Chesterton proceeds 'Charles Dickens, The last of the great men' with some chronological biographical notes. Chapter 2 is devoted to Dickens' boyhood: the happy time before his father went bankrupt and the difficult time afterwards, working in a factory.
Dickens was not an angelic child, as Little Nell in 'The old curiosity shop'. He was ambitious and used to being in the spotlight. His mind was formed by reading English classics that he found in a garret. His father, John Dickens, is later comically displayed in Micawber.
The factory-experience is somewhat touched upon in 'David Copperfield'; Dickens seldom spoke about it. Chesterton points out that this hard time did not make Dickens a pessimist: in fact, he is one of the more optimistic writers: "Charles Dickens, who was most miserable at the receptive time when most people are most happy, is afterwards happy when all men weep. Circumstances break men's bones; it has never been shown that they break men's optimism."
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