to echoing words which sound just as they did when our brothers spake them when living. If I shall ever hear imaginative voices from the grave even as multitudinous as the sounds of many waters, I shall not imagine that I hear a voice of lamentation from any who had acted well his part in life until I shall be convinced that woe and misery are to be the reward for brave and toilsome lives.

But pardon this digression, for it seems to me we will honor more and more justly our brothers, whom we loved, by referring to the more substantial things pertaining to their lives and work than by indulging in emotionalized memories. Besides, death is not always a misfortune. Its timely intervention has rescued many from the ills of a sensitive, fretful, and jealous old age; from the chagrin. which always follows wasting virility from a hopeless struggle to regain or reassert the vigor of days that are gone; the indifference of the hurrying crowd; the seemingly insolent usurpation of the old man's place and work; from encounters with youth in which the veteran is unable to return quid pro quo, and from all the ills of age, in the presence of which the King of Terrors stands uncrowned. Avoiding those ills and as a musical performance increases in volume, intensity, and interest to the close, so the destitinies of our two brothers were accomplished in harmony with their heroic lives. And if in the great universal plan, they are resolved into elemental conditions, then the great and irresistible purposes of their being are thus far fulfilled and nothing more need be said; but if our brothers have left the vulgar society of mortals and have gone (as the ancients would say) to dwell with the gods, then-alas! we know not when to rejoice or when to weep.

IRA PERLEY AND HENRY A. BELLOWS.

BIOGRAPHICAL LETTERS BY HON. ARTHUR LIVERMORE.

BROUGHTON HOUSE, MANCHESTER,

December 30, 1896.

MY DEAR MR. BATCHELLOR :-I received in due course your letter of October 16, and in reply must first of all advert most gratefully to the kindness that pervaded it, so warm as to penetrate, as the sun does the fogs of Connecticut river, the somewhat difficult script that records it, and even to supply a key for the interpretation of some of its very doubtful parts; so that a few only remain for application of the good Scotch-woman's protest in praise of the eloquent, but too arduous, sermon "Wad I hae the presumption!" It is more than I deserve; and I must again acknowledge that the fraternal signals that I receive from the few of your Association who remember me, and from the larger number who accept so generously the tradition of those memories, afford me a pleasure that ranks high among those that remain to age and its infirmities. I sincerely wish that my treasury of memories might yield somewhat, responsive to the wishes that your partialities seem to have inspired. But I fear that garrulity can no further go. I certainly remember many men, in whom you feel much interest, and sometimes there occur to me scenes and incidents, that might be so narrated as to con vey ideas of the characters and manners of some of those gentlemen fit for filling up the outlines of their public lives. But I feel myself met by difficulties that I have not

the skill to deal with. They are those like which the limner encountered, who was instructed by his imperious customer, to paint his face without shadows. The face of so good a man and so generous a patron was to be made to beam all over with light absolute, and foiled with no shade. Such a problem baffled the poor artist. How much more must it bring despair to one who is no artist. We must see the shades in the image of our dearest friends, or remain without just apprehension of the lights that charm "Clarior e tenebris" is a familiar phrase, that denotes the happiest attitude that the mixed nature of our race can attain. But I dare not attempt the cloud, even if I give it all possible illumination; because I am sketching for the inspection and criticism of the children, and must deal tenderly with the sensibilities of those who know no clouds, and in whose memory the image of the honored and loved ancestor dwells in spectral illumination.

us.

For example. I may innocently and without fear relate, that on a fine summer day, driving with the late Mr. (afterwards Judge) Perley in a chaise, a prolonged pause in our conversation was broken by him, pronouncing deliberately and pausing on each word, "Judge does not know

any law." So long as the name of the victim of the remark is suppressed, no mischief is done, and the anecdote is not quite without significance as denoting the manner of Perley. But I may be trusted when I aver that its force would be raised to the second mathematical power by supplying the omitted name. I dare not!

The three parties once met at a drawing-room entertainment given by a lady. These stories, you will please remember, relate to the "status quo ante bellum," when small attention was bestowed either on dress or manners, but both were left, and that too with very satisfactory results, to the extemporaneous effort inspired by the occasions demanding it. So that the appearance of the Judge referred to, in the full evening costume, and that too on