f about fifty, rather below
middle height, with a beautifully chiseled head. In every one of the
features you can detect the artist, the man of delicate, tender, and
refined feelings. It was a great pleasure for me to see him again. He
has finished his "Library of American Literature," a gigantic work of
erudite criticism and judicious compilation, which he undertook a few
years ago in collaboration with Miss Ellen Mackay Hutchinson. These
eleven volumes form a perfect national monument, a complete cyclopaedia
of American literature, giving extracts from the writings of every
American who has published anything for the last three hundred years
(1607-1890).

[Illustration: THE INTERVIEWERS.]

On leaving him, I went to call on Mrs. Anna Bowman Dodd, the author of
"Cathedral Days," "Glorinda," "The Republic of the Future," and other
charming books, and one of the brightest conversationalists it has ever
been my good fortune to meet. After an hour's chat with her, I had
forgotten all about the _grippe_, and all other more or less imaginary
miseries.

I returned to the Everett House to dress, and went to the Union League
Club to dine with General Horace Porter.

The general possesses a rare and most happy combination of brilliant
flashing Parisian wit and dry, quiet, American humor. This charming
_causeur_ and _conteur_ tells an anecdote as nobody I know can do; he
never misses fire. He assured me at table that the copyright bill will
soon be passed, for, he added, "we have now a pure and pious
Administration. At the White House they open their oysters with prayer."
The conversation fell on American society, or, rather, on American
Societies. The highest and lowest of these can be distinguished by the
use of _van_. "The blue blood of America put it before their names, as
_Van Nicken_; political society puts it after, as _Sullivan_."

O VAN-ITAS VAN-ITATUM!

Time passed rapidly in such delightful company.

I finished the evening at the house of Colonel Robert G. Ingersoll. If
there had been any cloud of gloom still left hanging about me, it would
have vanished at the sight of his sunny face. There was a small
gathering of some thirty people, among them Mr. Edgar Fawcett, whose
acquaintance I was delighted to make. Conversation went on briskly with
one and the other, and at half-past eleven I returned to the hotel
completely cured.

To-morrow morning I leave for Boston at ten o'clock to begin the lecture
tour in tha