triumphs. All his books might have been
_Sketches by Boz_. But he did turn away from this, and the turning-point
is _Nicholas Nickleby_.

Everything has a supreme moment and is crucial; that is where our
friends the evolutionists go wrong. I suppose that there is an instant
of midsummer as there is an instant of midnight. If in the same way
there is a supreme point of spring, _Nicholas Nickleby_ is the supreme
point of Dickens's spring. I do not mean that it is the best book that
he wrote in his youth. _Pickwick_ is a better book. I do not mean that
it contains more striking characters than any of the other books in his
youth. The _Old Curiosity Shop_ contains at least two more striking
characters. But I mean that this book coincided with his resolution to
be a great novelist and his final belief that he could be one.
Henceforward his books are novels, very commonly bad novels. Previously
they have not really been novels at all. There are many indications of
the change I mean. Here is one, for instance, which is more or less
final. _Nicholas Nickleby_ is Dickens's first romantic novel because it
is his first novel with a proper and dignified romantic hero; which
means, of course, a somewhat chivalrous young donkey. The hero of
_Pickwick_ is an old man. The hero of _Oliver Twist_ is a child. Even
after _Nicholas Nickleby_ this non-romantic custom continued. The _Old
Curiosity Shop_ has no hero in particular. The hero of _Barnaby Rudge_
is a lunatic. But Nicholas Nickleby is a proper, formal, and ceremonial
hero. He has no psychology; he has not even any particular character;
but he is made deliberately a hero--young, poor, brave, unimpeachable,
and ultimately triumphant. He is, in short, the hero. Mr. Vincent
Crummles had a colossal intellect; and I always have a fancy that under
all his pomposity he saw things more keenly than he allowed others to
see. The moment he saw Nicholas Nickleby, almost in rags and limping
along the high road, he engaged him (you will remember) as first walking
gentleman. He was right. Nobody could possibly be more of a first
walking gentleman than Nicholas Nickleby was. He was the first walking
gentleman before he went on to the boards of Mr. Vincent Crummles's
theatre, and he remained the first walking gentleman after he had come
off.

Now this romantic method involves a certain element of climax which to
us appears crudity. Nicholas Nickleby, for instance, wanders through the
world; he ta