e assumed to be real, or ideal, in their methods of treatment. To
any original novelist of the higher grade there is no meaning in these
contrasted phrases. Neither mode can exist at all perfectly without the
other. No matter how sensitive the mind to external impressions, or how
keen the observation to whatever can be seen, without the rarer seeing
of imagination nothing will be arrived at that is real in any genuine
artist-sense. Reverse the proposition, and the result is expressed in an
excellent remark of Lord Lytton's, that the happiest effort of
imagination, however lofty it may be, is that which enables it to be
cheerfully at home with the real. I have said that Dickens felt
criticism, of whatever kind, with too sharp a relish for the
indifference he assumed to it; but the secret was that he believed
himself to be entitled to higher tribute than he was always in the habit
of receiving. It was the feeling which suggested a memorable saying of
Wordsworth. "I am not at all desirous that any one should write a
critique on my poems. If they be from above, they will do their own work
in course of time; if not, they will perish as they ought."

The something "from above" never seems to be absent from Dickens, even
at his worst. When the strain upon his invention became apparent, and he
could only work freely in a more confined space than of old, it was
still able to assert itself triumphantly; and his influence over his
readers was continued by it to the last day of his life. Looking back
over the series of his writings, the first reflection that rises to the
mind of any thoughtful person, is one of thankfulness that the most
popular of writers, who had carried into the lowest scenes and
conditions an amount of observation, fun, and humour not approached by
any of his contemporaries, should never have sullied that world-wide
influence by a hint of impurity or a possibility of harm. Nor is there
anything more surprising than the freshness and variety of character
which those writings include, within the range of the not numerous types
of character that were the limit of their author's genius. For, this
also appears, upon any review of them collectively, that the teeming
life which is in them is that of the time in which his own life was
passed; and that with the purpose of showing vividly its form and
pressure, was joined the hope and design to leave it better than he
found it. It has been objected that humanity receives