journalist would have
made Rick Carstone in his mad career cast off Esther and Ada and the
others. The great artist knew better. He knew that even if all the good
in a man is dying, the last sense that dies is the sense that knows a
good woman from a bad; it is like the scent of a noble hound.

The clumsy journalist would have made Rick Carstone turn on John
Jarndyce with an explosion of hatred, as of one who had made an
exposure--who had found out what low people call "a false friend" in
what they call "his true colours." The great artist knew better; he knew
that a good man going wrong tries to salve his soul to the last with the
sense of generosity and intellectual justice. He will try to love his
enemy if only out of mere love of himself. As the wolf dies fighting,
the good man gone wrong dies arguing. This is what constitutes the true
and real tragedy of Richard Carstone. It is strictly the one and only
great tragedy that Dickens wrote. It is like the tragedy of Hamlet. The
others are not tragedies because they deal almost with dead men. The
tragedy of old Dorrit is merely the sad spectacle of a dotard dragged
about Europe in his last childhood. The tragedy of Steerforth is only
that of one who dies suddenly; the tragedy of old Dombey only that of
one who was dead all the time. But Rick is a real tragedy, for he is
still alive when the quicksand sucks him down.

It is impossible to avoid putting in the first place this pall of smoke
which Dickens has deliberately spread over the story. It is quite true
that the country underneath is clear enough to contain any number of
unconscious comedians or of merry monsters such as he was in the custom
of introducing into the carnival of his tales. But he meant us to take
the smoky atmosphere seriously. Charles Dickens, who was, like all men
who are really funny about funny things, horribly serious about serious
things, certainly meant us to read this story in terms of his protest
and his insurrection against the emptiness and arrogance of law, against
the folly and the pride of judges. Everything else that there is in this
story entered into it through the unconscious or accidental energy of
his genius, which broke in at every gap. But it was the tragedy of
Richard Carstone that he meant, not the comedy of Harold Skimpole. He
could not help being amusing; but he meant to be depressing.

Another case might be taken as testing the greater seriousness of this
tale. The passag