“If the last volume is not already printed and stereotyped, I think you ought to insert in it an explanation of all that is left mysterious in the former volumes,—­the name and family of the lady he was in love with, etc.  It is desirable, too, to know what have been the fortunes and final catastrophes of his family and intimate friends since his death, down to as recent a period as the death of Lockhart.  All such matter would make your edition more valuable; and I see no reason why you should be bound by the deference to living connections of the family that may prevent the English publishers from inserting these particulars.  We stand in the light of posterity to them, and have the privileges of posterity....  I should be glad to know something of the personal character and life of his eldest son, and whether (as I have heard) he was ashamed of his father for being a literary man.  In short, fifty pages devoted to such elucidation would make the edition unique.  Do come and see us before the leaves fall.”

While he was engaged in copying out and rewriting his papers on England for the magazine he was despondent about their reception by the public.  Speaking of them, one day, to me, he said:  “We must remember that there is a good deal of intellectual ice mingled with this wine of memory.”  He was sometimes so dispirited during the war that he was obliged to postpone his contributions for sheer lack of spirit to go on.  Near the close of the year 1862 he writes:—­

“I am delighted at what you tell me about the kind appreciation of my articles, for I feel rather gloomy about them myself.  I am really much encouraged by what you say; not but what I am sensible that you mollify me with a good deal of soft soap, but it is skilfully applied and effects all you intend it should....  I cannot come to Boston to spend more than a day, just at present.  It would suit me better to come for a visit when the spring of next year is a little advanced, and if you renew your hospitable proposition then, I shall probably be glad to accept it; though I have now been a hermit so long, that the thought affects me somewhat as it would to invite a lobster or a crab to step out of his shell.”

He continued, during the early months of 1863, to send now and then an article for the magazine from his English Note-Books.  On the 22d of February he writes:—­

“Here is another article.  I wish it would not be so wretchedly long, but there are many things which I shall find no opportunity to say unless I say them now; so the article grows under my hand, and one part of it seems just about as well worth printing as another.  Heaven sees fit to visit me with an unshakable conviction that all this series of articles is good for nothing; but that is none of my business, provided the public and you are of a different opinion.  If you think any part of it can be left out with advantage, you are quite at liberty to do so.  Probably