Library of the best American literature / Containing the lives of our authors in story form, their portraits, their homes, and their personal traits, how they worked and what they wrote; choice selections from eminent writers, embracing great American poets and novelists, foremost women in American letters, distinguished critics and essayists, our national humorists, noted journalists and magazine contributors, popular writers for young people, great orators and public lecturers

by Unknown

MAKING FRIENDS

There is something incommunicable in such a fellowship with nature, which dates back to the time when the boy found in her his chosen playmate, and which still keeps up the old game of hide and seek even when his methods have become scientific and the result of his search is a contribution to knowledge.

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EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN.

POET AND CRITIC; AUTHOR OF “THE [♦]VICTORIAN POETS.”

[♦] ‘VICRTORIAN’ replaced with ‘VICTORIAN’

URING the year 1859, two poems were published in the New York Tribune which made genuine sensations. They were so unlike in subject and treatment that no one would have guessed they emanated from the same brain and were penned by the same hand. The first, entitled “The Diamond Wedding,” was a humorous thrust of ridicule at the “parade” made in the papers over the lavish and expensive jewels and other gifts presented by a wealthy Cuban to his bride—a young lady of New York. This poem, when published, called forth a challenge from the irate father of the lady; but, fortunately, a duel was somehow averted.