Let us hear another and a very different stamp of man.
"I don't know whether I have mentioned before," writes Charles Dickens,
"that in the valley of the Simplon, hard by here, where, (at the Bridge
of St. Maurice over the Rhone), this Protestant canton ends and a
Catholic canton begins, you might separate two perfectly distinct and
different conditions of humanity, by drawing a line with your stick in
the dust on the ground. On the Protestant side, neatness; cheerfulness;
industry; education; continual aspiration, at least, after better
things. On the Catholic side, dirt; disease; ignorance; squalor; and
misery. I have so constantly observed the like of this, since I first
came abroad, that _I have a sad misgiving_, that the religion of Ireland
lies as deep at the root of all her sorrows even as English
misgovernment and Tory villainy."[310]
Charles Dickens is looked upon not only as the strenuous denouncer of
vice, but as the happy exponent of the higher and purer feelings of
human nature also. For three-fourths of his life he wrote like a man who
felt he had a mission to preach toleration, philanthropy--universal
benevolence. He had travelled much.
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