y happy hours as had ever come
into any year of my life. If I made no money, and had to wear my old
gloves (I had fortunately a good stock gathered from one of Frank
Leslie's debtors), and had to sail rather close to the wind, I still
found the sailing very pleasant, and the wind fair and cool, though I was
_pauper in aere_.

Mrs. Harrison Gray Otis held a ladies' sewing-circle to make garments for
the soldiers, at which my wife worked zealously. There were many social
receptions, readings, etc., where we met everybody. It was very properly
considered bad form in those early days of the war to dance or give grand
dinners or great "parties." It was, in fact, hardly decent for a man to
dress up and appear as a swell at all anywhere. Death was beginning to
strike fast into families through siege and battle, and crape to blacken
the door-bells. There was a dark shadow over every life. I had been
assured by an officer that my magazine was doing the work of two
regiments, yet I was tormented with the feeling that I ought to be in the
war, as my grandfather would surely have been at my age. The officer
alluded to wrote to me that he on one occasion had read one of my
articles by camp-fire to his regiment, who gave at the end three
tremendous cheers, which were replied to by the enemy, who were not far
away, with shouts of defiance. As for minor incidents of the war-time, I
could fill a book with them. One day a young gentleman, a perfect
stranger, came to my office, as many did, and asked for advice. He said,
"Where I live in the country we have raised a regiment, and they want me
to be colonel, but I have no knowledge whatever of military matters. What
shall I do?" I looked at him, and saw that he "had it in him," and
replied, "New York is full of Hungarian and German military adventurers
seeking employment. Get one, and let him teach you and the men; but take
good care that he does not supplant you. Let that be understood." After
some months he returned in full uniform to thank me. He had got his man,
had fought in the field--all had gone well.

I remember, as an incident worth noting, that one evening while visiting
Jas. R. Lowell at his house in Cambridge, awaiting supper, there came a
great bundle of proofs. They were the second series of the Biglow Papers
adapted to the new struggle, and as I was considered in Boston at that
time as being in my degree a literary political authority or one of some
gener