mistake in the very title of the
book because I, for one, am not pleased to see Dickens gradually
absorbed by modern culture and good manners. Dickens, by class and
genius, belonged to the kind of people who do talk about a "mutual
friend"; and for that class there is a very great deal to be said. These
two things can at least be said--that this class does understand the
meaning of the word "friend" and the meaning of the word "mutual." I
know that for some long time before he had been slowly and subtly sucked
into the whirlpool of the fashionable views of later England. I know
that in _Bleak House_ he treats the aristocracy far more tenderly than
he treats them in _David Copperfield_. I know that in _A Tale of Two
Cities_, having come under the influence of Carlyle, he treats
revolution as strange and weird, whereas under the influence of Cobbett
he would have treated it as obvious and reasonable. I know that in _The
Mystery of Edwin Drood_ he not only praised the Minor Canon of
Cloisterham at the expense of the dissenting demagogue, Honeythunder; I
know that he even took the last and most disastrous step in the modern
English reaction. While blaming the old Cloisterham monks (who were
democratic), he praised the old-world peace that they had left behind
them--an old-world peace which is simply one of the last amusements of
aristocracy. The modern rich feel quite at home with the dead monks.
They would have felt anything but comfortable with the live ones. I
know, in short, how the simple democracy of Dickens was gradually dimmed
by the decay and reaction of the middle of the nineteenth century. I
know that he fell into some of the bad habits of aristocratic
sentimentalism. I know that he used the word "gentleman" as meaning good
man. But all this only adds to the unholy joy with which I realise that
the very title of one of his best books was a vulgarism. It is pleasant
to contemplate this last unconscious knock in the eye for the gentility
with which Dickens was half impressed. Dickens is the old self-made man;
you may take him or leave him. He has its disadvantages and its merits.
No university man would have written the title; no university man could
have written the book.

If it were a mere matter of the accident of a name it would not be worth
while thus to dwell on it, even as a preface. But the title is in this
respect typical of the tale. The novel called _Our Mutual Friend_ is in
many ways a real reaction to