On May 3 he writes in a humorous vein: “Pet Pussie: At last the deed is done and I have shaved off my whiskers! The consequence, I am bound to add, is that I look like a dissolute democrat of the Fourth Ward; I send you some tintypes I had taken; the front views are pretty good, although giving me an expression of glum misery that I sincerely hope is not natural. The side views do not resemble me any more than they do Michael Angelo or John A. Weeks. The next four months are going to be one ‘demnition grind’ but by great good luck, I shall be able to leave here June 5th, I think.” The whiskers were permanently removed and never again reappeared, except on his hunting trip the following year, and I think he felt, himself, that the lack of them added a touch of elegance to his appearance, for he writes again within a day or two: “I rode over on Saturday morning (very swell with hunting crop and beaver) to Chestnut Hill where I took lunch with the Lees.” He is beginning to be quite a gentleman of fashion, and so the care-free days glide by, another summer comes, with pleasant visits, and another Maine woods excursion; but even when writing in the midst of house-parties of bewildering gaiety, he adds at the end of a long letter in August, 1879, “For my birthday, among the books I most want are the complete editions of Prescott, Motley, and Carlyle,” and signs himself “Your loving St. Buv.,” a new pet name which he had given himself and which was a conglomerate of St. Beuve, for whose writings he had great admiration, and the brother for whom his little sister had such great admiration.