Tom
Hood, after his memorials were written by his son and daughter. And
before many weeks came a box of his newest books for me, with a little
note on finest paper and wide margin, "hoping that your friendship may
always be continued towards our house."

I cannot speak of Mr. Fields and fail to pay my tribute of loving
admiration to his wife, Annie Fields. When I first met that lady in
her home at 148 Charles Street, she was so exquisitely dainty,
refined, spirituelle, and beautiful, I felt, as I expressed it,
"square-toed and common." She was sincerely cordial to all who were
invited to that sacred shrine; she was the perfect hostess and
housekeeper, the ever-busy philanthropist, a classic poet, a strong
writer of prose when eager to aid some needed reform. Never before had
I seen such a rare combination of the esthetic and practical, and she
shone wherever placed. Once when she was with us, I went up to her
room to see if I could help her as she was leaving. She was seated on
the floor, pulling straps tightly round some steamer rugs and a rainy
day coat, and she explained she always attended to such "little
things." As one wrote of her, after her death, she made the most of
herself, but she made more of her husband. Together they went forward,
side by side, to the last, comrades and true lovers.

Two of all the wonderful literary treasures in their drawing-room
produced a great impression on me, one a caricature of Thackeray's
face done by himself with no mercy shown to his flattened, broken
nose. A lady said to him: "There is only one thing about you I could
never get over, your nose." "No wonder, madam, there is no bridge to
it." The other was an invitation to supper in Charles Lamb's own
writing, and at the bottom of the page, "Puns at nine."

Two famous story-tellers of the old-fashioned type were Doctor Dixi
Crosby of Hanover, and his son "Ben," who made a great name for
himself in New York City as a surgeon, and also as a brilliant
after-dinner speaker. Doctor Crosby's preference was for the
long-drawn-out style, as this example, which I heard him tell several
times, shows:

A man gave a lecture in a New England town which failed to elicit much
applause and this troubled him. As he left early next morning on the
top of the stage-coach, he interviewed the driver, who seemed not
anxious to talk. "Did you hear much said about my lecture last night?
Do you think it pleased the audience?"

"Oh, I guess they we