Chapter X

No, we can none of us afford to despise Dickens’ prose. This passage comes from one of his earliest books: if you would learn how he (ever a learner) learned to consolidate his style, study that neglected work of his, _The Uncommercial Traveller_--study such essays as that on “Wapping Workhouse” or that on “The City Churchyards”--study them with Thackeray’s _Roundabout Papers_--and tell me if these two great Victorian novelists, after shaking the dust of an _Esmond_ or a _David Copperfield_ off their palms, cannot, as a parergon, match your Augustans--your Steele or your Addison--on their own ground. Few recognise it, this pair being otherwise so great: but it is so.

And because you will probably disbelieve me at first going-off, I shall add the testimony of one you will be apter to trust--that of George Gissing. I have spoken of one chapter in _David Copperfield_, to commend it.

But, says Gissing:

In the story of David Copperfield’s journey on the Dover road
we have as good a piece of narrative prose as can be found in
English. Equally good, in another way, are those passages of
rapid retrospect in which David tells us of his later boyhood, a
concentration of memory perfumed with the sweetest humour. It is
not an easy thing to relate, with perfect proportion of detail,
with interest that never for a moment drops, the course of a year
or two of wholly uneventful marriage: but read the chapter entitled
_Our Domestic Life_ and try to award adequate praise to the great
artist who composed it. One can readily suggest how the chapter
could have been spoiled; ever so little undue satire, ever so
little excess of sentiment; but who can point to a line in which it
might be bettered? It is perfect writing: one can say no more and
no less.