a ruddy, strenuous
countenance topping a figure of vigorous symmetry as he spoke with
animation at a scholars' dinner. But George Bancroft, Justin Winsor,
and John Fiske I knew well, the last being in particular one of my
best friends. I could tell stories too, of the living lights, but am
concerned here with the ghosts and not with men still red-blooded.

I first saw George Bancroft when he was Minister at Berlin. He had
read a little book of mine, The Color Guard, my diary as a Corporal of
the Nineteenth Army Corps, scribbled off on my cap-top, my gun-stock,
or indeed my shoe-sole, or whatever desk I could extemporise as we
marched and fought. That book gave me some claim to his notice, but a
better claim was that his wife was Elizabeth Davis, whom more than
a hundred years ago my grandfather of the ancient First Parish in
Plymouth had baptised and who as a girl had been my mother's playmate
in gardens near Plymouth Rock. I did not presume upon such credentials
as these to obtrude myself, and was pleasantly surprised one day by
a note inviting me to the Embassy. It was a retired house near the
Thiergarten. I found Mr. Bancroft embarrassed with duties which in
those days gave trouble. German emigrants returning after prosperous
years to the Fatherland were often pounced upon, the validity of their
American citizenship denied, and taxes and military service demanded.
It was tough work to straighten out such knots and the Minister was
in the midst of such a tangle. But his high, broad forehead smoothed
presently, and his grey eyes grew genial, while the vivacious features
spoke with the very cordial impulse with which he greeted one who
had heard the bullets of the Civil War whistle and was the son of his
wife's old friend. Another tie was that his father, Dr. Aaron Bancroft
of Worcester, and my grandfather, had stood shoulder to shoulder
in the controversy of a century ago which rent apart New England
Congregationalism. Presently we sat down to lunch, a party of three,
for the board was graced by the presence of Mrs. Bancroft, a woman
of fine accomplishments polished through contact with high society in
many lands, and a gifted talker. Many readers have found her published
letters charming. The talk was largely of the Civil War and Bancroft's
words were in the best sense patriotic. During and before that period
his course had been much disapproved. He had been Collector of Boston
under Democratic auspices and had served