sending of the picture abroad, probably to London, had been talk'd of. I advised him if it went abroad to take it to Paris. I think they might appreciate it there--nay, they certainly would. Then I would like to show Messieur Crapeau that some things can be done in America as well as others. SOME OLD ACQUAINTANCES--MEMORIES _Aug. 16._--"Chalk a big mark for today," was one of the sayings of an old sportsman-friend of mine, when he had had unusually good luck--come home thoroughly tired, but with satisfactory results of fish or birds. Well, to-day might warrant such a mark for me. Everything propitious from the start. An hour's fresh stimulation, coming down ten miles of Manhattan island by railroad and 8 o'clock stage. Then an excellent breakfast at Pfaff's restaurant, 24th street. Our host himself, an old friend of mine, quickly appear'd on the scene to welcome me and bring up the news, and, first opening a big fat bottle of the best wine in the cellar, talk about ante-bellum times, '59 and '60, and the jovial suppers at his then Broadway place, near Bleecker street. Ah, the friends and names and frequenters, those times, that place. Most are dead--Ada Clare, Wilkins, Daisy Sheppard, O'Brien, Henry Clapp, Stanley, Mullin, Wood, Brougham, Arnold--all gone. And there Pfaff and I, sitting opposite each other at the little table, gave a remembrance to them in a style they would have themselves fully confirm'd, namely, big, brimming, fill'd-up champagne-glasses, drain'd in abstracted silence, very leisurely, to the last drop. (Pfaff is a generous German _restaurateur_, silent, stout, jolly, and I should say the best selecter of champagne in America.) A DISCOVERY OF OLD AGE Perhaps the best is always cumulative. One's eating and drinking one wants fresh, and for the nonce, right off, and have done with it--but I would not give a straw for that person or poem, or friend, or city, or work of art, that was not more grateful the second time than the first--and more still the third. Nay, I do not believe any grandest eligibility ever comes forth at first. In my own experience, (persons, poems, places, characters,) I discover the best hardly ever at first, (no absolute rule about it, however,) sometimes suddenly bursting forth, or stealthily opening to me, perhaps after years of unwitting familiarity, unappreciation, usage. A VISIT, AT THE LAST, TO R. W. EMERSON