him, and put them on as soon as he could put off his boots. When it was
so that we could not longer follow her failure and live, he began to talk
of the absolute close of her career which the thing was, and how probably
she had no conception that it was the end. He philosophized the
mercifulness of the fact, and of the ignorance of most of us, when
mortally sick or fatally wounded. We think it is not the end, because we
have never ended before, and we do not see how we can end. Some can push
by the awful hour and live again, but for Anna Dickinson there could be,
and was, no such palingenesis. Of course we got that solemn joy out of
reading her fate aright which is the compensation of the wise spectator
in witnessing the inexorable doom of others.




XV.

When Messrs. Houghton & Mifflin became owners of The Atlantic Monthly,
Mr. Houghton fancied having some breakfasts and dinners, which should
bring the publisher and the editor face to face with the contributors,
who were bidden from far and near. Of course, the subtle fiend of
advertising, who has now grown so unblushing bold, lurked under the
covers at these banquets, and the junior partner and the young editor had
their joint and separate fine anguishes of misgiving as to the taste and
the principle of them; but they were really very simple-hearted and
honestly meant hospitalities, and they prospered as they ought, and gave
great pleasure and no pain. I forget some of the "emergent occasions,"
but I am sure of a birthday dinner most unexpectedly accepted by
Whittier, and a birthday luncheon to Mrs. Stowe, and I think a birthday
dinner to Longfellow; but the passing years have left me in the dark as