EDITOR'S TABEE. 



for \hc fii-st time upon Hip ico, lialf way botwcon either sliore, with tlie moon am] pturs nhovc mo 

 and no eoiuul fhvc the low bUiwing of the -winter wind and the dinmal booming of tlie cracking 

 ice. Perhnps this feeling added zest to the pleasure with which, after a long walk, I found myself 

 standing by Mr. Downixo's fireside in his handsome and cheerful library. There may liavc been 

 Bimotliing in this, but it was not all the secret, for subsequent visits lost none of their attractions 

 with (he opening river and the greater case of access." 



"I must detain the reader a moment to speak of a conversation held on the night of my fii">^t 

 visit, which Ji;is such a bearing on the character of whom I write, as not to be witliout its value. 

 We Avero talking of fame, and of how far it is desirable, and I do not know through what eye 

 paths of episode we came to speak of legends and fairy stories, but we found ourselves on that 

 enchanted ground, and each of us in turn saj'ing which of these stories had been his favorite in 

 childhood. One of us preferred, before all others, the story in which a fairy gives to some mortal 

 the choice of three wishes ; and after due discussion, we began to indulge our fancy with suppos- 

 ing that each of us had the gift of such a choice, what would he choose f One of us chose 

 unbounded wealth ; another, troops of friends ; another, to be perfectly good. I remember 5Ir. 

 Dowsing's choice; it was fur a character of magnetic influence that should draw all men to him 

 a^ a friend and benefactor, that should open paths to him wherever he might walk and render 

 him capable of infinite service to his fellow men. Without this, he said, wealth would be nothing, 

 and fame cold — the shadow, and not the substance, of a happy life. After this, there followed a 

 long discnssion. I remember nothing of it ; the voice, full, round, and clear, the sincere look, and 

 earnest conviction of the man, abide with me to this hour." 



"Mr. Dow.MXo thought, and somewhere, I doubt not, has expressed his feeling in this matter, 

 that men in America are too much absorbed in business, and make it too unlovely. American 

 men in cities, and those in the country who arc not in the open air when at their work, labor 

 from sunrise to sunset in ugly, dark, ill-ventilated rooms, stewing their minds over interminable 

 rows of figures, and their bodies over unhealthy stoves, and so year after year until the day is 

 pa?t for the active enjoyment of their money, and the long abused body takes its fair revenge. 

 Mr. DowM.VG was industriou?, no man more so ; but he made a pleasure of business, and when he 

 closed his office door at night he welcomed recreation as heartily as he did the graver duties of life. 



"Tlie winter passed away tlowly and unwillingly. The river gradually dissolved its bridge of 

 ice; the snow slid from the far off tops of Skunnymunk and Butler Hill ; and the Fishkill Creek, 

 a quiet rambling brook in the heart of summer, swelled and foamed with the freshets of spring, 

 and went tumbling and rearing to the turbid river. When I had last seen Mr. Downing's garden, 

 the veil which winter had thrown over her beauties when he married her, was unremoved. The 

 trees were bare, the cedars and other evergreens were beautiful with their snowy fruitage, and, to 

 my mind, fairer than when summer shows their gi-ecn; but life, chilled by the winter winds and 

 cloudy skies, had grown and bloomed within doors, where, like the-plants in the neighboring 

 green-house, she laid up store of health and strength to bear the more active duties of the coming 

 summer. C. C. 



