Old friends, all of you, how many times have I not slipped away from
my worries into your pleasant company! Peggotty, you dear soul, the
sight of your kind eyes is so good to me. Our mutual friend, Mr.
Charles Dickens, is prone, we know, just ever so slightly to gush.
Good fellow that he is, he can see no flaw in those he loves, but
you, dear lady, if you will permit me to call you by a name much
abused, he has drawn in true colours. I know you well, with your big
heart, your quick temper, your homely, human ways of thought. You
yourself will never guess your worth--how much the world is better
for such as you! You think of yourself as of a commonplace person,
useful only for the making of pastry, the darning of stockings, and
if a man--not a young man, with only dim half-opened eyes, but a man
whom life had made keen to see the beauty that lies hidden beneath
plain faces--were to kneel and kiss your red, coarse hand, you would
be much astonished. But he would be a wise man, Peggotty, knowing
what things a man should take carelessly, and for what things he
should thank God, who has fashioned fairness in many forms.

Mr. Wilkins Micawber, and you, most excellent of faithful wives, Mrs.
Emma Micawber, to you I also raise my hat. How often has the example
of your philosophy saved me, when I, likewise, have suffered under
the temporary pressure of pecuniary liabilities; when the sun of my
prosperity, too, has sunk beneath the dark horizon of the world--in
short, when I, also, have found myself in a tight corner. I have
asked myself what would the Micawbers have done in my place. And I
have answered myself. They would have sat down to a dish of lamb's
fry, cooked and breaded by the deft hands of Emma, followed by a brew
of punch, concocted by the beaming Wilkins, and have forgotten all
their troubles, for the time being. Whereupon, seeing first that
sufficient small change was in my pocket, I have entered the nearest