I LEFT you, Gentlemen, with a promise to say some-
thing on Dickens' plots and Dickens' characters,
taking them in that Aristotelian order. Now why
Aristotle, speaking of drama, prefers Plot to Character;
if his reasons are sound; if they are all the reasons; and,
anyhow, if they can be transferred from drama and
applied to the Novel; are questions which some of you
have debated with me "in another place," and, if
without heat, yet with all the vigour demanded by so
idle a topic. But, for certain, few of you will dissent
when I say of Dickens that he is memorable and to be
loved (if loved at all) for his characters rather than for
his plots. You have (say) a general idea of Dombey
and Son, a vivid recollection of Captain Cuttle, Mr.
Toots, Susan Nipper, perhaps a vivid recollection of
Carker's long, hunted flight and its appalling end,
when the pursuer, recovering from a swoon --

saw them bringing from a distance something covered
upon a board, between four men, and saw that
others drove some dogs away that sniffed upon the road,
and soaked his blood up, with a train of ashes.

Or you have a general idea of Our Mutual Friend, and
your memory preserves quite a sharp impression of

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