held it at arm's length, and taken a
bird's-eye view of it, after reading it a great many times, but there is
no greater encouragement in it this way than on a microscopic
inspection. I should love to go with you--as I have gone, God knows how
often--into Little Britain, and Eastcheap, and Green Arbour Court, and
Westminster Abbey. I should like to travel with you, outside the last of
the coaches down to Bracebridge Hall. It would make my heart glad to
compare notes with you about that shabby gentleman in the oilcloth hat
and red nose, who sat in the nine-cornered back-parlour of the Masons'
Arms; and about Robert Preston and the tallow-chandler's widow, whose
sitting-room is second nature to me; and about all those delightful
places and people that I used to walk about and dream of in the daytime,
when a very small and not over-particularly-taken-care-of boy. I have a
good deal to say, too, about that dashing Alonzo de Ojeda, that you
can't help being fonder of than you ought to be; and much to hear
concerning Moorish legend, and poor unhappy Boabdil. Diedrich
Knickerbocker I have worn to death in my pocket, and yet I should show
you his mutilated carcass with a joy past all expression.

I have been so accustomed to associate you with my pleasantest and
happiest thoughts, and with my leisure hours, that I rush at once into
full confidence with you, and fall, as it were naturally, and by the
very laws of gravity, into your open arms. Questions come thronging to
my pen as to the lips of people who meet after long hoping to do so. I
don't know what to say first or what to leave unsaid, and am constantly
disposed to break off and tell you again how glad I am this moment has
arrived.

My dear Washington Irving, I cannot thank you enough for your cordial
and generous praise, or tell you what deep and lasting gratification it
has given me. I hope to have many letters from you, and to exchange a
frequent correspondence. I send this to say so. After the first two or
three I shall settle down into a connected style, and become gradually
rational.

You know what the feeling is, after having written a letter, sealed it,
and sent it off. I shall picture your reading this, and answering it
before it has lain one night in the post-office. Ten to one that before
the fastest packet could reach New York I shall be writing again.

Do you suppose the post-office clerks care to receive letters? I have my
doubts. They get into a dreadfu