CHARLES DICKENS. 



HE novelist plays an important part in modern life. 

 There are hundreds of lives which must move on 

 with little hope of change, living in the same street 

 or village, and doing about the same round of duties every 

 day. A work of fiction comes to those thus circumstanced as 

 the revelation of a new world, expanding the hard lines of 

 daily life, causing the mind to luxuriate in 'fresh fields and 

 pastures new.' Besides, in a good novel, we get behind the 

 scenes, and gain a glimpse of things as they really are, read 

 the promptings to this or that act. As in real life, too, we 

 meet with agreeable or disagreeable people, who may talk to 

 us as they will, with this difference, that when we close the 

 book we also for the time close the conversation, and lose sight 

 of our company. To the tired man of business, the relaxation 

 and ' play of mind ' derived from a good novel are very 

 welcome. There is much useless and damaging fiction, as 

 there are many useless and wasted lives, but with a little 

 selective power the bad may be avoided. 



The novelist whose career we now follow, lived in his work 

 and for his work, though with a keen zest for the other enjoy- 

 ments of life. His writings have revealed much that was 



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