The Pantomime of Life Page #2

"The Pantomime of Life" is a collection of essays and sketches by Charles Dickens that explore the intricacies and absurdities of human experience. Through his characteristic wit and keen observation, Dickens delves into the social issues of his time, portraying a vivid tapestry of characters and situations that reflect both the struggles and joys of everyday life. The work showcases Dickens's masterful storytelling and engages readers with its poignant commentary on societal norms, making it a compelling reflection on the performance of life itself.

• Short story

								

gentleman in no shirt-collar and a Petersham coat.  ‘No, no,’ says the
young gentleman; ‘he means Brown, King, and Gibson, at the ’Delphi.’
Now, with great deference both to the first-named gentleman with the
dirty face, and the last-named gentleman in the non-existing
shirt-collar, we do not mean either the performer who so grotesquely
burlesqued the Popish conspirator, or the three unchangeables who have
been dancing the same dance under different imposing titles, and doing
the same thing under various high-sounding names for some five or six
years last past.  We have no sooner made this avowal, than the public,
who have hitherto been silent witnesses of the dispute, inquire what on
earth it is we do mean; and, with becoming respect, we proceed to tell
them.

It is very well known to all playgoers and pantomime-seers, that the
scenes in which a theatrical clown is at the very height of his glory are
those which are described in the play-bills as ‘Cheesemonger’s shop and
Crockery warehouse,’ or ‘Tailor’s shop, and Mrs. Queertable’s
boarding-house,’ or places bearing some such title, where the great fun
of the thing consists in the hero’s taking lodgings which he has not the
slightest intention of paying for, or obtaining goods under false
pretences, or abstracting the stock-in-trade of the respectable
shopkeeper next door, or robbing warehouse porters as they pass under his
window, or, to shorten the catalogue, in his swindling everybody he
possibly can, it only remaining to be observed that, the more extensive
the swindling is, and the more barefaced the impudence of the swindler,
the greater the rapture and ecstasy of the audience.  Now it is a most
remarkable fact that precisely this sort of thing occurs in real life day
after day, and nobody sees the humour of it.  Let us illustrate our
position by detailing the plot of this portion of the pantomime—not of
the theatre, but of life.

The Honourable Captain Fitz-Whisker Fiercy, attended by his livery
servant Do’em—a most respectable servant to look at, who has grown grey
in the service of the captain’s family—views, treats for, and ultimately
obtains possession of, the unfurnished house, such a number, such a
street.  All the tradesmen in the neighbourhood are in agonies of
competition for the captain’s custom; the captain is a good-natured,
kind-hearted, easy man, and, to avoid being the cause of disappointment
to any, he most handsomely gives orders to all.  Hampers of wine, baskets
of provisions, cart-loads of furniture, boxes of jewellery, supplies of
luxuries of the costliest description, flock to the house of the
Honourable Captain Fitz-Whisker Fiercy, where they are received with the
utmost readiness by the highly respectable Do’em; while the captain
himself struts and swaggers about with that compound air of conscious
superiority and general blood-thirstiness which a military captain should
always, and does most times, wear, to the admiration and terror of
plebeian men.  But the tradesmen’s backs are no sooner turned, than the
captain, with all the eccentricity of a mighty mind, and assisted by the
faithful Do’em, whose devoted fidelity is not the least touching part of
his character, disposes of everything to great advantage; for, although
the articles fetch small sums, still they are sold considerably above
cost price, the cost to the captain having been nothing at all.  After
various manœuvres, the imposture is discovered, Fitz-Fiercy and Do’em are
recognized as confederates, and the police office to which they are both
taken is thronged with their dupes.

Who can fail to recognize in this, the exact counterpart of the best
portion of a theatrical pantomime—Fitz-Whisker Fiercy by the clown; Do’em
by the pantaloon; and supernumeraries by the tradesmen?  The best of the
joke, too, is, that the very coal-merchant who is loudest in his
complaints against the person who defrauded him, is the identical man who
sat in the centre of the very front row of the pit last night and laughed
the most boisterously at this very same thing,—and not so well done
either.  Talk of Grimaldi, we say again!  Did Grimaldi, in his best days,
ever do anything in this way equal to Da Costa?

The mention of this latter justly celebrated clown reminds us of his last
piece of humour, the fraudulently obtaining certain stamped acceptances
from a young gentleman in the army.  We had scarcely laid down our pen to
contemplate for a few moments this admirable actor’s performance of that
exquisite practical joke, than a new branch of our subject flashed
suddenly upon us.  So we take it up again at once.

All people who have been behind the scenes, and most people who have been
before them, know, that in the representation of a pantomime, a good many
men are sent upon the stage for the express purpose of being cheated, or
knocked down, or both.  Now, down to a moment ago, we had never been able
to understand for what possible purpose a great number of odd, lazy,
large-headed men, whom one is in the habit of meeting here, and there,
and everywhere, could ever have been created.  We see it all, now.  They
are the supernumeraries in the pantomime of life; the men who have been
thrust into it, with no other view than to be constantly tumbling over
each other, and running their heads against all sorts of strange things.
We sat opposite to one of these men at a supper-table, only last week.
Now we think of it, he was exactly like the gentlemen with the pasteboard
heads and faces, who do the corresponding business in the theatrical
pantomimes; there was the same broad stolid simper—the same dull leaden
eye—the same unmeaning, vacant stare; and whatever was said, or whatever
was done, he always came in at precisely the wrong place, or jostled
against something that he had not the slightest business with.  We looked
at the man across the table again and again; and could not satisfy
ourselves what race of beings to class him with.  How very odd that this
never occurred to us before!

We will frankly own that we have been much troubled with the harlequin.
We see harlequins of so many kinds in the real living pantomime, that we
hardly know which to select as the proper fellow of him of the theatres.
At one time we were disposed to think that the harlequin was neither more
nor less than a young man of family and independent property, who had run
away with an opera-dancer, and was fooling his life and his means away in
light and trivial amusements.  On reflection, however, we remembered that
harlequins are occasionally guilty of witty, and even clever acts, and we
are rather disposed to acquit our young men of family and independent
property, generally speaking, of any such misdemeanours.  On a more
mature consideration of the subject, we have arrived at the conclusion
that the harlequins of life are just ordinary men, to be found in no
particular walk or degree, on whom a certain station, or particular
conjunction of circumstances, confers the magic wand.  And this brings us
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