Note 263 — Chapter XIV

"Do you know Master Humphrey's Clock! I admire Nell in the Old Curiosity Shop exceedingly. The whole thing is a good deal borrowed from Wilhelm Meister. But little Nell is a far purer, lovelier, more English conception than Mignon, treasonable as the saying would seem to some. No doubt it was suggested by Mignon."—Sara Coleridge to Aubrey de Vere (Memoirs and Letters, ii. 269-70). Expressing no opinion on this comparison, I may state it as within my knowledge that the book referred to was not then known to Dickens.