198 NATHANIEL SOUTHGATE SEALER 



range of friendships, a most human pleasure. He gave me the 

 letters of a number of his European correspondents to read. 

 They showed by their tone that many discerning people took 

 him at the large value which I from the first assigned to him. 

 I most distinctly remember the letters he had from King John 

 of Saxony, a cultivated man, and a very interesting correspond- 

 ent. He was evidently much attracted to Mr. Ticknor; the 

 relation was one based on the mutual esteem of two cultivated 

 gentlemen. As I recall it, they were equally interested in Dante. 

 In this connection, here is a bit of advice Mr. Ticknor gave me. 

 It was that if I should become a correspondent of a sovereign, 

 I must take care not to answer letters at once; unless they con- 

 tained some specific request, it was well to wait some months 

 before writing again, for a man of such station could not by the 

 usages that controlled him leave a communication unanswered. 

 He said assuringly that promptitude in answering letters and a 

 memory for faces were the virtues of a king. 



Next after two houses of my earlier life in Kentucky, that of 

 the Ticknors gave me more than any other than my own. 

 There was a beautiful view from the library windows; from 

 them you looked down the charming Beacon Street mall of the 

 Common. But from them, I now perceive, I gained a wider, 

 nobler look on life. To this day, though that mansion has fallen 

 from its high estate and is a place of offices, it remains sacred. 

 I pass it often and in many moods, but never without reverence 

 and a sense of gratitude for what came to me within its walls. 



One day, early in our acquaintance, I may indeed call it 

 friendship, Mr. Ticknor said to me that he was glad to have 

 me in his house, but that I ought to know that being thus an 

 intimate there brought certain disabilities. He went on to say 

 that my frequent presence there would lead to my being 

 excluded from the society of a certain group of people whose 

 acquaintance would probably be of more value to me than his 

 own ; that I should find my way to the homes of the Lawrences, 

 to those of Mr. George Hillard and Judge Parker and Professor 



