Page:Works of Charles Dickens, ed. Lang - Volume 18.djvu/11

Rh immense industrial populations. This is not joyful matter for Christinas, and is not to be made roseate by vague optimism.

The book was finished on November 3, 1844, the author ending, he says, with "a good cry." Dickens came to London in the end of the month, and read his story in Mr. Forsters rooms, to several friends, including Carlyle. The sales of the book were twice as great as those of the Carol. But Mr. Charles Dickens thinks that possibly "for the general public the powder was found to bear a rather undue proportion to the jam, and they did not, altogether care about having so intensely earnest and serious a protest presented to them in such a form." This is, indeed, the normal objection to novels with a purpose—novels on topics which, to some minds, seem to demand the most impartial handling. But it was for such work that Dickens "hoped to be longest remembered," says Mr. Forster. "So may each year be happier than the last, and not the meanest of our brethren or sisterhood debarred their rightful share in what our great Creator formed them to enjoy." It is the old Aristotelian crux of "distributive justice." The Cricket on the Hearth was originally intended for the title of a serial, something in the nature of Household Words, a plan long caressed by Dickens. He meant to chirp away "until I chirped it up to—well, you"—Mr. Forster—"shall say how many hundred thousand." But the foundation of the Daily News interfered with this plan, and, in summer, 1845, Dickens determined to use the title for a Christmas book. It is curious to contrast his Christmas Books with Thackeray's The Rose and the Ring, and Dr. Birch, and The Kickleburys. These are not stories with a purpose, though not devoid of satire on Thackeray's favourite themes. The