s Mr. Weller
says, "come out on the other side." ...

Write soon, my dear Felton; and if I write to you less often than I
would, believe that my affectionate heart is with you always. Loves
and regards to all friends, from yours ever and ever,

CHARLES DICKENS.

These letters grow better and better as we get on. Ah me! and to think
we shall have no more from that delightful pen!

Devonshire Terrace, London, January 2, 1844.

My Very Dear Felton: You are a prophet, and had best retire from
business straightway. Yesterday morning, New Year's day, when I
walked into my little workroom after breakfast, and was looking out
of window at the snow in the garden,--not seeing it particularly
well in consequence of some staggering suggestions of last night,
whereby I was beset,--the postman came to the door with a knock, for
which I denounced him from my heart. Seeing your hand upon the cover
of a letter which he brought, I immediately blessed him, presented
him with a glass of whiskey, inquired after his family (they are all
well), and opened the despatch with a moist and oystery twinkle in
my eye. And on the very day from which the new year dates, I read
your New Year congratulations as punctually as if you lived in the
next house. Why don't you?

Now, if instantly on the receipt of this you will send a free and
independent citizen down to the Cunard wharf at Boston, you will
find that Captain Hewett, of the Britannia steamship (my ship), has
a small parcel for Professor Felton of Cambridge; and in that parcel
you will find a Christmas Carol in prose; being a short story of
Christmas by Charles Dickens. Over which Christmas Carol Charles
Dickens wept and laughed and wept again, and excited himself in a
most extraordinary manner in the composition; and thinking whereof
he walked about the black streets of London, fifteen and twenty
miles, many a night when all the sober folks had gone to bed.... Its
success is most prodigious. And by every post all manner of
strangers write all manner of letters to him about their homes and
hearths, and how this same Carol is read aloud there, and kept on a
little shelf by itself. Indeed, it is the greatest success, as I am
told, that this ruffian and rascal has ever achieved.

Forster is out again; and if he don't go in again, after the manner
in