honesty with which Dickens himself repelled such charges as
those to which I have adverted, when he wrote the preface to his
collected edition, remarkable proof appears in the letter to myself
which accompanied the manuscript of his proposed first number. No other
line of the tale had at this time been placed on paper.

When the first chapter only was done, and again when all was finished
but eight slips, he had sent me letters formerly quoted. What follows
came with the manuscript of the first four chapters on the 25th of July.
"I will now go on to give you an outline of my immediate intentions in
reference to _Dombey_. I design to show Mr. D. with that one idea of the
Son taking firmer and firmer possession of him, and swelling and
bloating his pride to a prodigious extent. As the boy begins to grow up,
I shall show him quite impatient for his getting on, and urging his
masters to set him great tasks, and the like. But the natural affection
of the boy will turn towards the despised sister; and I purpose showing
her learning all sorts of things, of her own application and
determination, to assist him in his lessons; and helping him always.
When the boy is about ten years old (in the fourth number), he will be
taken ill, and will die; and when he is ill, and when he is dying, I
mean to make him turn always for refuge to the sister still, and keep
the stern affection of the father at a distance. So Mr. Dombey--for all
his greatness, and for all his devotion to the child--will find himself
at arms' length from him even then; and will see that his love and
confidence are all bestowed upon his sister, whom Mr. Dombey has
used--and so has the boy himself too, for that matter--as a mere
convenience and handle to him. The death of the boy is a death-blow, of
course, to all the father's schemes and cherished hopes; and 'Dombey and
Son,' as Miss Tox will say at the end of the number, 'is a Daughter
after all.'. . . From that time, I purpose changing his feeling of
indifference and uneasiness towards his daughter into a positive hatred.
For he will always remember how the boy had his arm round her neck when
he was dying, and whispered to her, and would take things only from her
hand, and never thought of him. . . . At the same time I shall change _her_
feeling towards _him_ for one of a greater desire to love him, and to be
loved by him; engendered in her compassion for his loss, and her love
for the dead boy whom, in his way, he