board and instruction, and ten for the second. 'After the first year,' say the trustees, 'an account current will be opened with each pupil; he will be charged with the actual cost of his board, which will not exceed two dollars per week;' a trifle more than eight shillings English; 'and he will be credited with the amount paid for him by the state, or by his friends; also with his earnings over and above the cost of the stock which he uses; so that all his earnings over one dollar per will be his own. By the third year it will be known whether his earnings will more than pay the actual cost of his board; if they should, he will have it at his option to remain and receive his earnings, or not. Those who prove unable to earn their own livelihood will not be retained; as it is not desirable to convert the establishment into an alms­house, or to retain any but working bees in the hive.  Those who by physical or mental imbecility are disqualified from work, are thereby disqualified from being members of an industrious community; and they can be better provided for in establishments fitted for the infirm.'

I went to see this place one very fine winter morning: an Italian sky above, and the air so clear and bright on every side, that even my eyes, which are none of the best, could follow the minute lines and scraps of tracery in distant buildings. Like most other public institutions in America, of the same class, it stands a mile or two without the town, in a cheerful healthy spot; and is an airy, spacious, handsome edifice. It is built upon a height, commanding the harbour. When I paused for a moment at the door, and marked how fresh and free the whole scene was what sparkling bubbles glanced upon the waves, and welled up every moment to the surface, as though the world below, like that above, were radiant with the bright day, and gushing over in its fulness of light: when I gazed from sail to sail away upon a ship at sea, a tiny speck of shining white, the only cloud upon the still, deep, distant blue and, turning, saw a blind boy with his sightless face addressed that way, as though he too had some sense within him of the glorious distance: I felt a kind of sorrow that the place should be so very light, and a strange wish that for his sake it were darker. It was but momentary, of course, and a mere fancy, but I felt it keenly for all that.

The children were at their daily tasks in different rooms, except a few who were already dismissed, and were at play. Here, as in many institutions, no uniform is worn; and I was very glad of it, for two reasons. Firstly, because I am sure that nothing but senseless custom and want of thought would reconcile us to the liveries and badges we are so fond of at home. Secondly, because the absence of these things presents each child to the visitor in his or her own proper character, with its individuality unimpaired; not lost in a dull, ugly, monotonous repetition of the same unmeaning garb: which is really an important consideration. The wisdom of encouraging a little harmless pride in personal appearance even among the blind, or the whimsical absurdity of considering charity and leather breeches inseparable companions, as we do, requires no comment.

Good order, cleanliness, and comfort, pervaded every corner of the building. The various classes, who were gathered round their teachers, answered the questions put to them with readiness and  intelligence, and in a spirit of cheerful contest for precedence which pleased me very much. Those who were at play, were gleesome and noisy as other children. More spiritual and affectionate friendships appeared to exist among them, than would be found among other young persons suffering under no deprivation; but this I expected and was prepared to find. It is a part of the great scheme of Heaven's merciful consideration for the afflicted.

In a portion of the building, set apart for that purpose, are work­shops for blind persons whose education is finished, and who have acquired a trade, but who cannot pursue it in an ordinary manufactory because of their deprivation. Several people were at work here; making brushes, mattresses, and so forth; and the cheerfulness, industry, and good order discernible in every other  part of the building, extended to this department also.

On the ringing of a bell, the pupils all repaired, without any guide or leader, to a spacious music­hall, where they took their seats in an orchestra erected for that purpose, and listened with manifest delight to a voluntary on the organ, played by one of themselves. At its conclusion, the performer, a boy of nineteen or twenty, gave place to a girl; and to her accompaniment they all sang a hymn, and afterwards a sort of chorus. It was very sad to look upon and hear them, happy though their condition unquestionably was; and I saw that one blind girl, who (being for the time deprived of the use of her limbs, by illness) sat close beside me with her face towards them, wept silently the while she  listened.

It is strange to watch the faces of the blind, and see how free they are from all concealment of what is passing in their thoughts; observing which, a man with eyes may blush to contemplate the mask he wears. Allowing for one shade of anxious expression which is never absent from their countenances, and the like of which we may readily detect in our own faces if we try to feel our way in the dark, every idea, as it rises within them, is expressed with the lightning's speed and nature's truth. If the company at a rout, or drawing­room at court, could only for one time be as unconscious of the eyes upon them as blind men and women are, what secrets would come out, and what a worker of hypocrisy this sight, the loss of which we so much pity, would appear to be!

The thought occurred to me as I sat down in another room, before a girl, blind, deaf, and dumb; destitute of smell; and nearly so of taste: before a fair young creature with every human faculty, and  hope, and power of goodness and affection, inclosed within her delicate frame, and but one outward sense,­ the sense of touch. There she was, before me; built up, as it were, in a marble cell, impervious to any ray of light, or particle of sound; with her poor white hand peeping through a chink in the wall, beckoning to some good man for help, that an Immortal soul might be awakened.

