I never read it; whereby I
always conceive (don't you?) that I get the victory. With regard to
your slave-owners, they may cry, till they are as black in the face
as their own slaves, that Dickens lies. Dickens does not write for
their satisfaction, and Dickens will not explain for their comfort.
Dickens has the name and date of every newspaper in which every one
of those advertisements appeared, as they know perfectly well; but
Dickens does not choose to give them, and will not at any time
between this and the day of judgment....

I have been hard at work on my new book, of which the first number
has just appeared. The Paul Joneses who pursue happiness and profit
at other men's cost will no doubt enable you to read it, almost as
soon as you receive this. I hope you will like it. And I
particularly commend, my dear Felton, one Mr. Pecksniff and his
daughters to your tender regards. I have a kind of liking for them
myself.

Blessed star of morning, such a trip as we had into Cornwall, just
after Longfellow went away! The "we" means Forster, Maclise,
Stanfield (the renowned marine painter), and the Inimitable Boz. We
went down into Devonshire by the railroad, and there we hired an
open carriage from an innkeeper, patriotic in all Pickwick matters,
and went on with post horses. Sometimes we travelled all night,
sometimes all day, sometimes both. I kept the joint-stock purse,
ordered all the dinners, paid all the turnpikes, conducted facetious
conversations with the post boys, and regulated the pace at which we
travelled. Stanfield (an old sailor) consulted an enormous map on
all disputed points of wayfaring; and referred, moreover, to a
pocket-compass and other scientific instruments. The luggage was in
Forster's department; and Maclise, having nothing particular to do,
sang songs. Heavens! If you could have seen the necks of
bottles--distracting in their immense varieties of shape--peering
out of the carriage pockets! If you could have witnessed the deep
devotion of the post-boys, the wild attachment of the hostlers, the
maniac glee of the waiters. If you could have followed us into the
earthy old churches we visited, and into the strange caverns on the
gloomy sea-shore, and down into the depths of mines, and up to the
tops of giddy heights where the unspeakably green water was