But this is very cheap merriment and very cheap pathos. M r. Dickens goes as far out of the way for his wicked people as he does for his good ones. Humanity is nearer home than the Boffins, and the Lammles, and the Wilfers, and the Veneerings. The people just named have nothing in common with each other, except the fact that they have nothing in common with mankind at large. But a community of eccentrics is impossible.
Society is maintained by natural sense and natural feeling.
We cannot conceive a society in which these principles are not in some manner represented. Suppose we take Eugene Wrayburn and Bradley Headstone. They occupy a half-way position between the habitual probable of nature and the habitual impossible of Mr. Dickens. A large portion of the story rests upon the enmity borne by Headstone to Wrayburn, both being in love with the same woman. Wrayburn is a gentleman, and Headstone is one of the people.