force and enduring life. Some of his aphorisms--so quaint in form as to
invite laughter--are yet fairly startling in their purport. His
paraphrase, "When in doubt, tell the truth," is of this sort. "Frankness
is a jewel; only the young can afford it," he once said to the writer,
apropos of a little girl's remark. His daily speech was full of such
things. The secret of his great charm was his great humanity and the
gentle quaintness and sincerity of his utterance.

His work did not cease when the pressing need of money came to an end.
He was full of ideas, and likely to begin a new article or story at any
time. He wrote and published a number of notable sketches, articles,
stories, even books, during these later years, among them that marvelous
short story--"The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg." In that story, as in
most of his later work, he proved to the world that he was much more than
a humorist--that he was, in fact, a great teacher, moralist, philosopher
--the greatest, perhaps, of his age.

His life at Stormfield--he had never seen the place until the day of his
arrival, June 18, 1908--was a peaceful and serene old age. Not that he
was really old; he never was that. His step, his manner, his point of
view, were all and always young. He was fond of children and frequently
had them about him. He delighted in games--especially in billiards--and
in building the house at Stormfield the billiard-room was first
considered. He had a genuine passion for the sport; without it his
afternoon was not complete. His mornings he was likely to pass in bed,
smoking--he was always smoking--and attending to his correspondence and
reading. History and the sciences interested him, and his bed was strewn
with biographies and stories of astronomical and geological research.
The vastness of distances and periods always impressed him. He had no
head for figures, but he would labor for hours over scientific