"Not best for every one; but for a man who writes forty sermons a year, it is better not to get into one rut. To write those sermons well he must come into touch with forty things or forty men. As a man of letters, I say the same thing. An author must be an all-around man and take a many-sided view of life. My friends think it harms me. I say it does not." Although I was burning to ask a vital and perhaps an impertinent question--for as he was so kind to me I wished not to be intrusive--I waited while he chatted about his connection with Harvard. It is one of Doctor Hale's happiest memories that he was an overseer of Harvard University when the modern plan was introduced of having more than one person to take charge of the chapel services. The new custom was initiated by appointing the clerical members of the overseers and faculty to take the chapel in turn. Doctor Hale thinks there were nine of them. So he took a ninth part. That system in turn gave way to the present system, by which five or six men are appointed annually. Each in turn is given a room in college, so as to enter into intimate pastoral relationship with the boys. This system has proved wonderfully successful. In the inauguration of each of its phases Doctor Hale was senior in the board, and heavily influential in the working of the experiment. It is not to be wondered at, that of the experiences of his long life he values making the acquaintance of a "couple of thousand of as fine young men as the day can produce." This is only another illustration of Doctor Hale's wide sweep and influence. [Illustration: THE LIBRARY.] "Doctor Hale, you yourself have hinted at it, namely, that the worst thing your friends say about you is, that you have too many irons in the fire. Do you think that thereby you have missed an opportunity in life?" "I am glad you asked that question," he reassured me with his most winning smile. "I don't think I have," he said slowly. "I might have written better verses; by the way"--I thought he was changing the subject--"I am just editing a collection of my verses for Roberts Brothers, to be called 'For Fifty Years.' On the title-page this quotation from the 'Ingham Papers' will be printed as a motto for the poems. Read it aloud to me." Judge how I was moved as I read the following words to him: "Poor Ingham was painfully conscious that he had no peculiar genius for one duty rather than another. If it were his duty to write verses, he wrote verses; to lay telegraph, he laid telegraph; to fight slavers, he fought slavers; to preach sermons, he preached sermons. And he did one of these things with just as much alacrity as the other; the moral purpose entirely controlling such mental aptness or physical habits as he could bring to bear." As my voice died away among the volumes, it flashed across me that in these words could be found Doctor Hale's mental and spiritual biography. "Is this your epitaph?" I asked, very soberly.