elegant
chirography on the back of a letter was always a delightful foretaste of
something good inside, and I never received one of his welcome missives
that did not contain, no matter how brief it happened to be, welcome
passages of wit or affectionate interest.

In one of his early letters to me he says:--

"There is no one rising hereabouts in literature. I suppose our
national genius is taking a mechanical turn. And, in truth, it is
much better to make a good steam-engine than to manufacture a bad
poem. 'Building the lofty rhyme' is a good thing, but our present
buildings are of a low order, and seldom reach the Attic. This piece
of wit will scarcely throw you into a fit, I imagine, your risible
muscles being doubtless kept in good order."

In another he writes:--

"I see you have some capital names in the 'Atlantic Monthly.' If
they will only put forth their strength, there is no doubt as to the
result, but the misfortune is that persons who write anonymously
_don't_ put forth their strength, in general. I was a magazine
writer for no less than a dozen years, and I felt that no personal
credit or responsibility attached to my literary trifling, and
although I sometimes did pretty well (for me), yet I never did my
best."

As I read over again the portfolio of his letters to me, bearing date
from 1848 to 1866, I find many passages of interest, but most of them
are too personal for type. A few extracts, however, I cannot resist
copying. Some of his epistles are enriched with a song or a sonnet, then
just written, and there are also frequent references in them to American
editions of his poetical and prose works, which he collected at the
request of his Boston publishers.

In June, 1851, he writes:--

"I have encountered a good many of your countrymen here lately, but
have been introduced only to a few. I found Mr. Norton, who has
returned to you, and Mr. Dwight, who is still here, I believe, very
intelligent and agreeable.

"If all Americans were like them and yourself, and if all Englishmen
were like Kenyon and (so far as regards a desire to judge fairly)
myself, I think there would be little or no quarrelling between our
small island and your great continent.

"Our glass palace is a perpetual theme for small-talk. It usurps the
place of the weather, which is turned adrift, or laid up in ordinary
for f