t to be more specifically
mentioned to you young fellows.

Katie dined with us yesterday, looking wonderfully well, and singing
"Excelsior" with a certain dramatic fire in her, whereof I seem to
remember having seen sparks afore now. Etc. etc. etc.

With kindest love from all at home to all with you,
Ever, my dear Macready, your most affectionate.

[Sidenote: Mr. W. Wilkie Collins.]

TAVISTOCK HOUSE, TAVISTOCK SQUARE, LONDON, W.C.,
_Saturday Night, Jan. 7th, 1860._

MY DEAR WILKIE,

I have read this book with great care and attention. There cannot be a
doubt that it is a very great advance on all your former writing, and
most especially in respect of tenderness. In character it is excellent.
Mr. Fairlie as good as the lawyer, and the lawyer as good as he. Mr.
Vesey and Miss Halcombe, in their different ways, equally meritorious.
Sir Percival, also, is most skilfully shown, though I doubt (you see
what small points I come to) whether any man ever showed uneasiness by
hand or foot without being forced by nature to show it in his face too.
The story is very interesting, and the writing of it admirable.

I seem to have noticed, here and there, that the great pains you take
express themselves a trifle too much, and you know that I always contest
your disposition to give an audience credit for nothing, which
necessarily involves the forcing of points on their attention, and which
I have always observed them to resent when they find it out--as they
always will and do. But on turning to the book again, I find it
difficult to take out an instance of this. It rather belongs to your
habit of thought and manner of going about the work. Perhaps I express
my meaning best when I say that the three people who write the
narratives in these proofs have a DISSECTIVE property in common, which
is essentially not theirs but yours; and that my own effort would be to
strike more of what is got _that way_ out of them by collision with one
another, and by the working of the story.

You know what an interest I have felt in your powers from the beginning
of our friendship, and how very high I rate them? _I_ know that this is
an admirable book, and that it grips the difficulties of the weekly
portion and throws them in masterly style. No one else could do it half
so well. I have stopped in every chapter to notice some instance of
ingenuity, or some happy