Page:Fitzgerald - Pickwickian manners and customs (1897).djvu/106

effect: without these adjuncts the Head of the Club and his friends would have been more or less abstractions, very much what the characters in Theodore Hook's "Gilbert Gurney" are. Take Mr. Pickwick. The author supplied only a few hints as to his personal appearance—he was bald, mild, pale, wore spectacles and gaiters; but who would have imagined him as we have him now, with his high forehead, bland air, protuberant front. The same with the others, Mr. Thackeray tried in many ways to give some corporeal existence to his own characters to "Becky," Pendennis, and others; but who sees them as we do Mr. Pickwick? So with his various "situations"—many most dramatic and effective, but no one would guess it from the etchings. The Pickwick scenes all tell a story of their own; and a person—say a foreigner—who had never even heard of the story would certainly smile over the situations, and be piqued into speculating what could be the ultimate meaning.