Volume Iii Part 7 (2/2)

DEAR SIR,

You are quite right in feeling a.s.sured that I should answer the letter you have addressed to me. If you had entertained a presentiment that it would afford me sincere pleasure and delight to hear from a warm-hearted and admiring reader of my books in the backwoods of America, you would not have been far wrong.

I thank you cordially and heartily both for your letter and its kind and courteous terms. To think that I have awakened a fellow-feeling and sympathy with the creatures of many thoughtful hours among the vast solitudes in which you dwell, is a source of the purest delight and pride to me; and believe me that your expressions of affectionate remembrance and approval, sounding from the green forests on the banks of the Mississippi, sink deeper into my heart and gratify it more than all the honorary distinctions that all the courts in Europe could confer.

It is such things as these that make one hope one does not live in vain, and that are the highest reward of an author's life. To be numbered among the household G.o.ds of one's distant countrymen, and a.s.sociated with their homes and quiet pleasures; to be told that in each nook and corner of the world's great ma.s.s there lives one well-wisher who holds communion with one in the spirit, is a worthy fame indeed, and one which I would not barter for a mine of wealth.

That I may be happy enough to cheer some of your leisure hours for a very long time to come, and to hold a place in your pleasant thoughts, is the earnest wish of ”Boz.”

And, with all good wishes for yourself, and with a sincere reciprocation of all your kindly feeling,

I am, dear Sir, Faithfully yours.

[Sidenote: Mr. R. Monckton Milnes]

DEVONs.h.i.+RE TERRACE, _Wednesday, March 10th, 1841._

MY DEAR MILNES,

I thank you very much for the ”Nickleby” correspondence, which I will keep for a day or two, and return when I see you. Poor fellow! The long letter is quite admirable, and most affecting.

I am not quite sure either of Friday or Sat.u.r.day, for, independently of the ”Clock” (which for ever wants winding), I am getting a young brother off to New Zealand just now, and have my mornings sadly cut up in consequence. But, knowing your ways, I know I may say that I will come if I can; and that if I can't I won't.

That Nellicide was the act of Heaven, as you may see any of these fine mornings when you look about you. If you knew the pain it gave me--but what am I talking of? if you don't know, n.o.body does. I am glad to shake you by the hand again autographically,

And am always, Faithfully yours.

[Sidenote: Mr. George Cattermole.]

DEVONs.h.i.+RE TERRACE, _Tuesday, February 9th._

MY DEAR GEORGE,

My notes tread upon each other's heels. In my last I quite forgot business.

Will you, for No. 49, do the locksmith's house, which was described in No. 48? I mean the outside. If you can, without hurting the effect, shut up the shop as though it were night, so much the better. Should you want a figure, an ancient watchman in or out of his box, very sleepy, will be just the thing for me.

I have written to Chapman and requested him to send you a block of a long shape, so that the house may come upright as it were.

Faithfully ever.

[Sidenote: The same.]

OLD s.h.i.+P HOTEL, BRIGHTON, _Feb. 26th, 1841._

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