Seeing the world through the lens of Charles Dickens is quite conducive to sanity. In almost every circumstance of life, there is an event or character from his books that can serve as a clarifying parallel. The character he created seem to be caricatures rather than real people, but it is the very exaggeration of faults and virtues which provides a touchstone by which to judge the world in which we live. One such Dickensian character is that of Pecksniff from Martin Chuzzlewitt.
Pecksniff is an architect of no skill or talent whatsoever, whose one success in the book comes from stealing someone else’s design. Pecksniff carries himself with an air that only appears to radiate goodness to himself and his sycophant daughters. He thinks his self-serving is charity, his grasping subservience to be humility, and his greed to be nothing but love for his fellow men. In the end, the only one fooled by Pecksniff is Pecksniff.
