Dato: Januar 1848
Fra: Charles Dickens   Til: H.C. Andersen
Sprog: engelsk.

[begyndelsen af Januar 1848]

A Thousand thanks, my dear Andersen, for your kind and dearly-prized remembrance of me in your christmas book. I am very proud of it, and feel deeply honored by it, and I cannot tell you how much I esteem so generous a mark of recollection from a man of such genius as you possess.

Your book made my christmas fireside happier. We were all charmed with it. The little boy, and the old man, and the pewter soldier, are my particular favorites. I read that story over and over again, with the most unspeakable delight.

I was in Edinburgh a few weeks ago, where I saw some of your friends, who talked much about you. Come over to England again, soon! But whatever you do, don't leave off writing, for we cannot afford to lose any of your thoughts. They are too purely and simply beautiful to be left in your own head.

We have long since come back from that sea-shore where I said Adieu to you, and are in our own house again. Mrs Dickens says I am to give you her love. So says her sis ter. So say all my children. And as we are all in the same mind, I beg you to receive mine with the bargain, as the love of your true and admiring friend

Charles Dickens

Hans Christian Andersen.

Tekst fra: Solveig Brunholm (microfilmscan 66, 23-24)