Long before I looked upon her, the help had come. Her face was radiant with intelligence and pleasure. Her hair, braided by her own hands, was bound about a head, whose intellectual capacity and development were beautifully expressed in its graceful outline, and its broad open brow; her dress, arranged by herself, was a pattern of neatness and simplicity; the work she had knitted, lay beside her; her writing­book was on the desk she leaned upon. From the mournful ruin of such bereavement, there had slowly risen up this gentle, tender, guileless, grateful­hearted being.

Like other inmates of that house, she had a green ribbon bound round her eyelids. A doll she had dressed lay near upon the ground. I took it up, and saw that she had made a green fillet such as she wore herself, and fastened it about its mimic eyes.

She was seated in a little enclosure, made by school­desks and forms, writing her daily journal. But soon finishing this pursuit, she engaged in an animated conversation with a teacher who sat beside her. This was a favourite mistress with the poor pupil. If she could see the face of her fair instructress, she would not love her less, I am sure.

I have extracted a few disjointed fragments of her history, from an account, written by that one man who has made her what she is. It is a very beautiful and touching narrative; and I wish I could present it entire.

Her name is Laura Bridgman. 'She was born in Hanover, New Hampshire, on the twenty­first of December, 1829. She is described as having been a very sprightly and pretty infant, with bright blue  eyes. She was, however, so puny and feeble until she was a year and a half old, that her parents hardly hoped to rear her. She was subject to severe fits, which seemed to rack her frame almost beyond her power of endurance: and life was held by the feeblest tenure: but when a year and a half old, she seemed to rally; the dangerous symptoms subsided; and at twenty months old, she was perfectly well.

'Then her mental powers, hitherto stinted in their growth, rapidly developed themselves; and during the four months of health which she enjoyed, she appears (making due allowance for a fond mother's account) to have displayed a considerable degree of intelligence.

'But suddenly she sickened again; her disease raged with great violence during five weeks, when her eyes and ears were inflamed, suppurated, and their contents were discharged. But though sight and hearing were gone for ever, the poor child's sufferings were not ended. The fever raged during seven weeks; for five months she was kept in bed in a darkened room; it was a year before she could walk unsupported, and two years before she could sit up all day. It was now observed that her sense of smell was almost entirely destroyed; and, consequently, that her taste was much blunted.

'It was not until four years of age that the poor child's bodily health seemed restored, and she was able to enter upon her apprenticeship of life and the world.

'But what a situation was hers! The darkness and the silence of the tomb were around her: no mother's smile called forth her answering smile, no father's voice taught her to imitate his sounds:­ they, brothers and sisters, were but forms of matter which resisted her touch, but which differed not from the furniture of the house, save in warmth, and in the power of locomotion; and not even in these respects from the dog and the cat.

'But the immortal spirit which had been implanted within her could not die, nor be maimed nor mutilated; and though most of its avenues of communication with the world were cut off, it began to  manifest itself through the others.  As soon as she could walk, she began to explore the room, and then the house; she became familiar with the form, density, weight, and heat, of every article she could lay her hands upon. She followed her mother, and felt her hands and arms, as she was occupied about the house; and her disposition to imitate, led her to repeat everything herself. She  even learned to sew a little, and to knit.'

The reader will scarcely need to be told, however, that the opportunities of communicating with her, were very, very limited; and that the moral effects of her wretched state soon began to appear. Those who cannot be enlightened by reason, can only be controlled by force; and this, coupled with her great privations, must soon have  reduced her to a worse condition than that of the beasts that perish, but for timely and unhoped­for aid.

'At this time, I was so fortunate as to hear of the child, and immediately hastened to Hanover to see her. I found her with a well­formed figure; a strongly­marked, nervous­ sanguine temperament; a large and beautifully­shaped head; and the whole system in healthy action. The parents were easily induced to consent to her coming to Boston, and on the 4th of October, 1837, they brought her to the Institution.

'For a while, she was much bewildered; and after waiting about two weeks, until she became acquainted with her new locality, and somewhat familiar with the inmates, the attempt was made to give her knowledge of arbitrary signs, by which she could interchange thoughts with others.

'There was one of two ways to be adopted: either to go on to build up a language of signs on the basis of the natural language which she had already commenced herself, or to teach her the purely arbitrary language in common use: that is, to give her a sign for every individual thing, or to give her a knowledge of letters by combination of which she might express her idea of the existence, and the mode and condition of existence, of any thing. The former would have been easy, but very ineffectual; the latter seemed very difficult, but, if accomplished, very effectual. I determined therefore to try the latter.

'The first experiments were made by taking articles in common use, such as knives, forks, spoons, keys, &c., and pasting upon them labels with their names printed in raised letters. These she felt very carefully, and soon, of course, distinguished that the crooked lines SPOON, differed as much from the crooked lines KEY, as the spoon differed from the key in form.

'Then small detached labels, with the same words printed upon them, were put into her hands; and she soon observed that they were similar to the ones pasted on the articles.' She showed her perception of this similarity by laying the label KEY upon the key, and the label SPOON upon the spoon. She was encouraged here by the natural sign of approbation, patting on the head.

