much encouraged by what you say; not but what I am sensible that you
mollify me with a good deal of soft soap, but it is skilfully
applied and effects all you intend it should.... I cannot come to
Boston to spend more than a day, just at present. It would suit me
better to come for a visit when the spring of next year is a little
advanced, and if you renew your hospitable proposition then, I shall
probably be glad to accept it; though I have now been a hermit so
long, that the thought affects me somewhat as it would to invite a
lobster or a crab to step out of his shell."

He continued, during the early months of 1863, to send now and then an
article for the magazine from his English Note-Books. On the 22d of
February he writes:--

"Here is another article. I wish it would not be so wretchedly long,
but there are many things which I shall find no opportunity to say
unless I say them now; so the article grows under my hand, and one
part of it seems just about as well worth printing as another.
Heaven sees fit to visit me with an unshakable conviction that all
this series of articles is good for nothing; but that is none of my
business, provided the public and you are of a different opinion. If
you think any part of it can be left out with advantage, you are
quite at liberty to do so. Probably I have not put Leigh Hunt quite
high enough for your sentiments respecting him; but no more genuine
characterization and criticism (so far as the writer's purpose to be
true goes) was ever done. It is very slight. I might have made more
of it, but should not have improved it.

"I mean to write two more of these articles, and then hold my hand.
I intend to come to Boston before the end of this week, if the