the-way, I receive a great many letters from America from people I never heard of, written in the most extraordinary style of compliment, apparently in perfect good faith. I hardly know what to make of them.'
"I accounted for it by the perfect seclusion in which great numbers of cultivated people live in our country, who, having neither intrigue, nor fashion, nor twenty other things to occupy their minds, as in England, depend entirely upon books, and consider an author who has given them pleasure as a friend. 'America,' I said, 'has probably more literary enthusiasts than any country in the world; and there are thousands of romantic minds in the interior of New England who know perfectly every writer on this side of the water, and hold them all in affectionate veneration, scarcely conceivable by a sophisticated European. If it were not for such readers, literature would be the most thankless of vocations; I, for one, would never write another line.'
"'And do you think these are the people which write to me? If I could think so, I should be exceedingly happy. A great proportion of the people of England are refined down to such heartlessness; criticism, private and public, is so much influenced by politics, that it is really delightful to know there is a more generous tribunal. Indeed, I think many of our authors now are beginning to write for America. We think already a great deal of your praise or censure.'
"I asked if her ladyship had known many Americans.
"'Not in London, but a great many abroad. I was
