ring forth; the second looks
back on what the day has been and sees even its solemnities as slightly
ironical. Nothing can be too extravagant for the laughter that looks
forward; and nothing can be too dignified for the laughter that looks
back. It is an idle but obvious thing, which many must have noticed,
that we often find in the title of one of an author's books what might
very well stand for a general description of all of them. Thus all
Spenser's works might be called _A Hymn to Heavenly Beauty_; or all Mr.
Bernard Shaw's bound books might be called _You Never Can Tell_. In the
same way the whole substance and spirit of Thackeray might be gathered
under the general title _Vanity Fair_. In the same way too the whole
substance and spirit of Dickens might be gathered under the general
title _Great Expectations_.

In a recent criticism on this position I saw it remarked that all this
is reading into Dickens something that he did not mean; and I have been
told that it would have greatly surprised Dickens to be informed that he
"went down the broad road of the Revolution." Of course it would.
Criticism does not exist to say about authors the things that they knew
themselves. It exists to say the things about them which they did not
know themselves. If a critic says that the _Iliad_ has a pagan rather
than a Christian pity, or that it is full of pictures made by one
epithet, of course he does not mean that Homer could have said that. If
Homer could have said that the critic would leave Homer to say it. The
function of criticism, if it has a legitimate function at all, can only
be one function--that of dealing with the subconscious part of the
author's mind which only the critic can express, and not with the
conscious part of the author's mind, which the author himself can
express. Either criticism is no good at all (a very defensible position)
or else criticism means saying about an author the very things that
would have made him jump out of his boots.

Doubtless the name in this case _Great Expectations_ is an empty
coincidence; and indeed it is not in the books of the later Dickens
period (the period of _Great Expectations_) that we should look for the
best examples of this sanguine and expectant spirit which is the
essential of the man's genius. There are plenty of good examples of it
especially in the earlier works. But even in the earlier works there is
no example of it more striking or more satisfactory than _The