Part 31 (1/2)

”'They reckon ill who leave me out; They know not well the subtle ways I keep

I pass and deal _again_!'

Hang'd if he didn't go ahead and do it, too! O, he was a cool one!

Well, in about a ht, but all of a sudden I see by Mr Eed he had 'em He had already corralled two tricks and each of the others one So now he kind of lifts a little in his chair and says--

”'I tire of globes and aces!-- Too long the gaht bower Mr Longfellow smiles as sweet as pie and says--

”'Thanks, thanks to thee, ht,'

--and blaht bower! Efellow claps his on his revolver, and I went under a bunk There was going to be trouble; but thathis double chins, and says he, 'Order, gentlemen; the first man that draws, I'll lay down on him and smother him!' All quiet on the Potomac, you bet!

”They were pretty how-coun to blow

E I ever wrote was Barbara Frietchie' Says Longfellow, 'It don't begin with low Papers' Says Holhty near ended in a fight Then they wished they had some more company--and Mr Emerson pointed to me and says--

”'Is yonder squalid peasant all That this proud nursery could breed?'

He was a-whetting his bowie on his boot--so I let it pass Well, sir, next they took it into their heads that they would like so 'When Johnny Co Ho That's what I've been through, oodness, and Mr Longfellow had my only boots on, and his'n under his ar to do with _the to reat men all re, leave behind us Footprints on the sands of time'

As I said, Mr Twain, you are the fourth in twenty-four hours--and I' to move; I ain't suited to a littery atmosphere”

I said to the ers to e and the world pay loving reverence and hoated me with a calm eye for a while; then said he, ”Ah! impostors, were they? Are _you_?

I did not pursue the subject, and since then I have not travelled on h to hurt Such was the reminiscence I was moved to contribute, Mr Chairerated the details a little, but you will easily forgive me that fault, since I believe it is the first time I have ever deflected from perpendicular fact on an occasion like this

What I have said to Mrs H is true I did suffer during a year or two from the deep humiliations of that episode But at last, in 1888, in Venice, my wife and I came across Mr and Mrs A P C, of Concord, Massachusetts, and a friendshi+p began then of the sort which nothing but death terht people and in every way charether a month or two in Venice and several months in Rome, afterwards, and one day that lamented break ofthose people for bringing it to otten the memory of it alnant about the way that my performance had been received in Boston They poured out their opinions most freely and frankly about the frosty attitude of the people ere present at that performance, and about the Boston newspapers for the position they had taken in regard to the matter That position was that I had been irreverent beyond belief, beyond iination Very well, I had accepted that as a fact for a year or two, and had been thoroughly ht of it--which was not frequently, if I could help it Whenever I thought of it I wondered how I ever could have been inspired to do so unholy a thing Well, the C's comforted me, but they did not persuade me to continue to think about the unhappy episode I resisted that I tried to get it out of my mind, and let it die, and I succeeded Until Mrs H's letter caht of thatwas funny I wondered if possibly she ht At any rate, ot the whole thing copied, as above set forth

I vaguely re--diures sitting at tables feeding, ghosts now to me, and nameless forever more I don't knoho they were, but I can very distinctly see, seated at the grand table and facing the rest of us, Mr Erave, lovely, his beautiful spirit shi+ning out of his face; Mr Longfelloith his silken white hair and his benignant face; Dr Oliver Wendell Holood-fellowshi+p everywhere like a rose-diaht first one way and then another--a char or whether he was sitting still (what _he_ would call still, but ould be ures with entire distinctness across this abyss of time

One other feature is clear--Willie Winter (for these past thousand years dra that high post in his old age) was there He was er then than he is now, and he showed it It was always a pleasure toa matter of twenty years I was seldom at a banquet where Willie Winter was not also present, and where he did not read a char poem written for the occasion He did it this time, and it was up to standard: dainty, happy, choicely phrased, and as good to listen to asunprepared out of heart and brain

Now at that point ends all that was pleasurable about that notable celebration of Mr Whittier's seventieth birthday--because I got up at that point and followed Winter, hat I have no doubt I supposed would be the geay oration above quoted from the Boston paper I had written it all out the day before and had perfectly enial and happy and self-satisfied ease, and began to deliver it Those uests, that row of venerable and still active volcanoes, listened, as did everybody else in the house, with attentive interest Well, I delivered myself of--we'll say the first two hundred words ofno returns froarded the rest of it I arrived now at the dialogue: 'The oldto move” ”The fourth what?”

said I He answered, ”The fourth litteryto move” ”Why, you don't tell fellow, Mr Emerson, Mr Oliver Wendell Holmes, consound the lot--”'

Now then the house's _attention_ continued, but the expression of interest in the faces turned to a sort of black frost I wondered what the trouble was I didn't knoent on, but with difficulty--I struggled along, and entered upon that us Holradually perishi+ng hope--that soh, or that somebody would at least sive it up and sit down, I was too new to public speaking, and so I went on with this awful perforh to the end, in front of a body of people who seemed turned to stone with horror It was the sort of expression their faces would have worn if I had beenthese remarks about the Deity and the rest of the Trinity; there is no milder way in which to describe the petrified condition and the ghastly expression of those people

When I sat down it ith a heart which had long ceased to beat I shall never be as dead again as I was then I shall never be as ain as I was then I speak now as one who doesn't knohat the condition of things may be in the next world, but in this one I shall never be as wretched again as I was then Howells, as near et beyond a gasp