ABSTRACT

William Dorrit, the Father of the Marshalsea, falteringly informs Arthur Clennam that “it’s of no use to disguise the fact-you must know, Mr. Clennam, that it does sometimes occur that people who come here desire to offer some little-Testimonial-to the Father of the place... sometimeshem-it takes one shape and sometimes another; but it is generally-haMoney5,1 Mr. Dorrit’s unsubtle hinting reminds us that if “Cash Payment is not the sole relation of human beings,” as Thomas Carlyle famously de­ clared, it is also true that “payment”—or, as the dictionary puts it, giving a person 'What is due in discharge of debt or for services done or goods re­ ceived”2-is not the sole “relation” that transfers of cash enact: there is also the charity Mr. Dorrit solicits, for example, as well as the “testimonial” or “tribute” Mr. Dorrit chooses to call this charity.3 The pathetic insistence with which this longtime inhabitant of debtor’s prison clings to his “threadbare disguise” further reminds us of the importance these distinctions held for the Victorians: above all, to accept charity was tantamount to forfeiting one’s claim to respectability.4 For this very reason, the Victorian era saw frequent attempts like Mr. Dorrit’s to disavow begging, or to solicit and engage in what I propose calling uncharitable interpretation: the catego­ rization of a suspect transaction as tribute or market exchange or the re­ payment of a debt or nearly anything, in short, except charity.