The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1905-04-09

feSSiOn that to me he is the most faS-
cinating, enjoyable of all novelists save
only the Great Wizard of the North
the immortal Scotch enchanter and
creator, who did so much for the en-
tertainment instruction and enjoy
ment of the men and women of the
world The cry is Dickens did some
harm in his day." But he is doing
good now all the years and all around
the world. My contention is that he
was a most facile, ebullient, inexhaus-
tible creator of character and
that no writer of fiction in any age
or land has given to the world of let
tiers so many important characters as
he has done, has furnished such a rich
galaxy of portraits with the stamp OF
the ages upon them with the one eX
ception of Sir Walter Scott, among
novelists, the greatest name in all the
fictive annals of the nations past and
present. Dickens made himself for
ever dear to the suffering, toiling hui
manity by his aggressive assaults upon
the higher class, and the rich who neg
lectcd and even prosecuted the lowly
and the poor Dickens followed Scott
as a painter of the manners of the
people, as all the other great Eng
lish novelists followed him in this
artistic faithful work. 1t was the
constant, true honesty of Scott that
gave so much flavor and vitality to
his work When dying Scott said to
his able, accomplished, famous SON
in-law. John G.. Lockhart, who wrote
that consummate biography of Scott:
My dear, be a good man-be virtuous,
be religious-be a good man. Nothing
else will give you any comfort when
you come to lie here" BY this prin-
ciple of virtue, humanity, purity, love
for his fellows, and reverence for God,
is the great writer in fiction judged, es
timated Fl. A. Taine, the extraordi-
nary French critic, in his great work
on the History of English Literature"
says of Scott: by this fundamental
honesty this wide humanity, he was
the Homer of modern citizen life.
Around and after him, the novel Of
manners, separated from the historical
romance, which Scott mainly created,
it must be added, has produced a
whole literature, and preserved the
character which he stamped upon it,"
He states that Miss Bronte, Mistress
Gaskell, George Eliot, Bronte
Thackeray, Dickens and many others,
paint especially or entirely in his
style. contemporary life, as it is, UNI
embellished in all ranks often amongst
the people, more frequently still
amongst the middle class" SO i'm
portant is Dickens sts a writer in the
estimation of the very accomplished,
acute, original Freuchman, that he
devotes an entire chapter of 81 large
pages, to him. He also deyotes a still
longer chapter to Thackeray. These
are the only English novclisGs he then
considers in chapter eacht He has
much TO say of Scott, but i IS scattered
in the two volumes. II you would
learn much of Dickens read Taine's
chapter. There is really mrch acute
ness in his analysis of our author, but
he does not give HIM, or TEacKerdy.
either, his full dues as a writer. 1t
has really something of carcature i'll
the portraiture. - it imp 'csscl ne
at the last and thrrd reading or the
two volumes, in 1902
1t is not surprising, though. thatya
French critic, with his peculiar literary
education, should find in Dickens some
things to censure or rJdicale. He COM
cedes to him, howevc-, both lucidity
and intensity of Imagination, and
writes of the boil lacss and vehemence8
OF his fancy--how he personifies in
animate objects ana with imprisoned
earnestness. He thinks hI% concept IN
is akin to intuition. He speaks of his
''trivialities and minuteness" and in
this resembles the painters OF his
country" He comedies to him genuine
pathos and real humor in abundance.
He says he is at times guilty If bIf-
foonery and caricatura, ami that there
is "recklessness and nervous exaggera-
ton in his gaiety.'' lie admits his nigh
moral qualities, and that he is all at
this important point 1 may add be is
greatly superior to such coarse,
libidinous, French authors as George
Sand, Balzac and many others
Taine says that Dickens lacks unity
of action" and shows why it is all
sent. He says he is the most railing,
the most comic, the most ioeose OF
English authors. There is
laughter akin to tears. Satire is the
sister of clegy; if the second pleads
for the oppressed, the first combats
the oppressors. Wounded by ais
fortune and vices, Dickens avenges
himself by ridicule. He does not paint,
he Furnishes" He thinks his extrava-
gance originates in his excess of
He remarks that he
remains grave usually while drawing
his caricatures, and adds, that he
loves to produce them. and his jubilee
is to hear them" And still he recog-
nizes this uncommon genius, and gives
more pages to him, as | have mention
ed, than to any other English novels
excepted. He puts th2
OF Dickens, his realistic
qualities and his studies in this wise:
lake care not to brulSe the delicate
souls. Believe that humanity,
pity forgiveness. are the finest things
in man; believe that intimacy, expan-
sion, tenderness tears, are the firest
things in the world. To live is moth
ing; to be powerful, learned, iliustri
Gus, is little: to be useful is not enough. !
He alone has lived and is q man vino
has wept at the remembrance of a
benefit, given or received / have
been greatly tempted to quote from
Taine at length. But l pass on to
further consideration of the Sreat
novelist, so full of humanity. compass
5ion sympathy, love, fascination, pow
er and inspiration.
No man could be better equipped
for a sane and profound judgment of
prose and poetic writer's than Walter
Savage Lander. In his Dedication of
Conversations of Greeks
and Romans in 1858, to Charles
Dickens, a work of many and splendid
qualities, Lander declared of Dickens
that ''in breaking UP and cultivating
the unreclaimed wastes of humanity,
no labors have been so strenuous, 81
or half so successful, rs
yours" He continues his high lauda-
ton in this fine strain: while the