tly suggested by the personality
of that prisoner. Mr. Micawber is one picture of him. Mr. Dorrit is
another. This truth is almost incredible, but it is the truth. The
joyful Micawber, whose very despair was exultant, and the desolate
Dorrit, whose very pride was pitiful, were the same man. The valiant
Micawber and the nervous, shaking Dorrit were the same man. The defiant
Micawber and the snobbish, essentially obsequious Dorrit were the same
man. I do not mean of course that either of the pictures was an exact
copy of anybody. The whole Dickens genius consisted of taking hints and
turning them into human beings. As he took twenty real persons and
turned them into one fictitious person, so he took one real person and
turned him into twenty fictitious persons. This quality would suggest
one character, that quality would suggest another. But in this case, at
any rate, he did take one real person and turn him into two. And what is
more, he turned him into two persons who seem to be quite opposite
persons. To ordinary readers of Dickens, to say that Micawber and Dorrit
had in any sense the same original, will appear unexpected and wild. No
conceivable connection between the two would ever have occurred to
anybody who had read Dickens with simple and superficial enjoyment, as
all good literature ought to be read. It will seem to them just as
silly as saying that the Fat Boy and Mr. Alfred Jingle were both copied
from the same character. It will seem as insane as saying that the
character of Smike and the character of Major Bagstock were both copied
from Dickens's father. Yet it is an unquestionable historical fact that
Micawber and Dorrit were both copied from Dickens's father, in the only
sense that any figures in good literature are ever copied from anything
or anybody. Dickens did get the main idea of Micawber from his father;
and that idea is that a poor man is not conquered by the world. And
Dickens did get the main idea of Dorrit from his father; and that idea
is that a poor man may be conquered by the world. I shall take the
opportunity of discussing, in a moment, which of these ideas is true.
Doubtless old John Dickens included both the gay and the sad moral; most
men do. My only purpose here is to point out that Dickens drew the gay
moral in 1849, and the sad moral in 1857.

There must have been some real sadness at this time creeping like a
cloud over Dickens himself. It is nothing that a man dwells on the
darkness