le, graceful and
delicate humor, and the vast range of culture and observation, give them
a distinctively personal characteristic. He would have made one of our
first novelists; but he has chosen to give the strength of his powers to
journalism, and the study of political affairs.

It is safe to say that each number of the magazine has had an average of
at least five pages of "Easy Chair," making very nearly or quite two
thousand (2,000) pages in all; or a quantity more than sufficient to
fill two and a half volumes of the sixty nine (69) thus far issued, each
volume containing eight hundred and sixty four (864) pages. Before
beginning to write these delectable tid-bits, he had published "Nile
notes of a Howadji," "The Howadji in Syria," and "Lotus Eating;" soon
after appeared "Potiphar Papers," "Prue and I," and "Tramps." For twenty
years he was constantly on the lecture platform; and for twenty one
years he has been the political editor of "Harper's Weekly." Although
offered missions to the courts of England and Germany, and other
positions of trust and honor, he never accepted; his nearest approach to
the holding of any political office was the accepting of an appointment,
for a while, of the chairmanship of the "Civil Service Advisory Board."
As has been well said by George Parsons Lathrop, "The idea often occurs
to one that he, more than any one else, continues the example which
Washington Irving set: an example of kindliness and good nature blended
with indestructible dignity, and a delicately imaginative mind
consecrating much of its energy to public service."

As for the "Easy Chair," with me, its leaves are first cut in each fresh
number; and while enjoying the last one, I wondered why some deft hand
had not culled some of the choicest specimens, and that the Harpers had
not given them to the world in a volume by themselves. They are most
certainly worthy of it. A few passages taken here and there, from these
rich fields, will prove this assertion. The subjects treated in the
whole "Easy Chair" number nearly or quite twenty-five hundred
(2,500),--reminiscences of Emerson and Longfellow--first presentation of
a new Oratorios--a celebrated painting--the visit of a Lord Chief
Justice of England,--a vast range of topics. Consult the nine closely
printed octavo pages of their titles in the "Index to the first Sixty
Volumes"--from "Abbott, Commodore, xiii. 271," to "Zurich, University
of, xlviii. 443," and one will