The youth of Dickens

I just read chapter three in Chesterton's book on Dickens, discussing the years of Dickens' factory experiences, and the years thereafter. Chesterton describes how the young Charles walked through London, perhaps without consciously noting his surroundings, but all the time laying up a treasure of locations and characters on which he could draw in later years. For instance, he met Mrs. Pipchin.
Dickens was not completely miserable in these years: 'He was delighted at the same moment that he was desperate. The two opposite things existed in him simultaneously, and each in its full strength. His soul was not a mixed colour like grey and purple, caused by no component colour being quite itself. His soul was like a shot silk of black and crimson, a shot silk of misery and joy.'
When the family's fortunes turned, Dickens could go back to school; afterwards he became a clerk, a reporter, a journalist, a writer. He educated himself and proceeded with enormous intensity. Around the same time that he married, he published the first installment of the 'Pickwick Papers'.
One thing that surprised me in reading 'Charles Dickens, the last of the great men' are the parallels between Chesterton and Dickens: I had not realized that both were journalists in the beginning of their writing career. Both can exaggerate quite well, both have a sense of optimism and hope about them.