rofusion of curly, light hair, and was always dressed in the height
of fashion. He had, while traveling in Europe, mingled with the
aristocratic classes, and he affected to look down upon the masses;
but with all his snobbishness he had a wonderful faculty for endowing
trifling occurrences with interest, and his letters have never been
surpassed. He possessed a sunny nature, full of poetry, enthusiasm,
and cheerfulness, and was always willing to say a pleasant word
for those who treated him kindly, and never sought to retaliate on
his enemies.

Willis first introduced steel pens at Washington, having brought
over from England some of those made by Joseph Gillott, at Birmingham.
Before this goose-quill pens had been exclusively used, and there
was in each House of Congress and in each Department a penmaker,
who knew what degree of flexibility and breadth of point each writer
desired. Every gentleman had to carry a penknife, and to have in
his desk a hone to sharpen it on, giving the finishing touches on
one of his boots. Another new invention of that epoch was the
lucifer match-box, which superseded the large tin tinder-box with
its flint and steel. The matches were in the upper portion of a
pasteboard case about an inch in diameter and six inches in length
and in a compartment beneath them was a bottle containing a chemical
preparation, into which the brimstone-coated end of the match was
dipped and thus ignited.

The Mayor of Washington, during a portion of the Jackson Administration,
was Peter Force, a noble specimen of those who, before the existence
of trades unions, used to serve an apprenticeship to the "art
preservative of arts," and graduate from the printing office
qualified to fill any political position. Fond of American history,
Mr. Force, while printing the _Biennial Register_, better known as
the Blue Book from the color of its binding, began to collect
manuscripts, books, and pamphlets, many of which had been thrown
away in the executive departments as rubbish, and were purchased
by him from the dealers in waste paper. In 1833 he originated the
idea of compiling and publishing a documentary history of the
country, under the title of the _American Archives_, and issued a
number of large folio volumes, the profits going to the politicians
who secured the necessary appropriations from Congress. He was
emphatically a gentleman--tall, stalwart, with bushy black hair,
and large, expressive eyes, whic