Always heartily yours,
Boz.
Mrs. Trollope.
1, Devonshire Terrace, York Gate, Regent's Park,
December 16th, 1842.
My dear Mrs. Trollope,
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.
Mr. George Cattermole.
Devonshire Terrace, December 20th, 1842.