Page:Great Men and Famous Women Volume 7.djvu/257

 CHARLES DICKENS 189 whole English-speaking world. This world, which now numbers nigh upon a hundred millions, loves him ; all who can read his books love him. This love cheered him in his life, and will keep his memory green. Of the solid wealth which he acquired, the honor he enjoyed, the friends who gathered round him, and the brave and resolute front which he always showed, there is no space here to speak. The following is the list of Dickens' works, in their order of appearance, omitting certain farces and pamphlets which belong to a more extended notice : "Sketches by Boz" (1836), "The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club" (1837), " Oliver Twist " (1838), "Nicholas Nickleby" (1839), "The Old Curiosity Shop" (1840-41), " Barnaby Rudge " (1841), "American Notes" (1842), " Martin Chuzzlewit " (1843), " The Christmas Tales" viz., " The Christ- mas Carol," " The Chimes," " The Cricket on the Hearth," "The Battle of Life," "The Haunted Man," and "The Ghost's Bargain" (1843, ^^ 1848), " Pict- ures from Italy" (1845), " Dombey and Son" (1846-48), " David Copperfield" (1849-50), "Bleak House" (1852-53), "The Child's History of England" (1854), "Hard Times" (1854), "Little Dorrit" (1855-57), "A Tale of Two Cities" (1859), "The Uncommercial Traveller" (1861), the "Christmas Num- bers" in Household Words and All the Year Round, "Great Expectations" (1860-61), "Our Mutual Friend" (1864-65), "The Mystery of Edwin Drood" (unfinished). This long roll by no means represents the whole work of this most active of mankind. Public readings both in this country and in America, private theatricals, speeches, letters innumerable, journeys many, pamphlets, plays, the conduct of a popular magazine first called Household Words, and then All the Year Round and an ever-present readiness to enjoy the society of his friends, fill up the space when he was not actually writing. That he could do so much was mainly due to his orderly and methodical habits, to his clearness of mind, and to a capacity for business as wonderful as his genius for fiction. He knew no rest from the day when he first attacked shorthand, to the day when he fell from his chair in the fit from which he never recovered. He was incom- parably the most active man, the hardest-working man of his age. In the history of letters there are many who have produced more work in bulk ; there is not one who led a life so varied, so full, so constantly busy, so active, and so rich. It is as yet too early to speak with certainty as to the lasting popularity of his work as a whole. Very much of it owed its general success to the faithful delineation of manners already passed away. He was the prophet of the middle class, and the manners of that great section of the community have greatly changed since the days when Charles Dickens lived among them and observed them. With the decay of these manners some part of present popularity must certainly pass out of his work ; already a generation has appeared to whom a great deal of Dickens' work proves of no interest, because it portrays manners with which they are not familiar. They do not laugh with those who laughed fifty, forty, twenty years ago, because the people depicted have vanished. But when the second quarter of this century shall belong so truly to the past, that