any author but the one who knew how to make immortal use of it!
As in the Sketches we found the germ of all Dickens, so in this second book, not yet a novel, may we mark tendencies soon to have full development. The theme itself admitting no great variety of tone, we have the time-honoured device of episodic stories; one of them shows that melodramatic bent which was to be of such importance in future books; another, the tale of Gabriel Grub, gives, thus early, a hint of the Christmas fantasies which so greatly strengthened their author's hold on the popular admiration and love. The close gives us our first example of Dickens's resolute optimism. Everybody (or all but everybody) is to be made happy for ever after; knavish hearts are softened by gratitude, and those of the good beat high in satisfied benevolence. This is the kind of thing that delights the public, and lucky would be the public if it were often offered to them with a noble sincerity like that of Dickens.
With Oliver Twist we take up the tradition of English novel-writing; at once we are reminded of the old books in the library at Rochester. Scenes and people and tone are new, but the manner is that long ago established. As for construction, there is a little,
