* * * * *

"KENNEDY'S HOTEL, EDINBURGH.

"MY DEAR TROLLOPE,--I am reading here, and had your letter forwarded
to me this morning. The MS. accompanying it was stopped at _All The
Year Round_ office (in compliance with general instructions referring
to any MS. from you) and was sent straight to the printer.

"Oh dear no! Nobody supposes for a moment that the English Church
will follow the Irish Establishment. In the whole great universe of
shammery and flummery there is no such idea floating. Everybody knows
that the Church of England as an endowed establishment is doomed, and
would be, even if its hand were not perpetually hacking at its own
throat; but as was observed of an old lady in gloves in one of my
Christmas books, 'Let us be polite or die!'

"Anthony's ambition" [in becoming a candidate for Beverley] "is
inscrutable to me. Still, it is the ambition of many men; and the
honester the man who entertains it, the better for the rest of us, I
suppose.

"Ever, my dear Trollope,

"Most cordially yours,

"CHARLES DICKENS."

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