Dickens was a great novelist, but he was not a perfect novelist. It is easy to find defects in the books that he wrote, defects of style, faults in the plans of his novels and in the delineation of his characters. But in spite of these defects, his novels are great novels. It is possible that Dickens' characters are more true to life than we have {20} thought they were. He may be one of the greatest delineators of English character in the history of literature. Can you not imagine Sam Weller, and Mark Tapley, yes, and Tom Pinch, and Ham Peggotty, Tupman, Winkle and Snodgrass, fighting in the trenches in France and Flanders, with bravery, jokes and indomitable perseverance, while Boffin, Mr. Pickwick, Miss Betsey Trotwood and Susan Nipper are busy with work at home? One of the best ways, and certainly one of the most delightful ways, to study the character and the genius of the people of England is to read the novels of Charles Dickens. {21} CHAPTER IV THE WAVERLEY NOVELS You have heard at times a strain of music far away. A band, perhaps, is playing the air of some martial song that you know well. The music comes nearer, nearer. You can almost imagine that you see the players marching down the street. And here they are. As stirring, as romantic, as beautiful as the distant music, are the spirit, scenes, and happenings of The Waverley Novels by Sir Walter Scott. Scott did not begin by writing novels; his first writing was poetical; he wrote stories in verse. If you do not already know these poetical stories, you probably will some day soon, because they are charming and delightful, and so easy to read that one almost feels one must have read them before in a dream. The novels are, perhaps, a little more difficult to follow, but not after we once get fairly started. They are wonderful books to read. Some of them are world novels. This means that in many countries, and in many different languages, people may be found reading the Waverley Novels. This statement is true of Dickens' novels also. When we learn to know Dickens' work and Scott's work intimately, we will perceive that there is a difference. Let us begin with _Rob Roy_, one of the Waverley Novels which is a great favourite with boys {22} and girls. Francis Osbaldistone is sent by his father to visit his uncle, Sir Hildebrand, at the family seat, Osbaldistone Hall, in the north of England. Frank does not want to go into business and become his father's successor. The visit to Osbaldistone Hall is by way of punishment. His father means to choose one of Frank's six cousins to inherit his place in the business. Frank goes north, meets all the six cousins, his uncle, Sir Hildebrand, Andrew Fairservice, a serving man, who is as notable a character after his own way of life as Sam Weller; and above all he meets a cousin of his cousins, Die Vernon, beautiful, spirited, altogether charming and lovable Die.