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[344] with her husband, and became the mother of eleven children. In her death—if Laura de Sade were indeed the object of his poetry— he lost nothing. The thought of her in another and better world rather gave his fancy a new means and freer excitement; and as he had already, during twenty years, employed his imagination in decorating her with unearthly charms, so now he continued yet ten years longer, with rather increased enthusiasm, until the flame, which had been nourished almost entirely by his fancy, was at last extinguished of itself.


In August, 1824, General Lafayette returned, after an interval of thirty-eight years, to revisit the United States, upon the invitation of the President, and was received everywhere, as the ‘Guest of the Nation,’ with such hearty demonstrations of gratitude and reverence as proved the depth of the feeling from which they sprung, and which still remains without a parallel. In the forty-sixth number of the ‘North American Review,’ published in 1824, there appeared from Mr. Ticknor's pen a sketch of the life and character of this illustrious man, which, with a few alterations and additions, was subsequently published in pamphlet form. Timely in its appearance, and presenting, in appropriate and feeling language, the course of a life of heroic fidelity to duty, it was received with great favor, widely circulated, and afterwards translated into French.1

It was a great enjoyment to Mr. Ticknor to renew in Boston his personal intercourse with the distinguished man whom he had learned to love and venerate in his home at La Grange. He had the pleasure of receiving General Lafayette, more than once, as his guest, and after one of these occasions he writes thus to his friend Daveis:—

To C. S. Daveis, Portland.

Boston, September 28, 1824.
I wish with all my heart, my dear Charles, that you had come up to see us when the old General was here; and if I had at all anticipated


1 In a letter to Mr. Ticknor dated Paris, March, 1826, General Lafayette says: ‘A publication that has a claim to my deep and affectionate gratitude has been well translated in French, and three editions carried away in a few months. They are preparing, I am told, a fourth edition.’

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