INTRODUCTION
ARE you running a corner in 'Christmas Carols?" a friend inquired the other evening, as he stood facing my book-shelves, looking at a little cluster of books in brown cloth jackets. "No, not exactly," I answered, "but that book has been a favorite for a lifetime; indeed, with the exception of the manuscript, which is safely locked up in the Pierpont Morgan Library, I admit to having a very pretty 'run' of 'Carols,' including a presentation copy, with an inscription reading, 'Thomas Beard, from his old friend Charles Dickens.' "
The manuscript of the "Carol," so rewritten, interlined, and corrected as to be almost illegible, except to one accustomed to Dickens's handwriting, is far from being Mr. Morgan's chief literary possession; but it is an ornament to any collection, and Miss Greene, who showed it to me not long ago, told me that it is one of the items that almost all visitors wish to see.
Contrasting small things with great, I have in my own Dickens collection the original drawing by John Leech of "The Last of the Spirits," which I was lucky enough to pick up in a New York bookshop a few years ago, and I am still seeking the original drawing of Mr. Fezziwig's Ball. It must be in existence somewhere; who has it? It is the gayest little picture in all the world,
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