TO SAMUEL WOOLLEY 



Dear Uncle Sam — A friend of yours and of 

 mine, a man very experienced in affairs, was say- 

 ing one day that you would have been distinguished 

 in any walk of life; even in a starch-collar and a 

 high-poll hat. I thought so too; but — and there 

 to me was all the difference — you wouldn't have 

 been Uncle Sam. You'd have been yourself, of 

 course; and some one else. No doubt your keen 

 eye would have been valuable in science; but I'd 

 rather bathe a poisoned finger in your elder-flower 

 water than have you knife it as a surgeon after- 

 wards. No doubt your long accurate memory 

 would have made you a scholar; but I'd rather 

 you taught me your own sea-lore than a mountain 

 of other folks' learning; and I am sure it is better 

 to listen to your own peculiar wisdom, gathered 

 from a hard-spent life, than it would be to have 

 you a professor or a sky-pilot, living soft. No 



