Gilbert Keith Chesterton: Charles Dickens.

IS last book rep­re­sents yet an­oth­er new de­par­ture, di­vid­ing him from the chaot­ic Dick­ens of days long be­fore. His last book is not mere­ly an at­tempt to im­prove his power of con­struc­tion in a story: it is an at­tempt to rely en­tire­ly on that power of con­struc­tion. It not only has a plot, it is a plot. "The Mys­tery of Edwin Drood," 1870, was in such a sense, per­haps the most am­bi­tious book that Dick­ens ever at­tempt­ed. It is, as every one knows, a de­tec­tive story, and cer­tain­ly a very suc­cess­ful one, as is at­test­ed by the tu­mult of dis­cus­sion as to its prop­er so­lu­tion. In this, quite apart from its un­fin­ished state, it stands, I think, alone among the au­thor's works. Else­where, if he in­tro­duced a mys­tery, he sel­dom took the trou­ble to make it very mys­te­ri­ous. "Bleak House" is fin­ished, but if it were only half fin­ished I think any­one would guess that Lady Ded­lock and Nemo had sinned in the past. "Edwin Drood" is not fin­ished; for in the very mid­dle of it Dick­ens died.

He had al­to­geth­er over­strained him­self in a last lec­tur­ing tour in Amer­i­ca. He was a man in whom any se­ri­ous mal­a­dy would nat­u­ral­ly make very rapid strides; for he had the tem­per of an ir­ra­tional in­valid. I have said be­fore that there was in his cu­ri­ous char­ac­ter some­thing that was fem­i­nine. Cer­tain­ly there was noth­ing more en­tire­ly fem­i­nine than this, that he worked be­cause he was tired. Fa­tigue bred in him a false and fever­ish in­dus­try, and his case in­creased, like the case of a man who drinks to cure the ef­fects of drink. He died in 1870 and the whole na­tion mourned him as no pub­lic man has ever been mourned; for prime min­is­ters and princes were pri­vate per­sons com­pared with Dick­ens. He had been a great pop­u­lar king, like a king of some more pri­mal age whom his peo­ple could come and see, giv­ing judg­ment under an oak tree. He had in essence held great au­di­ences of mil­lions, and made procla­ma­tions to more than one of the na­tions of the earth. His ob­vi­ous om­nipres­ence in every part of pub­lic life was like the om­nipres­ence of the sovereign. His se­cret om­nipres­ence in every house and hut of pri­vate life was more like the om­nipres­ence of a deity. Com­pared with that pop­u­lar lead­er­ship all the fuss­es of the last forty years are di­ver­sions in idle­ness. Com­pared with such a case as his it may be said that we play with our politi­cians, and man­age to en­dure our au­thors. We shall never have again such a pop­u­lar­i­ty until we have again a peo­ple.

He left be­hind him this al­most som­bre frag­ment, "The Mys­tery of Edwin Drood." As one turns it over the trag­ic el­e­ment of its trun­ca­tion min­gles some­what with an el­e­ment of tragedy in the thing it­self; the pas­sion­ate and pre­des­tined Land­less, or the half ma­ni­a­cal Jasper carv­ing dev­ils out of his own heart. The work­man­ship of it is very fine; the right hand has not only not lost, but is still gain­ing its cun­ning. But as we turn the now enig­mat­ic pages the thought creeps into us again which I have sug­gest­ed ear­li­er, and which is never far off the mind of a true lover of Dick­ens. Had he lost or gained by the growth of tech­nique and prob­a­bil­i­ty in his later work? His later char­ac­ters were more like men; but were not his ear­li­er char­ac­ters more like im­mor­tals? He has be­come able to per­form a so­cial scene so that it is pos­si­ble at any rate; but where is that Dick­ens who once per­formed the im­pos­si­ble? Where is that young poet who cre­at­ed such ma­jors and ar­chi­tects as Na­ture will never dare to cre­ate? Dick­ens learnt to de­scribe daily life as Thack­er­ay and Jane Austen could de­scribe it; but Thack­er­ay could not have thought such a thought as Crumm­les; and it is painful to think of Miss Austen at­tempt­ing to imag­ine Man­tali­ni. After all, we feel there are many able nov­el­ists; but there is only one Dick­ens, and whith­er has he fled?

He was alive to the end. And in this last dark and se­cre­tive story of Edwin Drood he makes one splen­did and stag­ger­ing ap­pear­ance, like a ma­gi­cian say­ing farewell to mankind. In the cen­tre of this oth­er­wise rea­son­able and rather melan­choly book, this grey story of a good cler­gy­man and the quiet Clois­ter­ham Tow­ers, Dick­ens has calm­ly in­sert­ed one en­tire­ly de­light­ful and en­tire­ly in­sane pas­sage. I mean the fran­tic and in­con­ceiv­able epi­taph of Mrs. Sapsea, that which de­scribes her as "the rev­er­en­tial wife" of Thomas Sapsea, speaks of her con­sis­ten­cy in "look­ing up to him," and ends with the words, spaced out so ad­mirably on the tomb­stone, "Stranger pause. And ask thy­self this ques­tion, Canst thou do like­wise? If not, with a blush re­tire." Not the wildest tale in Pick­wick con­tains such an im­pos­si­bil­i­ty as that; Dick­ens dare scarce­ly have in­tro­duced it, even as one of Jin­gle's lies. In no human church­yard will you find that in­valu­able tomb­stone; in­deed, you could scarce­ly find it in any world where there are church­yards. You could scarce­ly have such im­mor­tal folly as that in a world where there is also death. Mr. Sapsea is one of the gold­en things stored up for us in a bet­ter world.

Yes, there were many other Dick­ens­es: a clever Dick­ens, an in­dus­tri­ous Dick­ens, a pub­lic-spir­it­ed Dick­ens; but this was the great one. This last out­break of in­sane hu­mour re­minds us where­in lay his power and his suprema­cy. The praise of such be­atif­ic buf­foon­ery should be the final praise, the ul­ti­mate word in his hon­our. The wild epi­taph of Mrs. Sapsea should be the se­ri­ous epi­taph of Dick­ens.

1906