a spirit of good
in things evil, but has endeavoured by the might of genius to transmute
what was base into what is precious as the beaten gold;" observing,
indeed, yet further--"He has mingled in the common walks of life; he
has made himself familiar with the lower orders of society." As if in
supplementary and conclusive justification of those words, Dickens,
within less than five years afterwards, had woven his graceful and
pathetic fancies about the homely joys and sorrows of Bob Cratchit,
of Toby Veck, and of Caleb Plummer, of a little Clerk, a little
Ticket-porter, and a little Toy-maker. His pen at these times was like
the wand of Cinderella's fairy godmother, changing the cucumber into a
gilded chariot, and the lizards into glittering retainers.

At the commencement of this Reading but very little indeed was said
about the Cricket, hardly anything at all about the kettle. Yet, as
everybody knows, "the kettle began it" in the story-book. The same right
of precedence was accorded to the kettle in the author's delivery of his
fairy tale by word of mouth, but otherwise its comfortable purring song
was in a manner hushed. One heard nothing about its first appearance on
the hearth, when "it would lean forward with a drunken air, and dribble,
a very idiot of a kettle," any more than of its final paean, when, after
its iron body hummed and stirred upon the fire, the lid itself, the
recently rebellious lid, performed a sort of jig, and clattered "like
a deaf and dumb young cymbal that had never known the use of its twin
brother." Here, again, in fact, as with so many other of these Readings
from his own books by our Novelist, the countless good things scattered
abundantly up and down the original descriptions--inimitable touches of
humour that had each of them, on the appreciative palate, the effect of
that verbal bon-bon, the bon-mot--were sacrificed inexorably, apparently
without a qualm, and certainly by wholesale. What the Reader looked to
throughout, was the human element in his imaginings when they were to be
impersonated.

Let but one of these tid-bits be associated directly with the fanciful
beings introduced in the gradual unfolding of the incidents, and it
might remain there untouched, Thus, for example, when the Carrier's
arrival at his home came to be mentioned, and the Reader related how
John Peerybingle, being much taller, as well as much older than his
wife, little Dot, "had to stoop a long way down to ki