Re: Hard Times

Charles Dickens (cdickens@RMPLC.CO.UK)
Wed, 11 Mar 1998 12:04:55 -0100 

My dear Mr Brenner,

  The case you are seeking to make is not one I care for.  There are
similarities, perhaps, between what we believe, but there is a difference of
emphasis which is fundamental.
  I have never believed mankind to be fundamentally selfish, or that men and
women cease to be selfish, only when instructed by experience.  I do
believe, however, that it is harder for those who have never suffered to
appreciate the sufferings of others, or to summon up the will to alleviate
those sufferings.
  I do not recall suggesting that Sydney Carton had an especially dismal
childhood.  He was orphaned young, to be sure, but I tried to suggest his
problems were self-inflicted, and not a result of this.  I remember that, in
my last attempt at fiction, "The Mystery of Edwin Drood," I had the
character Neville Landless remark, "It might have been better for Mr Drood
to have known some hardships."  "Because they might have made him more
sensible," he goes on to explain, "of good fortune that is not by any means
necessarily the result of his own merits."   It was not friendly of Neville
to say this, but he was expressing a truth often discoverable.  However, it
doesn't amount to saying that the experience of hardship is a precondition
of virtue.


Faithfully yours,


Charles Dickens

________________________________________________________________________________
>Dear Mr. Dickens,
>
>I am writing an argumentative essay for my college freshman English
>class, in which I am trying to prove that mandatory community service,
>as well as community service unnecessarily attached to programs, such in
>the case of college admissions, is contradictory to the founding
>documents of America and morality.  Some of my evidence involves the
>Tale of Two Cities, which I have not read in 4 years.  I remember Charles
>Darnay's self-sacrifice. Would he have done this if his upbringing had
>been more pleasant?  Although I recognize your philantropic leanings, I
>was hoping you could help me be fair in either saying or not saying that
>man by nature does not want to live for the sake of anyone else, but
>a damaged environment changes his mind.
>
>Thank you,
>
>Jay Brenner
>
>

======================
Charles Dickens
charles_dickens@rmplc.co.uk
Author