ABSTRACT
The words turn head over heels, the sentences twirl and whirl in and out of one another, leap aside, play hide-and-seek with the meaning, hurl questions at one another, tease, lead one another astray, caper and prance in an unending and sprightly galliard. Great works of art must not be judged by their intensity alone, nor by the human types that stand out against the background: they need, likewise, to be appraised by their extensity, and their effect upon the mass of mankind. Unlike the men of letters who are self-seeking, who ask for sympathy and consolation, Dickens was a bountiful giver. Dickens poured out compassion and cheerfulness upon his contemporaries, thereby enhancing their serenity of mind and their pleasure, and stimulating the blood to course more swiftly through their veins. Dickens's imagination created the idyll of England: that is his finest achievement.
