ome to visit us a few mornings
after I had first met him at Dr. Holland's, and sat a good hour
conversing as if we had been long known to each other. It is to me
the most gratifying proof of esteem to be thus let at once into the
real mind, the _sanctum sanctorum_, instead of being kept with
ceremonials and compliments on the steps, in the ante-chamber, or
even in the _salle de reception_, doing _Kotoo_ Chinese or any
other fashion.

We went over vast fields of thought in our short hour, from America
to France, and to England and to Ireland, Washington, Lafayette,
Bonaparte, O'Connell. You may guess it could only be a _vue
d'oiseau_, flying too, but still a pounce down upon a true point
now and then, and agreeing in our general unchangeable view that
moral excellence is essential to make the man really great; that
the highest intellectual superiority that can be given by
Omnipotence to mortal ought not and does not, even in human
opinion, entitle him without moral worth to the character of great.
Mr. Everett tells me that Washington Irving is going to publish
another life of Washington. I fear his workmanship will be too fine
and delicate for the main matter. Boldness, boldness, boldness--and
brevity. Oh, the strength of brevity! Brevity keeps fast hold of
the memory, and more fast hold of the judgment; the whole process,
_en petit compris_, goes in a few words with the verdict to "_long
posterity_," while elegance only charms the taste, accords with the
present fashion of literature, and passes away, gliding gracefully
into "mere oblivion."

Lecture upon brevity well exemplified by present correspondent.

A severe attack of erysipelas laid her low this summer; but if it
weakened her body it did not depress her mental faculties. She writes to
her cousin with all the buoyancy of youth:--

I am right glad to look forward to the hope of seeing you again,
and talking all manner of nonsense and sense, and laughing myself
and making you laugh, as I used to do, though I am six years beyond
the allotted age and have had so many attacks of illness within the
last two years; but I am, as Bess Fitzherbert and poor dear Sophy
used to say, like one of those pith puppets that you knock down in
vain; they always start up the same as ever.... Sir Henry Marsh
manage