_From a Photograph_.]

[Illustration: AGE 51.
_From a Photo. by Alphonse Maze, Paris._]

When on a reading tour, Dickens wrote at Bideford the letter from which
No. 23 has been copied. After writing that he could get nothing to eat
or drink at the small inn, he wrote the sentence facsimiled. The
exaggeration of the words is matched by the use of two capital _T_'s in
place of two small _t_'s. The letter continues: "The landlady is playing
cribbage with the landlord in the next room (behind a thin partition),
and they seem quite comfortable." No. 24 is another instance of the
variation which, in fact, obtained up to the very day before death. No.
25 was written at Berwick-on-Tweed; it is an amusing letter, and states
how the local agents wanted to put the famous reader into "a little
lofty crow's nest," and how "I instantly struck, of course, and said I
would either read in a room attached to this house ... or not at all.
Terrified local agents glowered, but fell prostrate." By the way,
notice, in No. 25, the emphasis of gesture on the _me_.

[Illustration: NO. 26.--WRITTEN FEB. 3, 1864.]

[Illustration: DICKENS IN HIS BASKET CARRIAGE.
_From a Photo. by Mason._]

No. 26 is written in one continuous stroke with a noticeably good
management of the curves. The graceful imagination of this is
very striking.

[Illustration: NO. 27.--WRITTEN JUNE 7, 1866.]