ness of the
book won its way into every heart. There is a fervour of youth and
healthy good spirits about the whole thing. In a former generation,
Byron had uttered his wail of despair over a worthless world. We, in
our own time, have got back to the dreary point of considering whether
life be worth living. Here was a writer who had no such misgivings.
For him life was pleasant, useful, full of delight--to be not only
tolerated, but enjoyed. He liked its sights, its play of character,
its adventures--affected no superiority to its amusements and
convivialities--thoroughly laid himself out to please and to be
pleased. And his characters were in the same mood. Their fund of
animal spirits seemed inexhaustible. For life's jollities they were
never unprepared. No doubt there were "mighty mean moments" in their
existence, as there have been in the existence of most of us. It
cannot have been pleasant to Mr. Winkle to have his eye blackened by
the obstreperous cabman. Mr. Tracy Tupman probably felt a passing pang
when jilted by the maiden aunt in favour of the audacious Jingle. No
man would elect to occupy the position of defendant in an action for
breach of promise, or prefer to sojourn in a debtors' prison. But how
jauntily do Mr. Pickwick and his friends shake off such discomforts!
How buoyantly do they override the billows that beset their course!
And what excellent digestions they have, and how slightly do they seem
to suffer the next day from any little excesses in the matter of milk
punch!

Then besides the good spirits and good temper, there is Dickens' royal
gift of humour. As some actors have only to show their face and utter
a word or two, in order to convulse an audience with merriment, so
here does almost every sentence hold good and honest laughter. Not,
perhaps, objects the superfine and too dainty critic, humour of the
most delicate sort--not humour that for its rare and exquisite quality
can be placed beside the masterpieces in that kind of Lamb, or Sterne,
or Goldsmith, or Washington Irving. Granted freely; not humour of that
special character. But very good humour nevertheless, the thoroughly
popular humour of broad comedy and obvious farce--the humour that
finds its account where absurd characters are placed in ridiculous
situations, that delights in the oddities of the whimsical and
eccentric, that irradiates stupidity and makes dulness amusing. How
thoroughly wholesome it is too! To be at the same time