But the novelist, when he takes himself too seriously as the man who is
to show us "life as it is," is not content to acknowledge his
limitations. When he pictures a situation in which there is nothing but
a succession of problems and misunderstandings, he asks us to admire his
austere faithfulness. Faithful he may be to his Art, as he understands
it, but he is not faithful to reality, unless he is able to make us see
ordinary people in the act of enjoying themselves.

The most obvious thing in life is that people are seldom as unhappy as
their circumstances would lead us to expect. Nobody is happy all the
time, and if he were, nobody is enough of a genius to make his
undeviating felicity interesting. But a great many people are happy most
of the time, and almost everybody has been happy at some time or other.
It may have been only a momentary experience, but it was very real, and
he likes to think about it. He is excessively grateful to any one who
recalls the feeling. The point is that the aggregate of these good times
makes a considerable amount of cheerfulness.

Dickens does not attempt the impossible literary feat of showing us one
person who is happy all the time, but he does what is more obvious, he
makes us see a great many people who have snatches of good cheer in the
midst of their humdrum lives. He lets us see another obvious fact, that
happiness is more a matter of temperament than of circumstance. It is
not given as a reward of merit or as a mark of distinguished
consideration. There is one perennial fountain of pleasure. Any one can
have a good time who can _enjoy himself_. Dickens was not above
celebrating the kind of happiness which comes to the natural man and the
natural boy through what we call the "creature comforts." He could
sympathize with the unadulterated self-satisfaction of little Jack
Horner when

"He put in his thumb
And pulled out a plum,
And said, 'What a great boy am I!'"

The finding of the plum was not a matter of world-wide importance, but
it was a great pleasure for Jack Horner, and he did not care who knew
it.

What joy Mr. Micawber gets out of his own eloquence! We cannot begrudge
him this unearned increment. We sympathize, as, "much affected, but
still intensely enjoying himself, Mr. Micawber folded up his letter and
handed it with a bow to my aunt as something she might like to keep."

And R. Wilfer, despite his meagre salary, and despite Mrs. Wilfer,
enjoys himse