obvious imperfections in the machinery of society,
inspire all men with a cheery benevolence, and everything will go well
with this excellent world of ours."

Every student of the science of society, however, owes a debt to
Dickens. He did what no science or knowledge or logic can do alone. He
reached the heart, awoke the conscience, and pierced the obtuseness of
the public. He aroused its protests because his genius painted prisons
and hovels and dens of vice so vividly that his readers actually
suffered from the scenes thus presented and wanted such horrors
abolished.

Dickens's infectious humor is a remarkable and an unfailing quality of
his works. It pervades entire chapters, colors complete incidents, and
displays the temper of the optimist through the darkest pictures of
human suffering.

A hypocrite is an abomination to Dickens. Speaking of Mr. Pecksniff in
_Martin Chuzzlewit_, Dickens says: "Some people likened him to a
direction-post, which is always telling the way to a place, and never
goes there." His humor can be fully appreciated only by reading long
passages, such as the scene of Mr. Pickwick's trial, the descriptions
of Mr. Micawber and of Miss Betsey Trotwood, or the chapter on
Podsnappery in _Our Mutual Friend_. Dickens's humor has an exuberant
richness, which converts men and women into entertaining figures of
comedy.

Closely allied to his fund of humor is his capacity for pathos,
especially manifest in his treatment of childhood. Dickens has a large
gallery of children's portraits, fondly and sympathetically executed.
David Copperfield, enduring Mr. Murdstone's cruel neglect, Florence
Dombey pining for her father's love, the Marchioness starving upon
cold potatoes, Tom and Louise Gradgrind, stuffed with facts and
allowed no innocent amusement, and the waifs of Tom's-All-Alone dying
from abject poverty and disease, are only a few of the sad-eyed
children peering from the pages of Dickens and yearning for love and
understanding. He wrings the heart; but, happily, his books have
improved the conditions of children, not only in public asylums,
factories, and courts, but also in schools and homes.

Dickens's chief faults arise from an excess of sensibility and humor.
His soft heart and romantic spirit lead him to exaggerate. In such
passages as the death of Little Nell in _The Old Curiosity Shop_ and
the interviews between Dora and David in _David Copperfield_, Dickens
becomes mawkish and sentime