Page:Luther S. Livingston (Parker).djvu/23

 The appointment was recognized by every one as the best that could have been made. The business acquaintanceship between the book seller and the collector began soon after Harry Widener graduated from Harvard. It quickly ripened into warm personal friendship. 'He loved you, Mr. Livingston, and has talked to me so often of your knowledge and the help you were to him in advising him about books,' wrote the mother, in her first letter referring to the plans for the Memorial. 'Hundreds of times he has told me, that when he could afford it, he would love to have you for his private librarian. You were so congenial with him and he loved working with you.'

The knowledge that the doctors expected him to live, and that for the first time in his life he was to have leisure and opportunity to do the things which he knew, as well as any one, that he could do better than anybody else, gave Livingston the interest in living which was worth more than all the medicines. He planned to spend the summer of 1914 on the Massachusetts North Shore, and stopped in Boston on the way, to break the journey and to visit the half-finished Widener Memorial building. He