But when we
remember that Fielding, too, very often wrote "with a purpose," and
that purpose the protection of the poor and unfriended; and when we
remember what an artist Fielding was, I do not see how we can blame
Dickens. Occasionally he made his art and his purpose blend so
happily that his work was all the better for his benevolent
intentions. We owe Mr. Squeers, Mrs. Squeers, Fanny Squeers,
Wackford and all, to Dickens's indignation against the nefarious
school pirates of his time. If he is less successful in attacking
the Court of Chancery, and very much less successful still with the
Red Tape and Circumlocution Office affairs, that may be merely
because he was less in the humour, and not because he had a purpose
in his mind. Every one of a man's books cannot be his masterpiece.
There is nothing in literary talk so annoying as the spiteful joy
with which many people declare that an author is "worked out,"
because his last book is less happy than some that went before.
There came a time in Dickens' career when his works, to my own taste
and that of many people, seemed laboured, artificial--in fact, more
or less failures. These books range from "Dombey and Son," through
"Little Dorrit," I dare not say to "Our Mutual Friend." One is
afraid that "Edwin Drood," too, suggests the malady which Sir Walter
already detected in his own "Peveril of the Peak." The intense
strain on the faculties of Dickens--as author, editor, reader, and
man of the world--could not but tell on him; and years must tell.
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