Page:In the dozy hours, and other papers.djvu/188

 174 invectives. What can we say to people who talk to us anxiously about Byron's unkindness to Leigh Hunt, and Dr. Johnson's illiberal attitude towards Methodism, and Scott's incomprehensible friendship for John Ballantyne; who remind us with austere dissatisfaction that Goldsmith did not pay his debts, and that Lamb drank more than was good for him, and that Dickens dressed loudly and wore flashy jewelry? I don't care what Dickens wore. I would not care if he had decorated himself with bangles, and anklets, and earrings, and a nose-ring, provided he wrote "Pickwick" and "David Copperfield." If there be any living novelist who can give us such another as Sam Weller, or Dick Swiveller, or Mr. Micawber, or Mrs. Gamp, or Mrs. Nickleby, let him festoon himself with gauds from head to foot, and wedge his fingers "knuckle-deep with rings," like the lady in the old song, and then sit down and write. The world will readily forgive him his embellishments. It has forgiven Flaubert his dressing-gown, and George Sand her eccentricities of attire, and Goldsmith his coat of Tyrian bloom, and the blue silk breeches for