VI.—Winkle and Snodgrass
It has always seemed a matter of astonishment to me how such a creature as Winkle should have won the fair Arabella. Every act of this man was a deception—he could not help pretence, or, shall we say it boldly, lying. His duel was a series of tricks—his shooting, skating, etc., all a sham. Even when found out as an impostor before all the keepers and others, we find him impudently saying, “I’ll tell you what I shall do to get up my shooting again.” The fellow never had any shooting to get up. But the mere habit of untruth was ingrained in the man. His undignified race, in a dressing-gown, round the Crescent was no doubt concealed from Arabella—she would never have got over that! As a display of cowardice it was only matched by his hypocritical assumption of courage before Dowler when he found he could assume it safely. He deceived his father and Mr. Pickwick as to his marriage, and dropped on his knees to the latter to beg pardon. How mean, too, was his behaviour to Mrs. Pott in the difficulty with her husband. But nothing could shake the interest of the fair Arabella in her lover, even his ignominious and public treatment by Mr. Pickwick at the skating exhibition. How can we account for it. But Boz knew the female nature well, and here is the explanation: Winkle had been “out”—had figured in a duel with a real officer
in the army. There was no mistake about that—gone out, too, in what appeared a chivalrous manner to save the honour of the club. At least it had the appearance of all that (though here was another falsehood). This had been told to all—no doubt by Winkle himself—many times over. Nothing could enfeeble that, it seemed heroic, and covered all other laches. Neither did it lose in his telling of it.
The most ridiculous feature surely in the man was his costume—meant to be of a sporting complexion—which he never abandoned: green shooting coat, plaid neckchief, and closely fitting drabs. When he returned from his honeymoon, he was still in this uniform.
We may assume, however, that this points to a custom of the time: that the sportsman was always a sportsman. Even at the club meeting, at a poorish room in a tavern, he must carry on the fiction that he has just come back from a day’s sporting, for there on the floor, conspicuous, are the fowling piece, game bag, fishing rod, &c.
Snodgrass was another incapable and quite uninteresting—a person whom we would not care to know. He posed as a poet and, to this end, wore, even at the club, “a mysterious blue cloak, with a canine skin collar”; imagine this of a warm evening—May 12—in a stuffy room in Huggin Lane! He must, however, live up to his character, at all hazards.
Snodgrass and his verses, and his perpetual “note book,” must have made him a bore of the first water. How could the charming Emily have selected him. He, too, had some of Winkle’s craft. He had been entertained cordially and hospitably by old Wardle, and repaid him by stealing his daughter’s affections in a very underhand way, actually plotting to run away with her.
There was something rather ignominious in his detection at Osborne’s Hotel. He is a very colourless being. As to his being a Poet, it would seem to be that he merely gave himself out for one and persuaded his friends that he was such. His remarks at the “Peacock” are truly sapient: “Show me the man that says anything against women, as women, and I boldly declare he is not a man!” Which is matched by Mr. Winkle’s answer to the charge of his being “a serpent”: “Prove it,” said Mr. Winkle, warmly. It is to be suspected that the marriage with the amiable Emily was not a success.
The author throws out a hint to that effect: “Mr Snodgrass, being occasionally abstracted and melancholy, is to this day reputed a great poet among his acquaintance, though we do not find he has ever written anything to encourage the belief.” In other words he was carrying on the old Pickwick game of “Humbug.” So great an intellect had quite thrown itself away on poor Emily—even his abstraction and melancholy. How natural too that he should “hang on” to his father-in-law “and establish himself close to Dingly Dell”—to “sponge,” probably—while he made a sham of farming; for are we not told that he purchased and cultivated a small farm—“more for occupation than profit”—thus again making believe. Poor Emily!
I lately looked through the swollen pages of the monster London Directory to find how many of the Pickwickian names were in common use. There was not a single Snodgrass, though there was one Winkel, and one “Winkle and Co.” in St. Mary Axe. There was one Tupman, a Court dressmaker—no Nupkins, but some twenty Magnuses, and not a single Pickwick. There were, however, some twenty-four Wellers.