Howells. Well, there is always room for another biography of Longfellow.
Boyesen. At the time when I made your acquaintance in 1871, you were writing “Their Wedding Journey.” Do you remember the glorious talks we had together while the hours of the night slipped away unnoticed? We have no more of those splendid conversational rages now-a-days. How eloquent we were, to be sure; and with what delight you read those chapters on “Niagara,” “Quebec,” and “The St. Lawrence;” and with what rapture I listened! I can never read them without supplying the cadence of your voice, and seeing you seated, twenty-two years younger than now, in that cosey little library in Berkeley Street.
Howells. Yes; and do you mind our sudden attacks of hunger, when we would start on a foraging expedition into the cellar, in the middle of the night, and return, you with a cheese and crackers, and I with a watermelon and a bottle of champagne? What jolly meals we improvised! Only it is a wonder to me that we survived them.
Boyesen. You will never suspect what 10 an influence you exerted upon my fate by your friendliness and sympathy in those never-to-be-forgotten days. You Americanized me. I had been an alien, and felt alien in every fibre of my soul, until I met you. Then I became domesticated. I found a kindred spirit who understood me, and whom I understood; and that is the first and indispensable condition of happiness. It was at your house, at a luncheon, I think, that I met Henry James.
THE AUTHOR OF “ANNIE KILBURN.”
Howells. Yes; James and I were constant companions. We took daily walks together, and his father, the elder Henry James, was an incomparably delightful and interesting man.
Boyesen. Yes; I remember him well. I doubt if I ever heard a more brilliant talker.
Howells. No; he was one of the best talkers in America. And didn’t the immortal Ralph Keeler appear upon the scene during the summer of ’71 or ’72?