ill ever convince him that the 'wretched man' is but a
figment of your imagination. I tried to satisfy him by saying you
did not dare to publish the lines lest they should produce a
similar effect on the typesetters, editors, and the readers of the
Boston journals.

"However, he wishes me to ask you whether you kept a copy of the
original manuscript, or could reproduce the lines with equal power.
If not too much trouble, please send me a few lines on this point,
and greatly oblige,

"Yours sincerely,

"ELIZABETH CADY STANTON."

"MY DEAR MRS. STANTON:

"I wish you would explain to your little nephew that the story of
the poor fellow who almost died laughing was a kind of a dream of
mine, and not a real thing that happened, any more than that an old
woman 'lived in a shoe and had so many children she didn't know
what to do,' or that Jack climbed the bean stalk and found the
giant who lived at the top of it. You can explain to him what is
meant by imagination, and thus turn my youthful rhymes into a text
for a discourse worthy of the Concord School of Philosophy. I have
not my poems by me here, but I remember that 'The Height of the
Ridiculous' ended with this verse:

"Ten days and nights, with sleepless eye,
I watched that wretched man,
And since, I never dare to write
As funny as I can."

"But tell your nephew he mustn't cry about it any more than because
geese go barefoot and bald eagles have no nightcaps. The verses are
in all the editions of my poems.

"Believe me, dear Mrs. Stanton,

"Very Truly and Respectfully Yours,

"OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES."

After spending the holidays in New York city, we started for Johnstown
in a "stage sleigh, conveying the United States mail," drawn by spanking
teams of four horses, up the Hudson River valley. We were three days
going to Albany, stopping over night at various points; a journey now
performed in three hours. The weather was clear and cold, the sleighing
fine, the scenery grand, and our traveling companions most entertaining,
so the trip was very enjoyable. From Albany to Schenectady we went in
the railway cars; then another sleighride of thirty miles brought us to
Johnstown. My native hills, buried under two feet of snow, tinted with
the last rays of the setting sun, were a beautiful and familiar sight.
Thoug