... of eager readers, and his solitary horseman rode through the opening page among the plaudits of a myriad hearts. Dickens laughed all these away, as Cervantes smiled away Spain's chivalry; and now Dickens himself is set aside by critics as boisterous in his fun and maudlin in his sentiment. All teaches us that fame is, in numberless cases, the most fleeting of all harvests; that it is, indeed, like ...