The things the usual
modern author says are proportionately more energetically produced than
those he tells. But Dickens, being simple and dramatic and capable of
one thing at a time, and that thing whole, tells us what happened with a
perfect speed which has neither hurry nor delays. Those who saw him act
found him a fine actor, and this we might know by reading the murder in
_Oliver Twist_, the murder in _Martin Chuzzlewit_, the coming of the
train upon Carker, the long moment of recognition when Pip sees his
guest, the convict, reveal himself in his chambers at night. The swift
spirit, the hammering blow of his narrative, drive the great storm in
_David Copperfield_ through the poorest part of the book--Steerforth's
story. There is surely no greater gale to be read of than this: from the
first words, "'Don't you think that,' I said to the coachman, 'a very
remarkable sky?'" to the end of a magnificent chapter. "Flying clouds
tossed up into most remarkable heaps, suggesting greater heights in the
clouds than there were depths below them. . . There had been a wind all
day; and it was rising then with an extraordinary great sound . . . Long
before we saw the sea, its spray was on our lips . . . The water was out
over the flat country, and every sheet and puddle lashed its banks, and
had its stress of little breakers. When we came within sight of the sea,
the waves on the horizon, caught at intervals above the boiling abyss,
were like glimpses of another shore, with towers and buildings.
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