“The essential value and truth of Dickens’s writings,” says Mr. Ruskin, “have been unwisely lost sight of by many thoughtful persons, merely because he presents his truth with some colour of caricature. Unwisely, because Dickens’s caricature, though often gross, is never mistaken. Allowing for his manner of telling them, the things he tells us are always true. I wish that he could think it right to limit his brilliant exaggeration to works written only for public amusement; and when he takes up a subject of high national importance, such as that which he handled in ‘Hard Times,’ that he would use severer and more accurate analysis. The usefulness of that work (to my mind, in several respects the greatest he has written,) is with many persons seriously diminished, because Mr. Bounderby is a dramatic monster, instead of a characteristic example of a worldly master; and Stephen Blackpool a dramatic perfection, instead of a characteristic example of an honest workman. But let us not lose the use of Dickens’s wit and insight because he chooses to speak in a circle of stage fire. He is entirely right in his main drift and purpose in every book he has written; and all of them, but especially ‘Hard Times,’ should be studied with close and earnest care by persons interested in social questions. They will find much that is partial, and, because partial, apparently unjust; but if they examine all the evidence on the other side, which Dickens seems to overlook, it will appear, after all their trouble, that his view was the finally right one, grossly and sharply told.” {33} Secondly, Mr. Dickens is accused of an irreverence for, and unseemly ridicule of, sacred things. Any attentive reader of Dickens will have observed that he is not much in the habit of quoting from, or alluding to the writings of others; but that when he does quote or allude, it is in the great majority of cases from or to the Holy Scriptures. {34} Occasionally we come upon a reference to Shakespeare; now and then we meet with one from Swift, or Scott, or Byron; but these occur so seldom, that it may be said, once for all, that the source from which Mr. Dickens is usually in the habit of making quotations, is the Bible only. It is very interesting to find that so many of Mr. Dickens’s characters are represented as being in the habit either of regularly reading and studying the Bible, or of having it read to them by some one else.