this view once, to a friend, who had served long in the Union army, I was met with entire understanding. He told me that his own father, a stanch Unionist, though not in military service, was as certainly brought to his death by the war as any of the thousands who fell in battle. In how wide and touchingly humane a sense may one apply to Hawthorne Marvell's line on Cromwell's death,-- "To Love and Grief the fatal writ was signed!" His decline was gradual, and semi-conscious, as if from the first he foresaw that he could not outlive these trials. In April, 1862, he visited Washington, and wrote the article "Chiefly about War Matters" already alluded to. He has left this glimpse of himself at that time:-- "I stay here only while Leutze finishes a portrait, which I think will be the best ever painted of the same unworthy subject. One charm it must needs have,--an aspect of immortal jollity and well-to-do-ness; for Leutze, when the sitting begins, gives me a first-rate cigar, and when he sees me getting tired, he brings out a bottle of splendid champagne; and we quaffed and smoked yesterday, in a blessed state of mutual good-will, for three hours and a half, during which the picture made a really miraculous progress. Leutze is the best of fellows." The trip was taken to benefit his health, which had already begun to give way; and though he wrote thus cheerily, he was by no means well. In another published note there is this postscript:-- "My hair really is not so white as this photograph, which I enclose, makes me. The sun seems to take an infernal pleasure in making me venerable,--as if I were as old as himself." He had already, as we know, begun to meditate upon "The Dolliver Romance," trudging to and fro upon his hill-top, which was called, at home, "the mount of vision." But before proceeding with that, he began the series of essays composing "Our Old Home," not yet feeling strong enough for the more trying exertion of fiction. But the preparation of these, charming as they are, brought no exhilaration to his mind. "I am delighted," he writes to his publisher, "at what you tell me about the kind appreciation of my articles, for I feel rather gloomy about them myself.... I cannot come to Boston to spend more than a day, just at present. It would suit me better to come for a visit when the spring of next year is a little advanced, and if you renew your hospitable proposition then, I shall probably be glad to accept it; though I have now been a hermit so long, that the thought affects me somewhat as it would to invite a lobster or a crab to step out of his shell." His whole tone with regard to "Our Old Home" seems to have been one of fatigue and discouragement. He had, besides, to deal with the harassing question of the dedication to Franklin Pierce, which he solved in this manly and admirable letter to his publisher:--