Other fine novels, if you have time for them, are _Nicholas Nickleby_, which broke up the unspeakably cruel boarding schools for boys in Yorkshire, in one of which poor Smike was done to death; or _Our Mutual Friend_ which Dickens attacked the English poor laws; or _Dombey and Son_, that paints the pathos of the child of a rich man dying for the love which his father was too selfish to give him; or _Bleak House_, in which the terrible sufferings wrought by the law's delay in the Court of Chancery are drawn with so much pathos that the book served as a valuable aid in removing a great public wrong, while the satire on foreign missions served to draw the English nation's attention to the wretched heathen at home in the East Side of London, of whom Poor Jo was a pitiable specimen. In other novels other good purposes were also served. But several pages could be filled with a mere enumeration of Dickens' stories and their salient features. You cannot go wrong in taking up any of his novels or his short stories, and when you have finished with them you will have the satisfaction of having added to your possessions a number of the real people of fiction, whom it is far better to know than the best characters of contemporary fiction, because these will be forgotten in a twelvemonth, if not before. The hours that you spend with Dickens will be profitable as well as pleasant, for they will leave the memory of a great-hearted man who labored through his books to make the world better and happier. THACKERAY GREATEST MASTER OF FICTION THE MOST ACCOMPLISHED WRITER OF HIS CENTURY--TENDER PATHOS UNDER AN AFFECTATION OF CYNICISM AND GREAT ART IN STYLE AND CHARACTERS.