whole, that the
chapters relating to Paul, which are only an episode, should be of
such absorbing interest, and come so early. Dickens really wrote them
too well. They dwarf the rest of the story. We find a difficulty in
resuming the thread of it with the same zest when the child is gone.
But though the remainder of the book inevitably suffers in this way,
it ought not to suffer unduly. Even apart from little Paul the novel
is a fine one. Pride is its subject, as selfishness is that of "Martin
Chuzzlewit." Mr. Dombey, the city merchant, has as much of the
arrogance of caste and position as any blue-blooded hidalgo. He is as
proud of his name as if he had inherited it from a race of princes.
That he neglects and slights his daughter, and loves his son, is
mainly because the latter will add a sort of completeness to the
firm, and make it truly Dombey _and Son_, while the girl, for all
commercial purposes, can be nothing but a cipher. And through his
pride he is struck to the heart, and ruined. Mr. Carker, his
confidential agent and manager, trades upon it for all vile ends,
first to feather his own nest, and then to launch his patron into
large and unsound business ventures. The second wife, whom he marries,
certainly with no affection on either side, but purely because of her
birth and connections, and because her great beauty will add to his
social prestige--she, with ungovernable pride equal to his own,
revolts against his authority, and, in order to humiliate him the
more, pretends to elope with Carker, whom in turn she scorns and
crushes. Broken thus in fortune and honour, Mr. Dombey yet falls not
ignobly. His creditors he satisfies in full, reserving to himself
nothing; and with a softened heart turns to the daughter he had
slighted, and in her love finds comfort. Such is the main purport of
the story, and round it, in graceful arabesques, are embroidered,
after Dickens' manner, a whole world of subsidiary incidents thronged
with all sorts of characters. What might not one say about Dr.
Blimber's genteel academy at Brighton; and the Toodles family, so
humble in station and intellect and so large of heart; and the
contrast between Carker the manager and his brother, who for some
early dishonest act, long since repented of, remains always Carker the
junior; and about Captain Cuttle, and that poor, muddled nautical
philosopher, Captain Bunsby, and the Game Chicken, and Mrs. Pipchin,
and Miss Tox; and Cousin Feenix wit