" As I did not go to
Europe to visit hospitals or museums, I might have missed seeing some of
those professional brethren whose names I hold in honor and whose
writings are in my library. If any such failed to receive our cards of
invitation, it was an accident which, if I had known, I should have
deeply regretted. So far as we could judge by all we heard, our
unpretentious party gave general satisfaction. Many different social
circles were represented, but it passed off easily and agreeably. I can
say this more freely, as the credit of it belongs so largely to the care
and self-sacrificing efforts of Dr. Priestley and his charming wife.
I never refused to write in the birthday book or the album of the
humblest schoolgirl or schoolboy, and I could not refuse to set my name,
with a verse from one of my poems, in the album of the Princess of
Wales, which was sent me for that purpose. It was a nice new book, with
only two or three names in it, and those of musical composers,--
Rubinstein's, I think, was one of them,--so that I felt honored by
the great lady's request. I ought to describe the book, but I only
remember that it was quite large and sumptuously elegant, and that
I copied into it the last verse of a poem of mine called "The Chambered
Nautilus," as I have often done for plain republican albums.
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