Letter from Charles Dickens, London, to Angela Burdett-Coutts, 1849 March 13 : autograph manuscript signed.

Discussing whether Steerage is the appropriate class for the women from the Home who emigrate and referencing letters Miss Coutts has received from two of the emigrants; discussing Mrs. Holdsworth's qualifications and relating his good opinion of her; saying "Whatever my opinion is worth, it is worth so much the more for this - that I had no leaning towards her, at first, and have really come to like her without the least inclination to do so [...] I do not think it likely that - for the money - or for anything near the money - we shall ever find so unobjectionable a person again;" suggesting she provide the women with more writing paper: "I think with you that the habit of asking is a bad one, but I confess I would increase the quantity of writing paper. Some of them may have nobody to write to; but the separation even from so much Earth that they have been used to, is a tremendous one, and the feeling that they can connect themselves with England by a few pothooks, twenty times or thirty times instead of six or eight, is not an unwholesome one. Indeed I am inclined to believe it has its root in a sentiment that it is desirable, with a view to our future hopes of them, to encourage. I am just going to bed with an abominable cold, and hope I may have written more intelligibly than I am able to speak."