120
F. W.
DUPEE
-Wilkie Collins, his occasional companion in Paris and Italy.
Friendship seems Dickens's natural medium as a man. It remains
generally unthreatened by the fierce demands he often makes upon
his domestic intimates. He is obviously not a virtuoso of love but he
is a virtuoso of friendship, practicing his art on all comers and thus
transfiguring-as far as he can-the dreary realities of strife and
boredom. But
it
is no impossible idyll of friendship that the letters
record. Amiability can tum to bitterness and even something like
physical revulsion. There is news of quarrels, and Dickens occasion–
ally criticizes the people who are closest to
him,
complaining of
Forster's loudness of speech and mildly caricaturing Collins's preten–
tious chatter about the arts. But there
is
a taboo on criticism for its
own sake, and malice is definitely banned. Good will prevails, and
not only for reasons of conscience. The friends addressed
in
Dickens's letters have a way of being more than friends in the ab–
stract. He likes to put them to work, to associate them with
him
in
various enterprises which redound to their common good and
pleasure. John Forster is not only his intimate friend but his literary
counselor and, on occasion, his collaborator in the financing and
editing of periodicals. Forster is a special case of a general rule.
Dickens involves others in his elaborate theatricals, interests them
in
his philanthropies, makes them contributors to his periodicals, en–
gages them in strenuous well-planned excursions. A visit to the
Honorable Richard Watson of Rickingha:m Castle is apt to center
on the production of a play with almost everyone present taking a
part. Friendship may sometimes be tried by these exertions but it
is kept from languishing. This Victorian Falstaff embroils everyone
in his intricate frolics and as a result they show unsuspected talent,
earning large sums for charity and making the Queen laugh-she
will not be excluded from the revels.
In most cases, it is true, his close friends are the kind of people
who can profit from such exercises. Dickens's immediate circle con–
sists of journalists like Douglas Jerrold, Mark Lemon and W. H.
Wills, men of the theater like W. C. Macready, popular artists and
illustrators like Daniel Maclise and Clarkson Stanfield, fellow
novelists of wide appeal like Collins and Bulwer-Lytton. With
all
their differences and their often prominent egos, they have by trade
