until the last Easter morning.

'Yes,' says Chesterton, 'there were many other Dickenses, 'an
industrious Dickens, a public spirited Dickens, but the last one (that
is Edwin Drood) was the great one. The wild epitaph of Mrs. Sapsea,
"Canst thou do likewise?" should be the serious epitaph of Dickens.'

* * * * *

It is more than fifty years since Dickens died. What is the future of
Dickens likely to be? At least, Chesterton has no doubt of the permanent
influence of Dickens; he is as sure of immortality as is Shakespeare.
The kings of the earth die, yet their works remain; the princes pass on
but are not entirely forgotten; writers write and in their turn sleep;
but there is that to which in every age we inscribe the word Immortal.
It is enough to say that Dickens is immortal because he is Dickens.
There is a further reason, that he proved what all the world had been
saying, that common humanity is a holy thing. To quote Chesterton: 'He
did for the world what the world could not do for itself.' Dickens'
creation was poetry--it dealt with the elementals; it is therefore
permanent.

In final words he says, 'We shall not be further troubled with the
little artists who found Dickens too sane for their sorrows and too
clear for their delights. But we have a long way to travel before we get
back to what Dickens meant; and the passage is a long, rambling English
road, a twisting road such as Mr. Pickwick travelled.'

'But the road leads to eternity, because the inn is at the end of the
road, and at that inn is a goodly company of common men who are immortal
because Dickens made them. Here we shall meet Dickens and all his
characters, and when we shall drink again it shall be from great flagons
in the tavern at the end of the world.'

* * * * *

What, then, is the essential part of Chesterton's study of Charles
Dickens? It is certainly not a biography; it is for all practical
purposes a keen study of what Dickens was, what he wrote, why he wrote
as he did, why he has a place in literature no one else has.

There are faults in the book--it would be a poor book if it had none. At
times I think Chesterton allows his genius to overcome his critical
judgment. Particularly is this so in his strange misconstruction of the
character of Scrooge. But this merely demonstrates yet once more that
Dickens, like Christ, is unique, because no one has ever compl