at he
possessed even in excess this sense of the scenic value of
character and situation: it is not a disqualification but a
virtue, and not Dickens alone but Dumas, Hugo and Scott were
great largely because of it.

In the praise naturally enough bestowed upon a great
autobiographical Novel like "David Copperfield," the fine art of
a late work like "Great Expectations" has been overlooked or at
least minimized. If we are to consider skilful construction
along with the other desirable qualities of the novelist, this
noble work has hardly had justice done it: moreover, everything
considered,--story value, construction, characters, atmosphere,
adequacy of style, climactic interest, and impressive lesson, I
should name "Great Expectations," published when the author was
fifty, as his most perfect book, if not the greatest of Charles
Dickens' novels. The opinion is unconventional: but as Dickens
is studied more as artist progressively skilful in his craft, I
cannot but believe this particular story will receive increasing
recognition. In the matter of sheer manipulation of material, it
is much superior to the book that followed it two years later,
the last complete novel: "Our Mutual Friend." It is rather
curious that this story, which was in his day and has steadily
remained a favorite with readers, has with equal persistency
been severely handled by the critics. What has insured its
popularity? Probably its vigor and variety of characterization,
its melodramatic tinge, the teeming world of dramatic contrasts
it opens, its bait to our sense of mystery. It has a power very
typical of the author and one of the reasons for Dickens' hold
upon his audience. It is a power also exhibited markedly in such
other fictions as "Dombey and Son," "Martin Chuzzlewit" and
"Bleak House." I refer to the impression conveyed by such
stories that life is a vast, tumultuous, vari-colored play of
counter-motives and counter-characters, full of chance,
surprise, change and bitter sweet: a thing of mystery, terror,
pity and joy. It has its masks of respectability, its frauds of
place, its beauty blossoming in the mud, its high and low of
luck, its infinite possibilities betwixt heaven and hell. The
effect of this upon the sensitive reader is to enlarge his
sympathetic feeling for humanity: life becomes a big, awful,
dear phantasmagoria in such hands. It seems not like a flat
surface, but a thing of length, breadth, height and depth, which
it h