unsociability; a claim to absolute loneliness. The anarchist
is at least as solitary as the ascetic. And the men of very vivid vigour
in literature, the men such as Dickens, have generally displayed a large
sociability towards the society of letters, always expressed in the
happy pursuit of pre-existent themes, sometimes expressed, as in the
case of Moliere or Sterne, in downright plagiarism. For even theft is a
confession of our dependence on society. In Dickens, however, this
element of the original foundations on which he worked is quite
especially difficult to determine. This is partly due to the fact that
for the present reading public he is practically the only one of his
long line that is read at all. He sums up Smollett and Goldsmith, but he
also destroys them. This one giant, being closest to us, cuts off from
our view even the giants that begat him. But much more is this
difficulty due to the fact that Dickens mixed up with the old material,
materials so subtly modern, so made of the French Revolution, that the
whole is transformed. If we want the best example of this, the best
example is _Oliver Twist_.

Relatively to the other works of Dickens _Oliver Twist_ is not of great
value, but it is of great importance. Some parts of it are so crude and
of so clumsy a melodrama, that one is almost tempted to say that Dickens
would have been greater without it. But even if he had been greater
without it he would still have been incomplete without it. With the
exception of some gorgeous passages, both of humour and horror, the
interest of the book lies not so much in its revelation of Dickens's
literary genius as in its revelation of those moral, personal, and
political instincts which were the make-up of his character and the
permanent support of that literary genius. It is by far the most
depressing of all his books; it is in some ways the most irritating; yet
its ugliness gives the last touch of honesty to all that spontaneous and
splendid output. Without this one discordant note all his merriment
might have seemed like levity.

Dickens had just appeared upon the stage and set the whole world
laughing with his first great story _Pickwick_. _Oliver Twist_ was his
encore. It was the second opportunity given to him by those who had
rolled about with laughter over Tupman and Jingle, Weller and Dowler.
Under such circumstances a stagey reciter will sometimes take care to
give a pathetic piece after his humorous one; and