Charles Dickens: A critical study

by G. K. Chesterton

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.