literature "can not be too faithful to the people-cannot too ardently advocate the cause of their advancements, happiness and prosperity." It is not strange that from the very beginning of his literary career the critics of the upper class discerned a penchant for the "outcasts of humanity" in his works while the people of the lower class always remained his enthusiastic readers. The publication of each of his books became the concern of thousands of households of his own day. The source of such great popularity lies in the fact that" he showed his reader what they themselves thought and felt of the great social problems which confront them; or rather, reading him, they discovered what they thought and felt. "Hence the assessment: "Dickens more than any of his contemporaries was the expression of the conscience of his age."