re fusing the methods of
Dickens with those of later and earlier writers. We are in for an era of
broad effect again.

But a great many people, and, amongst them, some who ought to have known
better, adopted the saying of Mr. Howells in a wider sense than he ever
intended it to carry, and, partly as a result of this, we have arrived
at a certain tacit depreciation of the greatest emotional master of
fiction. There are other and more cogent reasons for the temporary
obscuration of that brilliant light. It may aid our present purpose to
discover what they are.

Every age has its fashions in literature as it has in dress. All the
beautiful fashions in literature, at least, have been thought worthy of
revival and imitation, but there has come to each in turn a moment when
it has begun to pall upon the fancy. Every school before its death
is fated to inspire satiety and weariness. The more overwhelming its
success has been, the more complete and sweeping is the welcomed change.
We know how the world thrilled and wept over Pamela and Clarissa, and
we know how their particular form of pathos sated the world and died.
We know what a turn enchanted castles had, and how their spell withered
into nothing. We know what a triumphal progress the Sentimental Sufferer
made through the world, and what a bore he came to be. It is success
which kills. Success breeds imitation, and the imitators are a
weariness. And it is not the genius who dies. It is only the school
which arose to mimic him. Richardson is alive for everybody but the
dull and stupid. Now that the world of fiction is no longer crowded with
enchanted castles, we can go to live in one occasionally for a change,
and enjoy ourselves. Werther is our friend again, though the school he
founded was probably the most tiresome the world has seen.

Now, with the solitary exception of Sir Walter Scott, it is probable
that no man ever inspired such a host of imitators as Charles Dickens.
There is not a writer of fiction at this hour, in any land where fiction
is a recognised trade or art, who is not, whether he knows it and owns
it, or no, largely influenced by Dickens. His method has got into the
atmosphere of fiction, as that of all really great writers must do,
and we might as well swear to unmix our oxygen and hydrogen as to stand
clear of his influences. To stand clear of those influences you must
stand apart from all modern thought and sentiment. You must have read
nothing tha