quite right. It is only now and then that an audience will
grant an extension of time to a speaker in order that he may make his
point more clear. They would rather miss the point. And it is still more
rare for the reader to grant a similar extension in order that the
author may tell again what he has told before. It is much easier to shut
up a book than to shut up a speaker.

The criticism of Dickens that his characters repeat themselves quite
misses the mark. As well object to an actor that he frequently responds
to an encore. If indicted for the offense, he could at least insist that
the audience be indicted with him as accessory before the fact.

Dickens tells us that when he read at Harrogate, "There was a remarkably
good fellow of thirty or so who found something so very ludicrous in
Toots that he could not compose himself at all, but laughed until he sat
wiping his eyes with his handkerchief, and whenever he felt Toots coming
again he began to laugh and wipe his eyes afresh."

"Whenever he felt Toots coming again"--there you have the whole
philosophy of the matter. The young fellow found Toots amusing when he
first laid eyes on him. He wanted to see him again, and it must always
be the same Toots.

It is useless to cavil at an author because of the means by which he
produces his effects. The important thing is that he does produce an
effect. That the end justifies the means may be a dangerous doctrine in
ethics, but much may be said for it in literature. The situation is like
that of a middle-aged gentleman beset by a small boy on a morning just
right for snowballing. "Give me leave, mister?" cries the youthful
sharpshooter. The good-natured citizen gives leave by pulling up his
coat-collar and quickening his pace. If the small boy can hit him, he is
forgiven, if he cannot hit him, he is scorned. The fact is that Dickens
with a method as broad and repetitious as that of Nature herself does
succeed in hitting our fancy. That is, he succeeds nine times out of
ten.

It is the minor characters of Dickens that are remembered. And we
remember them for the same reason that we remember certain faces which
we have seen in a crowd. There is some salient feature or trick of
manner which first attracts and then holds our attention. A person must
have some tag by which he is identified, or, so far as we are concerned,
he becomes one of the innumerable lost articles. There are persons who
are like umbrellas, very useful,