A Few Short Sketches | Page 6

custom to go on the
third Sunday of every month, and never to the Addison house, which he
visited on the second Thursday of each month.
The inkstand from Italy was large in promise, but poor in

fulfillment--the place for ink was infinitesimally small. George tried to
use it once when he had three important thoughts to transmit. He wrote
out two of them, but the third thought had to go dry. There was a much
decayed gentleman of the old school who lived across the street from
the Addisons. It had been the custom of George Addison's grandfather,
and father also, to always send this individual some useful gift on
Christmas Day; therefore the inkstand from Italy was sent over the next
morning. It failed to give what might be termed complete satisfaction,
but the old neighbor had not been satisfied for a small matter of fifty
years. Therefore George held himself, and he was perfectly right,
blameless.
It was easy enough to slip the picture of a pretty Dancer, who, in that
long ago day, was all the rage among the young men about town--into
the silver frame, heart-shape, but what could he do with her picture? It
was much prior to the time of the cigarette craze and cigarette
pictures--so he could not send it to one of those at that time uncreated
establishments, to be copied and sent broadcast. He was something of
an artist. He cleverly tinted the thing another color--made her eyes blue
instead of brown, and changed her golden sunlit wealth of hair into a
darker, if not richer shade. It was a full-length picture. Her trim figure
was shown to advantage. Her slender white hands were clasped above
her bosom, and there was a look of heavenly resignation on her
serenely beautiful brow. He cruelly sent it to the editor of "Godey's
Ladies' Magazine," and it was blazoned forth as a fashion plate, much
enlarged and with many frills, in the following February number of that
then valuable and highly fashionable periodical. In return he received
their check for five dollars, drawn upon a National Bank of
Philadelphia, and with a note stating that while the customary price was
two dollars and fifty cents they felt constrained to send him a sum
commensurate with the merits of the fancy picture which he had kindly
forwarded them, and that they would be pleased to hear from him again,
which they never did--nor their check either; for, while he was too poor
to have kept it, yet he was too proud to cash it. I am told that it hangs in
a Boston museum, framed with a rare collection of postage stamps--one
of his many gifts to that edifying institution while yet alive.

Her final gift, the scarf-pin, with the big pearl and little diamonds, met
with some mysterious disposition. In telling me the story in the French
cafe, he hesitated, spoke vaguely, and finally refused to state just what
he had done with the pin. He may have dropped the pearl, like
Cleopatra, in a goblet of ruby wine and drained the contents with the
dissolved jewel for dredges and for luck, and he may have given the
pretty little diamonds to news boys or small negroes wandering
haphazard about the highways of his town. Anyhow, this much is sure,
it was given away--that much he made clear.
When he fell upon the letters with an idea of burning them--which I
believe is more general than the returning of them--he fortunately
bethought himself of publishing them--just as they were. And lo! then
was born his "Perfected Letter Writer," which enabled him to leave a
bequest of many thousand dollars to Harvard College, where he was
educated, and also a certain sum of money to be discreetly distributed
each year among the deserving and bashful young men of Boston,
between the ages of eighteen and twenty-three, to be used by them in
making Christmas gifts to worthy young women of their choice.
As might have been expected, that clause of his will was successfully
contested, on account of its vagueness, by his brother and sister, who
morally, if not legally, cheated the "Bashful Young Men of Boston" out
of a unique and much deserved, much needed inheritance. This cure for
heart-break must be a severe but effectual one. When I met George
Addison in Paris, then an old man, he was as rosy as a ripe apple, and
just as mellow. He was gracious, kindly, and had learned well the
difficult art of growing old with grace, and without noise. He dated his
success, his happiness too, from the moment he made the resolution to
trample on his feelings and rid himself in that novel method of every
tangible vestige of that past, which he got