'The same process was then repeated with all the articles which she could handle; and she very easily learned to place the proper labels upon them. It was evident, however, that the only intellectual exercise was that of imitation and memory. She recollected  that the label BOOK was placed upon a book, and she repeated the process first from imitation, next from memory, with only the motive of love of approbation, but apparently without the  intellectual perception of any relation between the things.

'After a while, instead of labels, the individual letters were given to her on detached bits of paper: they were arranged side by side so as to spell BOOK, KEY, &c.; then they were mixed up in a heap and a sign was made for her to arrange them herself so as to express the words BOOK, KEY, &c.; and she did so.

'Hitherto, the process had been mechanical, and the success about as great as teaching a very knowing dog a variety of tricks. The poor child had sat in mute amazement, and patiently imitated everything her teacher did; but now the truth began to flash upon her: her intellect began to work: she perceived that here was a way by which she could herself make up a sign of anything that was in her mind, and show it to another mind; and at once her countenance lighted up with a human expression:  it was no longer a dog, or parrot: it was an immortal spirit, eagerly seizing upon a new link of union  with other spirits! I could almost fix upon the moment when this truth dawned upon her mind, and spread its light to her countenance; I saw that the great obstacle was overcome; and that henceforward nothing but patient and persevering, but plain and straightforward, efforts were to be used.

'The result thus far, is quickly related, and easily conceived; but not so was the process; for many weeks of apparently unprofitable labour were passed before it was effected.

'When it was said above that a sign was made, it was intended to say, that the action was performed by her teacher, she feeling his hands, and then imitating the motion.

'The next step was to procure a set of metal types, with the different letters of the alphabet cast upon their ends; also a board, in which were square holes, into which holes she could set the types; so that the letters on their ends could alone be felt above the surface.

'Then, on any article being handed to her, for instance, a pencil, or a watch, she would select the component letters, and arrange them on her board, and read them with apparent pleasure.

'She was exercised for several weeks in this way, until her vocabulary became extensive; and then the important step was taken of teaching her how to represent the different letters by the position of her fingers, instead of the cumbrous apparatus of the board and types. She accomplished this speedily and easily, for her intellect had begun to work in aid of her teacher, and her progress was rapid.

'This was the period, about three months after she had commenced, that the first report of her case was made, in which it was stated that "she has just learned the manual alphabet, as used by the deaf mutes, and it is a subject of delight and wonder to see how rapidly, correctly, and eagerly, she goes on with her labours. Her teacher gives her a new object, for instance, a pencil, first lets her examine it, and get an idea of its use, then teaches her how to spell it by making the signs for the letters with her own fingers: the child grasps her hand, and feels her fingers, as the different letters are formed; she turns her head a little on one side like a person listening closely; her lips are apart; she seems scarcely to breathe; and her countenance, at first anxious, gradually changes to a smile, as she  comprehends the lesson. She then holds up her tiny fingers, and spells the word in the manual alphabet; next, she takes her types and arranges her letters; and last, to make sure that she is right, she takes the whole of the types composing the word, and places them upon or in contact with the pencil, or whatever the object may be."

'The whole of the succeeding year was passed in gratifying her eager inquiries for the names of every object which she could possibly handle; in exercising her in the use of the manual alphabet; in extending in every possible way her knowledge of the physical relations of things; and in proper care of her health.

'At the end of the year a report of her case was made, from which the following is an extract.

'"It has been ascertained beyond the possibility of doubt, that she cannot see a ray of light, cannot hear the least sound, and never exercises her sense of smell, if she have any. Thus her mind dwells in darkness and stillness, as profound as that of a closed tomb at midnight. Of beautiful sights, and sweet sounds, and pleasant odours, she has no conception; nevertheless, she seems as happy and playful as a bird or a lamb; and the employment of her intellectual faculties, or the acquirement of a new idea, gives her a vivid pleasure, which is plainly marked in her expressive features. She never seems to repine, but has all the buoyancy and gaiety of childhood. She is fond of fun and frolic, and when playing with the rest of the children, her shrill laugh sounds loudest of the group.

'"When left alone, she seems very happy if she have her knitting or sewing, and will busy herself for hours; if she have no occupation, she evidently amuses herself by imaginary dialogues, or by recalling past impressions; she counts with her fingers, or spells out names of things which she has recently learned, in the manual alphabet of the deaf mutes. In this lonely self­communion she seems to reason, reflect, and argue; if she spell a word wrong with the fingers of her right hand, she instantly strikes it with her left, as her teacher does, in sign of disapprobation; if right, then she pats herself upon the head, and looks pleased. She sometimes purposely spells a wrong word with the left hand, looks roguish for a moment and laughs, and then with the right hand strikes the left, as if to correct it.

'"During the year she has attained great dexterity in the use of the manual alphabet of the deaf mutes; and she spells out the words and sentences which she knows, so fast and so deftly, that only those accustomed to this language can follow with the eye the rapid motions of her fingers.

