The strong features of Henry Bright, at any rate, made a total of ravishing refinement. He and my father would sit on opposite sides of the fire; Mr. Bright with a staring, frosty gaze directed unmeltingly at the sunny glow of the coals as he talked, his slender long fingers propping up his charming head (over which his delicately brown hair fell in close-gliding waves) as he leaned on the arm of his easy-chair. Sometimes he held a book of Tennyson's poetry to his near-sighted, prominent eyes, as closely as two materials could remain and not blend into one. He recited "The Brook" in a fine fury of appreciation, and with a sure movement that suggested well the down-tumbling of the frolicking element, with its under-current of sympathizing pathos, the life-blood of the stream. "For men may come, and men may go, but I go on for ever!" rang in my empty little head for years, and summed up, as I guessed, all of Egyptian wisdom and spiritual perpetuity in a single suggestive fact. Mr. Bright had a way of laughing that I could never cease to enjoy, even in the faint echo of retrospect. It always ended in a whispered snort from the great mountain range of his nose. He laughed often, at his own and my father's remarks, and at the close of the tumbling diction of "The Brook;" and he therefore frequently snorted in this sweeping-of-the-wind fashion. I listened, spellbound. He also very gently and breezily expressed his touched sensibility, after some recitation of his of rare lines from other poems, but in the same odd manner. My father stirred this beloved friend with judicious, thought-developing opposition of opinion concerning all sorts of polite subjects, but principally, when I overheard, concerning the respective worth of writers. The small volume of Tennyson which Mr. Bright held in his two hands caressingly, with that Anglo-literary filliping of the leaves which is so great a compliment to any book, contained for him a large share of Great Britain's greatness. His brave heart beat for Tennyson; I think my father's did not, though his head applauded. My mother, for her part, was entranced by the goldsmith's work of the noble poet, and by the gems enclasped in its perfection of formative art,--perfections within the pale of convention and fashion and romantic beauty which make lovely Tennyson's baronial domain. Henry Bright wrote verses, too; and he was beginning to be successful in a certain profound interest which customarily absorbs young men of genuine feeling who are not yet married; and therefore it was worth while to stir the young lover up, and hear what he could say for "The Princess" and "The Lord of Burleigh." My mother, in a letter written six months after we had reached England, and when he was established as a household friend, draws a graphic picture of his lively personality:-- ROCK PARK, December 8.