![]() They were all rambling tales and they all had a perfect right to be. There was one thing common to nearly all the other Dickens tales, with the possible exception of Dombey and Son. The house, when he had put it in order, was Bleak House. After his decisive victories Napoleon began to put his house in order after his decisive victories Dickens also began to put his house in order. And, like Napoleon, he won battle after battle before he knew his own plan of campaign like Napoleon, he put the enemies' forces to rout before he had put his own force into order Like Napoleon, he had a victorious army almost before he had an army. He had walked in front of his mob of aggressive characters as Napoleon did in front of the half-baked battalions of the Revolution. Like Napoleon, he had made his army on the march. When Dickens wrote Bleak House he had grown up. Children are very much nicer than grown-up people but there is such a thing as growing up. We can say more or less when a human being has come to his full mental growth, even if we go so far as to wish that he had never come to it. The same is in some degree true even of literature. A mature potato is not perfect, but it is a mature potato the mind of an intelligent epicure may find it less adapted to his particular purpose but the mind of an intelligent potato would at once admit it as being, beyond all doubt, a genuine, fully developed specimen of his own particular species. It is idle to say that a mature potato is perfect some people like new potatoes. Maturity does not necessarily mean perfection. This particular story represents the highest point of his intellectual maturity. Such a distinction is not a mere verbal trick it has to be remembered rather constantly in connection with his work. Bleak House is not certainly Dickens's best book but perhaps it is his best novel. ![]()
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