Page:In the dozy hours, and other papers.djvu/51

 Rh the human tie which binds us man to man. Dickens tries to do this, but does not often succeed, just because he tries. A conscious purpose is an irresistible temptation to oratory, and we do not want to be preached to over a roast goose, nor lectured at through the medium of pork and greens. Scott never turns a table into a pulpit; it is his own far-reaching sympathy which touches the secret springs that move us to kind thoughts. Quentin Durward's breakfast at the inn is worthy of Thackeray. Quentin Durward's appetite is worthy of Dickens. But Quentin Durward's host—the cruel and perfidious Louis—ah! no one but Scott would have dared to paint him with such fine, unhostile art, and no one but Scott would have succeeded.

In point of detail, however, Dickens defies competition. Before his vast and accurate knowledge the puny efforts of modern realism shrink into triviality and nothingness. What is the occasional dinner at a third-class New York restaurant, the roast chicken and mashed potatoes and cranberry tart, eaten with such ostentatious veracity, when compared to that unerring observation which penetrated into