IV

DICKENS

On the last page of one of Mr. Arnold Bennett's realistic romances, two men are discussing the character of the hero, and, as might be expected, from totally different points of view. His jealous enemy petulantly enquires: "What has he ever done? He never did a day's work in his life." To which the other responds, "He is engaged in the great work of cheering us all up."

Such work in the world is needed, and is in truth of enormous importance. When it is successfully accomplished, its reward should be correspondingly great; when a supreme genius devotes all his powers throughout his entire career to this single aim, the result is of incalculable benefit to humanity. The birth of Charles Dickens in 1812 was one of the best things that happened in the nineteenth century; and if the death of a comedian can eclipse the gaiety of nations, the death of Dickens in 1870 took away the world's chief benefactor. Fortunately, when a great writer dies, he does not cease to live, and the sum of happi

ness that he bequeaths accumulates at compound interest through all time to come.

Now, the great work in which Dickens was engaged was the work of cheering us all up. For the principal aim of his life was not, like that of Flaubert, to write his language well; nor was it, like that of Stevenson, to protest against one form of fiction by writing another; nor, like that of Jane Austen and Tolstoi, to tell the exact truth about humanity. We may not all agree as to whether Dickens was a realist or a romanticist, as to whether his portraits are accurate or caricatures, as to whether his style was fundamentally good or fundamentally bad; but we are virtually agreed that his novels, from Pickwick Papers to Our Mutual Friend, have been, are, and will be, a prodigious and permanent contribution to the happiness of men, women, and children all over the world. He loved humanity, and I do not suppose there ever was a writer more beloved than he. The supreme glory of being an artist lies in the grateful homage of human hearts. We admire our discoverers, our geographers, our inventors; we pay them the tribute of respect. We realise the value of men who throw bridges across vast chasms, who enable us to talk with friends hundreds of miles away-men who conquer like gods the elements of earth, water, and air. We cannot get

along without them any more than we can get along without food and clothing. Even more highly do we value those who dwell day and night in laboratories, spending years in patient search after the spirit of evil represented by a microbe; for the result of their lonely toil is that sickness and physical pain are diminished. The anguish departs, the blind see, and the lame walk. Strictly speaking, these scientists are perhaps the most useful members of society. But the first place in our hearts is held not by those who make new machinery or by those who arrest the progress of disease, but by those who in a certain sense are not useful at all. Those who give us ideas rather than facts, those who enrich our imagination and our memory, those who ravish our hearts with harmonies, who thrill us with a rag of canvas and a block of stone, who mist our eyes with mirth and with sympathy by purely imaginary persons in imaginary situations in printed type those are the ones we love. For although man cannot live without bread, he cannot live by bread alone.

Mr. Kipling has neither affection nor admiration for our country, and we are all keenly aware of the fact; yet when he lay close to death in New York, the bulletins from his bed preceded in importance all other news in every town in the United

States, and thousands who had never seen him talked of his illness with a lump in the throat. Some years ago, an enterprising German newspaper sent out a vast number of blanks to be filled in with the names of the ten men whose lives were considered most important to the welfare of Germany. After the Kaiser and the Chancellor, Gerhart Hauptmann stood first on the list, while Koch and Roentgen trailed in the rear.

To realise the true greatness of Dickens, one need only think for a moment what English fiction would be without him. If not the highest, he at all events fills the biggest place. Of the dozen British novelists who hold permanent positions, he would be the last one we could spare. For, looking at him from many points of view, he seems the most original writer of them all. In his characters and in his style, he resembled none of his predecessors. If we lost Scott, we should still have Stevenson, and vice versa; if we lost Fielding, we should still have Thackeray; if we lost Jane Austen, we should still have George Eliot. But if we lost Dickens, to whom should we go? The loss would make a blank appalling to contemplate. Smollett? Put Smollett in Dickens's place, and see what becomes of Smollett. Of all the careless, ill-considered commonplaces of criticism, the statement that Dickens resembles Smollett is one of

the most absurd. In nearly all vital things Dickens was the exact opposite of Smollett. Those who say that there is a family likeness between Smollett and Dickens have either never seen Smollett in a strong light or else they have forgotten him. And it is surprising how easy it is to forget Smollett, although he was a man of genius.

I say that in nearly all vital things Dickens is the exact opposite of Smollett. The personality of a writer is the thing that counts, and even the most objective writers cannot as a rule conceal their personality. In fact, the only one I have ever read who has really hidden himself is Shakespeare one of the numerous miracles displayed in his works. The personality of Smollett, his way of thinking, his attitude toward life, and his attitude toward the children of his imagination, are in striking contrast to Dickens. Of all the great British novelists, Smollett is the most heartless, while the bigness of Dickens's heart — its throbbing love and sympathy is the most obvious and salient characteristic of his books. The moral attitude of a writer, his grasp of the religious and moral basis of life, is of the highest importance, for out of that flows the stream of his work, and its quality and flavour are largely determined by it. Now, there is no English novelist of high rank whose books betray so little of religion and