with such gravity that I am afraid to grin, and feel it necessary to
look quite serious. Sometimes he _tells_ me things about you,
doesn't ask me, you know, so that I am occasionally perplexed beyond
all telling, and begin to think it was he, and not I, who went to
America. It's the queerest thing in the world.

The book I was to have given Longfellow for you is not worth sending
by itself, being only a Barnaby. But I will look up some manuscript
for you (I think I have that of the American Notes complete), and
will try to make the parcel better worth its long conveyance. With
regard to Maclise's pictures, you certainly are quite right in your
impression of them; but he is "such a discursive devil" (as he says
about himself), and flies off at such odd tangents, that I feel it
difficult to convey to you any general notion of his purpose. I will
try to do so when I write again. I want very much to know about ----
and that charming girl..... Give me full particulars. Will you
remember me cordially to Sumner, and say I thank him for his
welcome letter? The like to Hillard, with many regards to himself
and his wife, with whom I had one night a little conversation which
I shall not readily forget. The like to Washington Allston, and all
friends who care for me and have outlived my book.... Always, my
dear Felton,

With true regard and affection, yours,

CHARLES DICKENS.

Here is a letter that seems to me something tremendous in its fun and
pathos:--

1 Devonshire Terrace, York Gate, Regent's Park, London, 2d March,
1843.

My Dear Felton: I don't know where to begin, but plunge headlong
with a terrible splash into this letter, on the chance of turning up
somewhere.

Hurrah! Up like a cork again, with the "North American Review" in my
hand. Like you, my dear ----, and I can say no more in praise of it,
though I go on to the end of the sheet. You cannot think how much
notice it has attracted here. Brougham called the other day, with
the number (thinking I might not have seen it), and I being out at
the time, he left a note, speaking of it, and of the writer, in
terms that warmed my heart. Lord Ashburton (one of whose people
wrote a notice in the "Edinburgh," which they have since publicly
contradicted) also wrote to me about it in just the same strain. And
many other