onest things, the
source of Dickens's astonishing popularity. Ordinary people, he says,
are so tired of what is always around them, and take in so little of the
detail that makes up their lives, that when, all of a sudden, there
comes a man to make these things interesting, and turn them into objects
of admiration, tenderness, or terror, the effect is enchantment. Without
leaving their arm-chairs or their firesides, they find themselves
trembling with emotion, their eyes are filled with tears, their cheeks
are broad with laughter, and, in the discovery they have thus made that
they too can suffer, love, and feel, their very existence seems doubled
to them. It had not occurred to M. Taine that to effect so much might
seem to leave little not achieved.

So far from it, the critic had satisfied himself that such a power of
style must be adverse to a just delineation of character. Dickens is not
calm enough, he says, to penetrate to the bottom of what he is dealing
with. He takes sides with it as friend or enemy, laughs or cries over
it, makes it odious or touching, repulsive or attractive, and is too
vehement and not enough inquisitive to paint a likeness. His imagination
is at once too vivid and not sufficiently large. Its tenacious quality,
and the force and concentration with which his thoughts penetrate into
the details he desires to apprehend, form limits to his knowledge,
confine him to single traits, and prevent his sounding all the depths of
a soul. He seizes on one attitude, trick, expression, or grimace; sees
nothing else; and keeps it always unchanged. Mercy Pecksniff laughs at
every word, Mark Tapley is nothing but jolly, Mrs. Gamp talks
incessantly of Mrs. Harris, Mr. Chillip is invariably timid, and Mr.
Micawber is never tired of emphasizing his phrases or passing with
ludicrous brusqueness from joy to grief. Each is the incarnation of some
one vice, virtue, or absurdity; whereof the display is frequent,
invariable, and exclusive. The language I am using condenses with strict
accuracy what is said by M. Taine, and has been repeated _ad nauseam_ by
others, professing admirers as well as open detractors. Mrs. Gamp and
Mr. Micawber, who belong to the first rank of humorous creation, are
thus without another word dismissed by the French critic; and he shows
no consciousness whatever in doing it, of that very fault in himself for
which Dickens is condemned, of mistaking lively observation for real
insight.

He h