Tavistock House, Tavistock Square

Third February, 1852

Sir:

I have read the little volume you sent me some six or seven weeks ago, and, in replying to your note, will first beg you to have the kindness to add the enclosed trifle to the amount your generous friendship has got together for its author.

I cannot honestly say that I recommend him to continue the pursuit of authorship. For, I do not honestly believe that he would or could succeed in it. However remarkable this work is, considering the circumstances of its production, it (or any other work from the same hand) can only be read or left unread, and can only be judged, according to its intrinsic claims. With all beyond the public has nothing to do, I hold myself bound to reach it, remembering the responsibility you impose upon me, as if I knew nothing whatever about its author. So reading it, I think it will enough and put it by - among ten thousand other books possessing the same sort of claims.

I see something of the misery of engaging in literature on insufficient grounds, and may, for anything I know, be a little too much influenced by it in such a case as this. But it is better to be a qualified soldier than an unqualified poet--a good worker in iron than a bad worker in gold--and I have a great doubt whether literature (as a calling) would make this young man any the happier, any the richer, any the better in any way.

Faithfully yours,

Charles Dickens

Mr. Thomas Connolly