Letter from Charles Dickens, London, to Angela Burdett-Coutts, 1849 May 17 : autograph manuscript signed.

Saying he has read both the pamphlet [An Appeal for the Formation of a Church Penitentiary] and her letter (see MA 1352.622); commenting "It seems to me (I may be wrong, knowing nothing of the hand from which it comes), that the pamphlet is written by somebody who has conceived Puseyite ideas, and who has got one foot and the best part of one leg into the Romish Church. The suggested place is but a kind of Nunnery. If it be meant to be anything else, it is a mere vision, which, reduced to practice, would come to that. I think such places very promising offshoots from the root of all mischief, and believe this sprig would blow, in time, like the rest. Your letter is perfectly plain and clear, and does not omit any strong point of objection. It seems to me to state all the points of objection very strongly and extremely well. The proposed Sisterhood, in particular, is most wisely handled. It would be difficult, to my thinking, to devise any - not wicked - scheme, of a more pernicious and unnatural nature. As if every home in all this land, were not a World, in which a woman's course of influence and action is marked out by Heaven! Upon the nature of their repentance and the inculcation of Christianity, as an essential part of every phase of life, I think you take the only true, sensible, and practical ground. 'All others', as they say in the advertisements of patent things 'are counterfeits', I am perfectly convinced. In short, I really do not think that you have left any part of the question untouched, except that one into which you are not called upon to enter, even if you think with me - and that is, that the model of this scheme is in the practice of a perverted form of religion which all experience shews us to be irreconcileable with the peace, welfare, and improvement of mankind. Of course, I do not doubt the good intentions of the writer, but I must confess that every day I live, I grow more and more afraid of these amiable ships without any rudders that drift about the crowded ocean called Life, and get into the best-intentioned entanglements with all sorts of things."