he earlier do, by the subtle quality of genius that
makes their doings and sayings part of those general incentives which
pervade mankind. Who has not had occasion, however priding himself on
his unlikeness to Micawber, to think of Micawber as he reviewed his own
experiences? Who has not himself waited, like Micawber, for something to
turn up? Who has not at times discovered, in one or other acquaintance
or friend, some one or other of that cluster of sagacious hints and
fragments of human life and conduct which the kindly fancy of Dickens
embodied in this delightful form? If the irrepressible New Zealander
ever comes over to achieve his long promised sketch of St. Paul's, who
can doubt that it will be no other than our undying Micawber, who had
taken to colonisation the last time we saw him, and who will thus again
have turned up? There are not many conditions of life or society to
which his and his wife's experiences are not applicable; and when, the
year after the immortal couple made their first appearance on earth,
Protection was in one of its then frequent difficulties, declaring it
could not live without something widely different from existing
circumstances shortly turning up, and imploring its friends to throw
down the gauntlet and boldly challenge society to turn up a majority and
rescue it from its embarrassments, a distinguished wit seized upon the
likeness to Micawber, showed how closely it was borne out by the jollity
and gin-punch of the banquets at which the bewailings were heard, and
asked whether Dickens had stolen from the farmer's friends or the
farmer's friends had stolen from Dickens. "Corn, said Mr. Micawber, may
be gentlemanly, but it is not remunerative. . . . I ask myself this
question: if corn is not to be relied on, what is? We must live. . . ."
Loud as the general laughter was, I think the laughter of Dickens
himself was loudest, at this discovery of so exact and unexpected a
likeness.[265]

A readiness in all forms thus to enjoy his own pleasantry was indeed
always observable (it is common to great humourists, nor would it be
easier to carry it farther than Sterne did), and his own confession on
the point may receive additional illustration before proceeding to the
later books. He accounted by it, as we have seen, for occasional even
grotesque extravagances. In another of his letters there is this
passage: "I can report that I have finished the job I set myself, and
that it has in it someth