'"But wonderful as is the rapidity with which she writes her thoughts upon the air, still more so is the ease and accuracy with which she reads the words thus written by another; grasping their hands in hers, and following every movement of their fingers, as letter after letter conveys their meaning to her mind. It is in this way that she converses with her blind playmates, and nothing can more forcibly show the power of mind in forcing matter to its purpose than a meeting between them. For if great talent and skill are necessary for two pantomimes to paint their thoughts and feelings by the movements of the body, and the expression of the countenance, how much greater the difficulty when darkness shrouds them both, and the one can hear no sound.

'"When Laura is walking through a passage­way, with her hands spread before her, she knows instantly every one she meets, and passes them with a sign of recognition: but if it be a girl of her  own age, and especially if it be one of her favourites, there is instantly a bright smile of recognition, a twinning of arms, a grasping of hands, and a swift telegraphing upon the tiny fingers; whose rapid evolutions convey the thoughts and feelings from the outposts of one mind to those of the other. There are questions and answers, exchanges of joy or sorrow, there are kissings and partings, just as between little children with all their senses."

'During this year, and six months after she had left home, her mother came to visit her, and the scene of their meeting was an interesting one.

'The mother stood some time, gazing with overflowing eyes upon her unfortunate child, who, all unconscious of her presence, was playing about the room. Presently Laura ran against her, and at once began feeling her hands, examining her dress, and trying to find out if she knew her; but not succeeding in this, she turned away as from a stranger, and the poor woman could not conceal the pang she felt, at finding that her beloved child did not know her.

'She then gave Laura a string of beads which she used to wear at home, which were recognised by the child at once, who, with much joy, put them around her neck, and sought me eagerly to say she understood the string was from her home.

'The mother now sought to caress her, but poor Laura repelled her, preferring to be with her acquaintances.

'Another article from home was now given her, and she began to look much interested; she examined the stranger much closer, and gave me to understand that she knew she came from Hanover; she even endured her caresses, but would leave her with indifference at the slightest signal. The distress of the mother was now painful to behold; for, although she had feared that she should not be recognised, the painful reality of being treated with cold indifference by a darling child, was too much for woman's nature to bear.

'After a while, on the mother taking hold of her again, a vague idea seemed to flit across Laura's mind, that this could not be a stranger; she therefore felt her hands very eagerly, while her countenance assumed an expression of intense interest; she became very pale; and then suddenly red; hope seemed struggling with doubt and anxiety, and never were contending emotions more strongly painted upon the human face: at this moment of painful uncertainty, the mother drew her close to her side, and kissed her fondly, when at once the truth flashed upon the child, and all mistrust and anxiety disappeared from her face, as with an expression of exceeding joy she eagerly nestled to the bosom of her parent, and yielded herself to her fond embraces.

'After this, the beads were all unheeded; the playthings which were offered to her were utterly disregarded; her playmates, for whom but a moment before she gladly left the stranger, now vainly strove to pull her from her mother; and though she yielded her usual instantaneous obedience to my signal to follow me, it was evidently with painful reluctance. She clung close to me, as if bewildered and fearful; and when, after a moment, I took her to her mother, she sprang to her arms, and clung to her with eager joy.

'The subsequent parting between them, showed alike the affection, the intelligence, and the resolution of the child.

'Laura accompanied her mother to the door, clinging close to her all the way, until they arrived at the threshold, where she paused, and felt around, to ascertain who was near her. Perceiving the matron, of whom she is very fond, she grasped her with one hand, holding on convulsively to her mother with the other; and thus she stood for a moment: then she dropped her mother's hand; put her handkerchief to her eyes; and turning round, clung sobbing to the matron; while her mother departed, with emotions as deep as those of her child.

* * * * * *

Well may this gentleman call that a delightful moment, in which some distant promise of her present state first gleamed upon the darkened mind of Laura Bridgman. Throughout his life, the recollection of that moment will be to him a source of pure, unfading happiness; nor will it shine less brightly on the evening of his days of Noble Usefulness.

The affection which exists between these two the master and the pupil  is as far removed from all ordinary care and regard, as the circumstances in which it has had its growth, are apart from the common occurrences of life. He is occupied now, in devising means of imparting to her, higher knowledge; and of conveying to her some adequate idea of the Great Creator of that universe in which, dark and silent and scentless though it be to her, she has such deep delight and glad enjoyment. .

Ye who have eyes and see not, and have ears and hear not; ye who are as the hypocrites of sad countenances, and disfigure your faces that ye may seem unto men to fast; learn healthy cheerfulness, and mild contentment, from the deaf, and dumb, and blind! Self­ elected saints with gloomy brows, this sightless, earless, voiceless child may teach you lessons you will do well to follow. Let that poor hand of hers lie gently on your hearts; for there may be something in its healing touch akin to that of the Great Master whose precepts you misconstrue, whose lessons you pervert, of whose charity and sympathy with all the world, not one among you in his daily practice knows as much as many of the worst among those fallen sinners, to whom you are liberal in nothing but the preachment of perdition!

As I rose to quit the room, a pretty little child of one of the attendants came running in to greet its father. For the moment, a child with eyes, among the sightless crowd, impressed me almost as painfully as the blind boy in the porch had done, two hours ago. Ah! how much brighter and more deeply blue, glowing and rich though it had been before, was the scene without, contrasting with the darkness of so many youthful lives within!

