The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1905-04-16
g TILL THE MOST POPULAR
y NOVELIST IN THE WORLD
BY Dr.. Theodore Bryant Kingsbury.

i
no other novelist, save Scott only, as
l wrote in my last article l greatly
admire Thackeray, and have, l be-
lieve, a proper conception of his high
gifts as a writer of fiction. He is truly
a great writer. His style is superior
to that of any leading English novelist
Ito Scott, Dickens, George Eliot,
Reade Charlotte Bronte, Meredith,
Blackmore, Hardy, Kingsley or any
other. He is a great satirist, power
full Inner of character, wonderful
describer of events. He can not be
classed as a popular novelist. He is
too brafny to be that. He is too great
a tax on peoples understandings as
we'll as taste to ever be regarded as a
novelist Of the people. But Dickens
is so rich, so full of resource, so mex
haustible, produces his infinite charac-
ters with such easy art and uniform
delight is so frank, open, communica-
tive, so overlooking with fun and hui
NOR and even pathos and wit, that you
can but love him, and all that makes
him the peoples. novelist, the one
great, fecund writer of fiction, of Carl
cature, of English Middle and lower
class life. A recent writer in the fa4
nous London Academy" indulgina
in kind, sympathetic vein of Dick
ems, pleasantly asked:
did ever words and thoughts and
+
from any pen than they did from
Dickens'S? There is almost a plethora
of characters in most of his novels,
they crowd and jostle enc another
and only the touch of a master hand
could have kept them distinct and
made them live. AS we read Shake
speare we are overwhelmed by the
number of the living portraits he has
painted for us; so it is to me with
Dickens. l stand astoniShed at his
fecundity; his resources are SO bound
less, his variety so ample. Smell of
the lamp Never did writer labor less.
Take this one story of David Copper
field" l know not how many charac-
ters there be in it; they appear to be
innumerable, each distinct, each ac
tual: there are enough to set up for
life the average writer of stories.
Each sketch by Dickens would form
the centre figure of novel by most
of our authors.
When the critics now can find no
other faults in him than his defects of
STYLE his melo-dramatic properties, his
lack of coherent development, his in
ability to paint a real romance, and
so they are still very happy, and sing
their little song of detraction. And yet
Dickens, like the great Sir Walter
Scott has been the creator of scores
of writer's who have in vain attempted
er words, he has been the cause of a
large school of writer's who have es-
sayed to catch his manner and to
produce some of his effects. He has
suffered from the fault-finders, and in
spite of it all, he remains the most
popular novelist in the world and
certainly one of the most entertaining
to cultivated readers who wish pathe-
tic or ludicrous scenes, the sketches of
most original characters, the portray
al of the common people and their
ways. the most exciting Impressions,
the fullest knowledge of the mysteries
of the life in London and other places,
the yarieSated shades of character as
found in life among the middle class
and the lower class as well. the rich
ness and delight of fun almost run
riot, and the pathos and pictorialness
of many faVorite scenes and incidents
so dear to the lover of Dickens. That
really gifted English critic who died
q year or so ago-July, 1903-W u.
Henley, while not the greatest Of en-
thusiasts over Dickens by much had
d very genuine love and admiration of
his high qualities while pointing out
his defects anC short comings, as he
saw them. He says his imagination
was diligent from the outset" and
comedies that his faults were many
and grave; that The wrote some nom
sense and sinned repeatedly against
taste" that ''he could be noisy and
vulgar" and was apt to be a carica-
turist where he should have been q
painter" and even that The was often
monksh and often eXtravagant," but
bad as it may be in places, he says
The meant what he did and had lin
full measure the quality of sincerity.
At first, he contends that he often
wrote exceedingly ILL., and yet he
actually developed into an artist in
words as he developed into an artist
in the construction and the evolution
of a story" He refers to the some
times grossly absurd "Pickwick Pa
pers'=one of the most amusing and
pleasant of books, that / could read
with relish once every year-as full of
freshness and fun that it is "a comic
middle-claSs epic" and is IAN immort-
al book In spite of faults and inn
projections that unappreciat1ve critics
carp at Mr.. Henley says that Dickens
was not alone in his "many and grave
faults" but he remembers that it was
SO with ''Sir Walter and the good
Dumas; so, to be candid had Shake
speare Observation-Disclosures the king
of poets" Then he graciouSly and
tenderly says of DickenS-"To myself
he is always the man of his unrivalleo
and enchanting ictters-is always the
incarnation of generous and abound
ing gaiety type of beneficent earn
estness, great expression of emo
tional vigor and emotional vivacity.
love to think that while English lit
erature endures he will be remember
ed as one that loved his fellowmen,
and did more to make them happy and
amiable than any other writer of his
time. 1t would not perhaps have
been extravagant, if he had written
"of all time.'' After copying from
this important English critic. | now
turn to the best of the living Scotch
critics, many-sided, finely endowed
author in several fields of successful
authorship-Prof. Andrew Lang. Let
us hear what this very accomplished
Iiteratus says of a genius whose writ
ings are not relished by-some people
He holds that Dickens was 1.-The great
est comic genius of modern times" He
appreciates his great human nature
and tells us that he knows ''in a re,
mote and even Pictish part of this
kingdom" (Great Brittany "a rural
household. humble and under the
shadow of a great sorrow inevitably
approaching, that has found in David
Copperfield oblivion of a writer of