The only poem he ever contributed to the _Atlantic_ was “Old Glory,” and I recall that he held it for a considerable period, retouching it, and finally reading it at a club dinner to test it thoroughly by his own standards, which were those of the ear as well as the eye. When I asked him why he had not printed it he said he was keeping it “to boil the dialect out of it.” On the other hand, “The Poet of the Future,” one of his best pieces, was produced in an evening. He was little given to displaying his poems in advance of publication, and this was one of the few that he ever showed me in manuscript. It had been a real inspiration; the writing of it had given him the keenest pleasure, and the glow of success was still upon him when we met the following morning. He wrote much occasional and personal verse which added nothing to his reputation--a fact of which he was perfectly aware--and there is a wide disparity between his best and his poorest. He wrote prose with difficulty; he said he could write a column of verse much more quickly than he could produce a like amount of prose. His manuscripts and letters were works of art, so careful was he of his handwriting--a small, clear script as legible as engraving, and with quaint effects of capitalization. In his younger days he indulged in a large correspondence, chiefly with other writers. His letters were marked by the good-will and cordiality, the racy humor and the self-mockery of his familiar talk. “Your reference”--this is a typical beginning--“to your vernal surroundings and cloistered seclusion from the world stress and tumult of the fevered town comes to me in veriest truth “‘With a Sabbath sound as of doves In quiet neighborhoods,’ as that grand poet Oliver W. Longfellow so tersely puts it in his inimitable way.” He addressed his correspondents by names specially designed for them, and would sign himself by any one of a dozen droll pseudonyms. IV