is custom to dine with me once or twice a month, acquaintance
grew into friendship, and I came to have a great respect for his
training and knowledge as a historical scholar. The vastness of
historical inquiry impressed me, as it has all writers of history.
Recognizing in Bourne a kindred spirit, it occurred to me whether I
could not hasten my work if he would employ part of his summer vacation
in collecting material. I imparted the idea to Bourne, who received it
favorably, and he spent a month of the summer of 1889 at work for me in
the Boston Athenaeum on my general specifications, laboring with industry
and discrimination over the newspapers of the early '50's to which we
had agreed to confine his work. His task completed, he made me a visit
of a few days at Bar Harbor, affording an opportunity for us to discuss
the period and his material. I was so impressed with the value of his
assistance that, when the manuscript of my first two volumes was
completed in 1891, I asked him to spend a month with me and work jointly
on its revision. We used to devote four or five hours a day to this
labor, and in 1894, when I had finished my third volume, we had a
similar collaboration.[163] I have never known a better test of general
knowledge and intellectual temper.

Bourne was a slow thinker and worker, but he was sure, and, when he knew
a thing, his exposition was clear and pointed. The chance of reflection
over night and the occasional discussion at meal times, outside of our
set hours, gave him the opportunity to recall all his knowledge bearing
on the subject in hand, to digest and classify it thoroughly, so that,
when he tackled a question, he talked, so to speak, like a book. Two
chapters especially attracted him,--the one on Slavery in my first
volume, and the one on general financial and social conditions at the
beginning of the third; and I think that I may say that not only every
paragraph and sentence, but every important word in these two chapters
was discussed and weighed. Bourne was a good critic, and, to set him
entirely at ease, as he was twelve years younger, I told him to lay
aside any respect on account of age, and to speak out frankly, no matter
how hard it hit, adding that I had better hear disagreeable things from
him than to have them said by critics after the volumes were printed.

The intelligent note on page 51 of my third volume was written by
Bourne, as I state in the note itself, but I did not speak