32 Foicr-in-Hand in Bj'-itain. 



fortunate enough to make in Rome, and whom I had 

 told that I should some day imitate his " Adventures 

 of a Phaeton." A week before we sailed from New 

 York, I had dined with President Garfield at Secretary 

 Blaine's in Washington. After dinner, conversation 

 turned upon my proposed journey, and the President 

 became much interested. " It is the 'Adventures of a 

 Phaeton ' on a grand scale," he remarked. " By the 

 way, has Black ever written any other story quite so 

 good as that? I do not think he has." In this there 

 was a general concurrence. He then said : " But I am 

 provoked with Black just now. A man who whites to 

 entertain has no right to end a story as miserably as he 

 has done that of * MacLeod of Dare.' Fiction should 

 give us the bright side of existence. Real life has trag- 

 edies enough of its ownr 



A few weeks more and we were to have in his own 

 case the most terrible proof of the words he had 

 spoken so solemnly. I can never forget the sad, care- 

 worn expression of his face as he uttered them. 



" But come it soon or come it fast, 

 It is but death that comes at last." 



One might almost be willing to die if, as in Garfield's 

 case, there should flash from his grave, at the touch 

 of a mutual sorrow, to both divisions of the great 

 English-speaking race, the knowledge that they are 

 brothers. This discovery will bear good fruit in time. 



