If the days in Mr. Cable’s home are delightful, the evenings are not less charming. After the merry tea and the constitutional walk have been taken, the family gather in the sitting-room. Usually, two or three friends drop in; but if none come, the children are happy to draw closely around their father, while he plays old-time songs or Creole dances on his guitar. As he sings, one after another joins in, and finally the day is ended with a hymn and the evening worship. The hour is early, for the hard-working brain must have its full portion of rest. It is one of Mr. Cable’s firm-rooted principles that the mind can not do its best unless the body is well treated; and he gives careful attention to all rules of health. Apart from the brilliant fact of his genius, this is the secret of the evenness of his work. There is no feverish energy weakening into feverish lassitude; it moves on without haste, without rest. Mr. Cable well advised a young writer never to publish anything but his best; and it is this principle, doubtless, that has prevented him from thinking it necessary, as many English and American authors seem to fancy, to turn out a certain amount of printed matter every year. In addition to his literary labors, Mr. Cable is frequently absent from home on reading and lecture engagements, and great is the rejoicing of his family when they have him once more among them. Mr. Cable’s place in literature is as unique as that of Hawthorne. He is distinctively and above all things an American. He has not found it necessary to cross the water in search of inspiration; and he is the only American author of any prominence whose turn of mind has never been influenced by the foreign classics.