Martin Chuzzlewit Read online

  Produced by Donald Lainson

  LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT

  by Charles Dickens

  PREFACE

  What is exaggeration to one class of minds and perceptions, is plaintruth to another. That which is commonly called a long-sight, perceivesin a prospect innumerable features and bearings non-existent toa short-sighted person. I sometimes ask myself whether there mayoccasionally be a difference of this kind between some writers and somereaders; whether it is ALWAYS the writer who colours highly, or whetherit is now and then the reader whose eye for colour is a little dull?

  On this head of exaggeration I have a positive experience, more curiousthan the speculation I have just set down. It is this: I have nevertouched a character precisely from the life, but some counterpart ofthat character has incredulously asked me: "Now really, did I everreally, see one like it?"

  All the Pecksniff family upon earth are quite agreed, I believe, thatMr Pecksniff is an exaggeration, and that no such character everexisted. I will not offer any plea on his behalf to so powerful andgenteel a body, but will make a remark on the character of JonasChuzzlewit.

  I conceive that the sordid coarseness and brutality of Jonas would beunnatural, if there had been nothing in his early education, and in theprecept and example always before him, to engender and develop the vicesthat make him odious. But, so born and so bred, admired for that whichmade him hateful, and justified from his cradle in cunning, treachery,and avarice; I claim him as the legitimate issue of the father upon whomthose vices are seen to recoil. And I submit that their recoil upon thatold man, in his unhonoured age, is not a mere piece of poetical justice,but is the extreme exposition of a direct truth.

  I make this comment, and solicit the reader's attention to it in his orher consideration of this tale, because nothing is more common in reallife than a want of profitable reflection on the causes of many vicesand crimes that awaken the general horror. What is substantially true offamilies in this respect, is true of a whole commonwealth. As we sow,we reap. Let the reader go into the children's side of any prison inEngland, or, I grieve to add, of many workhouses, and judge whetherthose are monsters who disgrace our streets, people our hulks andpenitentiaries, and overcrowd our penal colonies, or are creatures whomwe have deliberately suffered to be bred for misery and ruin.

  The American portion of this story is in no other respect a caricaturethan as it is an exhibition, for the most part (Mr Bevan expected), ofa ludicrous side, ONLY, of the American character--of that side whichwas, four-and-twenty years ago, from its nature, the most obtrusive, andthe most likely to be seen by such travellers as Young Martin and MarkTapley. As I had never, in writing fiction, had any disposition tosoften what is ridiculous or wrong at home, so I then hoped that thegood-humored people of the United States would not be generally disposedto quarrel with me for carrying the same usage abroad. I am happy tobelieve that my confidence in that great nation was not misplaced.

  When this book was first published, I was given to understand, by someauthorities, that the Watertoast Association and eloquence were beyondall bounds of belief. Therefore I record the fact that all that portionof Martin Chuzzlewit's experiences is a literal paraphrase of somereports of public proceedings in the United States (especially of theproceedings of a certain Brandywine Association), which were printed inthe Times Newspaper in June and July, 1843--at about the time when I wasengaged in writing those parts of the book; and which remain on the fileof the Times Newspaper, of course.

  In all my writings, I hope I have taken every available opportunity ofshowing the want of sanitary improvements in the neglected dwellingsof the poor. Mrs Sarah Gamp was, four-and-twenty years ago, a fairrepresentation of the hired attendant on the poor in sickness. Thehospitals of London were, in many respects, noble Institutions; inothers, very defective. I think it not the least among the instancesof their mismanagement, that Mrs Betsey Prig was a fair specimen ofa Hospital Nurse; and that the Hospitals, with their means and funds,should have left it to private humanity and enterprise, to enter onan attempt to improve that class of persons--since, greatly improvedthrough the agency of good women.