In spite of his dislike of grand occasions where he was a prominent figure, he was a keen lover of the opera and theatre. He was always the first to know when the opera season was to begin and to plan that our two houses might take a box together. He was always ready to hear "Lucia" or "Don Giovanni" and to make a festival time at the coming of Salvini or Neilson. There is a tiny notelet among his letters, with a newspaper paragraph neatly cut out and pasted across the top, detailing the names of his party at a previous appearance at a theatre, a kind of notoriety which he particularly shuddered at; but in order to prove his determination in spite of everything, he writes below:—
"Now for 'Pinafore,' and another paragraph! Saturday afternoon would be a good time."
He easily caught the gayety of such occasions, and in the shadow of the curtains in the box would join in the singing or the recitative of the lovely Italian words with a true poet's delight.
The strange incidents of a life subject to the taskmaster Popularity are endless. One day he wrote:— "A stranger called here and asked if Shakespeare lived in this neighborhood. I told him I knew no such person. Do you?"
Day by day he was besieged by every possible form of interruption which the ingenuity of the human brain could devise; but his patience and kindness, his determination to accept the homage offered him in the spirit of the giver, whatever discomfort it might bring himself, was continually surprising to those who observed him year by year. Mr. Fields wrote: "In his modesty and benevolence I am reminded of what Pope said of his friend Garth: 'He is the best of Christians without knowing it.'"
In one of Longfellow's notes he alludes humorously to the autograph nuisance:—"Do you know how to apply properly for autographs? Here is a formula I have just received, on a postal card:
"'DEAR SIR: As I am getting a collection of the autographs of all honorable and worthy men, and think yours such, I hope you will forfeit by next mail. Yours, etc.'"
And of that other nuisance, sitting for a portrait, he laughingly wrote one day: "'Two or three sittings'—that is the illusory phrase. Two or three sittings have become a standing joke." And yet how seldom he declined when it was in his power to serve an artist! His generosity knew no bounds.
When a refusal of any kind was necessary, it was wonderful to see how gently it was expressed. A young person having written from a western city to request him to write a poem for her class, he said: "I could not write it, but tried to say 'No' so softly that she would think it better than 'Yes.'"
He was distinguished by one grace which was almost peculiar to himself in the time in which he lived—his tenderness toward the undeveloped artist, the man or woman, youth or maid, whose heart was set upon some form of ideal expression, and who was living for that. Whether they possessed the power to distinguish themselves or not, to such persons he addressed himself with a sense of personal regard and kinship. When fame crowned the aspirant, no one recognized more keenly the perfection of the work, but he seldom turned aside to attract the successful to himself. To the unsuccessful he lent the sunshine and overflow of his own life, as if he tried to show every day afresh that he believed noble pursuit and not attainment to be the purpose of our existence.