"Dear Miss Hunt,—I lately learned by chance that it is to you that I am indebted for a copy of the new edition of the works of Ed. Livingston on criminal jurisprudence. No information as to the source of the presentation had ever before reached me. I ought, perhaps, to have caused inquiry to be made into that matter, but in the rush of things amid which I have lived, did not. The work which has fallen on me in my present career has been constantly outgrowing my help and my own capacity for attention to the secondary things; and I must confess in myself a tendency to become more and more absorbed, with increasing intensity and increasing persistence, in the parts of the work on which its success depends as on the turning-points of battle—a habit not favorable to secondary things, very unfavorable to the human machine, but surprisingly serviceable to the work which gets the benefit of it.
"I will now say what I would have contrived the opportunity to say earlier, if I had ever known to whom it should have been addressed.
"It is impossible to appreciate more highly than I do the character, abilities, and services to his country and to the world of Ed. Livingston. And then, I have always taken a special interest in the man. Among my early recollections is this of him: He used to come to Lebanon Springs, which is on the edge of the beautiful valley in which I was born and passed my youth. My father's acquaintance with him was the occasion of my seeing him and retaining a recollection of his form and features. His taste for antiquarian researches led him to dig open some mounds in the neighborhood and leaving on the rustic mind some impression of eccentricity. My father had been more intimate with the chancellor, and deprived from him a taste for Merino sheep, and shared in his importations.
"I need not add with how much interest I read Mr. Hunt's biography of Ed. Livingston, which is itself a delicious portrayal of a most attractive character.
"I beg you to accept my thanks for the volumes you were so kind as to send me, and believe me,
"Very truly yours,
"S. J. Tilden."
MISS HUNT TO TILDEN
"Montgomery Place, Barrytown-on-Hudson, Aug. 10th.
"Dear Governor Tilden,—Your kind note has reached me safely, while mine, sent with the books, never arrived at its destination, as it should have done.