always be present when we see a human creature imperfectly gifted
with man's noblest attribute of reason. But, granting this to the
full, is it possible to conceive of anything more kindly and gentle in
the delineation of partial insanity than the portraits which the
French critic finds horrible? Barnaby Rudge's lunatic symptoms are
compatible with the keenest enjoyment of nature's sights and sounds,
fresh air and free sunlight, and compatible with loyalty and high
courage. Many men might profitably change their reason for his
unreason. Mr. Dick's flightiness is allied to an intense devotion and
gratitude to the woman who had rescued him from confinement in an
asylum; there lives a world of kindly sentiments in his poor
bewildered brains. Of Mr. Toots, Susan Nipper says truly, "he may not
be a Solomon, nor do I say he is, but this I do say, a less selfish
human creature human nature never knew." And to this one may add that
he is entirely high-minded, generous, and honourable. Miss Flite's
crazes do not prevent her from being full of all womanly sympathies.
Here I think lies the charm these characters had for Dickens. As he
was fond of showing a soul of goodness in the ill-favoured and
uncouth, so he liked to make men feel that even in a disordered
intellect all kindly virtues might find a home, and a happy one. M.
Taine may call this "horrible" if he likes. I think myself it would be
possible to find a better adjective.

Dickens was at work on "Dombey and Son" during the latter part of the
year 1846, and the whole of 1847, and the early part of 1848. We left
him on the 16th of November, in the first of these years, starting
from Lausanne for Paris, which he reached on the evening of the 20th.
Here he took a house--a "preposterous" house, according to his own
account, with only gleams of reason in it; and visited many theatres;
and went very often to the Morgue, where lie the unowned dead; and had
pleasant friendly intercourse with the notable French authors of the
time, Alexandre Dumas the Great, most prolific of romance writers; and
Scribe of the innumerable plays; and the poets Lamartine and Victor
Hugo; and Chateaubriand, then in his sad and somewhat morose old age.
And in Paris too, with the help of streets and crowded ways, he
wrote the great number of Dombey, the number in which little Paul
dies. Three months did Dickens spend in the French capital, the
incomparable city, and then was back in London, at the old l