There were those who were offended by Page’s willingness to seek inspiration on the highways and byways and even in newspapers, for not infrequently he would find hidden away in a corner an idea that would result in valuable magazine matter.  On one occasion at least this practice had important literary consequences.  One day he happened to read that a Mrs. Robert Hanning had died in Toronto, the account casually mentioning the fact that Mrs. Hanning was the youngest sister of Thomas Carlyle.  Page handed this clipping to a young assistant, and told him to take the first train to Canada.  The editor could easily divine that a sister of Carlyle, expatriated for forty-six years on this side of the Atlantic, must have received a large number of letters from her brother, and it was safe to assume that they had been carefully preserved.  Such proved to be the fact; and a new volume of Carlyle letters, of somewhat more genial character than the other collections, was the outcome of this visit[4].  And another fruit of this journalistic habit was “The Memoirs of a Revolutionist,” by Prince Peter Kropotkin.  In 1897 the great Russian nihilist was lecturing in Boston.  Page met him, learned from his own lips his story, and persuaded him to put it in permanent form.  This willingness of Page to admit such a revolutionary person into the pages of the Atlantic caused some excitement in conventional circles.  In fact, it did take some courage, but Page never hesitated; the man was of heroic mould, he had a great story to tell, he wielded an engaging pen, and his purposes were high-minded.  A great book of memoirs was the result.

Mr. Sedgwick refers above to Page’s editorial fervour when Miss Mary Johnston’s “Prisoners of Hope” first fell out of the blue sky into his Boston office.  Page’s joy was not less keen because the young author was a Virginia girl, and because she had discovered that the early period of Virginia history was a field for romance.  When, a few months afterward, Page was casting about for an Atlantic serial, Miss Johnston and this Virginia field seemed to be an especially favourable prospect.  “Prisoners of Hope” had been published as a book and had made a good success, but Miss Johnston’s future still lay ahead of her.  With Page to think meant to act, and so, instead of writing a formal letter, he at once jumped on a train for Birmingham, Alabama, where Miss Johnston was then living.  “I remember quite distinctly that first meeting,” writes Miss Johnston.  “The day was rainy.  Standing at my window I watched Mr. Page—­a characteristic figure, air and walk—­approach the house.  When a few minutes later I met him he was simplicity and kindliness itself.  This was my first personal contact with publishers (my publishers) or with editors of anything so great as the Atlantic.  My heart beat!  But he was friendly and Southern.  I told him what I had done upon a new story.  He was going on that night.  Might he take the