If we did but know how to question these charming old people before it is too late!  About ten years, more or less, after the generation in advance of our own has all died off, it occurs to us all at once, “There!  I can ask my old friend what he knows of that picture, which must be a Copley; of that house and its legends about which there is such a mystery.  He (or she) must know all about that.”  Too late!  Too late!

Still, now and then one saves a reminiscence that means a good deal by means of a casual question.  I asked the first of those two old New-Yorkers the following question:  “Who, on the whole, seemed to you the most considerable person you ever met?”

Now it must be remembered that this was a man who had lived in a city that calls itself the metropolis, one who had been a member of the State and the National Legislature, who had come in contact with men of letters and men of business, with politicians and members of all the professions, during a long and distinguished public career.  I paused for his answer with no little curiosity.  Would it be one of the great Ex-Presidents whose names were known to, all the world?  Would it be the silver-tongued orator of Kentucky or the “God-like” champion of the Constitution, our New-England Jupiter Capitolinus?  Who would it be?

“Take it altogether,” he answered, very deliberately, “I should say Colonel Elisha Williams was the most notable personage that I have met with.”

—­Colonel Elisha Williams!  And who might he be, forsooth?  A gentleman of singular distinction, you may be well assured, even though you are not familiar with his name; but as I am not writing a biographical dictionary, I shall leave it to my reader to find out who and what he was.

—­One would like to live long enough to witness certain things which will no doubt come to pass by and by.  I remember that when one of our good kindhearted old millionnaires was growing very infirm, his limbs failing him, and his trunk getting packed with the infirmities which mean that one is bound on a long journey, he said very simply and sweetly, “I don’t care about living a great deal longer, but I should like to live long enough to find out how much old (a many-millioned fellow-citizen) is worth.”  And without committing myself on the longevity-question, I confess I should like to live long enough to see a few things happen that are like to come, sooner or later.

I want to hold the skull of Abraham in my hand.  They will go through the cave of Machpelah at Hebron, I feel sure, in the course of a few generations at the furthest, and as Dr. Robinson knows of nothing which should lead us to question the correctness of the tradition which regards this as the place of sepulture of Abraham and the other patriarchs, there is no reason why we may not find his mummied body in perfect preservation, if he was embalmed after the Egyptian fashion.  I suppose the tomb of David will be explored by a