Let's Read a Compound Sentence About Charles Dickens from Author John Irving

"The intention of a novel by Charles Dickens is to move you emotionally, not intellectually; and it is by emotional means that Dickens intends to influence you socially."

                                -- John Irving "The King of the Novel"

Is the Carol a Christian "Conversion" Story?

    Some scholars and other thoughtful people see a Christian "conversion" story in the Carol. Ebenezer Scrooge, they argue, is "saved" by the end of the book in the religious sense. That's not at all what I see. First of all, G-G-G-G-GHOSTS! If Dickens intended for God to take time away from his busy day to personally challenge Scrooge's worldview, the traditional way was to choose angels (or sometimes demons) or vision of some sort. Not ghosts.

     On the other hand, God has been pretty handy in the past with locusts, whales and rain. Still, except for a couple of allusions to Christianity, including the ultimate, "God bless Us, Every One!," there's a marked absence of Christian cant.    

     I believe that one of the reasons that the Carol is important in our time is because it can convert people from religion. Dickens spent a great deal of time lampooning the evangelicals of his day. He used quite a few words in his prefaces to printed volumes of his works explaining his attacks on them. That's not to say that Dickens was an atheist or an agnostic, just that he despised the extremes of religion. Charles Dickens can explain this best, himself:

"Lest there should be any well-intentioned persons who do not perceive the difference ... between religion and the cant of religion, piety and the pretence of piety, a humble reverence for the great truths of Scripture and an audacious and offensive obtrustion of its letter and not its spirit in the commonest dissensions and meanest affairs of life, to the extraordinary confusion of ignorant minds, let them understand that it is always the latter, and never the former, which is satirised here. Further, that the latter is here satirised as being, according to all experience, inconsistent with the former, impossible of union with it, for the time being, in Exeter Hall, or Ebenezer Chapel, or both. It may appear unnecessary to offer a word of observation on so plain a head. But it is never out of season to protest against the coarse familiarity with sacred things which is busy on the lip, and idle in the heart; or against the confounding of Christianity with any class of persons who, in the words of SWIFT, have just enough religion to make them hate, and not enough to make them love, one another."

Charles Dickens, THE PICKWICK PAPERS (Preface to the first Cheap Edition; 1847). Written more than 169 years ago, it could be a rebuke of Jerry Falwell, Jr. tomorrow, or any number of television evangelists and mega-church shepherds. Dickens' Carol can be read as a present-day attack on the prosperity gospel, greed and the lack of empathy among certain religious folk.

Children's Story or Camouflaged Economic Polemic?

     Adam Smith. Thomas Robert Malthus. Economists from Scotland and England, respectively, who were not respected by Charles Dickens. Ebenezer Scrooge is said to be a parody of Malthus, especially with pronouncements like this:

"If they would rather die they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population." 

     Malthus was the eternal skeptic; whereas Dickens was the immortal optimist. Malthus wrote in An Essay on the Principle of Population that future human improvement was unlikely given the growing population, and, moreover, he championed the "there will always be the poor" idea.

     If you are Charles Dickens, you would have to take both of those ideas rather badly.

     [SPOILER ALERT] It is a bit ironic that the survival of Tiny Tim seems to vindicate a small part of Malthusian theory, but the overwhelming lesson, dressed inside an innocuous little children's book, was that human lives can be changed for the better if we help each other, that enough fat turkeys exist to feed the entire population, and why not let them eat cake!  

   

Coming to America

     For those who believe that the transformation of Ebenezer Scrooge is not believable, let me tell you the story of Laura Bridgman. In 1842--the year before he wrote A Christmas Carol--Charles Dickens traveled to America. During this visit, you might say that Dickens was treated like the Beatles were treated in 1964. But you'd be wrong. The Beatles were treated the way that Dickens was treated.

     But there was one young lady who was immune to the Dickens charm.

     In Boston, Dickens visited the Perkins School for the Blind, where he met a young girl by the name of Laura Bridgman. She was 13 at the time and very animated and conversational. This was not just rare but unique, as she had been blind and deaf from the age of two. Fifty years before the world would hear of Helen Keller, Bridgman had been taught sign language and had been removed, forever, from a dark prison.

     That was an unbelievable transformation, and it had to have affected Dickens for the rest of his life. The story is told in his book American Notes, but Dickens didn't write it. He left that honor to Samuel Gridley Howe--the person who patiently taught Laura Bridgman sign language and changed her life forever.  

     Surely, Scrooge, fettered by only habit and cynicism, had less to conquer.

Still More Carol Research

     John Irving claims that the best writer to grace our planet was Charles Dickens. He's right, you know. In an interview in the Paris Review, the name Charles Dickens appeared four times. This was one of those times:

More Christmas Carol Research

     Perhaps my third favorite review of A Christmas Carol comes from valuesandcapitalism.com. I like it because it is funny. You see, the folks at valuesandcapitalism value capitalism, and they are affronted when others fail to value capitalism as they think capitalism should be valued. The existence of a book that seems to indicate that spreading wealth may not be a grave sin must be responded to. So, our friends at valuesandcapitalism want it to be known that, 

"There would not have been a story if Scrooge and Marley were not successful businessmen. If they had been unhappy poor folk, instead of unhappy rich folk, the beginning would not have been possible.

