He explained that Dickens
was not a writer of the first rank, since he lacked the high
seriousness of Matthew Arnold. He also feared that they
would find the characters of Dickens terribly exaggerated.
But they did not, possibly because they were meeting them every day.
For among the poor there are still exaggerated characters;
they do not go to the Universities to be universified. He
told the charwomen, with progressive brightness, that a mad wicked
old miser like Scrooge would be really quite impossible now; but as
each of the charwomen had an uncle or a grandfather or a father-in-law
who was exactly like Scrooge, his cheerfulness was not shared.
Indeed, the lecture as a whole lacked something of his firm and
elastic touch, and towards the end he found himself rambling, and in
a sort of abstraction, talking to them as if they were his fellows.
He caught himself saying quite mystically that a spiritual plane
(by which he meant his plane) always looked to those on the sensual
or Dickens plane, not merely austere, but desolate. He said,
quoting Bernard Shaw, that we could all go to heaven just as we can
all go to a classical concert, but if we did it would bore us.
Realizing that he was taking his flock far out of their depth, he ended
somewhat hurriedly, and was soon receiving that generous applause
which is a part of the profound ceremonialism of the working classes.
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