I want to deal with the essentially unheroic, with the day-to-day life of that vast majority of people who are at the mercy of paltry circumstance.

Dickens understood the possibility of such work, but his tendency to melodrama on the one hand, and his humour on the other, prevented him from thinking of it.

An instance, now.

As I came along by Regent's Park half an hour ago a man and a girl were walking close in front of me, love-making; I passed them slowly and heard a good deal of their talk--it was part of the situation that they should pay no heed to a stranger's proximity.

Now, such a love-scene as that has absolutely never been written down; it was entirely decent, yet vulgar to the nth power.