en. And the approximation would, if I am not much mistaken, have
been brought about by a movement of mind on his part, which already
I think those who knew him best will agree with me in thinking had
commenced. We differed on many points of politics. But there is one
department of English social life--one with which I am probably more
intimately acquainted than with any other, and which has always been
to me one of much interest--our public school system, respecting which
our agreement was complete. And I cannot refrain from quoting. The
opinion which he expresses is as true as if he had, like me, an eight
years' experience of the system he is speaking of. And the passage,
which I am about to give, is very remarkable as an instance of the
singular acumen, insight, and power of sympathy which enabled him to
form so accurately correct an opinion on a matter of which he might be
supposed to know nothing.

"In July," says Mr. Forster, writing of the year 1858-9, "he took
earnest part in the opening efforts on behalf of the Royal Dramatic
College, which he supplemented later by a speech for the establishment
of schools for actors' children, in which he took occasion to declare
his belief that there were no institutions in England so socially
liberal as its public schools, and that there was nowhere in the
country so complete an absence of servility to mere rank, position,
and riches. 'A boy there'" (Mr. Forster here quotes Dickens's own
words) "'is always what his abilities and personal qualities make
him. We may differ about the curriculum and other matters, but of the
frank, free, manly, independent spirit preserved in our public schools
I apprehend there can be no kind of question.'"

I have in my possession a great number of letters from Dickens, some
of which might probably have been published in the valuable collection
of his letters published by his sister-in-law and eldest daughter had
they been get-at-able at the time when they might have been available
for that publication.[1] But I was at Rome, and the letters were
safely stowed away in England in such sort that it would have needed a
journey to London to get at them.

[Footnote 1: Some of the letters in question--such as I had with
me--were sent to London for that purpose. I do not remember now which
were and which were not. But if it should be the case that any of
those printed here have been printed before, I do not think any reader
will object to having the