enjoy them with unrestrained relish on the supposition that their fall is not that of a Cæsar or a Napoleon. Yet these also were egoists, and those would fain have been conquering heroes. Meredith testifies to this in his preliminary analysis:[1]
"The Egoist surely inspires pity. He who would desire to
clothe himself at everybody's expense, and is of that desire
condemned to strip himself stark naked, he, if pathos ever had
a form, might be taken for the actual person."
In addition to these instances where the continual and
final absurdity of the situation is made the motif of the
novel, there are several cases of minor episodes, quite as
suggestive though on a smaller scale.
Dickens is, as might be supposed, the most fertile in these scenes of comic retribution. Aside from Pecksniff and Uriah Heep, he is most successful with the Lammles, Mr. Dorrit, and Silas Wegg.
The Veneering Dinner, which introduces Our Mutual Friend, is only an understudy to the Veneering Breakfast, which celebrates the marriage of two of the Veneerings' oldest friends.
"But, there is another time to come, and it comes in about a
fortnight, and it comes to Mr. and Mrs. Lammle on the sands
at Shanklin, in the Isle of Wight.
"Mr. and Mrs. Lammle have walked for some time on the Shanklin sands, and one may see by their foot-prints that they have not walked arm-in-arm, and that they have not walked in a straight track, and that they have walked in a moody humour; for, the lady has prodded little spirting holes in the damp sand before her with her parasol, and the gentleman has trailed his stick after him. As if he were of the Mephistopheles family indeed, and had walked with a drooping tail."[2]
