Truly, after listening that evening to these representatives of cultured China, the hearers could share the feeling of John W. Foster, the toastmaster on this occasion. Mr. Foster, one of the ablest of American diplomats, said:
When I meet a Chinese gentleman I have the impulse to stand uncovered in his presence and to make a profound bow, out of respect to his great empire and race, antedating in their existence and civilization all others of which we have any record, with achievements unsurpassed in literature, in philosophy, in art, and in useful inventions.
Love-Letters of the Great.
Passion, Tenderness, Sweetness, Reverence, All the Deep Tones of Love,
Make Beautiful the Letters Written by Various
Great Men to Their Wives.
Men of genius and power—kings, commanders, poets, painters—belong not to themselves, but to the world. Greatness destroys privacy; and many a person of note has lived to see described in print the most minute of his little, unsuspected peculiarities. This invasion of the right to be let alone is inevitable. Even love-letters do not escape.
It is only a few years since the love-letters of the Brownings—Elizabeth Barrett and Robert—were given to the world. As models in the expression of deep and tender affection it will be long before they are displaced. Yet specimens of the love-letters of other eminent men and women are full of tenderness, passion, reverence.
QUEEN VICTORIA'S ROMANCE.
Prince Albert, the husband of Queen Victoria, having occasion to make a trip to Europe, wrote to the queen: