was one that helped others by all that he did, and said, and was, and the circle of his use was as wide as his fame.  There are other great men, plenty of them, common great men, whom we know as names and powers, and whom we willingly let the ages have when they die, for, living or dead, they are alike remote from us.  They have never been with us where we live; but this great man was the neighbor, the contemporary, and the friend of all who read him or heard him; and even in the swift forgetting of this electrical age the stamp of his personality will not be effaced from their minds or hearts.

VI.

Of those evenings at the Taylors’ in New York, I can recall best the one which was most significant for me, and even fatefully significant.  Mr. and Mrs. Fields were there, from Boston, and I renewed all the pleasure of my earlier meetings with them.  At the end Fields said, mockingly, “Don’t despise Boston!” and I answered, as we shook hands, “Few are worthy to live in Boston.”  It was New-Year’s eve, and that night it came on to snow so heavily that my horse-car could hardly plough its way up to Forty-seventh Street through the drifts.  The next day, and the next, I wrote at home, because it was so hard to get down-town.  The third day I reached the office and found a letter on my desk from Fields, asking how I should like to come to Boston and be his assistant on the ’Atlantic Monthly’.  I submitted the matter at once to my chief on the ‘Nation’, and with his frank goodwill I talked it over with Mr. Osgood, of Ticknor & Fields, who was to see me further about it if I wished, when he came to New York; and then I went to Boston to see Mr. Fields concerning details.  I was to sift all the manuscripts and correspond with contributors; I was to do the literary proof-reading of the magazine; and I was to write the four or five pages of book-notices, which were then printed at the end of the periodical in finer type; and I was to have forty dollars a week.  I said that I was getting that already for less work, and then Mr. Fields offered me ten dollars more.  Upon these terms we closed, and on the 1st of March, which was my twenty-ninth birthday, I went to Boston and began my work.  I had not decided to accept the place without advising with Lowell; he counselled the step, and gave me some shrewd and useful suggestions.  The whole affair was conducted by Fields with his unfailing tact and kindness, but it could not be kept from me that the qualification I had as practical printer for the work was most valued, if not the most valued, and that as proof-reader I was expected to make it avail on the side of economy.  Somewhere in life’s feast the course of humble-pie must always come in; and if I did not wholly relish this, bit of it, I dare say it was good for me, and I digested it perfectly.

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