William Dean Howells 



mer, when a pith hat was as desirable 

 as in the California heats which he 

 described in their relation to it. He 

 advised one in my own case, but he 

 met me even more sympathetically 

 on the ground of literature, where 

 he professed to envy me my associa- 

 tions. 



I was then a very ardent young 

 assistant editor, and I shared all my 

 chief's admiration of those vivid and 

 graphic papers of King's which he 

 had got for the Atlantic Monthly* 

 In my perfectly contented ignorance 

 of every intellectual or moral interest 

 outside of literature, I regarded the 

 brilliant and beaming creature before 

 me simply as a promise of more and 

 more literature of the vivid and gra- 

 phic kind, and of a peculiar quality 

 unequaled in the performances of 

 the new California school with which 

 I classed him. Of his scientific value, 

 then already fully attested, I had no 

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