On the whole, Tennyson must be said to have had a very prosperous and well-ordered life. He has enjoyed more of the blessings of this world than almost any one of his famous contemporaries; and his name is likely to live after that of most of the others shall have passed away. He has had the appreciation and the applause of all of the great men of his time, and the friendship of such as he desired; and his old age is full of honor, and ministered unto by loving and faithful hands. May it still be long before an admiring world shall read at the end of his life's story the words, "IN MEMORIAM, ALFRED TENNYSON." [Illustration] [Illustration] NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. "Come to Concord," wrote Ellery Channing to Hawthorne once upon a time; "Emerson is away, and nobody here to bore you;"--which sentence contains a gentle hint to the posterity of the two most distinguished men of letters America has produced that even the mystic and the seer sometimes palled upon the appetites of his personal friends. If any man could be supposed to be a hero to his valet, that man was surely Emerson; but his gifted neighbor seems not to have had any strong relish for his society. Neither did Hawthorne really enjoy Thoreau, who would seem to have been a sufficiently original person to have interested him, merely as a study of character. But it does not appear that Hawthorne was ever particularly fond of the society of men of letters, even though they were also men of genius. He refused to go to the Saturday Club of Authors, but would play cards with sea-captains in the smoking-room of his boarding-house in Liverpool, evening after evening. Indeed, he liked the piquant flavor of what is commonly called low society, when he required any society outside his home, better than that which would have seemed more adapted to his taste. We mean simply by this the society of back-woodsmen, sailors, laborers, and old hard-headed farmers of New England stock, with their strong provincial dialect. Mr. Emerson himself liked the raciness of the conversation of such men, and, indeed, we think almost all men of genius have something of the same taste. When we read what Mrs. Hawthorne says of the manner of conversation between her husband and Emerson, it can scarcely be considered remarkable that Hawthorne should not have cared to confine himself to the society of the sage. She says, speaking of Hawthorne:-- "Mr. Emerson delights in him; he talks to him all the time, and Mr. Hawthorne looks answers. He seems to fascinate Emerson. Whenever he comes to see him he takes him away, so that no one may interrupt him in his close and dead-set attack upon his ear."