y a large bunch
of flowers with the inscription that they were from the fairies to her
to reward her for taking care of "two _good_, _good_ boys." Ethel is a
dear.

MORE ABOUT DICKENS

White House, May 20, 1906.

DEAR TED:

Mother read us your note and I was interested in the discussion between
you and ----- over Dickens. Dickens' characters are really to a great
extent personified attributes rather than individuals. In consequence,
while there are not nearly as many who are actually like people one
meets, as for instance in Thackeray, there are a great many more who
possess _characteristics_ which we encounter continually, though
rarely as strongly developed as in the fictional originals. So Dickens'
characters last almost as Bunyan's do. For instance, Jefferson Brick
and Elijah Pogram and Hannibal Chollop are all real personifications of
certain bad tendencies in American life, and I am continually thinking
of or alluding to some newspaper editor or Senator or homicidal rowdy by
one of these three names. I never met any one exactly like Uriah Heep,
but now and then we see individuals show traits which make it easy to
describe them, with reference to those traits, as Uriah Heep. It is just
the same with Micawber. Mrs. Nickleby is not quite a real person,
but she typifies, in accentuated form, traits which a great many real
persons possess, and I am continually thinking of her when I meet them.
There are half a dozen books of Dickens which have, I think, furnished
more characters which are the constant companions of the ordinary
educated man around us, than is true of any other half-dozen volumes
published within the same period.

85. NO PLACE LIKE SAGAMORE HILL

(To Ethel, at Sagamore Hill)

White House, June 11, 1906.

BLESSED ETHEL:

I am very glad that what changes have been made in the house are good,
and I look forward so eagerly to seeing them. After all, fond as I am
of the White House and much though I have appreciated these years in it,
there isn't any place in the world like home--like Sagamore Hill, where
things are our own, with our own associations, and where it is real
country.

ATTIC DELIGHTS

White House, June 17, 1906.

BLESSED ETHEL:

Your letter delighted me. I read it over twice, and chuckled over it.
By George, how entirely I sympathize with your feelings in the attic!
I know just what it is to get up into such a place and find the
delightful, winding passages where