otts, and the Fosses are
our saviours. They will have a large part in the future of the
world to heighten and brighten life and justify the ways of God
to men.

These and such as these are our consolation in life's thorny
pathway. They keep alive in us the memory of our youth and many
a jaded traveller as he listens to their music, sees again the
apple blossoms falling around him in the twilight of some
unforgotten spring.

PETER MacQUEEN.

Peter MacQueen was brought to my house years ago by a friend when he
happened to be stationary for an hour, and he is certainly a unique
and interesting character, a marvellous talker, reciter of Scotch
ballads, a maker of epigrams, and a most unpractical, now-you-see-him
and now-he's-a-far-away-fellow. I remember his remark, "Breakfast is a
fatal habit." It was not the breakfast to which he referred but to the
gathering round a table at a stated hour, far too early, when not in a
mood for society or for conversation. And again: "I have decided never
to marry. A poor girl is a burden; a rich girl a boss." But you never
can tell. He is now a Benedict.

I wrote to Mr. MacQueen lately for some of his press notices, and a
few of the names which he called himself when I received his letters.

MY DEAR KATE SANBORN:--Yours here and I hasten to reply. Count
Tolstoi remarked to me: "Your travels have been so vast and you
have been with so many peoples and races, that an account of
them would constitute a philosophy in itself."

Theodore Roosevelt said, "No other American has travelled over our new
possessions more universally, nor observed the conditions in them so
quickly and sanely."

Kennan was _persona non grata_ to the Russians, especially after his
visit to Siberia, but Mr. MacQueen was most cordially welcomed.

What an odd scene at Tolstoi's table! The countess and her daughter in
full evening dress with the display of jewels, and at the other end
Tolstoi in the roughest sort of peasant dress and with bare feet. At
dinner Count Tolstoi said to Mr. MacQueen: "If I had travelled as much
as you have, I should today have had a broader philosophy."

Mr. MacQueen says of Russia:

During the past one hundred years the empire of the Czar has
made slow progress; but great bodies move slowly, and Russia
is colossal. Two such republics as the United States with ou