h, and have also
begged Dixon to do the like in the Athenaeum. I mention the matter
to you, in order that you may contradict, from me, if the nonsense
should reach America unaccompanied by the truth. But I suppose that
the New York Herald will probably have got the latter from Mr. ----
aforesaid.....

"Charles Reade and Wilkie Collins are here; and the joke of the time
is to feel my pulse when I appear at table, and also to inveigle
innocent messengers to come over to the summer-house, where I write
(the place is quite changed since you were here, and a tunnel under
the high road connects this shrubbery with the front garden), to
ask, with their compliments, how I find myself _now_.

"If I come to America this next November, even you can hardly
imagine with what interest I shall try Copperfield on an American
audience, or, if they give me their heart, how freely and fully I
shall give them mine. We will ask Dolby then whether he ever heard
it before.

"I cannot thank you enough for your invaluable help to Dolby. He
writes that at every turn and moment the sense and knowledge and
tact of Mr. Osgood are inestimable to him.

"Ever, my dear Fields, faithfully yours,

"CHARLES DICKENS."

Here is a little note dated the 3d of October:--

"I cannot tell you how much I thank you for your kind little letter,
which is like a pleasant voice coming across the Atlantic, with
that domestic welcome in it which has no substitute on earth. If
you knew how strongly I am inclined to allow myself the pleasure of
staying at your house, you would look upon me as a kind of ancient
Roman (which, I trust in Heaven, I am not) for having the courage to
say no. But if I gave myself that gratification in the beginning, I
could scarcely hope to get on in the hard 'reading' life, without
offending some kindly disposed and hospitable American friend
afterwards; whereas if I observe my English principle on such
occasions, of having no abiding-place but an hotel, and stick to it
from the first, I may perhaps count on being consistently
uncomfortable.

"The nightly exertion necessitates meals at odd hours, silence and
rest at impossible times of the day, a general Spartan behavior so
utterly inconsistent with my nature, that if you were to give me a
happy inch, I should take an ell, and frightfu