nce and balancing
facts, and a special clearness in stating the case, were indispensable
on the part of the writer. My confidence in your powers has never been
misplaced, and through all our literary intercourse you have never been
hasty or wrong. Whatever trust you have undertaken has been so
completely discharged, that it has become my habit to read your proofs
rather for my own edification than (as in other cases) for the detection
of some slip here or there, or the more pithy presentation of the
subject.

That your literary work has never interfered with the discharge of your
official duties, I may assume to be at least as well known to your
colleagues as it is to me. It is idle to say that if the post were in my
gift you should have it, because you have had, for some years, most of
the posts of high trust that have been at my disposal. An excellent
public servant in your literary sphere of action, I should be heartily
glad if you could have this new opportunity of distinguishing yourself
in the same character. And this is at least unselfish in me, for I
suppose I should then lose you?

Always faithfully yours.

[Sidenote: Mr. Edward Bulwer Lytton Dickens.]

LETTER TO HIS YOUNGEST SON ON HIS DEPARTURE FOR
AUSTRALIA IN 1868.[27]

MY DEAREST PLORN,

I write this note to-day because your going away is much upon my mind,
and because I want you to have a few parting words from me to think of
now and then at quiet times. I need not tell you that I love you dearly,
and am very, very sorry in my heart to part with you. But this life is
half made up of partings, and these pains must be borne. It is my
comfort and my sincere conviction that you are going to try the life for
which you are beat fitted. I think its freedom and wildness more suited
to you than any experiment in a study or office would ever have been;
and without that training, you could have followed no other suitable
occupation.

What you have already wanted until now has been a set, steady, constant
purpose. I therefore exhort you to persevere in a thorough determination
to do whatever you have to do as well as you can do it. I was not so old
as you are now when I first had to win my food, and do this out of this
determination, and I have never slackened in it since.

Never take a mean advantage of anyone in any transaction, and never be
hard upon people who are in your p