of his death, quite mastered its possibilities.
He still retained prejudice of one type or another, which he permitted
to interfere with the very smooth arrangement of his colors. At the same
time, had he not been disturbed by so many of the things which in
America, as elsewhere, ordinarily assail an ambitious and earnest
writer--the prejudice against naturalness and sincerity in matters of
the intellect and the facts of life, and the consequent difficulty of
any one so gifted in obtaining funds at any time--he might have done
much better sooner. He was certain to come into his own eventually had
he lived. His very accurate and sensitive powers of observation, his
literary taste, his energy and pride in his work, were destined to carry
him there. It could not have been otherwise. Ten years more, judging by
the rate at which he worked, his annual product and that which he did
leave, one might say that in the pantheon of American letters it is
certain that he would have proved a durable if not one of its great
figures, and he might well have been that. As it stands, it is not
impossible that he will be so recognized, if for no more than the sure
promise of his genius.

_The Village Feudists_

In a certain Connecticut fishing-town sometime since, where, besides
lobstering, a shipyard and some sail-boat-building there existed the
several shops and stores which catered to the wants of those who labored
in those lines, there dwelt a groceryman by the name of Elihu Burridge,
whose life and methods strongly point the moral and social successes and
failures of the rural man.

Sixty years of age, with the vanities and desires of the average man's
life behind rather than before him, he was at the time not unlike the
conventional drawings of Parson Thirdly, which graced the humorous
papers of that day. Two moon-shaped eyes, a long upper lip, a mouth like
the sickle moon turned downward, prominent ears, a rather long face and
a mutton-chop-shaped whisker on either cheek, served to give him that
clerical appearance which the humorous artists so religiously seek to
depict. Add to this that he was middle-sized, clerically spare in form,
reserved and quiet in demeanor, and one can see how he might very
readily give the impression of being a minister. His clothes, however,
were old, his trousers torn but neatly mended, his little blue gingham
jumper which he wore about the store greasy and aged. Everything about
him and his s