s not my own. My personal
relations with him have been comparatively restricted, a circumstance
to which I owe the privilege of treating the subject with a freedom that
might otherwise not seem becoming.

No author is insensible to the compliment involved in a request for his
autograph, assuming the request to come from some sincere lover of
books and bookmen. It is an affair of different complection when he is
importuned to give time and attention to the innumerable unknown who
"collect" autographs as they would collect postage stamps, with no
interest in the matter beyond the desire to accumulate as many as
possible. The average autograph hunter, with his purposeless insistence,
reminds one of the queen in Stockton's story whose fad was "the
buttonholes of all nations."

In our population of eighty millions and upward there are probably two
hundred thousand persons interested more or less in what is termed the
literary world. This estimate is absurdly low, but it serves to cast
a sufficient side-light upon the situation. Now, any unit of these two
hundred thousand is likely at any moment to indite a letter to some
favorite novelist, historian, poet, or what not. It will be seen, then,
that the autograph hunter is no inconsiderable person. He has made it
embarrassing work for the author fortunate or unfortunate enough to
be regarded as worth while. Every mail adds to his reproachful pile
of unanswered letters. If he have a conscience, and no amanuensis,
he quickly finds himself tangled in the meshes of endless and futile
correspondence. Through policy, good nature, or vanity he is apt to
become facile prey.

A certain literary collector once confessed in print that he always
studied the idiosyncrasies of his "subject" as carefully as another
sort of collector studies the plan of the house to which he meditates
a midnight visit. We were assured that with skillful preparation and
adroit approach an autograph could be extracted from anybody. According
to the revelations of the writer, Bismarck, Queen Victoria, and
Mr. Gladstone had their respective point of easy access--their one
unfastened door or window, metaphorically speaking. The strongest man
has his weak side.

Dr. Holmes's affability in replying to every one who wrote to him was
perhaps not a trait characteristic of the elder group. Mr. Lowell, for
instance, was harder-hearted and rather difficult to reach. I recall one
day in the library at Elmwood. As I was