and give us the cream of the thought or fancy ^{or gossip}.

The rapid development of his rich nature, drew about him honors and
friends, and associations most flattering and engrossing, his correspon-
dence was wide - politics, poetry, art, affairs, stimulated his thought, and
life, and wherever he went, he was sought by the best and hospitably wel-
comed them ^{in his own home and} at his own table in return. About it we were invited to meet
scores of notable people above whom he always shone ^{in vigor and foresight}. How many there were!
^{George [?]} Curtis, Bret Harte, ^{Charles [?]} Warner, Adlaide Phillips, Anne Dickinson, Gen'l. Haw-
ley, ^Frank Sanborn, ^Dr. Holland, Judge Allen ^{of our Supreme Court}, ^{and a host worthy of fame
but too sensitive to accept it just missed in the mention -
2 a companion of Emerson and Thoreau,}

His love of literature increased astonishingly after thirty; we were
flattered, that he often wrote us in reply to our expressed pleasure in
his talk ^{after being with us}, "that if fine, it was because we were magnetic, and drew it from
him. By us, he often said he was drawn to poetry and literature, just as
his nature was ripe for it. "You know I found the Brownings through you", he
writes as he was just to sail for Europe on his first trip, ^thither and "the only
books I take, are the Bible, and Aurora Leigh." Mill on the Floss" made a
deep impression upon him, and among the many paragraphs he used to re-read,
I remember especially that begining " The great problem of the shifting re-
lation between passion, and duty is clear to no man, who is capable of appre-
hending it, etc." But his ^own passion was humanity - people were his very ²be-
trothed, and ¹inspiration. Writing ^{to us} from Switzerland ^{he says} "There has been plenty
of sight seeing, but that is not life, Nature is very beautiful, ^{very wonderful,} art is very
charming, but it is not life.