I wrote to Prescott about his book, with which I was perfectly charmed.  I think his descriptions masterly, his style brilliant, his purpose manly and gallant always.  The introductory account of Aztec civilization impressed me exactly as it impressed you.  From beginning to end, the whole history is enchanting and full of genius.  I only wonder that, having such an opportunity of illustrating the doctrine of visible judgments, he never remarks, when Cortes and his men tumble the idols down the temple steps and call upon the people to take notice that their gods are powerless to help themselves, that possibly if some intelligent native had tumbled down the image of the Virgin or patron saint after them nothing very remarkable might have ensued in consequence.

    Of course you like Macready.  Your name’s Felton.  I wish you could
    see him play Lear.  It is stupendously terrible.  But I suppose he
    would be slow to act it with the Boston company.

Hearty remembrances to Sumner, Longfellow, Prescott, and all whom you know I love to remember.  Countless happy years to you and yours, my dear Felton, and some instalment of them, however slight, in England, in the loving company of

    THE PROSCRIBED ONE.

    O, breathe not his name.

* * * * *

Here is a portfolio of Dickens’s letters, written to me from time to time during the past ten years.  As long ago as the spring of 1858 I began to press him very hard to come to America and give us a course of readings from his works.  At that time I had never heard him read in public, but the fame of his wonderful performances rendered me eager to have my own country share in the enjoyment of them.  Being in London in the summer of 1859, and dining with him one day in his town residence, Tavistock House, Tavistock Square, we had much talk in a corner of his library about coming to America.  I thought him over-sensitive with regard to his reception here, and I tried to remove any obstructions that might exist in his mind at that time against a second visit across the Atlantic.  I followed up our conversation with a note setting forth the certainty of his success among his Transatlantic friends, and urging him to decide on a visit during the year.  He replied to me, dating from “Gad’s Hill Place, Higham by Rochester, Kent.”

    “I write to you from my little Kentish country house, on the very
    spot where Falstaff ran away.

    “I cannot tell you how very much obliged to you I feel for your kind
    suggestion, and for the perfectly frank and unaffected manner in
    which it is conveyed to me.