they smack of the frontier freedom, and would not always bear repetition in a drawing-room, or on the immaculate page of the Atlantic.”

So runs the passage which caused some good-natured discussion nine years ago, between the contributor and the editor.  Perhaps I was squeamish not to have been, willing to print this matter at that time.  Some persons, no doubt, will adopt that opinion, but as both President and author have long ago met on the other side of criticism and magazines, we will leave the subject to their decision, they being most interested in the transaction.  I did what seemed best in 1862.  In 1871 “circumstances have changed” with both parties, and I venture to-day what I hardly dared then.

* * * * *

Whenever I look at Hawthorne’s portrait, and that is pretty often, some new trait or anecdote or reminiscence comes up and clamors to be made known to those who feel an interest in it.  But time and eternity call loudly for mortal gossip to be brief, and I must hasten to my last session over that child of genius, who first saw the light on the 4th of July, 1804.

One of his favorite books was Lockhart’s Life of Sir Walter Scott, and in 1862 I dedicated to him the Household Edition of that work.  When he received the first volume, he wrote to me a letter of which I am so proud that I keep it among my best treasures.

“I am exceedingly gratified by the dedication.  I do not deserve so high an honor; but if you think me worthy, it is enough to make the compliment in the highest degree acceptable, no matter who may dispute my title to it.  I care more for your good opinion than for that of a host of critics, and have an excellent reason for so doing; inasmuch as my literary success, whatever it has been or may be, is the result of my connection with you.  Somehow or other you smote the rock of public sympathy on my behalf, and a stream gushed forth in sufficient quantity to quench my thirst though not to drown me.  I think no author can ever have had publisher that he valued so much as I do mine.”

He began in 1862 to send me some articles from his English Journal for the Atlantic magazine, which he afterwards collected into a volume and called “Our Old Home.”  On forwarding one for December of that year he says:—­

“I hope you will like it, for the subject seemed interesting to me when I was on the spot, but I always feel a singular despondency and heaviness of heart in reopening those old journals now.  However, if I can make readable sketches out of them, it is no matter.”

In the same letter he tells me he has been re-reading Scott’s Life, and he suggests some additions to the concluding volume.  He says:—­