us of the Old Guard in zeal. I lived
to see men who had voted against Grant and _reviled_ him become his most
intimate friends. But enough of such memories. It is characteristic of
the American people that, while personally very vindictive, they forgive
and forget political offences far more amicably--very far--than do even
the English. However, in the case of the Rebellion, this was a very easy
thing for those to do who had not, like us old Abolitionists, borne the
burden and heat of the day, and who, coming in at the eleventh hour, got
all the contracts and offices! It never came into the head of any man to
write a _Dictionnaire des Girouettes_ in America. These late converts
had never known what it was to be Abolitionists while it was
"unfashionable," and have, as it were, live coals laid on the quivering
heart--as I had a thousand times during many years--all for believing the
tremendous and plain truth that _slavery_ was a thousand times wickeder
than the breach of all the commandments put together. It was so peculiar
for any man, not a Unitarian or Quaker, to be an _Abolitionist_ in
Philadelphia from 1848 until 1861, that such exceptions were pointed out
as if they had been Chinese--"and d---d bad Chinese at that," as a friend
added to whom I made the remark. So much for man's relations with poor
humanity.

My old friend, B. P. Hunt, was one of these few exceptions. His was a
very strange experience. After ceasing to edit a "selected" magazine, he
went to and fro for many voyages to Haiti, where, singular as it may
seem, his experiences of the blacks made of him a stern Abolitionist. He
married a connection of mine, and lived comfortably in Philadelphia, I
think, until the eighties.

I travelled with Mr. Clark from Venice to Milan, where we made a short
visit. I remember an old soldier who spoke six languages, who was
cicerone of the roof of the Cathedral, and whom I found still on the roof
twenty years later, and still speaking the same six tongues. I admired
the building as a beautiful fancy, exquisitely decorated, but did not
think much of it as a specimen of Gothic architecture. It is the best
test of aesthetic culture and knowledge in the world. When you hear
anybody praise it as the most exquisite or perfect Gothic cathedral in
existence, you may expect to hear the critic admire the designs of
Chippendale furniture or the decoration of St. Peter's.

So we passed through beautiful Lombardy an