which tears would be more appropriate than smiles and laughter! Would
Charles Dickens and Catherine Hogarth have foreborne to plight their
troth, one wonders, if they could have foreseen how slowly and surely
the coming years were to sunder their hearts and lives?--They were
married on the 2nd of April, 1836.

This date again leads me to a time subsequent to the publication of
the first number of "Pickwick," which had appeared a day or two
before;--and again I refrain from dealing with that great book. For
before I do so, I wish to pause a brief space to consider what manner
of man Charles Dickens was when he suddenly broke on the world in his
full popularity; and also what were the influences, for good and evil,
which his early career had exercised upon his character and intellect.

What manner of man he was? In outward aspect all accounts agree that
he was singularly, noticeably prepossessing--bright, animated, eager,
with energy and talent written in every line of his face. Such he was
when Forster saw him, on the occasion of their first meeting, when
Dickens was acting as spokesman for the insurgent reporters engaged on
the _Mirror_. So Carlyle, who met him at dinner shortly after this,
and was no flatterer, sketches him for us with a pen of unwonted
kindliness. "He is a fine little fellow--Boz, I think. Clear, blue,
intelligent eyes, eyebrows that he arches amazingly, large protrusive
rather loose mouth, a face of most extreme _mobility_, which he
shuttles about--eyebrows, eyes, mouth and all--in a very singular
manner while speaking. Surmount this with a loose coil of
common-coloured hair, and set it on a small compact figure, very
small, and dressed _à la_ D'Orsay rather than well--this is Pickwick.
For the rest, a quiet, shrewd-looking little fellow, who seems to
guess pretty well what he is and what others are."[7] Is not this a