hy action something of
his arrogant demeanour, he sat down, resting his head upon one hand, and
read it through.

"He read it slowly and attentively, and with a nice particularity to
every syllable. Otherwise than as his great deliberation seemed
unnatural, and perhaps the result of an effort equally great, he allowed
no sign of emotion to escape him. When he had read it through, he folded
and refolded it slowly several times, and tore it carefully into
fragments. Checking his hand in the act of throwing these away, he put
them in his pocket, as if unwilling to trust them even to the chances of
being reunited and deciphered; and instead of ringing, as usual, for
little Paul, he sat solitary all the evening in his cheerless room."
From the original MS. of _Dombey and Son_.

[137] "I will now explain that 'Oliver Twist,' the ----, the ----, etc."
(naming books by another writer), "were produced in an entirely
different manner from what would be considered as the usual course; _for
I, the Artist, suggested to the Authors of those works the original
idea, or subject_, for them to write out--furnishing, at the same time,
the principal characters and the scenes. And then, as the tale had to be
produced in monthly parts, the _Writer_, or _Author_, and the Artist,
had every month to arrange and settle what scenes, or subjects, and
characters were to be introduced, and the Author had to _weave_ in such
scenes as I wished to represent."--_The Artist and the Author_, by
George Cruikshank, p. 15. (Bell & Daldy: 1872.) The italics are Mr.
Cruikshank's own.

[138] I take, from his paper of notes for the number, the various names,
beginning with that of her real prototype, out of which the name
selected came to him at last. "Mrs. Roylance . . . House at the seaside.
Mrs. Wrychin. Mrs. Tipchin. Mrs. Alchin. Mrs. Somching. Mrs. Pipchin."
See Vol. I. p. 55.

[139] Some passages may be subjoined from the letter, as it does not
appear among those printed by Lord Cockburn. "EDINBURGH, _14th
December_, '46. My dear, dear Dickens!--and dearer every day, as you
every day give me more pleasure and do me more good! You do not wonder
at this style? for you know that I have been _in love with you_, ever
since Nelly! and I do not care now who knows it. . . . The Dombeys, my dear
D! how can I thank you enough for them! The truth, and the delicacy, and
the softness and depth of the pathos in that opening death-scene, could
only come from one han