AT WEST NEW BRIGHTON It is not noticed that the most determined fighters, both in battle and on the field of public affairs, are often the gentlest, most peaceable men in private converse and at home. The public was for a long time accustomed to regard Mr. Curtis as a combatant; but many who know of him in that character would have been surprised could they have met him in the quiet study on Staten Island, where his work was done. A calm, solid figure, of fine height and impressive carriage, a moderately ruddy complexion, with snowy side-whiskers, and gray hair parted at the crown, gave him somewhat the appearance that we conventionally ascribe to English country gentlemen. There was an air of repose about the surroundings and the occupant of the room where he worked. Over the door hung a mellowed and rarely excellent copy of the Stratford portrait of Shakspeare; shelves filled with books--the dumb yet resistless artillery of literature--were placed in all the spaces between the three windows; and other books and pamphlets--the small arms and equipments--covered a part of the ample table. A soft-coal fire in the grate threw out intermittently its broad, genial flame, as if inspired to illumination by the gaze of Emerson, or Daniel Webster, or the presence of blind Homer, whose busts were in an opposite corner. Altogether, the spot seemed very remote from all loud conflicts of the time. There was none of that confusion, that tempestuous disarray of newspapers, common in the workshops of editors. Yet an examination of the new books and documents which lay before him would show that Mr. Curtis established here a sluice-way through which was drawn a current of our chief literature and politics; and some of the lines in his massive lower face indicated the resoluteness which underlay his natural urbanity and kindness. Although his father came from Massachusetts and he himself was born in Providence, Mr. Curtis was identified with New York. In 1839, at the age of fifteen, he moved with his father to this city. Three years later he enlisted with the Brook Farm enthusiasts, but in 1844 withdrew to Concord, as Hawthorne had done. There, with his brother, he worked at farming, and continued to study until 1846, when he came back to New York, still bent upon preparing himself for a literary life, though he chose not to go to college. He went, instead, to Europe, remaining there and in the East for four years, six months of which he spent as a student at the University of Berlin.