Forster here quotes Dickens's own
words) "'is always what his abilities and personal qualities make
him. We may differ about the curriculum and other matters, but of the
frank, free, manly, independent spirit preserved in our public schools
I apprehend there can be no kind of question.'"
I have in my possession a great number of letters from Dickens, some
of which might probably have been published in the valuable collection
of his letters published by his sister-in-law and eldest daughter had
they been get-at-able at the time when they might have been available
for that publication.[1] But I was at Rome, and the letters were
safely stowed away in England in such sort that it would have needed a
journey to London to get at them.
[Footnote 1: Some of the letters in question--such as I had with
me--were sent to London for that purpose. I do not remember now which
were and which were not. But if it should be the case that any of
those printed here have been printed before, I do not think any reader
will object to having them again brought under his eye.]
I was for several years a frequent contributor to _Household Words_,
my contributions for the most part consisting of what I considered
tit-bits from the byways of Italian history, which the persevering
plough of my reading turned up from time to time.
In one case I remember the article was sent "to order," I was dining
with him after I had just had all the remaining hairs on my head made
to stand on end by the perusal of the officially published _Manual for
Confessors_, as approved by superior authority for the dioceses of
Tuscany.
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