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to Harper�s at 2; up town.
  One remark I think I can add to Holmes�essay on Old Age
in this month�s Atlantic.  It�s this.   The first real conscious-
ness that a man gets of not being so young as he was, is produ-
ced by the discovery that some pretty or pleasant young girl
of his acquaintance tacitly puts him out of the ranks of
those capable of inspiring her with affection.   I found this out
this morning, talking with Grace.   You may know that it�s all
right and fair, you may want no more than friendly good will,
� but yet the conviction comes upon you with a kind of pang.
  � Cahill is not behaving rightly towards Mrs Potter. He
didn�t pay her last Saturday.  I know that he made $13 � his
salary�s $10; three he got from the Pic.   This isn�t honest. He
goes to Honey�s too often and squanders his money.  She has had
a hard time of it this winter and is in debt.   Cahill is a
good-intentioned fellow but weak.   And weak men are never
honest.         Honesty and Justice � which is only a larger honesty
comprising everything but the divine element of Mercy � are the
rarest of qualities.     And, however unloveable, perverse, wick-
ed even, a man may be, it is astonishing how respectable
(in the better sense of the word) an obstinate, rugged honesty
will make him.      There�s Leslie � obstinate, opinionative,
horribly illogical, making no sort of allowance for thoughts
or feelings he don�t understand, prejudiced � but honest and
kind-hearted, keeping up his family affections, willing to
pay his mothers expenses if she�ll cross the Atlantic to see
him married; capable, during his early struggles, of living
on three or four dollars a week, saving money and keeping
out of Debt! � in a word basing his life on Honesty and