Page:Works of Charles Dickens, ed. Lang - Volume 18.djvu/12

x Cricket was, what it was styled, "a fairy tale of home," and was written without the storm and stress of its predecessors. Than these the Cricket was more popular, which is difficult to explain. The plot lacks probability; the pathos of the blind doll-dresser perhaps reconciled the general taste to this, and to the exalted language of the characters. The piece has been dramatised several times, and is better adapted to the stage than to the study. Tilly Slowboy is almost the only character in the fantasy who recalls Dickens at his best, for the "fairies " are not more successful than modern fairies in general, and the humour of animating the kettle, and, in fact, of all the introductory matter, has ceased to please, being worn threadbare by imitators. The doll's dressmaker has been credited with suggesting Desirée, in M. Daudet's Fromont Jeune et Risler Alné though the resemblance may be a mere coincidence.

The Battle of Life, as has been already said, was begun in the stress of writing Dombey(July, 1846). Dickens was "a little used up," and sick. At the end of September, in Genoa, the state of his health, and the double labour of two books, made Dickens think of abandoning the Christmas tale. He finished it, however, while complaining of limitations of space. Leech, who illustrated the story, was confused as to the plot, and introduced Michael Warden where he had no business to be, in the scene of the elopement. Though this "made havoc of one of the most delicate scenes," Mr. Forster says that nobody noticed it. Dickens did not interfere, at the last moment, out of consideration for Leech.

The author suffered from insomnia, while driving the long and the short story together from the first—a feat which he had never attempted before. "I dreamed all last night that