utmost possible freedom of action. Of course, when we say that this explains his method, we do not mean that it accounts for his success; we do not mean to detract from the marvellous genius that enabled him to write with success under such conditions. We are only concerned to show how the kind of plot that he adopted, and the numerous branches, offshoots, and meanderings which he permitted himself were imposed upon him by circumstances of publication and composition,—were, in fact, necessary to success under those circumstances. A great deal too much has been made of the want of plot in Dickens's novels, as if it were a weakness, as if he had been incapable of constructing a plot,—the truth being that his method was deliberately adopted as that best suited to the position in which he found himself. It is evident that he was very much exercised over this question of plot, as indeed he was on all points touching his art. The Pickwick Papers may be put on one side in studying his method; he tumbled as it were into writing them; "no ingenuity of plot," as he himself explained, "was attempted;" they were simply "designed for the introduction of diverting characters and incidents." In his subsequent novels, if the Pickwick Papers can be called a novel, he could lay his plans beforehand, and consider how far it was possible to reconcile the introduction of interesting characters and incidents with greater regularity of structure, and he never seems to have solved the problem to his own satisfaction. In Oliver Twist he adopted the method of Defoe, and wrote what may be called a biographical novel, the hero of which is involved in a series of complications, arising one after another without being foreseen and calculated for from the beginning. In this way he avoided committing himself too far in advance to engagements which might afterwards prove embarrassing; the toils are laid for Oliver and cleared away more than once in the course of the story. In Nicholas Nickleby he reserved similar freedom of action by making Ralph conspire to ruin his brother's children without committing himself at the outset to any particular scheme as the villain's one resource; he thus also makes provision for a series of plots, one after another, and secures a certain unity for the whole by making them all proceed from one malevolent agency, whose motive was formed before the story began. In Nicholas Nickleby, however, he departs from certain restraints under which he had laid himself in the construction of Oliver Twist; he asserts greater freedom from the bit and bridle of plot in his introduction of diverting incidents which have no proper connection with the main story. Miss La Creevy and the Kenwigses are brought in on the slightest of pretexts, slighter even than that which serves for the introduction of the Mantalinis and the Crummles family. But no one can quarrel with a breadth of canvas which the author is able to fill with such figures; the critic can only say that he would have made a mistake if he had limited himself from the scope thereby given for his powers. As in Nickleby the moving principle of the story is the malevolent humour of Ralph, so in the Old Curiosity Shop the moving principle is the malevolent humour of Daniel Quilp. It is characteristic of Dickens that the uncalculating impulses should have so much influence in the direction of his stories. Fagin has some amount of selfish object in his designs against Oliver Twist; but Ralph and Quilp have nothing to gain by their conspiracies except the gratification of pure malice. The counter-agencies to these simple incarnations of the devil are equally disinterested. Oliver's good angel Nancy, Kate Nickleby's Newman Noggs, Little Nell's Kit, and Kit's Dick Swiveller are swayed by impulses of pure generosity. Observe, too, the analogous positions of Mr Brownlow the protector of Oliver, the Cheeryble brothers the protectors of Nicholas, and Mr Garland the protector of Kit. It is a game between the elementary passions, in which the good triumphs.
Master Humphrey's Clock was allowed to run out in November 1811, with the conclusion of the tale of Barnaby Rudge, which followed the Old Curiosity Shop. The construction of Barnaby Rudge is less simple than that of any of its predecessors; Dickens here attempted a more closely knit form of plot. There are no incidental diversions in this novel, all the characters have some finger in the main story, and every scene tends towards the development of some relation which afterwards has a potent influence on the course of the main events. It is true the Lord George Gordon riots fill so much space as to eclipse for a time the private interests of the novel; but the lives of all the personages whose fortunes we are following are interwoven with the public history with the most elaborate care and consummate skill, and when our fears for the commonwealth in the general storm are allayed, the keenest interest is left for the fates of the individuals that have been involved in the commotion.
Barnaby Rudge cost the author much labour, and after finishing it, and with it Master Humphrey's Clock, he felt the need of some change of strain. He had begun to chafe under the weekly form of publication, and fret as to what he might have done with Barnaby if he could only have produced it in monthly instalments. This determined him to make an agreement with his publishers for the issue of his next story in the old monthly form. When he projected the Clock, one of his schemes was that he should visit Ireland or America, and write from there a series of descriptive papers for it. The Clock was discontinued, but the desire to seek fresh fields remained. He accordingly set out for America in January 1842, returning in June, after a reception which might well have turned his head, to write the American Notes. He had been run after and stared at by crowds, and cheered with greater enthusiasm than if he had been a crowned potentate; and the people of the United States complained that in these Notes, as well as in his fierce endeavours to enlighten them on the subject of copyright, he had made but a poor return for their welcome. He was superfluously aggressive, there is no doubt; but they freely forgave him when he returned some years afterwards.
From whatever cause, the sale of the first number of Martin Chuzzlewit (January 1843), in which he returned to the broad and free method of Nickleby, only seeking a new motive for his plot in the design of a severe but benevolent old uncle for his nephew's reformation, and the schemes of a pious hypocrite, fell considerably below what he had been led to expect by the sale of his former monthlies. Only 20,000 were sold; his publishers, with whom he had made a very advantageous bargain, irritated him by grumbling; and though the novel obtained still higher praise than any of its predecessors, he was disappointed and discontented, and began to revolve other plans for making a living by his pen. He conceived the idea of writing a Christmas tale, the Christmas Carol; but he made much less profit by the enterprise than he made by similar tales afterwards, when he charged less for them and appealed to a wider audience. Although he sacrificed nothing of his individuality in the substance of the tale, and it was no failure in point of reputation, the pecuniary side of the work was for the moment uppermost in his mind, for, large as his income had been, he had exceeded it, and the most popular author of his time was suffering horrors, as he himself said, of "intolerable anxiety and disappointment."
This disappointment determined him to live abroad for a time, partly to reduce his expenses, and partly to store his mind with fresh material. He settled at Genoa, and there finished Chuzzlewit, and wrote the Chimes, his Christmas
