volume instead of at that of the second. However, on re-reading, my brother and I concluded to write stet upon it, except for a few verbal changes. I was sorry that he could not see eye to eye with me about making my father's life-mask the frontispiece. I think I must send you a print of it.

November 16, 1905.

As Peter Schlemihl without his shadow, so you without your secret in your relations with me, must feel the loss poignantly. To put my Vase on a plinth' was piling Pelion upon Ossa for glittering testimonial, and one surprise out-topped the other. I thank you again for all the bother you have had, and for the good-will which made you cheerfully undertake it. I have a daily reminder of you in the lamp, which is in constant use and is a beauty. You must surely see it lighted some time at my own fireside.

December 1, 1905.

I have not seen the football article for the H. G. M.2 to which you refer in your last letter, and there is a rumor that it has brought you into trouble. I hope not, but if you go under with the Temple, the example will have been worth furnish

1 The completion of the gift of the subscribers to the testimonial for the fortieth anniversary.

2 December, 1905.

ing, by the Strong Man in the right place. I do hope the bad game is tumbling to its ruin.

February 9, 1906.

It was very thoughtful in you to send these touches of a vanished hand,1 each characteristic, and one (in which Lloyd makes a Patria of his Alma Mater) rising into poetic planes of feeling and expression. I am to see his wife this afternoon, and am sure she will be grateful to you.

March 17, 1906.

Your complimentary letter finds me at home nursing a sciatic leg - a novel experience for a seasoned pedestrian like myself. I am mending, and go about my business as usual, but I must avoid long journeys like that my Chicago daughter is expecting from me in April; and even Boston is too far. So we may not meet as on our last occasion, even if Mr. Adams remembers me with an invitation. You are very good to offer me also your Cambridge hospitality.

Few but yourself could read my tribute to Signora Mario with a personal sympathy- I mean on this side of the water. The anecdotes of the young American couple with which I close, veil my daughter and her husband and my sister and Mr. Villard, respectively. I thought it too characteristic to suppress. From my hurried gleanings in Carducci's selections

1 Some letters of Lloyd's to Mr. Thayer.

from A. Mario's writings, I judged that the Marios never reached Boston. In Philadelphia, however, they were welcomed by Motts and McKims, and a striking resemblance was found in J. W. M. to my future wife (en secondes noces). I don't remember through what channel she was enlisted for the Nation, but she began to correspond in 1866. For tenacity of purpose in the martyr spirit she might be classed with Susan B. Anthony; but she had a broader mental outlook. I'm glad you knew her, and that I had some share in bringing this about.

March 26, 1906.

It is due to you to give you private notice, ere it leaks out as it may soon do, that I last week handed in my resignation as Editor of the Nation, to take effect at the close of the current volume. I did not take this for me momentous step without weighing my chance of rubbing along till the end of the year, or even till July 1, 1907. The state of my health, however, forbade this, for I have been "running down" for the past nine or ten months, from some impairment of the digestion (no other unsoundness being visible), and I have no excuse for evading the first opportunity to take a long and genuine vacation, free from all care.

There being no deus ex machina to invoke, the Trustees of the Evening Post disturbed their own

editorial fabric to replace me with Hammond Lamont as chief, and Paul E. More as assistant; and they could not have done better under the circumstances. I believe you know them both and their Harvard affiliations. The revolution is not yet announced, and we are rather refraining from spreading it.

I need not dwell on what the cessation of my labors in one field for forty-one years means to me, and at what a cost I purchase my freedom. My future occupation is quite indeterminate, but it would cause me no wrench to give up journalism altogether. Certainly the bondage of it I eschew from this time forth.

I am sure of your sympathy for me in this compulsion; and to be less in touch with you than now is a disagreeable thought. But I dare say occasions will not be wanting to resume our friendly intercourse, though intermittently. I am not saying good-bye, or I should have to thank you for loyal and competent support, and again for your part in the testimonial of last summer.

April 11, 1906.

It is impossible for me to honor Mr. [Charles Francis] Adams's invitation.1 My sciatica still lingers and forbids my long journey. I have confided to him, by the way, my approaching resignation. Till July 1st I shall be as busy as at any time in my life.

1 To the annual meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society.

II

TO LOUIS DYER, OXFORD, ENGLAND

November 9, 1893.

YOUR three most kind letters of Sept. 2, Oct. 13 and 21 must be acknowledged in the lump. I have long had fixed in memory the "Vuolsi così colà,"1 and it does express most perfectly the enforced contentment with the decree of an overruling force. If we begin by quarreling with death and separation, we must end by quarreling with life itself, and it is better to make ourselves at home with both, let the balance be struck as it may.

Through all my late trial I was so situated that I never let go my hand from my Nation duties, and my mind has therefore had no leisure for melancholy and no stiffness from disuse. My grief had been diffused over three years, and was merged at last in rejoicing for the release of my wife. Convey my thanks to Mrs. Dyer for her share of your invitation to visit Oxford. I can truly say that I never expect to see that beautiful spot, or any part of Europe,

1 Vuolsi così colà dove si puote

Ciò che si vuole, e più non dimandare.

Dante: Inferno, III, 95, 96.