voice, and ran on in rapid talk for an hour, with a shy reluctance to
talk about his own works, but with the most superabounding vivacity I
have ever met with in any man. His two daughters, one of whom afterward
married the younger Collins, a brother novelist, were then schoolgirls
of eight and ten years, came in, with books in their hands, to give
their father a good-morning kiss. After parting with him, when I had
reached his gate, he called after me in a very loud voice, "If you see
Mrs. Lucretia Mott, tell her that I have not forgotten the slave." His
"American Notes" appeared the next week. There were some things in that
hasty and faulty volume for which I sent him a cordial note of thanks,
and I speedily received the following characteristic reply, which I
still prize as a precious relic of the man:

I DEVONSHIRE TERRACE,
REGENTS PARK, Oct. 26th, 1842.

MY DEAR SIR:--I am heartily obliged to you for your
frank and manly letter. I shall always remember it in connection
with my American book; and never--believe me--save
in the foremost rank of its pleasant and honorable
associations.
Let me subscribe myself, as I really am

Faithfully your Friend,

CHARLES DICKENS.

Mr. Theodore Ledyard Cuyler.

I hold that Dickens was the most original genius in our fictitious