Swiveller; you will find him as an unsuccessful actor like Crumples; you
will find him as an unsuccessful doctor like Sawyer; you will always
find the rich and reeking personality where Dickens found it among the
poor.'

Not only were the characters Dickens chose common men, they were also
'great fools,' because Chesterton will have us believe that a man can
be entirely great while he is entirely foolish. It is no doubt in the
spiritual sense so admirably expressed in the Pauline Epistles, where
'foolish in the eyes of the world but wise before God' is a condition
that is of merit.

'Mr. Toots is great because he is foolish.' He is great because he has a
soul that glorifies his weak and foolish body, not that he is great
because, _ipso facto_, he is foolish.

There is a great and permanent value in the writings of Dickens. I
cannot do better than quote our critic: 'If we are to look for lessons,
here at least are the last and deepest lessons of Dickens. It is in our
own daily life that we are to look for the portents and the prodigies.
This is the truth, not merely of the fixed figures of our life, the
wife, the husband, the fool that fills the day. Every day we neglect
Tootses and Swivellers, Guppys and Joblings, Simmerys and Flashers. This
is the real gospel of Dickens, the inexhaustible opportunities offered
by the liberty and variety of man. It is when we pass our own private
gate and open our own secret door that we step into the land of the
giants.'

* * * * *

It will now be convenient to consider the question of the attitude of
our critic to the 'Mystery of Edwin Drood,' that tale that has produced
one of those literary mysteries that are so dear to a number of folks of
the kind who would be disappointed were the problem to be finally
solved. 'The Mystery of Edwin Drood' was cut short by the sudden death
that fell upon Dickens on a warm June night some half century ago.

For Chesterton the book 'might have proved to be the most ambitious that
Dickens ever planned.' It is non-Dickensian in the sense that its value
depends entirely on a story. The workmanship is very fine. The book was
purely and simply a detective story. 'Bleak House' was the nearest
approach to its style, but the mystery there was easy to unravel. It was
as though Dickens wished in 'Edwin Drood' to make one last 'splendid
and staggering' appearance before the curtain rang down, not to be rung
up again