at other men
put into articles and essays for magazines and papers. I never write
for publications. I always think of my church when something comes to
me to say. There is always danger of a man spreading himself out thin
if he attempts too much, you know."

Doctor Brooks, must have caught the boy's eye, which, as he said this,
naturally surveyed his great frame, for he regarded him in an amused
way, and putting his hands on his girth, he said laughingly; "You are
thinking I would have to do a great deal to spread myself out thin,
aren't you?"

The boy confessed he was, and the preacher laughed one of those deep
laughs of his that were so infectious.

"But here I am talking about myself. Tell me something about
_yourself_?"

And when the boy told his object in coming to Boston, the rector of
Trinity Church was immensely amused.

"Just to see us fellows! Well, and how do you like us so far?"

And in the most comfortable way this true gentleman went on until the
boy mentioned that he must be keeping him from his work.

"Not at all; not at all," was the quick and hearty response. "Not a
thing to do. I cleaned up all my mail before I had my breakfast this
morning.

"These letters, you mean?" he said, as the boy pointed to some letters
on his desk unopened. "Oh, yes! They must have come in a later mail.
Well, if it will make you feel any better I'll go through them, and you
can go through my books if you like. I'll trust you," he added
laughingly, as Wendell Phillips's advice occurred to him.

"You like books, you say?" he went on, as he opened his letters.
"Well, then, you must come into my library here at any time you are in
Boston, and spend a morning reading anything I have that you like.
Young men do that, you know, and I like to have them. What's the use
of good friends if you don't share them? There's where the pleasure
comes in."

He asked the boy then about his newspaper work, how much it paid him,
and whether he felt it helped him in an educational way. The boy told
him he thought it did; that it furnished good lessons in the study of
human nature. "Yes," he said, "I, can believe that, so long as it is
good journalism."

As he let the boy out of his house, at the end of that first, meeting,
he said to him:

"And you're going from me now to see Emerson? I don't know," he added
reflectively, "whether you will see him at his best. Still, you may.
And even if you do not, to have seen hi