ge and upon his travels he kept
diaries; and he has left behind him several novels, tales, sketches of
travel, and journals. The first published writing of his which is well
known is his description, in the June number of this magazine, of the
March of the Seventh Regiment of New York to Washington. It was charming
by its graceful, sparkling, crisp, off-hand dash and ease. But it is
only the practised hand that can "dash off" effectively. Let any other
clever member of the clever regiment, who has never written, try to dash
off the story of a day or a week in the life of the regiment, and he
will see that the writer did that little thing well because he had done
large things carefully. Yet, amid all the hurry and brilliant bustle of
the articles, the author is, as he was in the most bustling moment of
the life they described, a spectator, an artist. He looks on at
himself and the scene of which he is part. He is willing to merge his
individuality; but he does not merge it, for he could not.

So, wandering, hoping, trying, waiting, thirty-two years of his life
went by, and they left him true, sympathetic, patient. The sharp private
griefs that sting the heart so deeply, and leave a little poison
behind, did not spare him. But he bore everything so bravely, so
silently,--often silent for a whole evening in the midst of pleasant
talkers, but not impertinently sad, nor ever sullen,--that we all loved
him a little more at such times. The ill-health from which he always
suffered, and a flower-like delicacy of temperament, the yearning desire
to be of some service in the world, coupled with the curious, critical
introspection which marks every sensitive and refined nature and
paralyzes action, overcast his life and manner to the common eye with
pensiveness and even sternness. He wrote verses in which his heart
seems to exhale in a sigh of sadness. But he was not in the least a
sentimentalist. The womanly grace of temperament merely enhanced the
unusual manliness of his character and impression. It was like a
delicate carnation upon the cheek of a robust man. For his humor
was exuberant. He seldom laughed loud, but his smile was sweet and
appreciative. Then the range of his sympathies was so large, that he
enjoyed every kind of life and person, and was everywhere at home. In
walking and riding, in skating and running, in games out of doors and
in, no one of us all in the neighborhood was so expert, so agile as he.
For, above al