LORD  BYRON  and  his  TIMES
Byron
Documents Biography Criticism

Recollections of Writers
Charles Dickens to Mary Cowden Clarke, 21 August 1859
INTRODUCTION & INDEXES
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Contents
Preface
Chapter I.
Chapter II.
Chapter III.
Chapter IV.
Chapter V.
Chapter VI.
Chapter VII.
Chapter VIII.
Chapter IX
John Keats
Charles Lamb
Mary Lamb
Leigh Hunt
Douglas Jerrold
Charles Dickens
Index
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Gad’s Hill Place, Higham by Rochester, Kent,
21st Aug. 1859.

My dear Mrs. Cowden Clarke,—I cannot tell you how much pleasure I have derived from the receipt of your earnest letter. Do not suppose it possible that such praise can be “less than nothing” to your old Manager. It is more than all else.

Here in my little country house on the summit of the hill where Falstaff did the robbery, your words have come to me in the most appropriate and delightful manner. When the story can be read all at once, and my meaning can be better seen, I will send it to you (sending it to Dean Street, if you tell me of no better way) and it will be a hearty gratification to think that you and your good husband are reading it together. For you must both take notice, please, that I have a reminder of you always before me. On my desk here stand two green leaves, which I every morning station in
336 RECOLLECTIONS OF WRITERS  
their ever-green place at my elbow. The leaves on the oak-trees outside the window are less constant than these, for they are with me through the four seasons.

Lord! to think of the bygone day when you were stricken mute (was it not at Glasgow?) and, being mounted on a tall ladder at a practicable window, stared at Forster, and with a noble constancy refused to utter word! Like the Monk among the pictures with Wilkie, I begin to think that the real world, and this the sham that goes out with the lights. God bless you both.

Ever faithfully yours,
Charles Dickens.