He possess a singularly wide, clear, and minute power of accurate observation, both of things and of persons but his observation, keen and true to actualities as it independently is, is not a dominant faculty, and is opposed or controlled by the strong tendency of his disposition to pathetic or humorous idealization. Everybody must have discerned in the action of his mind two diverging tendencies, which in this novel, are harmonized. The plot of Great Expectations is also noticeable as indicating, better than any of his previous stories, the individuality of Dickens's genius. We follow the movement of a logic of passion and character, the real premises of which we detect only when we are startled by the conclusions. Its leading events are, as we read the story consecutively, artistically necessary, yet, at the same time, the processes are artistically concealed. The plot of the romance is therefore universally admitted to be the best that Dickens has ever invented. Even after the first, second, third, and even fourth of these surprises gave their pleasing electric shocks to intelligent curiosity, the denouement was still hidden, though confidentially foretold. It has been all the more provoking to the former class, that each surprise was the result of art, and not of trick for a rapid review of previous chapters has shown that the materials of a strictly logical development of the story were freely given. He stirred the dullest minds to guess the secret of his mystery but, so far as we have learned, the guesses of his most intellectual readers have been almost as wide of the mark as those of the least apprehensive. In no other of his romances has the author succeeded so perfectly in at once stimulating and baffling the curiosity of his readers. Dickens's previous works, as it appeared in installments, and can testify to the felicity with which expectation was excited and prolonged, and to the series of surprises which accompanied the unfolding of the plot of the story. In a new aspirant for public favor, such a title might have been a good device to attract attention but the most famous novelist of the day, watched by jealous rivals and critics, could hardly have selected it, had he not inwardly felt the capacity to meet all the expectations he raised.
The very title of this book indicates the confidence of conscious genius.
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