Note 128 — DICKENS

Mr. Henley has lately, as a loyal Dickensite, been defending the plots of Dickens, and his tragedy. Pro captu lectoris; if the reader likes them, then they are good for the reader: “good absolute, not for me though,” perhaps. The plot of “Martin Chuzzlewit” may be good, but the conduct of old Martin would strike me as improbable if I met it in the “Arabian Nights.” That the creator of Pecksniff should have taken his misdeeds seriously, as if Mr. Pecksniff had been a Tartuffe, not a delight, seems curious.