Of rights and wrongs, have loved the people well.


It is, that a duty may be done in the most direct way possible. An
act of plain, clear duty.

Four or five years ago, the writer of these lines was much pained by
accidentally encountering a printed statement, "that Mr. Leigh Hunt
was the original of Harold Skimpole in Bleak House". The writer of
these lines, is the author of that book. The statement came from
America. It is no disrespect to that country, in which the writer
has, perhaps, as many friends and as true an interest as any man
that lives, good-humouredly to state the fact, that he has, now and
then, been the subject of paragraphs in Transatlantic newspapers,
more surprisingly destitute of all foundation in truth than the
wildest delusions of the wildest lunatics. For reasons born of this
experience, he let the thing go by.

But, since Mr. Leigh Hunt's death, the statement has been revived in
England. The delicacy and generosity evinced in its revival, are
for the rather late consideration of its revivers. The fact is
this:

Exactly those graces and charms of manner which are remembered in
the words we have quoted, were remembered by the author of the work
of fiction in question, when he drew the character in question.
Above all other things, that "sort of gay and ostentatious
wilfulness" in the humouring of a subject, which had many a time
delighted him, and impressed him as being unspeakably whimsical and
attractive, was the airy quality he wanted for the man he invented.