A spirit of restlessness takes hold upon Mr. Ford when he is hardest at work, and he shifts at pleasure from one to another of his several desks or tables. I should imagine that the curiosity hunter of the future, who might wish to possess the desk at which or the chair on which the author of “Peter Stirling” sat when he penned that book, might comfortably fill a storage-warehouse van with his new-found joys. Like most good fellows who write, Mr. Ford knows the value of the night and often works to best advantage when honest folk have been long abed. It is a pleasure to think of the occasionally fortunate person who writes when he wants to, not when he must, though I do not think it would be difficult for so conscientious a worker as Mr. Ford to get up friction at shortest notice and as occasion might require. While it has been my purpose to refrain scrupulously from ministering to that curiosity which cares less for the essential qualities, and the intellectual methods of a character prominently before the world, than for intrusive detail concerning personal caprices of taste and modes of living, I shall not be content if I do not say that as a personality Mr. Ford is as extraordinary as in his achievement. He is alive to every issue of the day and of the hour. He is brilliant at conversation, and perhaps even more brilliant at controversy, for I can imagine no opposing argument so bristling with facts as to prevent his making a cavalry charge on a whole table of unsympathetic hearers. Life is at its keenest pitch when one is privileged to hear his urgent voice, with no little command withal in its notes, and to see the invincible clearness and dominance in his black-brown eyes. This spirit of fearlessness, chastened as it is by an attitude of real toleration and open-mindedness, colors Mr. Ford’s personal sympathies. Believing as he does that every man must eventually work out his own salvation and that present well-being may justly be sacrificed to future growth, it would be impossible for him to choose any channel for the expression of his personal loyalty other than that which should strengthen and develop. It is no strange thing, then, that those who seek his aid and counsel find him most helpful through a power of stimulation which enhances instead of detracts from the sense of self-reliance. LINDSAY SWIFT. [Since the foregoing was written, Mr. Paul Leicester Ford has died, being shot through the heart by his brother Malcolm, who it is only charitable to believe was temporarily insane. Mr. Ford had his best years before him. He recently married, moved into a fine house built to suit his own needs near Central Park, and his plans were mapped out years in advance. He was engaged on a novel at the time of his death, but had done so little on it that there is no possibility of its ever seeing the light of print.--EDITORS.] Transcriber’s Notes