like that of boasting, "grows upon you."

It may be added that later poetry shows us an instance of exaggeration in
the work of that major poet, Mr. Lascelles Abercrombie. His violence and
vehemence, his extremity, are generally signs not of weakness but of
power; and yet once he reaches a breaking-point that power should never
know. This is where his Judith holds herself to be so smirched and
degraded by the proffer of a reverent love (she being devoted to one
only, a dead man who had her heart) that thenceforth no bar is left to
her entire self-sacrifice to the loathed enemy Holofernes. To this, too,
the prim rebuke is the just one, a word for the mouth of governesses: "My
dear, you exaggerate."

It may be briefly said that exaggeration takes for granted some degree of
imbecility in the reader, whereas caricature takes for granted a high
degree of intelligence. Dickens appeals to our intelligence in all his
caricature, whether heavenly, as in Joe Gargery, or impish, as in Mrs.
Micawber. The word "caricature" that is used a thousand times to
reproach him is the word that does him singular honour.

If I may define my own devotion to Dickens, it may be stated as chiefly,
though not wholly, admiration of his humour, his dramatic tragedy, and
his watchfulness over inanimate things and landscape. Passages of his
books that are ranged otherwise than under those characters often leave
me out of the range of their appeal or else definitely offend me. And
this is not for the customary reason--that Dickens could not draw a
gentleman, that Dickens could not draw a lady. It matters little whether
he could or not. But as a fact he did draw a gentleman, and drew him
excellently well, in Cousin Feenix, as Mr. Chesterton has decided. The
question of the lady we may waive; if it is difficult to prove a