Hearts of Controversy

								

have lulled a little, though not more sensibly than if the cannonading I
had dreamed of had been diminished by the silencing of half a dozen guns
out of hundreds."  "It went from me with a shock, like a ball from a
rifle," says David in another place, after the visit of a delirious
impulse; here is the volley of departure, the shock of passion vanishing
more perceptibly than it came.
The tempest in David Copperfield combines Dickens's dramatic tragedy
of narrative with his wonderful sense of sea and land.  But here are
landscapes in quietness: "There has been rain this afternoon, and a
wintry shudder goes among the little pools in the cracked, uneven flag-
stones. . . Some of the leaves, in a timid rush, seek sanctuary within
the low-arched cathedral door; but two men coming out resist them, and
cast them out with their feet:"  The autumn leaves fall thick, "but never
fast, for they come circling down with a dead lightness."  Again, "Now
the woods settle into great masses as if they were one profound tree."
And yet again, "I held my mother in my embrace, and she held me in hers;
and among the still woods in the silence of the summer day there seemed
to be nothing but our two troubled minds that was not at peace."  Yet,
with a thousand great felicities of diction, Dickens had no body of
style.
Dickens, having the single and simple heart of a moralist, had also the
simple eyes of a free intelligence, and the light heart.  He gave his
senses their way, and well did they serve him.  Thus his eyes--and no
more modern man in anxious search of "impressions" was ever so simple and
so masterly: "Mr. Vholes gauntly stalked to the fire, and warmed his
funereal gloves."  "'I thank you,' said Mr. Vholes, putting out his long
black sleeve, to check the ringing of the bell, 'not any.'"  Mr. and Mrs.
Tope "are daintily sticking sprigs of holly into the carvings and sconces
of the cathedral stalls, as if they were sticking them into the button-
holes of the Dean & Chapter."  The two young Eurasians, brother and
sister, "had a certain air upon them of hunter and huntress; yet withal a
certain air of being the objects of the chase rather than the followers."
This phrase lacks elegance--and Dickens is not often inelegant, as those
who do not read him may be surprised to learn--but the impression is
admirable; so is that which follows: "An indefinable kind of pause coming
and going on their whole expression, both of face and form."  Here is
pure, mere impression again: "Miss Murdstone, who was busy at her writing-
desk, gave me her cold finger-nails."  Lady Tippins's hand is "rich in
knuckles."  And here is vision with great dignity: "All beyond his figure
was a vast dark curtain, in solemn movement towards one quarter of the
heavens."
With that singleness of sight--and his whole body was full of the light
of it--he had also the single hearing; the scene is in the Court of
Chancery on a London November day: "Leaving this address ringing in the