He Who Trusts in Riches . . .

        That it is at least as difficult to stay a moral infection as a physical one; that such a disease will spread with the malignity and rapidity of the Plague; that the contagion, when it has once made head, will spare no pursuit or condition, but will lay hold on people in the soundest health, and become developed in the most unlikely constitutions: is a fact as firmly established by experience as that we human creatures breathe an atmosphere. . . .

        As a vast fire will fill the air to a great distance with its roar, so the sacred flame which the mighty Barnacles had fanned caused the air to resound more and more with the name of Merdle. It was deposited on every lip, and carried into every ear. There never was, there never had been, there never again should be, such a man as Mr Merdle. Nobody, as aforesaid, knew what he had done; but everybody knew him to be the greatest that had appeared.

In these words, which begin chapter 13 of part ii of Little Dorrit, Dickens tells us of the public  fascination, spreading like an epidemic disease, with a rich man named Merdle. Mr Merdle, with no political experience to speak of, has entered Parliament because . . . well, because surely his riches prove him to be a superior human being who understands all that needs to be understood in directing the path of a great nation. People all across London – even in poor Bleeding Heart Yard, where the inhabitants never have enough money to pay their quarterly rent – good Britons everywhere praise Merdle for being “the one, mind you, to put us all to rights in respects of that which all on us looked to, and to bring us all safe home as much as we needed, mind you, fur toe be brought.” They believe that Mr Merdle understands their misery, and they in turn sympathize with his riches to the extent that his very existence provides them the example that assures them that they too would pay their rent if only the roll of the die had caused the slight, trivial change in circumstance that would have made them as rich as the glorious Merdle.

Dickens knows these poor people so well! He understands the psychology that leads them to venerate the rich man who appears to have done everything for them even when he hasn’t done anything for them at all. He knows the rich man very well, too, and describes his downfall with startling realism.

But Charles Dickens didn’t understand everything about people. Silly man! In the tale he spins, when the dreadful truth is uncovered and Merdle’s bankruptcy is known, proving him to be a fraud, a liar, and, contrary to common belief, a terrible businessman, Dickens actually imagines that the people will turn against Mr Merdle.