Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens (suggested reading .TXT) ๐
Description
Little Dorrit, like many of Charles Dickensโ novels, was originally published in serial form over a period of about 18 months, before appearing in book form in 1857.
The novel focuses on the experiences of its protagonist Arthur Clenham, who has spent some twenty years in China helping his father run the family business there. After his father dies, Arthur returns home to London. His mother gives him little in the way of welcome. She is a cold, bitter woman who has brought Arthur up under a strict religious regime concentrating on the punitive aspects of the Old Testament. Despite this upbringing, or perhaps in reaction to it, Arthur is a kind, considerate man. He is intrigued by a slight young woman he encounters working as a part-time seamstress for his mother, whom his mother calls simply โLittle Dorrit.โ Arthur senses some mystery about her motherโs employment of Little Dorrit, and proceeds to investigate.
There are several subplots and a whole host of characters. Compared to some of Dickensโ work, Little Dorrit features a good deal of intrigue and tension. There are also some strong strands of humor, in the form of the fictional โCircumlocution Office,โ whose sole remit is โHow Not To Do It,โ and which stands in the way of any improvement of British life. Also very amusing are the rambling speeches of Flora, a woman with whom Arthur was enamored before he left for China, but whose shallowness he now perceives only too well.
Little Dorrit has been adapted for the screen many times, and by the BBC in 2010 in a limited television series which featured Claire Foy as Little Dorrit, Matthew Macfayden as Arthur Clenham, and Andy Serkis as the villain Rigaud.
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- Author: Charles Dickens
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Mr. Arthur Clennam took up his hat and buttoned his coat, and walked out. In the country, the rain would have developed a thousand fresh scents, and every drop would have had its bright association with some beautiful form of growth or life. In the city, it developed only foul stale smells, and was a sickly, lukewarm, dirt-stained, wretched addition to the gutters.
He crossed by St. Paulโs and went down, at a long angle, almost to the waterโs edge, through some of the crooked and descending streets which lie (and lay more crookedly and closely then) between the river and Cheapside. Passing, now the mouldy hall of some obsolete Worshipful Company, now the illuminated windows of a Congregationless Church that seemed to be waiting for some adventurous Belzoni to dig it out and discover its history; passing silent warehouses and wharves, and here and there a narrow alley leading to the river, where a wretched little bill, Found Drowned, was weeping on the wet wall; he came at last to the house he sought. An old brick house, so dingy as to be all but black, standing by itself within a gateway. Before it, a square courtyard where a shrub or two and a patch of grass were as rank (which is saying much) as the iron railings enclosing them were rusty; behind it, a jumble of roots. It was a double house, with long, narrow, heavily-framed windows. Many years ago, it had had it in its mind to slide down sideways; it had been propped up, however, and was leaning on some half-dozen gigantic crutches: which gymnasium for the neighbouring cats, weather-stained, smoke-blackened, and overgrown with weeds, appeared in these latter days to be no very sure reliance.
โNothing changed,โ said the traveller, stopping to look round. โDark and miserable as ever. A light in my motherโs window, which seems never to have been extinguished since I came home twice a year from school, and dragged my box over this pavement. Well, well, well!โ
He went up to the door, which had a projecting canopy in carved work of festooned jack-towels and childrenโs heads with water on the brain, designed after a once-popular monumental pattern, and knocked. A shuffling step was soon heard on the stone floor of the hall, and the door was opened by an old man, bent and dried, but with keen eyes.
He had a candle in his hand, and he held it up for a moment to assist his keen eyes. โAh, Mr. Arthur?โ he said, without any emotion, โyou are come at last? Step in.โ
Mr. Arthur stepped in and shut the door.
โYour figure is filled out, and set,โ said the old man, turning to look at him with the light raised again, and shaking his head; โbut you donโt come up to your father in my opinion. Nor yet your mother.โ
โHow is my mother?โ
โShe is as she always is now. Keeps her room when not actually bedridden, and hasnโt been out of it fifteen times in as many years, Arthur.โ They had walked into a spare, meagre dining-room. The old man had put the candlestick upon the table, and, supporting his right elbow with his left hand, was smoothing his leathern jaws while he looked at the visitor. The visitor offered his hand. The old man took it coldly enough, and seemed to prefer his jaws, to which he returned as soon as he could.
โI doubt if your mother will approve of your coming home on the Sabbath, Arthur,โ he said, shaking his head warily.
โYou wouldnโt have me go away again?โ
โOh! I? I? I am not the master. Itโs not what I would have. I have stood between your father and mother for a number of years. I donโt pretend to stand between your mother and you.โ
โWill you tell her that I have come home?โ
โYes, Arthur, yes. Oh, to be sure! Iโll tell her that you have come home. Please to wait here. You wonโt find the room changed.โ He took another candle from a cupboard, lighted it, left the first on the table, and went upon his errand. He was a short, bald old man, in a high-shouldered black coat and waistcoat, drab breeches, and long drab gaiters. He might, from his dress, have been either clerk or servant, and in fact had long been both. There was nothing about him in the way of decoration but a watch, which was lowered into the depths of its proper pocket by an old black ribbon, and had a tarnished copper key moored above it, to show where it was sunk. His head was awry, and he had a one-sided, crab-like way with him, as if his foundations had yielded at about the same time as those of the house, and he ought to have been propped up in a similar manner.
โHow weak am I,โ said Arthur Clennam, when he was gone, โthat I could shed tears at this reception! I, who have never experienced anything else; who have never expected anything else.โ
He not only could, but did. It was the momentary yielding of a nature that had been disappointed from the dawn of its perceptions, but had not quite given up all its hopeful yearnings yet. He subdued it, took up the candle, and examined the room. The old articles of furniture were in their old places; the Plagues of Egypt, much the dimmer for the fly and smoke plagues of London, were framed and glazed upon the walls. There was the old cellaret with nothing in it, lined with lead, like
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