There is no task more difficult than that of speaking of one's intimate friends in print. It is well that the necessity occurs but seldom; for it is a task which it is nearly impossible to do well. Some persons think it as dangerous as it is difficult: but I do not feel this. If a friendship be not founded on a mutual knowledge so extensive as to leave nothing to be learned by each of the opinions of the other regarding their relation; and if, moreover, either party, knowing what it is to speak to the public,—the act of all acts most like answering at the bar of eternal judgment,—can yet be injuriously moved by so much of the character and circumstances being made known as the public has an interest in,—such a friendship is not worthy of the name; and if it can be thus broken up, it had better be so. In the case of a true friendship, there is no such danger; for it is based upon something very different from mutual ignorance; and depends upon something much more stable than the ignorance of the world concerning the parties.

Dr. Channing is, of all the public characters of the United States, the one in whom the English feel the most interest.