previous experience, that if I were to set myself the task, ’I will make such or such a sum of money by devoting myself to readings for a certain time,’ I should have to go no further than Bond Street or Regent Street, to have it secured to me in a day.  Therefore, if a specific offer, and a very large one indeed, were made to me from America, I should naturally ask myself, ’Why go through this wear and tear, merely to pluck fruit that grows on every bough at home?’ It is a delightful sensation to move a new people; but I have but to go to Paris, and I find the brightest people in the world quite ready for me.  I say thus much in a sort of desperate endeavor to explain myself to you.  I can put no price upon fifty readings in America, because I do not know that any possible price could pay me for them.  And I really cannot say to any one disposed towards the enterprise, ‘Tempt me,’ because I have too strong a misgiving that he cannot in the nature of things do it.

“This is the plain truth.  If any distinct proposal be submitted to me, I will give it a distinct answer.  But the chances are a round thousand to one that the answer will be no, and therefore I feel bound to make the declaration beforehand.

    “....This place has been greatly improved since you were here, and
    we should be heartily glad if you and she could see it.

    “Faithfully yours ever,

    “CHARLES DICKENS.”

On the 16th of October he writes:—­

“Although I perpetually see in the papers that I am coming out with a new serial, I assure you I know no more of it at present.  I am not writing (except for Christmas number of ’All the Year Round’), and am going to begin, in the middle of January, a series of forty-two readings.  Those will probably occupy me until Easter.  Early in the summer I hope to get to work upon a story that I have in my mind.  But in what form it will appear I do not yet know, because when the time comes I shall have to take many circumstances into consideration.....

“A faint outline of a castle in the air always dimly hovers between me and Rochester, in the great hall of which I see myself reading to American audiences.  But my domestic surroundings must change before the castle takes tangible form.  And perhaps I may change first, and establish a castle in the other world.  So no more at present.

    “Believe me ever faithfully yours,

    “CHARLES DICKENS.”

In June, 1867, things begin to look more promising, and I find in one of his letters, dated the 3d of that month, some good news, as follows:—­

“I cannot receive your pleasantest of notes, without assuring you of the interest and gratification that I feel on my side in our alliance.  And now I am going to add a piece of intelligence that I hope may not be disagreeable.

“I am trying hard so to free myself,