Another strand in the cord of this remarkable story is that of Micawber and his family, with whom Copperfield becomes a lodger during his gloomy days at Murdstone and Grinby’s,—a man who, after various misfortunes, including poverty, jail, and a wretched life in which he is made the tool of the hypocritical Uriah Heep, is finally sent to Australia on the same vessel with Mr. Peggotty and Emily, and begins a career of ultimate prosperity.
But the story is interesting not so much on account of the plot as of the people who are in it, and the human interest which runs through the whole.
In addition to the naturalness of Copperfield’s own feelings, there are other characters that are very true to life. That of his eccentric aunt, Betsey Trotwood, is perhaps a little overdrawn at first, in her interview with the doctor on the occasion of David’s birth, but afterwards her warmth of heart, frankness, and the strong good sense which underlie her rude behavior and eccentricities, the combination of strength and weakness in her nature, call to my own mind at every step one whom I have intimately known and greatly loved. There is something immensely refreshing, for instance, in her outbreak at the slimy Uriah Heep:
“‘If you’re an eel, sir, conduct yourself like one. If you’re a man, control your limbs, sir. Good God!’ said my aunt, with great indignation, ‘I’m not going to be serpentined and corkscrewed out of my senses!’”
Her noble conduct in concealing what she believed to be the defalcation of her old friend Mr. Wickfield is equally characteristic:
“‘And at last he took the blame upon himself,’ added my aunt, ‘and wrote me a mad letter, charging himself with robbery and wrong unheard of; upon which I paid him a visit early one morning, called for a candle, burned the letter, and told him if he ever could right me and himself to do it, and if he could not, to keep his own counsel for his daughter’s sake.’”
The “umble,” pious, and vindictive scoundrel, Uriah Heep, has been a type of whining hypocrisy. The description of him as Copperfield first saw him is remarkable:
“A red-haired person, a youth of fifteen, as I take it now, but looking much older; whose hair was cropped as close as the closest stubble, who had hardly any eyebrows and no eyelashes, and eyes of a red brown, so unsheltered and unshaded that I remember wondering how he went to sleep. He was high-shouldered and bony, dressed in decent black, with a white wisp of a neckcloth buttoned up to the throat, and had a long, lank, skeleton hand, which particularly attracted my attention as he stood at the pony’s head, rubbing his chin and looking up at us in the chaise.”
On the whole, perhaps Heep’s character is rather a grotesque than a reality. Everywhere he inspires us with unutterable aversion. He worms himself into the secrets of Wickfield, his employer, takes advantage of his weakness for drink, and finally gets possession of much of his property. Afterwards, in the prison scene, he is equally true to his snaky nature, and becomes an edifying and pious pattern of the products of prison reform.
The quiet, respectful, and respectable Littimer, Steerforth’s serving-man, who seemed to be always saying to the awestruck David, “You are young, sir; you are very young,”—and who afterwards became his master’s tool in the disgraceful intrigue with Em’ly, will find many a counterpart in actual life. There are some of us who in our youth have felt similar awe in the presence of such a domestic.