STATE EXPERIMENT STATION 239 



could make and put as frontispiece in another man's book 

 such a portrait, or any portrait of anybody, without the 

 author's consent or knowledge? That's the state of the case, 

 and after having that book concealed on my premises for 

 weeks, trying to make up my mind whether I should drink 

 hemlock or fire an explosive bullet into the carcass of my 

 enemy, I concluded I would fire the book at my friends and 

 take what fun there may be left in this life in looking on 

 while they wonder at the altitudes and profundities of an 

 author's vanity! 



In a few copies I have sent over the sea I have carefully 

 excised that ornamental feature, for thus saith the Scripture 

 "If thy right hand offend thee" &c, but in this free country 

 I conclude to face the music and 'tend to my business. When 

 I read in the Country Gentleman that "the present edition 

 is adorned with the portrait of the author, ' ' I said to myself — 

 there 's one true friend ! but what an ass he must conclude I 

 have grown to be ! ! 



Well the book will serve my classes of 1 to 4 students, and 

 as I grow old and ugly they may derive some pleasure at the 

 thought that they are not the only fellows who like caricatures. 

 I send you the two photos, which I sent the publisher to 

 insert in his "paper," and stop his importunity. Yours wdth 

 much love, S. W. Johnson. 



(F. H. S. TO S. W. J.) 



Boston 20 April 1890. 



Dear Johnson, — I am very glad to have the photos, which 

 do most certainly much better represent than does the frontis- 

 piece the man as I have known him. I do not wonder that 

 your wrath was within you stirred both as to the matter and 

 the manner of your taking off. And yet, do you know ? That 

 picture in the book is not wholly to be deprecated. Unlike, 

 it is no doubt in many respects, — because inadequate ; and in 

 some points perhaps it is displeasing because forsooth we 



