and Charley Bates, and Mr. Crinkle, and Miss Squeers and Sam Weller,
and Mrs. Gamp, and Dick Swiveller were to perish, or to vanish with
Menander's men and women! We cannot think of our world without
them; and, children of dreams as they are, they seem more essential
than great statesmen, artists, soldiers, who have actually worn
flesh and blood, ribbons and orders, gowns and uniforms. May we not
almost welcome "Free Education"? for every Englishman who can read,
unless he be an Ass, is a reader the more for you.

P.S.--Alas, how strangely are we tempered, and how strong is the
national bias! I have been saying things of you that I would not
hear an enemy say. When I read, in the criticism of an American
novelist, about your "hysterical emotionality" (for he writes in
American), and your "waste of verbiage," I am almost tempted to deny
that our Dickens has a single fault, to deem you impeccable!



LETTER--To Pierre de Ronsard (Prince of Poets)



Master And Prince of Poets,--As we know what choice thou madest of a
sepulchre (a choice how ill fulfilled by the jealousy of Fate), so
we know well the manner of thy chosen immortality. In the Plains
Elysian, among the heroes and the ladies of old song, there was thy
Love with thee to enjoy her paradise in an eternal spring.


Le du plaisant Avril la saison immortelle