I took down Washington Irving's Sketch-book, and read it with delight. Fresh as ever! It did me good. So did Charles Lamb's Essays. And then guess what moved me to laughter, to tears, and to real heartfelt gratitude that we should have had a writer who could leave us such an immortal work? What? It is a gem. It is very small, but to my mind, and not excepting any one of all he ever wrote, the most precious in every way for its true humour, for its natural pathos, and for its large-hearted Christian teaching, is The Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens. Had this been his only book, it would have sufficed for his imperishable fame.
And then what made me chuckle and laugh? Why,Thackeray's Sultan Stork, which, somehow or other, I never remembered having read before this time of convalescent leisure. It is Thackeray in his most frolicsome humour, and, therefore, Thackeray at his best.
I am almost recovered, and am finding my "Salubrity at Home."
THE LETTER-BAG OF TOBY, M.P.
From an Anxious Householder.
