Page:Works of Charles Dickens, ed. Lang - Volume 18.djvu/10

viii happier. The universal practice of "Carol philosophy " has never yet been tried, and is not likely to be put into such a form as will solve the riddle of the painful earth. The minute inquirer will ask whether "Carol philosophy" had not something to do with the "terrific" nature of Dickens's Christmas bills. As literature, the sketches of jovial life, and of the miserable end of the selfish man, and his robbed death bed, are brilliant and effective.

The Chimes was written in Genoa, and the title was suggested by a burst of the bells in that isle sonnante. The Christmas story was a social manifesto. Dickens wrote "in a regular ferocious excitement," "wrathful and red-hot," and "fierce to finish in a spirit bearing some affinity to those of truth and mercy." Ferocity of mercy is, indeed, a common result of meditation on poverty and oppression. A sketch of the tale was sent to Mr. Forster. The parts of Fern and Lilian do not occur in the first draught. "The book has made my face white in a foreign land," he says, so heartfelt was his protest against the idea of a surplus population, and the notion that the poor have no business to live. Apparently it is the rich who have no business to live. The egregious Sir Peter Laurie, who meant to "put down " everything, including "all sick persons and young children, 11 appears in Alderman Cute. The friend of "the good old times" is the Young England Party, probably. The scene with the tripe—caricatured, of course—represents the abstract science of Political Economy in concrete action. If we ask Dickens what remedy he proposes, we get no more answer than from Mr. Carlyle. A better and more humane spirit is recommended—that is all. The infinite grievances are forcibly presented, but the speculative imagination looks in vain for a system which will introduce peace, plenty, and universal good will among