a glamour thrown over him as he is passing away. It was
wonderfully original, this treatment of the part that thus preceded the
close of Paul's little life; and of which the first conception, as I
have shown, was an afterthought. It quite took the death itself out of
the region of pathetic commonplaces, and gave to it the proper relation
to the sorrow of the little sister that survives it. It is a fairy
vision to a piece of actual suffering; a sorrow with heaven's hues upon
it, to a sorrow with all the bitterness of earth.

The number had been finished, he had made his visit to London, and was
again in the Rue de Courcelles, when on Christmas day he sent me its
hearty old wishes, and a letter of Jeffrey's on his new story of which
the first and second part had reached him. "Many merry Christmases, many
happy new years, unbroken friendship, great accumulation of cheerful
recollections, affection on earth, and Heaven at last! . . . Is it not a
strange example of the hazard of writing in parts, that a man like
Jeffrey should form his notion of Dombey and Miss Tox on three months'
knowledge? I have asked him the same question, and advised him to keep
his eye on both of them as time rolls on.[139] I do not at heart,
however, lay much real stress on his opinion, though one is naturally
proud of awakening such sincere interest in the breast of an old man who
has so long worn the blue and yellow. . . . He certainly did some service
in his old criticisms, especially to Crabbe. And though I don't think so
highly of Crabbe as I once did (feeling a dreary want of fancy in his
poems), I think he deserved the pains-taking and conscientious tracking
with which Jeffrey followed him". . . . Six days later he described himself
sitting down to the performance of one of his greatest achievements, his
number five, "most abominably dull and stupid. I have only written a
slip, but I hope to get to work in strong earnest to-morrow. It occurred
to me on special reflection, that the first chapter should be with Paul
and Florence, and that it should leave a pleasant impression of the
little fellow being happy, before the reader is called upon to see him
die. I mean to have a genteel breaking-up at Doctor Blimber's therefore,
for the Midsummer vacation; and to show him in a little quiet light (now
dawning through the chinks of my mind), which I hope will create an
agreeable impression." Then, two days later: ". . . I am working very
slowly. You wil