what Dickens appeared to me as a man. I think that an epithet, which,
much and senselessly as it has been misapplied and degraded, is yet,
when rightly used, perhaps the grandest that can be applied to a human
being, was especially applicable to him. He was a _hearty_ man, a
large-hearted man that is to say. He was perhaps the largest-hearted
man I ever knew. I think he made a nearer approach to obeying the
divine precept, "Love thy neighbour as thyself," than one man in a
hundred thousand. His benevolence, his active, energising desire for
good to all God's creatures, and restless anxiety to be in some way
active for the achieving of it, were unceasing and busy in his heart
ever and always.

But he had a sufficient capacity for a virtue, which, I think, seems
to be moribund among us--the virtue of moral indignation. Men and
their actions were not all much of a muchness to him. There was none
of the indifferentism of that pseudo-philosophic moderation, which,
when a scoundrel or a scoundrelly action is on the _tapis_, hints that
there is much to be said on both sides. Dickens hated a mean action or
a mean sentiment as one hates something that is physically loathsome
to the sight and touch. And he could be angry, as those with whom he
had been angry did not very readily forget.

And there was one other aspect of his moral nature, of which I am
reminded by an observation which Mr. Forster records as having been
made by Mrs. Carlyle. "Light and motion flashed from every part of it
[his face]. It was as if made of steel." The first part of the phrase
is true and graphic enough, but the image offered by the last words
appears to me a singularly infelicitous one. There was nothing of the
hardness or of the (moral) sharpness of steel about the expression of
Dickens's face and features. Kindling mirth and genial fun were