picture of the citizen one was likely to meet often during a
morning's stroll through Athens. Nor grew there ever a wood like to
the Forest of Arden, though every Rosalind and Orlando knows the path
to glades having much resemblance thereto.

Steerforth, upon whom Dickens evidently prided himself, I must
confess, never laid hold of me. He is a melodramatic young man. The
worst I could have wished him would have been that he should marry
Rose Dartle and live with his mother. It would have served him right
for being so attractive. Old Peggotty and Ham are, of course,
impossible. One must accept them also as types. These Brothers
Cheeryble, these Kits, Joe Gargeries, Boffins, Garlands, John
Peerybingles, we will accept as types of the goodness that is in men-
-though in real life the amount of virtue that Dickens often wastes
upon a single individual would by more economically minded nature, be
made to serve for fifty.

To sum up, "David Copperfield" is a plain tale, simply told; and such
are all books that live. Eccentricities of style, artistic trickery,
may please the critic of a day, but literature is a story that
interests us, boys and girls, men and women. It is a sad book; and
that, again, gives it an added charm in these sad later days.
Humanity is nearing its old age, and we have come to love sadness, as
the friend who has been longest with us. In the young days of our
vigour we were merry. With Ulysses' boatmen, we took alike the
sunshine and the thunder with frolic welcome. The red blood flowed
in our veins, and we laughed, and our tales were of strength and
hope. Now we sit like old men, watching faces in the fire; and the
stories that we love are sad stories--like the stories we ourselves
have lived.