nd this is indeed deep in my
nature. I cannot explain it, but it is _there_. I became expert when we
approached a house at divining, by the look of waggons or pails or
hencoops, whether there was meal or bread or a mill anywhere near. One
day I informed our lieutenant that a detachment of rebel cavalry had
recently passed. He asked me how I knew it. I replied that rebel
horses, being from mountainous Virginia, had higher cocks and narrower to
their shoes, and one or two more nails than ours, which is perfectly
true. And where did I learn that? Not from anybody. I had noticed the
difference as soon as I saw the tracks, and guessed the cause. One day,
in after years in England, I noticed that in coursing, or with beagles,
the track of a gypsy was exactly like mine, or that of all Americans--that
is, Indian-like and _straight-forward_. I never found a Saxon-Englishman
who had this step, nor one who noticed such a thing, which I or an Indian
would observe at once. Once, in Rome, Mr. Story showed me a cast of a
foot, and asked me what it was. I replied promptly, "Either an Indian
girl's or an American young lady's, whose ancestors have been two hundred
years in the country." It was the latter. Such feet _lift_ or leap, as
if raised every time to go over entangled grass or sticks. Like an
Indian, I instinctively observe everybody's _ears_, which are unerring
indices of character. I can sustain, and always could endure, incredible
fasts, but for this I need coffee in the morning. "Mark Twain"--whom I
saw yesterday at his villa, as I correct this proof--also has this
peculiar Indian-like or American faculty of observing innumerable little
things which no European would ever think of. There is, I think, a great
deal of "hard old Injun" in him. The most beautiful of his works are the
three which are invariably bound in silk or muslin. They are called "The
Three Daughters, or the Misses Clemens."

It occurred to me, after I had recorded the events of our short but truly
vigorous and eventful campaign, to write to R. W. Gilder and ask
him--_quid memoriae datum est_--"what memories he had of that great war,
wherein we starved and swore, and all but died." There are men in whose
letters we are as sure to find genial _life_ as a _spaccio di vino_ or
wine-shop in a Florentine street, and this poet-editor is one of them.
And he replied with an epistle not at all intended for type, which I
hereby print without his per