VI
Corruptio optimi pessima is one of those orotund sayings which impress for the moment but are liable to have their wisdom very considerably spokeshaved (so to speak) as soon as we apply the Socratic knife. Is Tarzan of the Apes, after all, a corruption of the best? And, if so, from what incalculable height did Lucifer plunge, and how many days did he take before he broke the roof of the railway station and scattered himself over the bookstalls? We may derive solace, if we will, by telling ourselves that those horrible days in the Chandos Street blacking-warehouse were a part of the education of Dickens’ genius, taught it to observe, and so on. But I say to you, as he said of Little Dorrit, that such a shadow of cruelty, induced upon a sensitive boy, must inevitably leave its stain: and I do most earnestly ask you, some of whom may find yourselves trustees for the education of poor children, if you are sure that Dickens himself was the better for a starved childhood? For my part I can give that starvation little credit for his achievement, reading its effect rather into his many faults of taste and judgment.