ansfer the
scenes and happenings of the novels to which he stole away from the
other boys at their play, into the setting of his own existence, and
"every barn in the neighbourhood, every stone in the church, and every
foot of the churchyard, had some association of its own connected with
these books, and stood for some locality made famous in them".

There has seldom, perhaps, been such an absence of complexity in genius
of a high order as there was in Dickens's character. But though there
was no complexity, there were two very different aspects--acute
sensibility was not incompatible with a virile and buoyant spirit. And
so Dickens's associations with the country which he loved best and knew
most intimately were, on the one side, those of a dreamy childhood, on
the other, of a lusty zest in outdoor life and the rustic jollity of an
old-world "Merry England". The sports and revels of Manor Farm, Dingley
Dell, have all the exuberance of Lever's Irish novels. Dickens must have
often taken part in merry-makings such as he describes, on flying visits
that are not recorded in Forster, before he sat down to write about them
during his honeymoon at Chalk. As the Master of Gadshill, his lithe,
upright figure, clad in loose-fitting garments, and rather dilapidated
shoes, was a familiar sight to all the country neighbours, as he swung
along the shady lanes, banked high with hedges that were full of
violets, purple and white, ferns, and lichens, and mosses. Often he
would call at the oldfashioned "Crispin and Crispianus", on the north
side of the London road just out of Strood, for a glass of ale, or a
little cold brandy and water, and sit in the corner of the settle
opposite the fireplace, looking at nothing but seeing everything. In the
chapter on "Tramps" in _The Uncommercial Traveller_, he imagines himself
to be the travelling clockmaker, who sees to something wrong with the
bell of the turret stable clock up at Cobham Hall, and after being
regaled in the enormous servants' hall with beef and bread, and powerful
ale, sets off through the woods till the town lights appear right in
front, and lies for the night at the ancient sign of Crispin and
Crispianus. The floating population of the roads,--the travelling
showman, the cheap jack, the harvest and hopping tramps, the young
fellows who trudge along barefoot, their boots slung over their
shoulders, their shabby bundles under their arms, their sticks newly cut
from some roadsid