acquaintances very much, and, in fact, did him much wrong with them. It was a scrofulous condition of the stomach, and [52] when developed by taking cold, it was something dreadful to hear him describe. The effect was to make entirely another man of him. He who was affluent in means and disposition became suddenly not only depressed and melancholy, but anxious about expenses, sharp with the courier upon that point, and not at all agreeable as a travelling companion. But when the fit passed off, which seemed for the time to be a kind of insanity, his spirits rose, and his released faculties burst out in actual splendor. He became gay; he enjoyed everything, and especially the scenery around him. I never knew before that his aesthetic nature was so fine. He said so many admirable things while we were going over Switzerland, that I was sorry afterwards that I had not noted them down at the time, and written a sheet or two of Phillipsiana. His countenance changed as much as his conversation, and its expression became actually beautiful. There was a miniature likeness taken of him in London. I went to see it; and when I expressed to the artist my warm approval of it, he said: "I am glad to have you say that; for I wanted to draw out all the sweetness of that man's face." [FN]

One of the most distinguished persons in Dr. Channing's congregation was Josiah Quincy, who, during his life, occupied high positions in the country, and of a very dissimilar character,—

[FN: the point in this is that Mr. Phillips' features were of singular and almost repellent homeliness till irradiated by thought or emotion. M. E. D.]

[53] Member of Congress, Mayor of Boston, and President of Harvard University, all of which posts he filled with credit and ability; always conscientious, energetic, devoted to his office, high-toned, and disinterested. He was a model of pure and unselfish citizenship, and deserves for that a statue in Boston.

When Mr. Quincy was a very old man, I asked him one day how he had come to live so long, and in such health and vigor. He answered: "For forty years I have taken no wine; and every morning, before dressing myself, I have spent a quarter of an hour in gymnastic exercises." I adopted the practice, and have found it of great benefit, both as exercise, and inuring against colds. It is really as much exercise as a mile or two of walking. President Felton said: "After that, I can let the daily exercise take care of itself, without going doggedly about it." I find that a good many studious men are doing the same thing. I asked Bryant how much time he gave, and he said, "Three quarters of an hour." After that, at least in his summer home, he is upon his feet almost as much as a cat, and about as nimbly. With his thin and wiry frame, and simple habits, he is likely to live to a greater age than anybody I know. [Mr. Bryant and my father were about of an age. They had known each other almost from boyhood, and their friendship had matured with time. The sudden death of the poet in 1878, from causes that seemed almost accidental, was a great and unexpected blow to the survivor, then himself in feeble health. M. E. D.]

[54] I shall add a word about the healthfulness of these exercises, since it is partly my design in this sketch to give the fruits of my experience. It is true one cannot argue for everybody from his own case. Nevertheless, I am persuaded that this morning exercise and the inuring would greatly promote the general health. "Catching cold" is a serious item in the lives of many people. One, two, or three months of every year they have a cold. For thirty years I have bathed in cold water and taken the air-bath every morning; and in all that time, I think, I have had but three colds, and I know where and how I got these, and that they might have been avoided.

But I have wandered far from my ground, Boston, and my first residence there. I was Dr. Channing's guest for the first month or two, and then and afterwards knew all his family, consisting of three brothers and two sisters. They were not people of wealth or show, but something much better. Henry lived in retirement in the country, not having an aptitude for business, but a sensible person in other respects. George was an auctioneer, but left business and became a very ardent missionary preacher; and Walter was a respectable physician. William was placed in easy circumstances by his marriage. Their sister Lucy, Mrs. Russel of New York, told me that she was very much amused one day by something that her brother William said to Walter. "Walter," he said, "I think we are a very [55] prosperous family. There is Henry, he is a very excellent man. And George, why, George has come out a great spiritual man. And you, you know how you are getting along. And as for me, I do what I can. I think we are a very prosperous family."

Mrs. Russel was a person of great sense, of strong, quiet thought and feeling; and some of her friends used to say that, with the same advantages and opportunities her brother had, she would have been his equal.

On a day's visit which Henry once made me in New Bedford, I remember we had a long conversation on hunting and fishing, in which he condemned them, and I defended. Pushed by his arguments, at length I said, "for I went a-fishing myself sometimes with a boat on the Acushnet; yes, and barely escaped once being carried out to sea by the ebb tide," I said, "My fishing is not a reckless destruction of life; somebody must take fish, and bring them to us for food, and those I catch come to my table." "Now," said he, "that is as if you said to your butcher, You have to slay a certain number of cattle, calves, and sheep, and turkeys, and fowls for my table; let me have the pleasure of coming and killing them myself."

Of Dr. Channing himself, I should, of course, have much to say here, if, as I have just said, I had not already expressed my thoughts of him in print. His conversation struck me most; more [56] even than any of his writings ever did. He was an invalid, and kept much at home and indoors, and he talked hour after hour, day after day, and sometimes for a week, upon the same subject, without ever letting it grow distasteful or wearisome. Edward Everett said, he had just returned from Europe, where doubtless he had seen eminent persons, "I have never met with anybody to whom it was so interesting to listen, and so hard to talk when my turn came." There was, indeed, a grand and surprising superiority in Channing's talk, both in the topics and the treatment of them. There was no repartee in it, and not much of give and take, in any way. People used to come to him, his clerical brethren, I remember Henry Ware and others speaking of it, they came, listened to him, said nothing themselves, and went away. In fact, Channing talked for his own sake, generally. His topic was often that on which he was preparing to write. It was curious to see him, from time to time, as he talked, dash down a note or two on a bit of paper, and throw it into a pigeon-hole, which eventually became quite full.

It would appear from all this that Channing was not a genial person, and he was not. He was too intent upon the subjects that occupied his mind for that varied and sportive talk, that abandon, that sympathetic adjustment of his thoughts to the moods of people around him, which makes the agreeable person. His thoughts [57] moved in solid battalions, but they carried keen weapons. It would have been better for him if he had had more variety, ease, and joyousness in society, and he felt it himself. He was not genial either in his conversation or letters. I doubt if one gay or sportive letter can be found among them all. His habitual style of address, out of his own family, was "My dear Sir," never "My dear Tom," or "My dear Phillips," scarcely, "My dear Friend." Once he says, "Dear Eliza," to Miss Cabot, who married that noble-minded man, Dr. Follen, and in them both he always