CHARLES DICKENS CHARLES DICKENS A CRITICAL STUDY BY G. K. CHESTERTON Author of Varied Types, Heretics, Etc. NEW YORK DODD MEAD & COMPANY 1911 COPYRIGHT, 1906, BY DODD, MEAD & COMPANY ❦ _First Edition Published in September, 1906_ To RHODA BASTABLE CONTENTS CHAPTER I PAGE THE DICKENS PERIOD 1 CHAPTER II THE BOYHOOD OF DICKENS 24 CHAPTER III THE YOUTH OF DICKENS 43 CHAPTER IV “THE PICKWICK PAPERS” 71 CHAPTER V THE GREAT POPULARITY 100 CHAPTER VI DICKENS AND AMERICA 127 CHAPTER VII DICKENS AND CHRISTMAS 155 CHAPTER VIII THE TIME OF TRANSITION 181 CHAPTER IX LATER LIFE AND WORKS 211 CHAPTER X THE GREAT DICKENS CHARACTERS 244 CHAPTER XI ON THE ALLEGED OPTIMISM OF DICKENS 266 CHAPTER XII A NOTE ON THE FUTURE OF DICKENS 291 CHAPTER I THE DICKENS PERIOD Much of our modern difficulty, in religion and other things, arises merely from this, that we confuse the word “indefinable” with the word “vague.” If some one speaks of a spiritual fact as “indefinable” we promptly picture something misty, a cloud with indeterminate edges. But this is an error even in common-place logic. The thing that cannot be defined is the first thing; the primary fact. It is our arms and legs, our pots and pans, that are indefinable. The indefinable is the indisputable. The man next door is indefinable, because he is too actual to be defined. And there are some to whom spiritual things have the same fierce and practical proximity; some to whom God is too actual to be defined. But there is a third class of primary terms. There are popular expressions which every one uses and no one can explain; which the wise man will accept and reverence, as he reverences desire or darkness or any elemental thing. The prigs of the debating club will demand that he should define his terms. And being a wise man he will flatly refuse. This first inexplicable term is the most important term of all. The word that has no definition is the word that has no substitute. If a man falls back again and again on some such word as “vulgar” or “manly” do not suppose that the word means nothing because he cannot say what it means. If he could say what the word means he would say what it means instead of saying the word. When the Game Chicken (that fine thinker) kept on saying to Mr. Toots, “It’s mean. That’s what it is--it’s mean,” he was using language in the wisest possible way. For what else could he say? There is no word for mean except mean. A man must be very mean himself before he comes to defining meanness. Precisely because the word is indefinable, the word is indispensable.