bearing their sheaves, and it is at your feet that they will lay them
down.

But I wish especially to thank you for your wisdom and faithfulness in
our last interview. On that occasion you struck the key note to the
whole situation when you virtually kicked me out of your house, and
told me that if I ever got up I must climb for myself. That was a new
doctrine for me then, but I understand it thoroughly now. It is sound
doctrine too, though it takes long to see it so.

You were wise, too, to watch me till I got out of town on that
September afternoon. If you had given me ten dollars at your home and
told me to buy a ticket, I doubt if I should have done it, even if I
had promised to, and meant to do so when I promised. The chances are I
should have spent the money for drink, and then have gone to jail.
That is the way of a man such as I was then. An habitual drunkard is
not to be trusted, not even by himself.

I shudder as I write these things, and I only reveal them to you,
hoping that they may, perchance, be the means of your helping some one
else. I never refer to these scenes to others; in fact, no one here
knows of these painful pages in my history.

You will care to know what I am doing. I have a studio here on
Broadway, and am painting portraits. The old gift, that you were the
first to discover in me, when you said a kind word for my burlesque
sketch of you on the board, at Emburg (how often I do get back to that
old school-room), at last proved my salvation. Gradually I found that
I had talent in this direction, and I am making the most of it.
Carefully and honestly I took up the work, and with perseverance I have