His time, from the day he returned from California, was mostly engaged in delivering lectures and writing letters. He was not rich, and he was generous. He had a house to build, and to pay for. Furniture must be had, and his accumulated fortune was not large enough for all. Hence he travelled, and he delivered lectures, notwithstanding the disagreeable experiences which he was compelled to endure. He yearned to be at the translation of “Faust”; but necessity drove him to talk of travel and biography. He had a home, for “it is home where the heart is,” and he longed to be in it. But necessity sent him forth with a rude hand, and held him aloof from his own. Oh! that is the saddest experience in human life! To feel called to a certain work; to know that there is one task for which one is peculiarly fitted by nature and by discipline; to see before him still the beckoning forms which have hovered in the glory of every setting sun, since earliest childhood; to feel that one’s productions, which might be valuable, are unfinished, and hardly shaped, before they are forced into the hands of conscienceless critics, is one of the most miserable conditions in life. This condition, which has worn out so many men of genius, and which has, with tyrannical coldness, compelled authors to fence up their own literary highway, or die, was not felt by Mr. Taylor in that degree that it was by some of his cotemporaries,—and by many since his time. But he felt it often enough and keenly enough to sympathize with others, and most forcibly expressed their feelings in his “Picture of Saint John.” “But soon assailed my home the need of gold, The miserable wants that plague and fret, Repeated ever, battling with our hold On all immortal aims, lest, overbold In arrogance of gift, we dare forget The balanced curse; ah, me! that finest powers, Must stoop to menial services, and set Their growth below the unlaborious flowers.” Yet manfully did he toil, neglecting sleep and food, eager to teach, determined to earn honestly the money which he was to receive. He desired to have a home free from debt, to which he could invite his friends, and feel that his hospitality could be safely and honestly extended to all those whom he loved and honored. So he toiled, as men seldom toil, using every moment on railway and steamboat, to write out those pages which his engagements prevented him from doing at home. As a consequence, his health began to decline, and oft-repeated warnings of friends and of physicians, which he tried to keep from the knowledge of his relatives, drove him from the lucrative field of lecturing. With his face set, steadfastly set, toward the tombs of Goethe and of Schiller, seeing the great obligation he was under, to a Providence which had so richly endowed him, to give to man some masterpiece, he turned at once toward his loved Germany, when he felt the necessity of a change of home, and a change of work.