XL. George Eliot Becomes a Writer of Fiction 194 XLI. The Author of "Alice in WonderLand" 200 XLII. About Darwin 203 XLIII. Anecdotes of Huxley 209 XLIV. Stevenson at Vailima 214 XLV. Kipling in India 221 AMERICAN WRITERS XLVI. Benjamin Franklin Runs Away 226 XLVII. Washington Irving 234 XLVIII. Cooper and "The Spy" 242 XLIX. John Lothrop Motley and Bismarck 249 L. The Youth of George Ticknor 254 LI. Fitz-Greene Halleck 259 LII. The Author of Thanatopsis 262 LIII. Curtis and Hawthorne at the Brook Farm 266 LIV. Hawthorne and the Scarlet Letter 270 LV. Max Müller's Recollections of Emerson, Lowell and Holmes 279 LVI. Howells Calls on Emerson, and Describes Longfellow 284 LVII. Longfellow, the Universal Poet 290 LVIII. Henry David Thoreau 297 LIX. The Last Days of Edgar Allan Poe 303 LX. Artemus Ward 313 LXI. Edmund Gosse Visits Whittier 317 LXII. Personal Recollections of Whittier 320 LXIII. Henry Ward Beecher 329 LXIV. The London "Times" on Lowell 333 LXV. The Writing of "America" 338 LXVI. Elizabeth Stuart Phelps and her First Story 340 LXVII. Sidney Lanier 344 LXVIII. The Story of Mark Twain's Debts 349 LXIX. Hamlin Garland's Literary Beginning 358 LXX. Stephen Crane: A "Wonderful Boy" 361 LXXI. Eugene Field 364 ILLUSTRATIONS Geoffrey Chaucer _Frontispiece_ FACING PAGE The Old Tabard Inn 2 William Shakspere 8 John Milton 16 Robert Burns 50 Lord Byron 64 Percy Bysshe Shelley 70 Charles Dickens 122