ring the present year in a new preface which he published to _Oliver
Twist_. Other friends became familiar in later years; but, disinclined
as he was to the dinner-invitations that reached him from every quarter,
all such meetings with those whom I have named, and in an especial
manner the marked attentions shown him by Miss Coutts which began with
the very beginning of his career, were invariably welcome.

To speak here of the pleasure his society afforded, would anticipate the
fitter mention to be made hereafter. But what in this respect
distinguishes nearly all original men, he possessed eminently. His place
was not to be filled up by any other. To the most trivial talk he gave
the attraction of his own character. It might be a small
matter,--something he had read or observed during the day, some quaint
odd fancy from a book, a vivid little out-door picture, the laughing
exposure of some imposture, or a burst of sheer mirthful enjoyment,--but
of its kind it would be something unique, because genuinely part of
himself. This, and his unwearying animal spirits, made him the most
delightful of companions; no claim on good-fellowship ever found him
wanting; and no one so constantly recalled to his friends the
description Johnson gave of Garrick, as the cheerfulest man of his age.

Of what occupied him in the way of literary labor in the autumn and
winter months of the year, some description has been given; and, apart
from what has already thus been said of his work at the closing chapters
of _The Old Curiosity Shop_, nothing now calls for more special
allusion, except that in his town-walks in November, impelled thereto by
specimens recently discovered in his country-walks between Broadstairs
and Ramsgate, he thoroughly explored the ballad literature of
Seven-Dials, and took to singing himself, with an effect that justified
his reputation for comic singing in his childhood, not a few of these
wonderful productions. His last successful labor of the year was the
reconciliation of two friends; and his motive, as well as the principle
that guided him, as they are described by himself, I think worth
preserving. For the first: "In the midst of this child's death, I, over
whom something of the bitterness of death has passed, not lightly
perhaps, was reminded of many old kindnesses, and was sorry in my heart
that men who really liked each other should waste life at arm's length."
For the last: "I have laid it down as a rule in my