ards the person who should make inquiries about
that bridal night of Lammermoor.

But this admission does not mean that one is sealed of the tribe of
Charles--that one is a Dickensite pure and simple, convinced and
devout--any more than Mr. Matthew Arnold was a Wordsworthian. Dickens
has many such worshippers, especially (and this is an argument in favour
of the faith) among those who knew him in his life. He must have had a
wonderful charm; for his friends in life are his literary partisans, his
uncompromising partisans, even to this day. They will have no
half-hearted admiration, and scout him who tries to speak of Dickens as
of an artist not flawless, no less than they scorn him who cannot read
Dickens at all. At one time this honourable enthusiasm (as among the
Wordsworthians) took the shape of "endless imitation." That is over;
only here and there is an imitator of the master left in the land. All
his own genius was needed to carry his mannerisms; the mannerisms without
the genius were an armour that no devoted David had proved, that none
could wear with success.

Of all great writers since Scott, Dickens is probably the man to whom the
world owes most gratitude. No other has caused so many sad hearts to be
lifted up in laughter; no other has added so much mirth to the toilsome
and perplexed life of men, of poor and rich, of learned and unlearned. "A
vast hope has passed across the world," says Alfred de Musset; we may say
that with Dickens a happy smile, a joyous laugh, went round this earth.
To have made us laugh so frequently, so inextinguishably, so kindly--that
is his great good deed. It will be said, and with a great deal of truth,
that he has purged us with pity and terror as well as with laughter. But
it is becoming plain that his command of tears is less assured than of
old, and I cannot honestly regret that some of his pathos--not all, by
any means--is losing its charm and its certainty of appeal. Dickens's
humour was rarely too obvious; it was essentially personal, original,
quaint, unexpected, and his own. His pathos was not infrequently derived
from sources open to all the world, and capable of being drawn from by
very commonplace writers. Little Nells and Dombeys, children unhappy,
overthrown early in the _melee_ of the world, and dying among weeping
readers, no longer affect us as they affected another generation. Mrs.
Beecher Stowe and the author of "Misunderstood," once made some peop