Litchfield enquirer., 1871-02-02
flown on me from their dingylshelves, and r a n, l;cto,, iY, ov o froin na nf nl6f stt3+sNj


 I am listening again as of oldl
 En pleasant weather we sauntered about town, or wandered of ointos those pretty places like Rivermouth, paradise fol lovers. In all these hours with Gov. Dorr I never knew him to let fall word that cence and my unconcealed reverence fol his heart to me, for it had better part -one uncontaminated littleapiece for chil dren. Al, ryf ,gsg i.
 Our conversation turned chiefly on hi travels, literature, literary men, actors His talk, I may remark, was very full or literary men; he knew them well, ane was on astonishingly familiar persona terms with all the American authors quot ed in my Third reader, especially with Jo el Barlow, who, I subsequently learned ry previous to the advent of my" friend He called him s.JoeI," quite damiliarly and sometimes his tsdear old friend Jot Barlow, the Nasty Pudding man!" 5s3
 Shakespeare, however, was the weakness or the strength of Governor Dorr. an glad he did not have the effrontery to clain his acquaintance in prepria persona. l an afraid that would have shaken my faith ant spoiled me for enjoying my com rade's con stant quotations. | am mot sure, though for I trusted so implicitly in the superior knowledge of Governor Dorr that on ons occasion he convinced me that Herrick was a contemporary American author, and no an old English poet as I had read some where. "Why, my dear boy, - he exclaim ed, sI knew him well, he is 8 fellew of in finite jest, and his father edits the New York Sunday Atlas r. | And the Governor drew forth copy of the Atlas and showed me the name of Anson Herrick in large capitals at the head of the paper. After that was quite adriftI on what is called 'the sea of English literature" mi
 To return to the Bard of Avon, ''the i'm mortal Bill, as my friend called him il moments of enthusiasm. The daily talk O the Governor would have come to dead lock, if he had been debarred the privilege of drawing at sight on his fayorite poet Take Shakespeare from Dorr, and naugh remains. It was remarkable how the play. helped him out ; now it was Hamlet, ani now it was Touchstone, and now it was Prospero who flew to his assistance witt words and phrases so pat that they seemed created for the occasion. His voice, al that time rich, strong, and varied as tht lines themselves, made it delight to heal him repeat long passage. I was not of ten able to follow the sense of the text, bu, the music bore me on with it. I can heal him now, saying :- ..s--. zi5
 ''In such night
 Troilus, methinks mounted the Trojan walls.
 And sighed his soul toward the Grecian tents
 Where Cressid lay that night.
 - y'-- aai ''In such night,
 Stood Dido with willow in her hand
 Upon the wild a-banks, and waved her love
 To come again to Carthage" A
 T nsver zreuu Eue Iues puv res1 rrs -luaue laid suddenly upon my shoulder, and fanc, myself standing on the old Mill. Dam Bridge at Rivermouth, with the water rush ing through the sluices and the rest of the pond lying like sheet of crinkled silver in the moonlight. lG
 My intercourse with Governor Dorr was not carried on without the cognizance oi my family. They raised no objections. The Governor was then in bis best style, and by his good-nature and free-and-easy ways more or less won everybody. The leading men of the town touched their hats to him on the street, and chatted with him at the post-Offce. It must be confessed, though, that the Governor was 8 sore puzzle to those worthy people. His fuency of lan- guage anu money was not local charac- teristic. He had left the place about ten years before, poor boy, and now he had dropped down from nobody knew where, like an acrolite, mysteriously gay and pos sibly valuable. aa,7 t-s t.o. ..
 The fact is, he must have been merely a gambler at this period, and had not enter. ed upon that more aggressive career which afterwards made him well known to the police of Boston, New York, and New Or. leans. At all events, his fame had no, reached Rivermouth and though my fam. fly wondered what I saw in him or he in me to build friendship on,-the disparity in our ages being so great,-tney by nc means objected to the intimacy, and it con. tinued.
 What impressed me most in Governor Dorr, next to his literary endowments, was his generous nature, his ready and practi. cal sympathy for all sorts of unfortunate people. I have known him to go about the town half the morning with blind man, selling his brooms for him at exter. tionate prices. I have seen the tears spring to his eyes ar the recital of some story o1 suffering among the factory hands, many of whom were children. His love for these pale little men and women, as think of it, is very touching; and it seems one of the finest things in the world to me. now, and at the time it struck me as an epical exhi. bition of human sympathy, that he once purchased an expensive pair of skates for a little boy who had been born cripple.
 No doubt these facile sympathies were as superficial as letter paper, as short-lived as those midges which are born and become great-grardfathers and die in the course o1 8 single hour i; but they endeared the Gov. ernor to me, and may be, when the final reckoning comes, all those good impulses will add up to something handsome whd can tell .--s.- -
 Nearly six months had passed since the beginning of our acquaintance, when one morning my noble friend and my copy oi Shakespeare-an ilegibly printed volume bound in seedy law-calf, but the most pre-. cions of my earthly treasures disappeared from the town simultaneously. Governor Dorr had gone, as he had come, without a word of warning, leaving his ]" ancient" as he was pleased to call me, the victim of ab. ject despair. 8
 What complicated events caused the ab rupt departure of my friend and my calf. skin Shakespeare from Rivermouth never transpired. Perhaps he had spent all his money perhaps he was wanted by pal in New York, for some fresh piece of deviltry or, what is more probable, the pastoral