of all the ridiculous traits--the whims,
silly pride, foibles, hopes founded on nothing and dreams touched with
moonshine--and you make a Micawber. Put in a dash of assurance and a good
thimbleful of hypocrisy, and Pecksniff is the product. Leave out the
assurance, replacing it with cowardice, and the result is Doctor Chillip
or Uriah Heap. Muddle the whole with stupidity, and Bumble comes forth.

Then, for the good people, collect the virtues and season to suit the
taste and we have the Cheeryble Brothers, Paul Dombey or Little Nell.
They have no development, therefore no history--the circumstances under
which you meet them vary, that's all. They are people the like of whom
are never seen on land or sea.

Little Nell is good all day long, while live children are good for only
five minutes at a time. The recurrence with which these five-minute
periods return determines whether the child is "good" or "bad." In the
intervals the restless little feet stray into flowerbeds; stand on chairs
so that grimy, dimpled hands may reach forbidden jam; run and romp in
pure joyous innocence, or kick spitefully at authority. Then the little
fellow may go to sleep, smile in his dreams so that mamma says angels are
talking to him (nurse says wind on the stomach); when he awakens the
five-minute good spell returns.

Men are only grown-up children. They are cheerful after breakfast, cross
at night. Houses, lands, barns, railroads, churches, books, racetracks
are the playthings with which they amuse themselves until they grow
tired, and Death, the kind old nurse, puts them to sleep.

So a man on earth is good or bad as mood moves him; in color his acts are
seldom pure white, neither are they wholly black, but generally of a
steel-gray. Caprice, temper, accident, all act upon him. The North Wind
of hate, the Simoon of Jealousy, the Cyclone of Passion beat and buffet
him. Pilots strong and pilots cowardly stand at the helm by turn. But
sometimes the South Wind softly blows, the sun comes out by day, the
stars at night: friendship holds the rudder firm, and love makes all
secure.

Such is the life of man--a voyage on life's unresting sea; but Dickens
knows it not. Esther is always good, Fagin is always bad, Bumble is
always pompous, and Scrooge is always--Scrooge. At no Dickens' party do
you ever mistake Cheeryble for Carker; yet in real life Carker is Carker
one day and Cheeryble the next--yes, Carker in the morning and Cheeryble
after d