... No one succeeds better than Mr. Thackeray in cutting his coat according to his cloth. Here he flattered the aristocracy; but when he crossed the … - Edmund Yates

Dickens took great interest in theatrical affairs, and was very fond of theatrical society. He had a lifelong affection for , and a great regard for and ; of the latter he said once to me, "He has the brain of a man, combined with that strange power of arriving, without knowing how or why, at the truth, which one usually finds only in a woman." He had also a liking for , , , , and the . He saw most of the pieces which were produced from time to time, but he delighted in the irregular drama, the shows and booths and circuses.

Seriously, Frank Churchill, it's time you began to look after a wife. In our profession, especially, it's the greatest blessing to have some one to care for and to be petted by in the intervals of business-strife. There used to be a notion that a literary man required to be perpetually 'seeing life,' which meant 'getting drunk, and never going home;' but that's exploded, and I believe that our best character-painters owe half their powers of delineation to their wives' suggestions. Women,—by Jove sir!—women read character wonderfully.

Gone is , with its very wide open pens and cattle-hutches; and gone with it is a good deal of the scandal of driving the wretched beasts through the streets, and whacking and torturing them in the most dreadful fashion. Enormous hordes of cattle for Smithfield Monday market, then—not as now, sent up by rail, bur driven long tedious journeys—used to arrive at on the Saturday, and pass the Sunday in the fields let out for the purpose.