filamentous foliage of the tamarisk trees now standing in the place
where the cornfield was. Even at the time we see it, changed as all its
surroundings are, we can imagine the enjoyment which Dickens had in this
healthy spot on the North Downs.

In that interesting "book for an idle hour" called _The Shuttlecock
Papers_, Mr. J. Ashby-Sterry thus sympathetically alludes to "Bleak
House":--"What a romantic place this is to write in, is it not? What a
glorious study to work in! Indeed, both from situation and association,
it would be impossible to find a better place for writing, were it not
that one feels that so much superb work has been done on this very spot
by so great an artist, that the mere craftsman is inclined to question
whether it is worth while for him to write at all."

How well Dickens loved Broadstairs is told in his letter of the 1st
September, 1843, addressed to Professor Felton, of Cambridge, U. S. A.,
as follows:--

"This is a little fishing-place; intensely quiet; built on a cliff,
whereon--in the centre of a tiny semi-circular bay--our house stands;
the sea rolling and dashing under the windows. Seven miles out are the
Goodwin Sands (you've heard of the Goodwin Sands?), whence floating
lights perpetually wink after dark, as if they were carrying on
intrigues with the servants. Also there is a lighthouse called the North
Foreland on a hill behind the village, a severe parsonic light, which
reproves the young and giddy floaters, and stares grimly out upon the
sea. Under the cliff are rare good sands, where all the children
assemble every morning and throw up impossible fortifications, which the
sea throws down again at high-water. Old gentlemen and ancient ladies
flirt after their own manner in two reading-rooms, and on a great many
scattered seats in the open air. Other old gentlemen look all day long
through telescopes and never see anything.

"In a bay-window in a one-pair sits, from nine o'clock to one, a
gentleman with rather long hair and no neckcloth, who writes and grins
as if he thought he were very funny indeed. His name is Boz. At one he
disappears, and presently emerges from a bathing machine, and may be
seen--a kind of salmon-coloured porpoise--splashing about in the ocean.
After that he may be seen in another bay-window on the ground-floor,
eating a strong lunch; after that, walking a dozen miles or so, or lying
on his back in the sand reading a book. Nobody bothers him unless they
kn