toward our seventies) was the poetry which he printed in the magazines
from time to time: in the first Putnam's (where there was a dashing
picture of him in an Arab burnoose and, a turban), and in Harper's, and
in the Atlantic. It was often very lovely poetry, I thought, and I still
think so; and it was rightfully his, though it paid the inevitable
allegiance to the manner of the great masters of the day. It was graced
for us by the pathetic romance of his early love, which some of its
sweetest and saddest numbers confessed, for the young girl he married
almost in her death hour; and we who were hoping to have our hearts
broken, or already had them so, would have been glad of something more of
the obvious poet in the popular lecturer we had seen refreshing himself
after his hour on the platform.

He remained for nearly a year the only author I had seen, and I met him
once again before I saw any other. Our second meeting was far from
Columbus, as far as remote Quebec, when I was on my way to New England by
way of Niagara and the Canadian rivers and cities. I stopped in Toronto,
and realized myself abroad without any signal adventures; but at Montreal
something very pretty happened to me. I came into the hotel office, the
evening of a first day's lonely sight-seeing, and vainly explored the
register for the name of some acquaintance; as I turned from it two
smartly dressed young fellows embraced it, and I heard one of them say,
to my great amaze and happiness, "Hello, here's Howells!"

"Oh," I broke out upon him, "I was just looking for some one I knew. I
hope you are some one who knows me!"

"Only through your contributions to the Saturday Press," said the young
fellow, and with these golden words, the precious first personal
recognition of my authorship I had ever received from a stranger, and the