side, his powers of resistance and capacities of
enjoyment. "I had written you a line" (16th of January), "pleading Jonas
and Mrs. Gamp, but this frosty day tempts me sorely. I am distractingly
late; but I look at the sky, think of Hampstead, and feel hideously
tempted. Don't come with Mae, and fetch me. I couldn't resist if you
did." In the next (18th of February), he is not the tempted, but the
tempter. "Stanfield and Mac have come in, and we are going to Hampstead
to dinner. I leave Betsey Prig as you know, so don't you make a scruple
about leaving Mrs. Harris. We shall stroll leisurely up, to give you
time to join us, and dinner will be on the table at Jack Straw's at
four. . . . In the very improbable (surely impossible?) case of your not
coming, we will call on you at a quarter before eight, to go to the
ragged school." The next (5th of March) shows him in yielding mood, and
pitying himself for his infirmity of compliance. "Sir, I
will--he--he--he--he--he--he--I will NOT eat with you, either at your
own house or the club. But the morning looks bright, and a walk to
Hampstead would suit me marvellously. If you should present yourself at
my gate (bringing the R. A.'s along with you) I shall not be sapparized.
So no more at this writing from Poor MR. DICKENS." But again the tables
are turned, and he is tempter in the last; written on that Shakespeare
day (23rd of April) which we kept always as a festival, and signed in
character expressive of his then present unfitness for any of the
practical affairs of life, including the very pressing business which at
the moment ought to have occupied him, namely, attention to the long
deferred nuptials of Miss Charity Pecksniff. "November blasts! Why it's
the warmest, most genial, most intensely bland, delicious, growing,
springy, songster-of-the-grovy, bursting-forth-of-the-buddy, day as
ever was. At half-past four I shall expect you. Ever, MODDLE."

Moddle, the sentimental noodle hooked by Miss Pecksniff who flies on his
proposed wedding-day from the frightful prospect before him, the reader
of course knows; and has perhaps admired for his last supreme outbreak
of common sense. It was a rather favourite bit of humour with Dickens;
and I find it pleasant to think that he never saw the description given
of it by a trained and skilful French critic, who has been able to pass
under his review the whole of English literature without any apparent
sense or understanding of one of its