to pass. He was nearly thirty when he wrote "Christmas Treasures," the
first poem he deemed worthy, and very properly, of preservation, and the
publication of this tender commemoration of the death of a child opened
the springs of sentiment and love for childhood destined never to run
dry while life endured.

In journalism he became immediately successful, not so much for
adaptability to the treadmill of that calling as for the brightness and
distinctive character of his writing. He easily established a reputation
as a humorist, and while he fairly deserved the title he often regretted
that he could not entirely shake it off. His powers of perception were
phenomenally keen, and he detected the peculiarities of people with
whom he was thrown in contact almost at a glance, while his gift of
mimicry was such that after a minute's interview he could burlesque the
victim to the life, even emphasizing the small details which had been
apparently too minute to attract the special notice of those who were
acquaintances of years' standing. This faculty he carried into his
writing, and it proved immensely valuable, for, with his quick
appreciation of the ludicrous and his power of delineating personal
peculiarities his sketches were remarkable for their resemblances even
when he was indulging apparently in the wildest flights of imagination.
It is to be regretted that much of his newspaper work, covering a period
of twenty years, was necessarily so full of purely local color that its
brilliancy could not be generally appreciated. For it is as if an artist
had painted a wondrous picture, clever enough in the general view, but
full of a significance hidden to the world.

Equally facile was he in the way of adaptation. He could write a hoax
worthy of Poe, and one of his humors of imagination was sufficiently
subtle and successful to excite comment in Europe and America, and to