21–27 November 1842

Yesterday I read Dickens's American Notes. It answers its end very well, which plainly was to make a readable book, nothing more. Truth is not his object for a single instant, but merely to make good points in a lively sequence, and he proceeds very well. As an account of America it is not to be considered for a moment: it is too short, and too narrow, too superficial, and too ignorant, too slight, and too fabulous, and the man totally unequal to the work. A very lively rattle on that nuisance, a sea voyage, is the first chapter ; and a pretty fair example of the histori- cal truth of the whole book. We can hear through- out every page the dialogue between the author and his publisher, — "Mr. Dickens, the book must be entertaining — that is the essential point. Truth? Damn truth! I tell you, it must be en- tertaining." As a picture of American manners nothing can be falser. No such conversations ever occur in this country in real life, as he re- lates. He has picked up and noted with eager- ness each odd local phrase that he met with, and, when he had a story to relate, has joined them together, so that the result is the broadest cari- cature; and the scene might as truly have been laid in Wales or in England as in the States. Monstrous exaggeration is an easy secret of ro- mance. But Americans who, like some of us Massachusetts people, are not fond of spitting, will go from Maine to New Orleans, and meet no more annoyance than we should in Britain or France. So with " yes," so with " fixings," so with soap and towels; and all the other trivialities which this trifler detected in travelling over half the world.' The book makes but a poor apology for its author, who certainly appears in no dig- nified or enviable position. . . .