Peter or Santa Sophia, or such giants as Tennyson or Browning, we ought to take a leaf out of the book of our American friends, and try to acquire some of their pace and go. And then, America does not send us interviewers only, but nearly all their most eminent men and their most charming women pay us the compliment of coming over to the old country. They generally cannot give us more than a few days, or it may be a few hours only; and in that short space we also have to learn how to measure them, how to appreciate and love them. It has to be done quickly, or not at all. Living at Oxford, I have had the good fortune of receiving visits from Emerson, Dr. Wendell Holmes, and Lowell, to speak of the brightest stars only. Each of them stayed at our house for several days, so that I could take them in at leisure, while others had to be taken at one gulp, often between one train and the next. Oxford has a great attraction for all Americans, and it is a pleasure to see how completely at home they feel in the memories of the place. The days when Emerson, Wendell Holmes, and Lowell were staying with us, the breakfasts and luncheons, the teas and dinners, and the delightful walks through college halls, chapels and gardens are possessions for ever. Emerson, I am grieved to say, when during his last visit to England he spent some days with us, accompanied and watched over by his devoted daughter, was already on the brink of that misfortune which overtook him in his old age. His memory often failed him, but as through a mist the bright and warm sun of his mind was always shining, and many of his questions and answers have remained engraved in my memory, weak and shaky as that too begins to be. I had forgotten that Emerson had ceased to be an active preacher, and I told him that I rather envied him the opportunity of speaking now and then to his friends and neighbours on subjects on which we can seldom speak except in church. He then told me not only what he had told others, that “he had had enough of it,” but he referred to an episode in his life, or rather in that of his brother, which struck me as very significant at the time. “There was an ecclesiastical leaven in our family,” he said. “My brother and I were both meant for the ministry in the Unitarian community. My brother was sent by my father to Germany (I believe to Göttingen), and after a thorough study of theology was returning to America. On the voyage home the ship was caught in a violent gale, and all hope of saving the ship and the lives of the passengers was given up. At that time my brother said his prayers, and made a vow that if his life should be spared he would never preach again, but give up theology altogether and earn an honest living in some other way. The ship weathered the storm, my brother’s life was saved, and, in spite of all entreaties, he kept his vow. Something of the same kind may have influenced me,” he added: