poleon began to put his
house in order; after his decisive victories Dickens also began to put
his house in order. The house, when he had put it in order, was _Bleak
House_.

There was one thing common to nearly all the other Dickens tales, with
the possible exception of _Dombey and Son_. They were all rambling
tales; and they all had a perfect right to be. They were all rambling
tales for the very simple reason that they were all about rambling
people. They were novels of adventure; they were even diaries of travel.
Since the hero strayed from place to place, it did not seem unreasonable
that the story should stray from subject to subject. This is true of the
bulk of the novels up to and including _David Copperfield_, up to the
very brink or threshold of _Bleak House_. Mr. Pickwick wanders about on
the white English roads, always looking for antiquities and always
finding novelties. Poor Oliver Twist wanders along the same white roads
to seek his fortune and to find his misfortune. Nicholas Nickleby goes
walking across England because he is young and hopeful; Little Nell's
grandfather does the same thing because he is old and silly. There is
not much in common between Samuel Pickwick and Oliver Twist; there is
not much in common between Oliver Twist and Nicholas Nickleby; there is
not much in common (let us hope) between Little Nell's grandfather and
any other human being. But they all have this in common, that they may
actually all have trodden in each other's footprints. They were all
wanderers on the face of the same fair English land. _Martin Chuzzlewit_
was only made popular by the travels of the hero in America. When we
come to _Dombey and Son_ we find, as I have said, an exception; but even
here it is odd to note the fact that it was an exception almost by
accident. In Dickens's original scheme of the story, much greater
prominence was to have been given to the travels and trials of Walter
Gay; in fact, the young man was to have had a deterioration of character
which could only have been adequately detailed in him in his character
of a vagabond and a wastrel. The most important point, however, is that
when we come to _David Copperfield_, in some sense the summit of his
serious literature, we find the thing still there. The hero still
wanders from place to place, his genius is still gipsy. The adventures
in the book are less violent and less improbable than those which wait
for Pickwick and Nicholas Nickleby; but