pen; not a gold one, for they seldom suit me; but a pen flexible and
capacious of ink, and that will not grow stiff and rheumatic the
moment I get attached to it. I never met with a good pen in my
life."

Time went on, the war broke out, and he had not the heart to go on with
his new Romance. During the month of April, 1862, he made a visit to
Washington with his friend Ticknor, to whom he was greatly attached.
While on this visit to the capital he sat to Leutze for a portrait. He
took a special fancy to the artist, and, while he was sitting to him,
wrote a long letter to me. Here is an extract from it:--

"I stay here only while Leutze finishes a portrait, which I think
will be the best ever painted of the same unworthy subject. One
charm it must needs have,--an aspect of immortal jollity and
well-to-doness; for Leutze, when the sitting begins, gives me a
first-rate cigar, and when he sees me getting tired, he brings out a
bottle of splendid champagne; and we quaffed and smoked yesterday,
in a blessed state of mutual good-will, for three hours and a half,
during which the picture made a really miraculous progress. Leutze
is the best of fellows."

In the same letter he thus describes the sinking of the Cumberland, and
I know of nothing finer in its way:--

"I see in a newspaper that Holmes is going to write a song on the
sinking of the Cumberland; and feeling it to be a subject of
national importance, it occurs to me that he might like to know her
present condition. She lies with her three masts sticking up out of
the water, and careened over, the water being nearly on a level with