street, and I have had a correspondence
with him which is preserved for your inspection. His name is Barthelemy.
He wears a prodigious Spanish cloak, a slouched hat, an immense beard,
and long black hair. He called the other day and left his card. Allow me
to enclose his card, which has originality and merit.

[Illustration: =Rue de Courcelles=

_Barthelemy_

=49.=]

Roche said I wasn't at home. Yesterday, he wrote me to say that he too
was a 'Litterateur'--that he had called, in compliment to my
distinguished reputation--'qu'il n'avait pas ete recu--qu'il n'etait pas
habitue a cette sorte de procede--et qu'il pria Monsieur Dickens
d'oublier son nom, sa memoire, sa carte, et sa visite, et de considerer
qu'elle n'avait pas ete rendu!' Of course I wrote him a very polite
reply immediately, telling him good-humouredly that he was quite
mistaken, and that there were always two weeks in the beginning of every
month when M. Dickens ne pouvait rendre visite a personne. He wrote back
to say that he was more than satisfied; that it was his case too, at
the end of every month; and that when busy himself, he not only can't
receive or pay visits, but--'tombe, generalement, aussi, dans des
humeurs noires qui approchent de l'anthropophagie!!!' I think that's
pretty well."

He was in London eight days, from the 15th to the 23rd of December;[132]
and among the occupations of his visit, besides launching his little
story on the stage, was the settlement of form for a cheap edition of
his writings, which began in the following year. It was to be printed in
double-columns, and issued weekly in three-halfpenny numbers; there were
to be new prefaces, but no illustrations; and for each book something
less than a fourth of the original price was to be charged. Its success
was very good, but did not come even near to the mark of the later
issues of his writings. His own feeling as to this, however, though any
failure at the moment affected him on other grounds, was always that of
a quiet confidence; and he had expressed this in a proposed dedication
of this very edition, which for other reasons was ultimately laid aside.
It will be worth preserving here. "This cheap edition of my books is
dedicated to the English people, in whose approval, if the books be true
in spirit, they will live, and out of whose memory, if they be false,
they will very soon die."

Upon his return to Paris I had frequent report of his pr