still living in her native State, within twenty miles of the
spot where she was born. Colonel Parker, her husband, left her a
good property when he died, and she is famous for her charities.
She has founded a village library, and she has written me on
several occasions for advice upon proposed purchases of books.

I don't mind telling you that I had a good deal of malicious
pleasure in sending her not long ago a reminder of old times in
these words: ``My valued friend,'' I wrote, ``I see by the
catalogue recently published that your village library contains,
among other volumes representing the modern school of fiction,
eleven copies of `Trilby' and six copies of `The Heavenly Twins.'
I also note an absence of certain works whose influence upon my
earlier life was such that I make bold to send copies of the same
to your care in the hope that you will kindly present them to the
library with my most cordial compliments. These are a copy each
of the `New England Primer' and Grimm's `Household Stories.' ''

At the age of twenty-three, having been graduated from college
and having read the poems of Villon, the confessions of Rousseau,
and Boswell's life of Johnson, I was convinced that I had
comprehended the sum of human wisdom and knew all there was worth
knowing. If at the present time--for I am seventy-two--I knew
as much as I thought I knew at twenty-three I should undoubtedly
be a prodigy of learning and wisdom.

I started out to be a philosopher. My grandmother's death during
my second year at college possessed me of a considerable sum of
money and severed every tie and sentimental obligation which had
previously held me to my grandmother's wish that I become a