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Why was not George Gissing more widely read? If faithfulness to life were the key to literary success, Gissing’s sales would have been counted by the million instead of by the hundred.

Have Mark Twain’s literary qualities, apart altogether from his humour, been recognised in literary circles as they ought to have been? “Huck Finn” would be a great work were there not a laugh in it from cover to cover. Among the Indians and some other savage tribes the fact that a member of the community has lost one of his senses makes greatly to his advantage; he is then regarded as a superior person. So among a school of Anglo-Saxon readers, it is necessary to a man, if he would gain literary credit, that he should lack the sense of humour. One or two curious modern examples occur to me of literary success secured chiefly by this failing.

All these authors are my favourites; but such catholic taste is held nowadays to be no taste. One is told that if one loves Shakespeare, one must of necessity hate Ibsen; that one cannot appreciate Wagner and tolerate Beethoven; that if we admit any merit in Dore, we are incapable of understanding Whistler. How can I say which is my favourite novel? I can only ask myself which lives clearest in my memory, which is the book I run to more often than to another in that pleasant half hour before the dinner-bell, when, with all apologies to good Mr. Smiles, it is useless to think of work.

I find, on examination, that my “David Copperfield” is more dilapidated than any other novel upon my shelves. As I turn its dog- eared pages, reading the familiar headlines “Mr. Micawber in difficulties,” “Mr. Micawber in prison,” “I fall in love with Dora,” “Mr. Barkis goes out with the tide,” “My child wife,” “Traddles in a nest of roses”–pages of my own life recur to me; so many of my sorrows, so many of my joys are woven in my mind with this chapter or the other. That day–how well I remember it when I read of “David’s” wooing, but Dora’s death I was careful to skip. Poor, pretty little Mrs. Copperfield at the gate, holding up her baby in her arms, is always associated in my memory with a child’s cry, long listened for. I found the book, face downwards on a chair, weeks afterwards, not moved from where I had hastily laid it.

Old friends, all of you, how many times have I not slipped away from my worries into your pleasant company! Peggotty, you dear soul, the sight of your kind eyes is so good to me. Our mutual friend, Mr. Charles Dickens, is prone, we know, just ever so slightly to gush. Good fellow that he is, he can see no flaw in those he loves, but you, dear lady, if you will permit me to call you by a name much abused, he has drawn in true colours. I know you well, with your big heart, your quick temper, your homely, human ways of thought. You yourself will never guess your worth–how much the world is better for such as you! You think of yourself as of a commonplace person, useful only for the making of pastry, the darning of stockings, and if a man–not a young man, with only dim half-opened eyes, but a man whom life had made keen to see the beauty that lies hidden beneath plain faces–were to kneel and kiss your red, coarse hand, you would be much astonished. But he would be a wise man, Peggotty, knowing what things a man should take carelessly, and for what things he should thank God, who has fashioned fairness in many forms.

Mr. Wilkins Micawber, and you, most excellent of faithful wives, Mrs. Emma Micawber, to you I also raise my hat. How often has the example of your philosophy saved me, when I, likewise, have suffered under the temporary pressure of pecuniary liabilities; when the sun of my prosperity, too, has sunk beneath the dark horizon of the world–in short, when I, also, have found myself in a tight corner. I have asked myself what would the Micawbers have done in my place. And I have answered myself. They would have sat down to a dish of lamb’s fry, cooked and breaded by the deft hands of Emma, followed by a brew of punch, concocted by the beaming Wilkins, and have forgotten all their troubles, for the time being. Whereupon, seeing first that sufficient small change was in my pocket, I have entered the nearest restaurant, and have treated myself to a repast of such sumptuousness as the aforesaid small change would command, emerging from that restaurant stronger and more fit for battle. And lo! the sun of my prosperity has peeped at me from over the clouds with a sly wink, as if to say “Cheer up; I am only round the corner.”