In these “Sunny Memories” we see how much it meant to her to come into friendly relations with many people whose names had been well known to her through their books. To a writer the companionship of other writers means much. Mrs. Stowe had here her great opportunity. It would not be possible to go over the large circle of great names she came to know by more than the printed letters. John Ruskin, George Eliot, Charles Kingsley were among them, besides the long lists of people whose titles were not their only claim to interest. In Paris there was another circle of great people, and when she came to Italy, there were the Brownings with whom a warm friendship arose, and many other very congenial people. Then on one of her return journeys she had the pleasure of having for companions Mr. and Mrs. Nathaniel Hawthorne and Mr. and Mrs. James T. Fields. Among the happiest times that Mrs. Stowe had were the social gatherings in England with some of these literary friends. Seated at dinner where there were perhaps thirty or more at the table, with Macaulay at her right and Milman at her left, she was sometimes embarrassed with riches; she wanted to hear what they were both saying; but by the use of the faculty by which we play the piano with both hands, she got on, she said, very comfortably. We can quite imagine that in these conversations it must have been sometimes a little startling to have this fresh vivid intelligence turned upon the customs that have in England had the benefit of long settled tradition. At one dinner she said that it had always seemed to her a curious thing that in the height of English civilization one vestige of savagery should remain, namely, sending a whole concourse of strong men out to hunt a single poor little fox or hare, creatures so feeble and insignificant who can do nothing to defend themselves; to her it hardly seemed consistent with manliness. Now, she said, if you had some of our American buffaloes, or a Bengal tiger, the affair would be something more dignified and generous. The gentlemen who heard this only laughed and went on to tell more stories about fox hunting!