The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1901-08-20
THE AUTHOR OF "PICKWICK >

You will meet with many deprecia-
tions of Dickens if you read the crit
ical deliyerances Of the last decade 1T
is quite common for certain writer's
both in Great Britain and the United
States to point out deficiencies of Dick
ems and Scott, and you will be led to
conclude that they are inferior writers
instead of among the very greatest in
the vast field Ct fiction unless correct
1y informed. They attack their style
n failures Of many kinds and have
but little insight into their great ex-
c~ellencies end manifold attractions.
While every veal sees a new and SUI
perior edition Of Dickens issued, his de-
tractors are the more pugnacious and
insistent that after all Dickens Is
a rather commonplace fellow with
pronounced limitations and serious de-
fects, and not many virtues and gifts.
Even SO able and well equipped a critic
as Professor George Saintsbury, some
thing of a favorite with us by rea-
son of his four or five volumes of crit
ical studies OF real interest, is severe
upon Dickens, and leaves him sadly
stripped of literary qualities and sue
cess when he is done with him.. In his
volume on Victorian writers which he
calls Corrected Impressions" publish
ed in 1895, he writes such things as
these: Tainted with incurable n
hopeless VulgaTity;" fantastic hum
or" che Is never witty" "dreary man
nerism;'' "exaggeration and one-sided-
ness" mo unallcwed excellence except
that fun" 'melodramatic rant" "froth
and whip II Dedevil %pathos;" damn
able iteration" fantastic and shad-
owy;" ''phantasmagoric, THEATRICAL" "a
limited sense of the irony of life;" mo
sense of poetry, lone of mystery,
hardly any Of religion" passion has a
merely rudimentary and infantile LeX-
pression;' art and literature next to
none at ALL" history, science, many
other things hardly any" And what is
left? If these and other sweeping
charges are true what has Dickens any
way, what is left of him, great novel
list is as he is? In the face of all this
Saintsbury coufesses to admiration in
some degree. He praises the immortal
~''Pickwick," and who does not? He
thinks it is a book to be e through
life, and says he never goes more than
a year or Two without reading it again.
His satisfaction remain u~ndiminished.
We wrote long ago that we could read
It once every year and love it. He
thinks it 'pre-eminently good in a
kin just short of the highest" In
truth, it was q brand-new creation, and
there was nothing at all like it in all
the rich realms of fiction. 1t remains
after nearly seventy years strictly sui
generis and q nonpareal. He does not
like BLEAK House" n "A Tale of
Two Cities" We are glad we like them
much The former is really full of
power and interest. and the latter is re-
markedly clever. unlike all others he
wrote, and with a distinctive excellence
of it's own. Dickens thought David
Copperfield" his best, and in that opin-
ion tens of thousands of readers are
perhaps agreed. 1t is very delightful,
full of human nature, with most mark
ed NATURALIZATION of characters. 1t
is we'll written, not deficient even in
elegance and is pathetic and powerful.
Saintsbury thinks his fame rests upon
"Nickleby," "Old Curiosity Shop"
"Barnaby Ridge. Martin Cnuzziewit,"
'Copperfeld" and "Dombey." 4 good
Iy company truly. and if he had never
written but these six he would have
ranked high among the foremost fictive
authors of prolific Great Britain. But
what will q more a~ppreciative critic
say of Great Expectations" "A Tale
of Two Cities and BLEAK House?"
That fine original Scotch critic. Andrew
Lang, holds that Great Expectations
lis the most delightful Of Dickens
books after four namely, "Pickwick'"
-~'Copperfield. ''Chuzzlewit" and Mich
-olas Nickleby." He puts"Great EXpecta-
-~tions," high Tor it is full of beauty and
freshness and fun. He damns the
-'STale of Two Cities" saying 1T is no
favorite Of mine" He pities the fellow
who can not read Dickens" He
would not like. he says. Ito have furth-
J. er converse with who condemns
Scott and cannot read Dickens" Well
taken. He would not make good and
acceptable He says that al
ter Scott Dickens is probably the man
to whom the world owes most graft
tude. No other has caused so many sad
hearts to be lifted up in laughter; nc
other has caused so much mirth TO the
toilsome and perplexed life of men, poor
and rich, Of learned n unlearned.
He was the genius OF laughter, and in
spite Of other opinion adverse, We hold
him to have been the genius Of tears
Lang says she has purged US with pity
and terror as we'll as with laughter
His pathos may not have been always
the most genuine. and at times rather
too much savoring of the melodramatic,
but it was sometimes most natural and
touching. He had indeed what Shakes
peare calls infinite variety" Lord
Jeffrey, h great Edinburgh Review