-room. Stanfield has been incessantly on
scaffoldings for two months; and your friend has been writing "Little
Dorrit," etc. etc., in corners, like the sultan's groom, who was turned
upside-down by the genie.

Kindest love from all, and from me.
Ever affectionately.

[Sidenote: Mr. William Charles Kent.]

TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Christmas Eve, 1856._

MY DEAR SIR,

I cannot leave your letter unanswered, because I am really anxious that
you should understand why I cannot comply with your request.

Scarcely a week passes without my receiving requests from various
quarters to sit for likenesses, to be taken by all the processes ever
invented. Apart from my having an invincible objection to the
multiplication of my countenance in the shop-windows, I have not,
between my avocations and my needful recreation, the time to comply with
these proposals. At this moment there are three cases out of a vast
number, in which I have said: "If I sit at all, it shall be to you
first, to you second, and to you third." But I assure you, I consider
myself almost as unlikely to go through these three conditional
achievements as I am to go to China. Judge when I am likely to get to
Mr. Watkins!

I highly esteem and thank you for your sympathy with my writings. I
doubt if I have a more genial reader in the world.

Very faithfully yours.

FOOTNOTES:

[23] Of Mr. Wilkie Collins.

[24] This note was written after hearing from Mr. Forster of his
intended marriage.

PROLOGUE TO "THE LIGHTHOUSE."

(Spoken by CHARLES DICKENS.)

_Slow music all the time, unseen speaker, curtain down._

A story of those rocks where doomed ships come
To cast them wreck'd upon the steps of home,
Where solitary men, the long year through--
The wind their music and the brine their view--
Warn mariners to shun the beacon-light;
A story of those rocks is here to-night.
Eddystone lighthouse

[_Exterior view discovered._

In its ancient form;
Ere he who built it wish'd for the great storm
That shiver'd it to nothing; once again
Behold outgleaming on the angry main!
Within it are three men; to these repair
In our frail bark of Fancy, swift as air!

They are but sha