I shall still be too lame to venture so far away from home as your kind invitation tempts me to stray, but no words of my regard and admiration for Mrs. Howe will ever limp and linger. I doubt if among the hosts who will offer their homage upon her accession to the years of a ripe youth there will be many earlier friends than I, and certainly there will be none who have watched her career with more sympathy in her varied and humane activities. Poet, scholar, philanthropist, and advocate of true Democracy, her crown is more than triple, and it is her praise as it may well be her pride to have added fresh lustre to the married name she bears. I am sincerely sorry that only in this inadequate way can I join my voice to the chorus of friendly rejoicing and congratulation on the happy day, which reminds us only of the perpetual youth of the warm heart and the sound mind. Very truly yours, GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. _From W. W. Story_ MY DEAR JULIA,-- (I suppose I may still call you so--we are both so young and inexperienced) I cannot let this anniversary of your birth go by, without stretching out my hands to you across the ocean, and throwing to you all they can hold of good wishes, and affectionate thought, and delightful memories. Though years have gone by since I have seen you, you are still fresh, joyous, and amusing, and charming as ever. Of this I am fully persuaded, and often I look into that anxious mirror of my mind, and see you and wander with you, and jest with you and sing with you, as I used in the olden days; and never will I be so faithless as to believe that you are any older than you were--and I hope earnestly you are no wiser and that a great deal of folly is still left in you--as it is, I am happy to say, in me. For, after all, what is life worth when its folly is all departed? When we have grown wise and sad as well as old--it is time to say Good-bye. But that time has not come for us yet. So let us still shout _Evviva_! I do not mention the fact of your age,--I don't know it,--but if I should guess, from what I know I should say twenty-five. I was twenty-eight when I left America--and that is such a few months ago--and I know you were born somewhat about the same time. You will receive a great many congratulations and expressions of friendship, but none more sincere than those of Your old friend--I mean Your young friend, W. W. STORY. ROME, PALAZZO BARBERINI, MAY 10, 1889. _From James Russell Lowell_ 68 BEACON STREET, 13th MAY, 1889. DEAR MRS. HOWE,--