nto my composition, and as my
afternoons and evenings had no value in a literary way, I was often
completely defeated for the day. Altogether and inevitably my work as a
fictionist sank into an unimportant place. I was on the down-grade, that
was evident. Writing was a tiresome habit. I was in a rut and longing to
get out--to be forced out.

The annual dinner of the Institute of Arts and Letters that year was not
cheering. With the loss of four members, Stedman, Aldrich, MacDowell and
St. Gaudens, I realized as never before the swift changes at work in
American letters. It was my duty and my privilege to speak that night in
memory of MacDowell who had so often been my seat-mate, and as I looked
around that small circle of familiar faces, a scene of loss, a
perception of decay came over me like a keen wind from out a desolate
landscape. On every head the snows had thickened, on every face a shadow
rested. All--all were hastening to be history.

* * * * *

From that circle of my elders in the East, I returned to my children in
the West with a sense of returning to the future. The radiant joy of
Mary Isabel's face as I displayed her presents, a ring and a story book,
restored me to something like a normal faith in the world. "Wead to me,
wead to me!" was now her insistent plea, and putting aside all other
concerns I turned the pages of her new book, realizing that to her the
universe was still a great and never-ending fairy tale, and her Daddy a
wonder-working magician, an amiable ogre. Her eager voice, her raptured
attention enabled me to recover, for a moment, a wholesome faith and joy
in my world--a world which was growing gray and wan and cold with
terrifying swiftness.

"Your childhood shall be as happy as my powers will permit," I vowed
once again as I looked into her uplifted face. "You shall have only
pleasant memories of me," and in this spirit I gave her the best of
myself. I taught her to read, I told her stories which linked her mind
with that of her pioneer grandmother, filling her brain with traditions
of the middle border. Dear little daughter, her daddy was veritably a
nobleman, her mother a queen--in those days!

My wife says that for ten years I was always either on the point of
going somewhere, or just returning, and as I turn the pages of my
diaries, I find this to be true, but also I find frequent mention of
meetings with John Burroughs, Bacheller, Gilder, Alexander,