Why we need Dickens

I recently read an excellent article titled, in part, "Why We Need Jane Austen." Go read it, and then tell me: If you were going to write a companion piece on "Why We Need Charles Dickens," what reasons would you give?

Comments

[Selenia]

That was a really good article.
I think we need Dickens for several reasons. For the truths that he writes in his books, so bluntly and emotionally at times, to show us the unfortunate things people and societies are capable of, so that we will never forget.
To help us feel and know that we are not alone, even in the hardest and bleakest times.
And, in a way, because reading Dickens helps us live a little more, I think.

[Christy]

I didn't answer this at the time it was posted because, on the one hand, I feel like I've answered it a million times, or like I'm always answering it, and on the other hand my answer could go on for several chapters.
But I'm reading Chesterton's wonderful analysis (more than biography) of Dickens, and he says here in very short and eloquent form the essence of (at least part of) my answer:

"Dickens had sympathy with the poor in the Greek* and literal sense; he suffered with them mentally; for the things that irritated them were the things that irritated him. He did not pity the people, or even champion the people, or even merely love the people; in this matter he was the people. [...] He utters the secret anger of the humble."

I think the essential reason we need Dickens is that he proclaims the truth, loudly, vociferously, and with great hilarity and pathos, and the truths he proclaims still stand.

*"Sympathy" is from the Greek for "to suffer with someone."