Between Prussia and Austria there is, in my mind (but for Italy), not a pin to choose.

If each could smash the other I should be, as to those two Powers, perfectly satisfied.

But I feel for Italy almost as if I were an Italian born.
So here you have in brief my confession of faith.
"Mr.Home" [as he by that time called himself,--when he was staying in my house his name was Hume], "after trying to come out as an actor, first at Fechter's (where I had the honour of stopping him short), and then at the St.James's Theatre under Miss Herbert (where he was twice announced, and each time very mysteriously disappeared from the bills), was announced at the little theatre in Dean Street, Soho, as a 'great attraction for one night only,' to play last Monday.

An appropriately dirty little rag of a bill, fluttering in the window of an obscure dairy behind the Strand, gave me this intelligence last Saturday.

It is like enough that even that striking business did not come off, for I believe the public to have found out the scoundrel; in which lively and sustaining hope this leaves me at present.
"Ever faithfully yours, "CHARLES DICKENS." * * * * * Here is a letter which, as may be easily imagined, I value much.