r own
mind," he said to him, "what you see of yourself from what other people
tell you that they see. As it has given you so much pain, I take it at
its worst, and say I am deeply sorry, and that I feel I did wrong in
doing it. I should otherwise have taken it at its best, and ridden off
upon what I strongly feel to be the truth, that there is nothing in it
that _should_ have given you pain. Every one in writing must speak from
points of his experience, and so I of mine with you: but when I have
felt it was going too close I stopped myself, and the most blotted
parts of my MS. are those in which I have been striving hard to make the
impression I was writing from, _un_like you. The diary-writing I took
from Haydon, not from you. I now first learn from yourself that you ever
set anything to music, and I could not have copied _that_ from you. The
character is not you, for there are traits in it common to fifty
thousand people besides, and I did not fancy you would ever recognize
it. Under similar disguises my own father and mother are in my books,
and you might as well see your likeness in Micawber." The distinction is
that the foibles of Mr. Micawber and of Mrs. Nickleby, however
laughable, make neither of them in speech or character less loveable;
and that this is not to be said of Skimpole's. The kindly or unkindly
impression makes all the difference where liberties are taken with a
friend; and even this entirely favourable condition will not excuse the
practice to many, where near relatives are concerned.

For what formerly was said of the Micawber resemblances, Dickens has
been sharply criticized; and in like manner it was thought objectionable
in Scott that for the closing scenes of Crystal Croftangry he should
have found the original of his fretful patient at the death-bed of his
own father. Lockhart, who tells us this, adds with a sad significance
that he himself lived to see the curtain fall at Abbotsford upon even
such another scene. But to no purpose will such objections still be
made. All great novelists will continue to use their experiences of
nature and fact, whencesoever derivable; and a remark made to Lockhart
by Scott himself suggests their vindication. "If a man will paint from
nature, he will be most likely to interest and amuse those who are daily
looking at it."

The Micawber offence otherwise was not grave. We have seen in what way
Dickens was moved or inspired by the rough lessons of his boyhood, a