“The white-faced wasp upon the window-sill is as distinct to me now as if he crawled upon this paper. These and a thousand more I recall, and even the first glimpse of the first day of my happy life at Washington comes up before me with a freshness in decided contrast to the memories of the later years. You well remember ‘Amy’s Grotto’ in the pasture lot. You took me to see it and my eyes were wide open also in those early days. Little thing, as it was, it has impressed itself upon my memory as indelibly as anything in my entire life? I recall its every sprig of green and hear the tuneful drops in the limpid pool. “Where then did I learn it all, except from your own dear self in the happiest season of my life? You it was who turned my thoughts towards nature, and inspired the desire in me to follow up the study. If I have lived to see the day when you are ‘proud of me’ or when I can in any way contribute to your pleasure as a meagre return for the many years of happiness you have given me, I have not lived in vain, for this very desire has been a factor in the ends and aims of my ambition. “Whew! Talk of letters! Don’t you ever say another word about your letters. A page of your handwriting acts like a talisman that conjures up a host of reminiscences, and sets my pen and thoughts going like a saw mill; and here it is six o’clock, and my wife told me to be home by that time, as we are both going to call upon Mrs. Gunn this evening by appointment. Gracious! and only to think that I haven’t got a moment to spare to dot my i’s and cross my t’s, nor send it to the binders. I hope you will be able to make it all out. I’ll page it for you anyhow. “Good bye, with much love from “Your old boy “W. HAMILTON GIBSON. “Alias WILLIE.” The chief sources of the interest of his literary work appear in those lines. He had something to say; and he said it in his own way. There are no better recipes than those for concocting a lasting success in literature. His style was, like all good style, the outcome of his spirit. He had a marvelous power of telling because he had such exceptional power of seeing. In the passage describing the night stroll in the woods, he fills the mind with the mystery of the outward scene, and makes it seem, without any sense of undue artifice, just the setting for the mysterious transaction which ensues between the primrose and the moth.