The  desire  to  write  earnestly  seized  him,  and  it  was
in  Colorado  that  the  first  crude  sketch  of  the  book
afterwards  re-written  as  "  Benefits  Forgot "  was
composed.  Soon  after  his  return  to  New  York  he
became  known  to  and  highly  appreciated  by  men  in
business,  and  in  the  winter  of  1888  he  came  over  to
England  to  represent  a  New  York  publisher  and
to  open  an  ofBce  in  London.
Of  his  three  full  years  in  the  latter  city  I  can
speak  with  some  authority,  for  I  was  in  close  relation
with  him  during  the  greater  part  of  that  time.  He
arrived  in  England  without  possessing  the  acquaint-
ance of  a  single  Englishman,  and  he  died  leaving
behind  him  a  wider  circle  of  literary  friends  than,
probably,  any  other  living  American  possessed.
He  had  an  ardent  desire  to  form  personal  con-
nections  with    those   whose   writings   in   any    way


2i8  Portraits  and  Sketches

interested  him — to  have  his  finger,  as  he  used   to
say,  on  the  pulse  of  Hterature — and  the  pecuharity
of   his  position    in    London,   as   the    representative
of     an     American     publishing-house,    not    merely
facilitated   the    carrying  out  of  this  ambition,  but
turned  that  pleasure  into  a  duty.     He  possessed  a
singularly  winning  mode  of  address  with  strangers
whose  attention  he  wished  to   gain.     It  might  be
described  as  combining  the  extreme  of  sympathetic
resignation  with   the  self-respect  needful  to   make
that  resignation  valuable.     It  was  in  the  nature  of
the  business  in  which  Balestier  was  occupied  during
his  stay  in  England  that  novels  (prose  fiction  in  all
its   forms)  should   take   up   most  of   his   thoughts.
