s number I especially recall George William Curtis, a genius of
the first brilliancy and remarkable withal for his versatile
conversational powers. I was talking to him on one occasion when someone
inquired as to his especial work in the co-operative fold of Brook Farm.
His laughing reply was, "Cleaning door knobs." George Ripley was a
distinguished scholar and a prominent journalist. His wife, a daughter
of Francis Dana, became a convert to Catholicism and is said to have
found much to console her in that faith until her death from cancer in
1861. Margaret Fuller, though not possessed of much outward grace, was a
prolific votary of the pen. I occasionally met her in society before she
started on an European tour where she met her destiny in the person of
the Marquis Giovanni Angelo Ossoli, to whom she was secretly married in
1847. Some years later she embarked with her husband and little boy upon
a sailing vessel for America, and all were lost off the coast of New
York in July, 1850. Horace Sumner, a younger brother of the
distinguished Massachusetts statesman, also perished at the same time.

About 1845 I met Anne C. Lynch of Providence, who came to New York to
promote her literary ambitions, and was a pleasing addition to this same
intellectual circle. She was the author of several prose works and also
of some poetical effusions which were published in 1848 and received
high commendation. She married Vincenzo Botta, a learned Italian who at
one time was a professor in the University of Turin. Their tastes were
similar and the marriage was a very happy one. They lived for many
years on Thirty-seventh Street in New York, where they maintained a
charming _salon_. On Sunday evenings their home was the rendezvous of
many of the literary lights of the metropolis as well as of
distinguished strangers. Some years before her marriage, Mrs. Botta was
visiting in Washington, where she formed a friendship with Henry Clay.
Upon her return to New York he committed to her care a valuable gold
medal, but upon arriving at her home she discovered to her dismay that
it was missing from her trunk. It was the general impression that it had
been stolen from her on her way to New York. About the same time I also
knew Donald G. Mitchell ("Ik Marvel"), but this was before he had
entered upon his active and distinguished literary career, and when he
was a temporary sojourner in New York. He was contributing at that time
some much appreciated l