 More importantly, the conclusion would not have been possible if Ebenezer Scooge had not been a successful businessman...."  

     Do you see now why I find that quite funny? It is like claiming that the glorious moments of the Civil Rights Movement would never have occurred if it weren't for Slavery.

     This smacks of desperation, and it reminds me of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. In his book, So Long and Thanks for All the Fish, Douglas Adams created a professional lady with an interestingly niche market. It went like this:

“Do you want to have a good time?” said a voice from a doorway.

“As far as I can tell,” said Ford, “I’m having one. Thanks.”

“Are you rich?” said another.

This made Ford laugh.

He turned and opened his arms in a wide gesture. “Do I look rich?” he said.

“Don’t know,” said the girl. “Maybe, maybe not. Maybe you’ll get rich. I have a very special service for rich people…”

“Oh yes?” said Ford, intrigued but careful. “And what’s that?”

“I tell them it’s OK to be rich.”

    The folks at valuesandcapitalism, who, we have seen, so desperately need to value capitalism, continue as follows: "None of this generosity would have been possible had not Scrooge been a successful business man and had not there have been a system of wealth creation such as capitalism." So long, Capitalists, and thanks for all the alms!

CHRISTMAS CAROL

     Below you see the Maclise drawing of Dickens at the time he wrote A Christmas Carol. Forster wrote that "nothing ever done of Dickens himself has conveyed more vividly his look and bearing at this yet youthful time."  

IGNORANCE AND WANT

     In 1843, an American friend of Dickens came to vist. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow arrived in London, and, of course, Dickens had to show him the worst of the city. From the Forster biography:

"[W]e had lately taken Longfellow to see in the nightly refuges of London, 'thousands of immortal creatures condemned without alternative or choice to tread, not what our great poet calls the primrose path to the everlasting bonfire, but one of jagged flints and stones laid down by brutal ignorance."

FORSTER BIOGRAPHY at 182.

     Dickens was a champion of education for all. Ignorance, he thought, was the absolute bane of society. Ignorance also became the name of one of his most extraordinary characters in the Carol. This, then, was his inspiration for one of the greatest scenes in literature and film.

     But it wasn't one trip to the skid rows of London that he managed. On the contrary, this he saw as his constant duty. Miles and miles at a time and on foot.

(Les, this goes to the incredible characters of "Ignorance and Want" in the Carol.).

DICKENS WRITING THE CAROL

"It was the work of such odd moments of leisure as were left him out of the time taken up by two numbers of his Chuzzlewit; and though begun with but the special design of adding something to the Chuzzlewit balance, I can testify to the accuracy of his own acount of what befell him in its composition, with what a strange mastery it seized him for itself, how he wept over it, and laughed, and wept again, and excited himself to an extraordinary degree, and how he walked thinking of it fifteen and twenty miles about the black streets of London, many and many a night after all sober folks had gone to bed. And when it was done, as he told our friend Mr. Felton in America, he let himself loose like a madman."

FORSTER BIOGRAPHY at 182, 186.

UNIFIED THEORY OF CHARLES DICKENS

     In my mind, the Dickens short story called The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain is the chief manifesto of the author's beliefs. The richness of one's heart is built and maintained by the memory of the good AND the BAD times. Empathy depends upon memory. From Forster's biography about the genesis of the Carol, at page 182: " ... but for disappointments the year had also brought might never have been thought of." His great achievements were built on past disappointments.

     I thought that I was unique in this perspective, but I have since found out that author John Irving also believes that Charles Dickens preached the gospel of memory. Irving went further with the idea writing a book to explore the subject: "'In One Person' is a story about memory."

    I am not religious, though I enjoy Christmas. It allows me to give away things without looking crazy, which is a bit of sad commentary on America but nonetheless true. Whenever else can you have a "secret friend" and not be accused of untoward motives? At what other time do you hear about gold coins discovered at the bottom of a Salvation Army kettle? What is the best, and possibly only, season to touch the heart of a Scrooge?

     But Christmas wasn't always Christmas. The holiday got a major push with the publication of A Christmas Carol in 1843. About the same time, christmas cards were invented, and the royal family gathered around something called a "christmas tree." Christmas, as we know it, was a tradition built over time. Besides taking apart debtor's prisons, cruel orphanages, child labor and slavery, Charles Dickens was a builder. How many of the better parts to Christmas do we owe to what The Great Empathizer helped to construct?

     I don't know. I'm not a Dickens scholar, just a Dickens reader and lover. So, instead of pondering the imponderables and effing the ineffables, let's look at A Christmas Carol, shall we?




