bout spreading myself too thin,
about being less flamboyantly loquacious, and subduing my excessive
enthusiasm and emotional prodigality. Once after giving me a drive, he
kindly said, as he helped me out, "I have quite enjoyed your cheerful
prattle." Fact was, he had monologued it in his most sesquipedalian
phraseology. I had no chance to say one word. He had his own way of
gaining magnetism; believed in associating with butchers. Did you ever
know one that was anaemic, especially at slaughtering time? From them
and the animals there and in stables, and the smell of the flowing
blood, he felt that surely a radiant magnetism was gained. Those he
visited "thought he was real democratic and a pleasant spoken man." He
told of an opportunity he once had for regular employment, riding on
the stage-coach by the side of a farmer's pretty daughter. She
suggested that he might like a milk route, and "perhaps father can
get you one." So formal, dignified, and fastidious was he that this
seems improbable, but I quote his own account.

Doctor Ordronaux visited at my uncle's, a physician, when I was
resting there from overwork. After his departure, uncle received a
letter from him which he handed to me saying, "Guess this is meant for
you." I quote proudly:

I rejoice to have been permitted to enjoy so much of Miss
Sanborn's society, and to discover what I never before fully
appreciated, that beneath the scintillations of a brilliant
intellect she hides a vigorous and analytic understanding, and
when age shall have somewhat tempered her emotional
susceptibilities she will shine with the steady light of a
planet, reaching her perihelion and taking a permanent place in
the firmament of letters.

Sounds something like a Johnsonian epitaph, but wasn't it great?

I visited his adopted mother at Roslyn, Long Island, and they took me
to a Sunday dinner with Bryant at "Cedarmere," a fitting spot for a
poet's home. The aged poet was in vigorous health, mind and body.
Going to his library he took down an early edition of his
_Thanatopsis_, pointing out the nineteen lines written some time
before the rest. Mottoes hung on the wall such as "As thy days so
shall thy strength be." I ventured to ask how he preserved such
vitality, and he said, "I owe a great deal to daily air baths and the
flesh brush, plenty of outdoor air and open fireplaces." What an
impressive personality; erect, with white hair and