Let me thank you most cordially for your kind note, in reference to my
Notes, which has given me true pleasure and gratification.
As I never scrupled to say in America, so I can have no delicacy in
saying to you, that, allowing for the change you worked in many social
features of American society, and for the time that has passed since you
wrote of the country, I am convinced that there is no writer who has so
well and accurately (I need not add so entertainingly) described it, in
many of its aspects, as you have done; and this renders your praise the
more valuable to me. I do not recollect ever to have heard or seen the
charge of exaggeration made against a feeble performance, though, in its
feebleness, it may have been most untrue. It seems to me essentially
natural, and quite inevitable, that common observers should accuse an
uncommon one of this fault, and I have no doubt that you were long ago
of this opinion; very much to your own comfort.
Mrs. Dickens begs me to thank you for your kind remembrance of her, and
to convey to you her best regards. Always believe me,
Faithfully yours.
[Sidenote: Mr. George Cattermole.]