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CHARLES DICKENS.
Though Tuesday last marked the 38th
anniversary of the death of Charles
Dickens, his popularity, so far from de
creasing, is greater than ever. On the
word of Messrs. Chapman and Hall, in
a quite recent return, the sale of his
works totals the incredible number.. of
half a million a year, with an upward\.
tendency. He has, in fact, come in to
his own again, after suffering as much,
from his friends as from his enemies.
His friend's claimed too much for him.
Had those claims been true he would
have been Shakespeare over again. It
has been his( misfortune to- be praised
for the wrong thing. He has been
called, a great reader of human n~ture
--which 'is a pathetic and disastrous
misconception. The still sad music of
humanity was reflected from Dickens's
mind, not in the voice of nature, but
in an 'impossible octave. His charac
ters look like humanity till you com
pare them immediately with men. He
was something better than a realist;
had he been a mere realist his soaring
wings would havq been clipped.; He
was an optimist, a rhapsodist, a drami
tist, a humourist. Life and character.
were all inflated and high-coloured to
his eyes. He had the insobriety of the
poet. He did not depict the world
as it was, or is, except in external phy
sical surroundings. He Was painting a
glorified world of the imagination, with
a polity of its own, where alone would
it be possible for Miceawbers and Pick-.
wicks and Pecksniffs to-live. That the
rather drab world we live in is not
like that other imaginary world is so
much the worse for the world we live
in. The stubborn realist is. always.
and wearisomely in evidence. Observa
tion and memory of himself will furn
ish : very passable realist. The ideal
ist, in addition, requires'reative power,
intuition, and a certain luxuriance of
imagination. All of Diikens's 'charac
ters are true to humanlnature in the
sense of having human traits put in,
but they are still more untrue to na
ture by the traits thsat'are left" out.
Mark Tapley is personified jollity; Mi
cawber, shiftlessness; and Peekaniff,
hypocrisy. But, to say this is no re
proach; it is only a. differentiation.
The novelist has. the qualitibs of hisde
fects.' George Eliot is a spiritual vivi-'
sectionist, but she has not much in
ventiveness; Defoe had intense realis
ation, but small, variety; 'the same ap
plies to Jane Austen. Dickens had not
their peculiar powers; but he has the
finer power of creating a beautiful be:
ing that, though it has only one half
human, has the other lalf fairy. And
this is an ideal equipment for-the bv*e
list, for the world is already ,too much
with us.
Dickens came among ordinary men
like a son of the morning,,ibringing ai
special languageof genialityInd friend
ship and loving kindness ani abound
ing good humour, and made "humanity
in love with human nature."' It ,is a
great service-one of the greqtest that
he has done, or that any man'could do.
He was the enemy of all, cant.. ahd
snobbishness and patronage. He shabot
the warp of life through 'and through
with the' web: of brotherliness. He did
not speak loftily .of Art with a capi
tal A.. He was like Burns,. and loved
man merely because he was asmqn. In
his own words, he "thoutight'of people
as if they were really fellow-passengers
to the grave, and not. another race of
people bound on other journeys.' He
continually transgressed, or" rather,
transcended, all the rules of strict art,
because his mission lay otlherwise. He
wrote and spoke in the. gteiat root
language of the heartindividually,
irregularly, exclamatorily, '.hperboli
cally, anyhow, so long as he could
shorten a straight line, to get at his
object, and his. object .was to affect
in a given waylthe heart of -man. He
struck the conventionalised and stag
nant sentiments of men as Moses struck
the rock, and liberated a splendid flow
of human kindness. The place of the
artist is ultimately subsidiary; the
canons of art are but :acknowledged
means to an end-that is. their justi
fication for existence, an. the~-. are
trustworthy and invaluable 'obtfai- as
they go. But Dickens cleavidIa royal
road of his own. He k?hew, as Shakes
peare and as Wordsworth kniew.
when he was . strong enough'l
to set/ aside standing. oirirs "and
take the conseqsenies.. He had
a path. straight to the' sympathies,
like the fresh light of dawn'and with
the sound of laughing waters.~.-He-held
that grt, and all the small talk by small
men about ait, was as nothing t. heart
values, for. which and by which art has
come ipto being. He knew that he was
a preagher; he recognised in his own
intuitive way that the world. neded
preaching, and 'he was not afraid to
preach. "The common welfare was my
business; charity, mercy, forbeaiance

and benevolence were all my business,"
he makes the ghost of Marley say. He
was not an expiscator of human nature
like Thomas Hardy, or the finished sBal
sac, who knew things that, though true,
were alien and impossible to Dickens
they are different and complementary
gcniuses.
Dickens was not the rigid, logical
Frenchman: he was the illogical Eng
lishman, who proposed an end and car
'ed; little for the means so long as he
achieved his object. His work is a bene
faction to the species, and no one can
compute the value of what he has left
on record. One-sided, strenuous, spe
Sci'alised, sometimes crude and artificial,
a man with a strong belief in himself
and his mission, he cuts the tangled
knots of the problem-novelists and pro
claims aloud in natural simplicity in,
'effect a .repetition of the old teaching
-'"This is the motive and explanation
of life, 'That ye love one another.' This
is the beginning and the end, and as for.
details of processes, etc., let the scho
liasts and pedants quarrel among them
selves." The, greatest thing about him
is, not so much that he was a. nove
list, or actor, or orator, though he was
eminently all these-it was that he was
a supreme humourist and humanist;
and he has had his reward in the abid
ing love of his kind. He was the tonic
that a tired world needed.' As his?
Scotch brother and admirer, Carlyle,
said, he was "every inch an honest
man." His appreciation by his fellow
* craftsmen is peculiar. They knew some'
things. he did not know, and could do,
some things,that he could not do,, but
in totality of effect not one hasnrlaimed
eqiality. They have nothing but praise.
-Swinburne, Thackeray, Longfellow,
Watts-Dunton, Payn.: Reade, Wilkie
Collins,,.Gissing, Carlyle, and Hollings
head. 'Their methods ,are different,
eveh opposite, but.they have the same
verdict to give. It is good for the
world to think well of its great men, of
its unique men. It is doubtful if even
specific reformers have exercised a wider
or more effective influence than; has Dic
kens, for from his teaching there is .no
reaction.

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