oon myself be with you."

There were difficulties, still to be strongly urged, against taking any
present step to a final resolve; and he gave way a little. But the
pressure was soon renewed. "I have been," he wrote (10th of November),
"all day in _Chuzzlewit_ agonies--conceiving only. I hope to bring forth
to-morrow. Will you come here at six? I want to say a word or two about
the cover of the _Carol_ and the advertising, and to consult you on a
nice point in the tale. It will come wonderfully I think. Mac will call
here soon after, and we can then all three go to Bulwer's together. And
do, my dear fellow, do for God's sake turn over about Chapman and Hall,
and look upon my project as a _settled thing_. If you object to see
them, I must write to them." My reluctance as to the question affecting
his old publishers was connected with the little story, which, amid all
his perturbations and troubles and "_Chuzzlewit_ agonies," he was
steadily carrying to its close; and which remains a splendid proof of
how thoroughly he was borne out in the assertion just before made, of
the sense of his power felt by him, and his confidence that it had never
been greater than when his readers were thus falling off from him. He
had entrusted the _Carol_ for publication on his own account, under the
usual terms of commission, to the firm he had been so long associated
with; and at such a moment to tell them, short of absolute necessity,
his intention to quit them altogether, I thought a needless putting in
peril of the little book's chances. He yielded to this argument; but the
issue, as will be found, was less fortunate than I hoped.

Let disappointments or annoyances, however, beset him as they might,
once heartily in his work and all was forgotten. His temperament of
course coloured everything, cheerful or sad, and his present outlook was
disturbed by imaginary fears; but it was very certain that his labours
and successes thus far had enriched others more than himself, and while
he knew that his mode of living had been scrupulously governed by what
he believed to be his means, the first suspicion that these might be
inadequate made a change necessary to so upright a nature. It was the
turning-point of his career; and the issue, though not immediately,
ultimately justified him. Much of his present restlessness I was too
ready myself to ascribe to that love of change in him which was always
arising from his passionate desire to vary and ex