roposed to double the value and interest of our
employment by letting his dictations continue the form of those earlier
autobiographical chapters, begun with Redpath in 1885, and continued
later in Vienna and at the Villa Quarto. He said he did not think he
could follow a definite chronological program; that he would like
to wander about, picking up this point and that, as memory or fancy
prompted, without any particular biographical order. It was his purpose,
he declared, that his dictations should not be published until he had
been dead a hundred years or more--a prospect which seemed to give him
an especial gratification.--[As early as October, 1900, he had proposed
to Harper & Brothers a contract for publishing his personal memoirs at
the expiration of one hundred years from date; and letters covering the
details were exchanged with Mr. Rogers. The document, however, was not
completed.]

He wished to pay the stenographer, and to own these memoranda, he said,
allowing me free access to them for any material I might find valuable.
I could also suggest subjects for dictation, and ask particulars of any
special episode or period. I believe this covered the whole arrangement,
which did not require more than five minutes, and we set to work without
further prologue.

I ought to state that he was in bed when we arrived, and that he
remained there during almost all of these earlier dictations, clad in
a handsome silk dressing-gown of rich Persian pattern, propped against
great snowy pillows. He loved this loose luxury and ease, and found
it conducive to thought. On the little table beside him, where lay his
cigars, papers, pipes, and various knickknacks, shone a reading-lamp,
making more brilliant the rich coloring of his complexion and the gleam
of his shining hair. There was daylight, too, but it was north light,
and the winter days were dull. Also the walls of the room were a deep,
unreflecting red, and his eyes were getting old. The outlines of that
vast bed blending into the luxuriant background, the whole focusing
to the striking central figure, remain in my mind to-day--a picture of
classic value.

He dictated that morning some matters connected with the history of the
Comstock mine; then he drifted back to his childhood, returning again
to the more modern period, and closed, I think, with some comments on
current affairs. It was absorbingly interesting; his quaint, unhurried
fashion of speech, the unconscious mov