The resources of Dickens’s genius seemed exhaustless.  He copied no author, imitated none, but relied entirely on his own powers.  He excelled especially in humor and pathos.  He gathered materials for his works by the most careful and faithful observation.  And he painted his characters with a fidelity so true to their different individualities that, although they sometimes have a quaint grotesqueness bordering on caricature, they stand before the memory as living realities.  He was particularly successful in the delineation of the joys and griefs of childhood.  “Little Nell” and little “Paul Dombey” are known, and have been loved and wept over, in almost every household where the English language is read.  His writings present very vividly the wants and sufferings of the poor, and have a tendency to prompt to kindness and benevolence.  His works have not escaped criticism.  It has been said that “his good characters act from impulse, not from principle,” and that he shows “a tricksy spirit of fantastic exaggeration.”  It has also been said that his novels sometimes lack skillful plot, and that he seems to speak approvingly of conviviality and dissipation.  “The Old Curiosity Shop,” from which the following extract is taken, was published in 1840. ###

She was dead.  No sleep so beautiful and calm, so free from trace of pain, so fair to look upon.  She seemed a creature fresh from the hand of God, and waiting for the breath of life; not one who had lived, and suffered death.  Her couch was dressed with here and there some winter berries and green leaves, gathered in a spot she had been used to favor.  “When I die, put near me something that has loved the light, and had the sky above it always.”  These were her words.

She was dead.  Dear, gentle, patient, noble Nell was dead.  Her little bird, a poor, slight thing the pressure of a finger would have crushed, was stirring nimbly in its cage, and the strong heart of its child mistress was mute and motionless forever!  Where were the traces of her early cares, her sufferings, and fatigues?  All gone.  Sorrow was dead, indeed, in her; but peace and perfect happiness were born, imaged in her tranquil beauty and profound repose.

And still her former self lay there, unaltered in this change.  Yes! the old fireside had smiled upon that same sweet face; it had passed, like a dream, through haunts of misery and care; at the door of the poor schoolmaster on the summer evening, before the furnace fire upon the cold wet night, at the still bedside of the dying boy, there had been the same mild and lovely look.  So shall we know the angels, in their majesty, after death.

The old man held one languid arm in his, and had the small hand tight folded to his breast for warmth.  It was the hand she had stretched out to him with her last smile; the hand that had led him on through all their wanderings.  Ever and anon he pressed it to his lips; then hugged it to his breast again, murmuring that it was warmer now, and, as he said it, he looked in agony to those who stood around, as if imploring them to help her.