an "effect" in view—of the kind that so strangely satisfied him. His melodrama serves an end which is new in Dombey, though afterwards of frequent occurrence; that of bringing together, in strangely intimate relations, figures representing social extremes. Dickens came to delight in this. His best use of the motive is in Bleak House; and a striking instance occurs in the last pages he ever wrote.
It was whilst telling the story of little Paul, a victim of excessive parental care, that, perhaps by force of contrast, the novelist looked back upon his own childhood, and thought of turning it to literary use. We learn from Forster (Book I. 2) that in the year 1847 was written a chapter of reminiscences which Dickens at first intended to be the beginning of an autobiography. Wisely, no doubt, he soon abandoned this idea; but the memory of his own sad childhood would not be dismissed, and it made the groundwork of his next novel (1850), David Copperfield. Dickens held this to be his best book, and the world has agreed with him. In no other does the narrative move on with such full sail from first to last. He wrote from his heart; picturing completely all he had suffered as a child, and even touching upon the domestic trouble of his later life. It is difficult to speak of David Copperfield in
