Mrs Nickleby’s Cold Cure, by Charles Dickens

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‘YOU have a gallon of water as hot as you can possibly bear it, with a pound of salt, and sixpen’orth of the finest bran, and sit with your head in it for twenty minutes every night just before going to bed; at least, I don’t mean your head — your feet. It’s a most extraordinary cure — a most extraordinary cure. I used it for the first time, I recollect, the day after Christmas Day, and by the middle of April following the cold was gone. It seems quite a miracle when you come to think of it, for I had it ever since the beginning of September.’

‘What an afflicting calamity!’ said Mr Pyke.

‘Perfectly horrid!’ exclaimed Mr Pluck.

‘But it’s worth the pain of hearing, only to know that Mrs Nickleby recovered it, isn’t it, Pluck?’ cried Mr Pyke.

‘That is the circumstance which gives it such a thrilling interest,’ replied Mr Pluck.

by Charles Dickens 1812-1870

From ‘The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby’ by Charles Dickens (1812-1870).

Précis

Mr Pluck and Mr Pike listen with exaggerated sympathy as Mrs Nickleby prattles on about her cold cure — a home remedy which she credited with her recovery, though the passing of three months and the coming of Spring may have played a part — and then offer their congratulations in an ironic tone which the lady entirely fails to catch.

Questions for Critics

1. What is the author aiming to achieve in writing this?

2. Note any words, devices or turns of phrase that strike you. How do they help the author communicate his ideas more effectively?

3. What impression does this passage make on you? How might you put that impression into words?

Based on The English Critic (1939) by NL Clay, drawing on The New Criticism: A Lecture Delivered at Columbia University, March 9, 1910, by J. E. Spingarn, Professor of Comparative Literature in Columbia University, USA.

Précis

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