e familiarity
deprives death itself of awe; and then, but not before, they will be
brought willingly to hear of Him whose thoughts were so much with the
wretched, and who had compassion for all human sorrow." He closed by
proposing Lord Ashley's health as having preferred the higher ambition
of labouring for the poor to that of pursuing the career open to him in
the service of the State; and as having also had "the courage on all
occasions to face the cant which is the worst and commonest of all, the
cant about the cant of philanthropy." Lord Shaftesbury first dined with
him in the following year at Tavistock-house.

Shortly after the Sanitary meeting came the first Guild performances;
and then Dickens left Devonshire-terrace, never to return to it. What
occupied him in the interval before he took possession of his new abode,
has before been told; but two letters were overlooked in describing his
progress in the labour of the previous year, and brief extracts from
them will naturally lead me to the subject of my next chapter. "I have
been" (15th of September) "tremendously at work these two days; eight
hours at a stretch yesterday, and six hours and a half to-day, with the
Ham and Steerforth chapter, which has completely knocked me
over--utterly defeated me!" "I am" (21st of October) "within three pages
of the shore; and am strangely divided, as usual in such cases, between
sorrow and joy. Oh, my dear Forster, if I were to say half of what
_Copperfield_ makes me feel to-night, how strangely, even to you, I
should be turned inside out! I seem to be sending some part of myself
into the Shadowy World."

=END OF THE SECOND VOLUME.=

FOOTNOTES:

[158] I take the opportunity of saying that there was an omission of
three words in the epitaph quoted on a former page (vol. i. p. 120). The
headstone at the grave in Kensal-green bears this inscription: "Young,
beautiful, and good, God in His mercy numbered her among His angels at
the early age of seventeen."

[159] From letters of nearly the same date here is another
characteristic word: "Pen and ink before me! Am I not at work on
_Copperfield_! Nothing else would have kept me here until half-past two
on such a day. . . . Indian news bad indeed. Sad things come of bloody war.
If it were not for Elihu, I should be a peace and arbitration man."

[160] Here is really an only average specimen of the letters as
published: "I forgot to say, if you leave your chamber twenty time