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“MY DEAR TROLLOPE,—­I am heartily glad to hear from you.  It was such a disagreeable surprise to find that you had left London” [I had been called away at an hour’s notice] “on the occasion of your last visit without my having seen you, that I have never since got it out of my mind.  I felt as if it were my fault (though I don’t know how that can have been), and as if I had somehow been traitorous to the earnest and affectionate regard with which you have inspired me.

“The lady’s verses are accepted by the editorial potentate, and shall presently appear.” [I am ashamed to say that I totally forget who the lady was.]

“I am not quite well, and am being touched up (or down) by the doctors.  Whether the irritation of mind I had to endure pending the discussions of a preposterous clerical body called a Convocation, and whether the weakened hopefulness of mankind which such a dash of the middle ages in the colour and pattern of 1866 engenders, may have anything to do with it, I don’t know.

“What a happy man you must be in having a new house to work at.  When it is quite complete, and the roc’s egg hung up, I suppose you will get rid of it bodily and turn to at another.” [Absit omen! At this very moment, while I transcribe this letter, I am turning to at another.]

“Daily News correspondent” [as I then for a short time was], “Novel, and Hospitality!  Enough to do indeed!  Perhaps the day might be advantageously made longer for such work—­or say life.” [Ah! if the small matters rehearsed had been all, I could more contentedly have put up with the allowance of four-and-twenty hours.] “And yet I don’t know.  Like enough we should all do less if we had time to do more in.

“Layard was with us for a couple of days a little while ago, and brought the last report of you, and of your daughter, who seems to have made a great impression on him.  I wish he had had the keepership of the National Gallery, for I don’t think his Government will hold together through many weeks.

“I wonder whether you thought as highly of Gibson’s art as the lady did who wrote the verses.  I must say that I did not, and that I thought it of a mechanical sort, with no great amount of imagination in it.  It seemed to me as if he ‘didn’t find me’ in that, as the servants say, but only provided me with carved marble, and expected me to furnish myself with as much idea as I could afford.

“Very faithfully yours,

“CHARLES DICKENS.”

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I do not remember the verses, though I feel confident that the lady who sent them through me must have been a very charming person.  As to Gibson, no criticism could be sounder.  I had a considerable liking for Gibson as a man, and admiration for his character, but as regards his ideal productions I think Dickens hits the right nail on the head.