passed on, and Mr. Lenox said, "Who is that?"
"Mr. Dewey, a clergyman of a church in the city." "Of which church?"
said Mr. Lenox. "Of the Unitarian church." "The Lord have mercy upon
him!" said the old man. It was a good prayer, and I have no doubt it was
kindly made.

Alas! What I am writing is a necrology: they are all gone of whom I
speak. George Curtis, too; he died before I left the Church of the
Messiah, died in his prime. George William Curtis is [95] his son, well
known as one of our most graceful writers and eloquent men: something
hereditary in that, for his father had one of the clearest heads I knew,
and a gifted tongue, though he was too modest to be a great talker. He
could make a good speech, and once he made one that was more effective
than I could have wished. The question was about electing Thomas Starr
King to be my colleague. The congregation was immensely taken with him;
but Mr. Curtis opposed on the ground that King was a Universalist, and
he carried everything before him. He said, as it was reported to me, "I
was born a Unitarian; I have lived a Unitarian; and, if God please,
I mean to die a Unitarian!" He had the old-fashioned, and indeed
well-founded, dislike of Universalism. But all that is changed now, was
changing then; for the Universalists have given up their preaching of no
retribution hereafter. They are in other respects, also, Unitarians, and
the two bodies affiliate and are friends.

Moses Grinnell was a marked man in New York. A successful and popular
merchant, his generosity was ample as his means; and I have known him
in circumstances that required a higher generosity than that of giving
money, and he stood the test perfectly. His mind, too, grew with his
rise in the world. He was sent to Congress, and his acquaintance from
that time with many distinguished men gave a new turn to his thoughts
and a higher tone to his character and [96] conversation. At his house,
where I was often a guest, I used to meet Washington Irving, whose niece
he married. Of course everybody knows of Washington Irving; but there
are one or two anecdotes, of which I doubt whether they appear in his
biography, and which I am tempted to relate. He told me that he once
went to a theatre in London to hear some music. (They use theatres in
London as music-halls, and I went to one myself, once, to hear Paganini,
and enjoyed an evening that I can never forget. His one string for
he broke all the others was a hear