I.  What Was Dickens Trying to Do?

     In the first ten sentences of a very short book about Christmas, Charles Dickens used the words "undertaker," "mourners," "burial," "coffin," "deadest" and "unhallowed." But it doesn't end there. In those same ten sentences, which were short sentences for Dickens--one consisted of a single word--he also managed to squeeze in the word "dead" four times! In the eleventh sentence, there's another "dead"! Who gets away with that in a story about Christmas? It's like a children's story about ducks and ponies and vampires.

     The twelvth sentence has a "dead" in it. The paragraph it shares has a "funeral," a "sad event," a "dreadfully" and another "mourner." Why? Dickens explains in the third paragraph with yet another "dead":

"There is no doubt that Marley was dead. This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going to relate."

  Every time I think about those two sentences, I can feel the power of his words. When Charles Dickens wants you to comprehend something, Charles Dickens doesn't mumble or stutter. You don't have to decipher a subtle interplay between allusion and allegory to understand him. He is teaching us how to be moral in the same way we learn multiplication tables. You will be dead soon; you've one short chance to be a decent human being. Now repeat that to yourself again and again and again and again. If it still doesn't take, he'll send along four ghosts because nobody learns a thing from one ghost.  
II.  The Cast of Players
     One of the delicious secrets to A Christmas Carol is how Charles Dickens decided to tell it. You likely noticed it in the quotation we've already used:

"There is no doubt that Marley was dead. This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going to relate."

a.  The Narrator

     This isn't your run-of-the-mill narrator, as Dickens chose to make his story cozy and personal and tell it in the first person. He said it was a story "I am going to relate." On that same first page of The Carol, a ghost story is hinted at, and the narrator assumes the air of a storyteller in a bar, around a campfire, or, in 1843 England, presumably about the fireplace with flames dancing in the background punctuated with unanticipated pops and crackles. In telling the story of Scrooge's late partner Jacob Marley:

"Scrooge and he were partners for I don't know how many years."

  What does that tell you about your host? The average narrator is a trivia savant and would know that Scrooge and Marley had been partners, by way of illustration, for precisely thirty-six and one-third years on Tuesday of next week, but Dickens wanted you to feel comfortable around his narrator, who was a regular guy or gal with no mind for details. He wanted this to be a story you might hear around a campfire or in a pub. The technique continues into chapter two, as Dickens' narrator describes a visit from the Ghost of Christmas Past:

"The curtains of his bed were drawn aside, I tell you, by a hand. Not the curtains at his feet, nor the curtains at his back, but those to which his face was addressed. The curtains of his bed were drawn aside; and Scrooge, starting up into a half-recumbent attitude, found himself face-to-face with the unearthly visitor who drew them; as close to it as I am now to you, and I am standing in the spirit at your elbow."

  Not only do you have a friendly and down-to-earth narrator, but your friendly and down-to-earth narrator is a ghost! There's nothing for the Christmas Spirit like a Christmas spirit, said only Charles Dickens. Counting the narrator and the illustrations, that makes twelve ghosts Dickens has introduced to you in his Christmas story, and we've barely started chapter two.


b. Ebenezer Scrooge

     The Scrooge of the first number of chapters is a bit of a bastard. The character raises in my mind critics of Dickens who have alleged that his players were too fantastic. I disagree. I see Dickensian characters, both for the good and for the worse, everywhere, in cities and on farms, in schools and universities and banks, in the Army and especially around courtrooms and post offices, and although many claim the author was engaged in mortal combat with the aphorism that truth is stranger than fiction, his characters and their characteristics are, in fact, universal.

     Take the Scrooge of the first two chapters and compare him to Mitt Romney. Both of them hate large swaths of the population; both squirrelled away large sums of money; Scrooge threatened the employment of one individual, whereas The Great Offshorer remuneratively relieved thousands from the burden of employment. They both whined about the Awful and Bloody War on Rich People:

"'This is the evenhanded dealing of the world?' he said. 'There is nothing on which it is so hard as poverty; and there is nothing it professes to condemn with such severity as the pursuit of wealth!'" -- Charles Dickens, Chapter 2, A CHRISTMAS CAROL (1843).

"[T]hey believe that they are victims ... who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it." -- Mitt Romney

    There are plenty of Ebenezer Scrooges in the world. The Dickens character--unlike many of the others--was simply more honest in his vices and resentments. One of the reasons The Carol became so popular is because these traits were and are universal.

c.  Tiny Tim

     As crippled as Scrooge was of spirit, Tim Cratchit dealt with the physical equivalent. He was the obvious mirror image of Ebenezer Scrooge, having so little to give, yet giving so much. After the rest of his family had provided thanks for their paltry Christmas feast, including nothing but praise for such "a small pudding for a large family," Tiny Tim uttered the immortal, "God bless us every one!"
     The Ghost of Christmas Present let Scrooge witness the happy Cratchit family, and just before leaving, in response to a question from Scrooge about Tiny Tim's future, said,

"'I see a vacant seat,' replied the Ghost, 'in the poor chimney corner, and a crutch without an owner, carefully preserved. If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future the child will die.'"

d.  Food and Drink

     Dickens made food and drink a player in his macabre Carol, and they danced and sang their parts like no time before or since--enough to make a Food Network producer blush. It is the season to feast and be merry, and Charles Dickens took full advantage, likely causing audiences throughout the British Empire and the New World to re-read, with appetite, descriptives like this over and over again:

"It was [Scrooge's] own room. There was no doubt about that. But it had undergone a surprising transformation.... Heaped up on the floor, to form a kind of throne, were turkeys, geese, game, poultry, brawn, great joints of meat, suckling pigs, long wreaths of sausages, mince pies, plum puddings, barrels of oysters, red-hot chestnuts, cherry-cheeked apples, juicy oranges, luscious pears, immense Twelfth cakes, and seething bowls of punch, that made the chamber dim with their delicious steam."

