Early in 1882 he was saddened by the sudden death of R. H. Dana, one of the earliest of his friends and lately fresh in his recollection since he had seen much of him in his recent stay in Rome. “We had known each other,” he wrote to Mr. George Putnam, “at least fifty-five years. He is a great loss, and the more that his career was incomplete. He never filled the place he ought in public affairs. One weakness neutralized the legitimate effect of his very remarkable abilities. Death seems to be hitting right and left among my contemporaries. So far as I am concerned, I take the warning with perfect equanimity.” It was somewhat in the same mood that he wrote to his friend Field: “I have no news except that for about a week I have been _having a head_ again. I have temporarily reformed and live cleanly like Falstaff. No wine, no black coffee, and--you won’t believe it, but ’tis true--no baccy till afternoon and then a short allowance. You see I am in earnest. At the same time that I take these precautions I confess that I don’t _hanker arter_ much more of this world, and shouldn’t mind much if--. I notice that the men in my platoon are dropping right and left. I wish I relished life as much as you. Give my love to----, who will see by the way I spell her name that I am in good humor though I feel as if I had Luke’s iron crown on.” He was drawn in colored chalks at this time by Mr. Sandys, and another portrait also was painted by Mrs. Merritt, which now hangs in the Faculty Room in University Hall at Harvard. “I am off for private view at Academy,” he writes to Mr. Field, 28 April, 1882; “two portraits of myself there. They are very unlike each other, and my duty to the artist requires me to try and look as much like each as I can. What am I to do? They will be in different rooms doubtless, and so I can manage it perhaps.”