Charles Dickens: A critical studyChesterton, G. K. (Gilbert Keith)
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Charles Dickens: A critical study
Chesterton, G. K. (Gilbert Keith)
Dickens, Charles, 1812-1870
There is a school of smug optimists who will deny that he
is a poor man. There is a school of scientific pessimists who will deny
that he is a man.
Out of this perennial contradiction arises the fact that there are
always two types of the reformer. The first we may call for convenience
the pessimistic, the second the optimistic reformer. One dwells upon
the fact that souls are being lost; the other dwells upon the fact
that they are worth saving. Both, of course, are (so far as that is
concerned) quite right, but they naturally tend to a difference of
method, and sometimes to a difference of perception. The pessimistic
reformer points out the good elements that oppression has destroyed;
the optimistic reformer, with an even fiercer joy, points out the
good elements that it has not destroyed. It is the case for the first
reformer that slavery has made men slavish. It is the case for the
second reformer that slavery has not made men slavish. The first
describes how bad men are under bad conditions. The second describes
how good men are under bad conditions. Of the first class of writers,
for instance, is Gorky. Of the second class of writers is Dickens.
But here we must register a real and somewhat startling fact. In
the face of all apparent probability, it is certainly true that the
optimistic reformer reforms much more completely than the pessimistic
reformer. People produce violent changes by being contented, by being
far too contented. The man who said that revolutions are not made with
rose-water was obviously inexperienced in practical human affairs. Men
like Rousseau and Shelley do make revolutions, and do make them with
rose-water; that is, with a too rosy and sentimental view of human
goodness. Figures that come before and create convulsion and change
(for instance, the central figure of the New Testament) always have the
air of walking in an unnatural sweetness and calm. They give us their
peace ultimately in blood and battle and division; not as the world
giveth give they unto us.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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