    Just a couple of pages later, the ghost took Scrooge to witness this:

"There were great, round, potbellied baskets of chestnuts, shaped like the waistcoats of jolly old gentlemen, lolling at the doors, and tumbling out into the street in their apoplectic opulence. There were ruddy, brown-faced, broad-girthed Spanish onions, shining in the fatness of their growth like Spanish Friars, and winking from their shelves in wanton slyness at the girls as they went by, and glanced demurely at the hung-up mistletoe. There were pears and apples, clustered high in blooming pyramids; there were bunches of grapes, made, in the shopkeepers' benevolence, to dangle from conspicuous hooks that people's mouths might water gratis as they passed...."

    Remember that there were no Costcos, Krogers, Piggly Wigglys, Food Lions, A&Ps, or non-union (and certainly no union) WalMarts in 1843 England, and unless you lived in a major city like London, this kind of cornucopia of delights was rare if not unknown. For the Victorian Age, what Dickens described was like making love on a bed of hundred-dollar bills. Of course, the crowning glory was the turkey so big that it equaled in size the boy Scrooge dispatched to buy it for the Cratchits. This king of all poultry was so large it needed to be moved about by horse and cab. But just as Dickens used the infirmity of Tiny Tim to balance out the crippled Scrooge, he needed something to balance out the effects of festive food and drink. Those players were Ignorance and Want.  

e.  Ignorance and Want

     Two of the most memorable players in this fantasy were children who appeared from the folds of the robe of the Ghost of Christmas Present to terrify Ebenezer Scrooge. Dickens described them as follows:

"They were a boy and girl. Yellow, meagre, ragged, scowling, wolfish; but prostrate, too, in their humility. Where graceful youth should have filled their features out, and touched them with its freshest tints, a stale and shrivelled hand, like that of age, had pinched, and twisted them, and pulled them into shreds. Where angels might have sat enthroned, devils lurked, and glared out menacing. No change, no degradation, no perversion of humanity, in any grade, through all the mysteries of wonderful creation, has monsters half so horrible and dread. ... 'Spirit! are they yours?' Scrooge could say no more. 'They are Man's,' said the Spirit, looking down upon them. 'And they cling to me, appealing from their fathers. This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware of them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased.'"

f.  The Rest of the Cast &tc.

     I am not going to describe the rest of the cast, the plot, the mood, or anything else, with a couple of modest exceptions. [SPOILER ALERT] I have always been too young or too old to countenance an unhappy ending. In that respect, A Christmas Carol will never disappoint. Not only did Tiny Tim not die, but Dickens wrote:

"Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and infinitely more; and to Tiny Tim, who did NOT die, he was a second father."

    It is impossible not to laugh at the thought of literary critics experiencing a throbbing embolism of rage and impotence at the pure and simple joy in those words, especially the use of capital letters! Tiny Tim is ALIVE!  

     My other exception is to mention Scrooge's little sister, Fan. Early in the narrative, our main protagonist is led by the Ghost of Christmas Past to a time when he was a student, when young Scrooge was still a "dear Brother," and when he enjoyed a tiny but lovely sibling. Scrooge wasn't always abusive, he had to strain to reach that mark. Like Ignorance and Want, but only in reverse, he gradually became fearsome and yet so pitiful. But during this earlier time of his life, Ebenezer Scrooge loved his sister and recognized her worth. He was good enough, especially for his age, to realize that little sisters are one of Earth's great blessings.




III.  Conclusion

     My gift to you in this season of Christmas, Hannukah and Kwanzaa is a whetting of the appetite for not just the traditional movie, in full here, which is great and classic cinema, but to tantalize you with the prospect of a ghost narrator telling you the story the way Dickens intended it be told. You can find it here on the internet for free. So, with that, let me finish by saying, "BEST OF THE SEASON TO YOU MY DEAR FRIENDS!"

Fri Dec 19, 2014 at 6:06 PM PT: I gave short-shrift to the ghosts in the Carol. After going back and re-reading parts of the book, I have to add something about them. There is a passage involving Jacob Marley's ghost that is perfect comedy. Scrooge has just met Marley's ghost, and it is his first experience with a full-fledged spirt, so he of course asked it to have a seat. After the ghost complies, there's this exchange:

"You don't believe in me," observed the Ghost.
"I don't," said Scrooge.