which I carried about for months in my pocket like love-letters, and read surreptitiously at odd moments. I thought it was curious that other people to whom I showed the reviews did not seem much interested. [Illustration: W. D. HOWELLS. FROM A PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN AT CAMBRIDGE IN 1868.] _Boyesen._ After returning to this country, did not you settle down in New York? _Howells._ Yes; I was for a while a free lance in literature. I did whatever came in my way, and sold my articles to the newspapers, going about from office to office, but I was finally offered a place in "The Nation," where I obtained a fixed position at a salary. I had at times a sense that, by going abroad, I had fallen out of the American procession of progress; and, though I was elbowing my way energetically through the crowd, I seemed to have a tremendous difficulty in recovering my lost place on my native soil, and asserting my full right to it. So, when young men beg me to recommend them for consulships, I always feel in duty bound to impress on them this great danger of falling out of the procession, and asking them whether they have confidence in their ability to reconquer the place they have deserted, for while they are away it will be pretty sure to be filled by somebody else. A man returning from a residence of several years abroad has a sense of superfluity in his own country--he has become a mere supernumerary whose presence or absence makes no particular difference. _Boyesen._ What year did you leave "The Nation" and assume the editorship of "The Atlantic"? _Howells._ I took the editorship in 1872, but went to live in Cambridge six or seven years before. I was first assistant editor under James T. Fields, who was uniformly kind and considerate, and with whom I got along perfectly. It was a place that he could have made odious to me, but he made it delightful. I have the tenderest regard and the highest respect for his memory. _Boyesen._ I need scarcely ask you if your association with Lowell was agreeable? _Howells._ It was in every way charming. He was twenty years my senior, but he always treated me as an equal and a contemporary. And you know the difference between thirty and fifty is far greater than between forty and sixty, or fifty and seventy. I dined with him every week, and he showed the friendliest appreciation of the work I was trying to do. We took long walks together; and you know what a rare talker he was. Somehow I got much nearer to him than to Longfellow. As a man, Longfellow was flawless. He was full of noble friendliness and encouragement to all literary workers in whom he believed. _Boyesen._ Do you remember you once said to me that he was a most inveterate praiser? [Illustration: W. D. HOWELLS' SUMMER HOME AT BELMONT IN 1878.]