Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1866, by Ticknor andFields, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District ofMassachusetts.
Transcriber's Note: Minor typos have been corrected and footnotes movedto the end of the article. Table of contents has been created for the HTML version.
CHILDHOOD: A STUDY.
HER PILGRIMAGE.
FARMER HILL'S DIARY.
THE DARWINIAN THEORY.
VARIOUS ASPECTS OF THE WOMAN QUESTION.
SCARABÆI ED ALTRI.
MIANTOWONA.
PASSAGES FROM HAWTHORNE'S NOTE-BOOKS.
THE NORMAN CONQUEST.
THE NOVELS OF GEORGE ELIOT.
GRIFFITH GAUNT; OR, JEALOUSY.
THE USURPATION.
REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES.
There is a rushing southwest wind. It murmurs overhead among thewillows, and the little river-waves lap and wash upon the point below;but not a breath lifts my hair, down here among the tree-trunks, closeto the water. Clear water ripples at my feet; and a mile and more away,across the great bay of the wide river, the old, compact brick-red citylies silent in the sunshine. Silent, I say truly: to me, here, it ismotionless and silent. But if I should walk up into State Street and sayso, my truth, like many others, when uprooted from among theircircumstances, would turn into a disagreeable lie. Sharp points riseabove the irregular profile of the line of roofs. Some are churchspires, and some are masts,—mixed at the rate of about one church and ahalf to a schooner. I smell the clear earthy smell of the pure graysand, and the fresh, cool smell of the pure water. Tiny bird-tracks liealong the edge of the water, perhaps to delight the soul of somemillennial ichnologist. A faint aromatic perfume rises from the stems ofthe willow-bushes, abraded by the ice of the winter floods. I should notperceive it, were they not tangled and matted all around so close to myhead.
Just this side of the city is the monstrous arms factory; and over thelevel line of its great dike, the chimneys of the attendant village ofboarding-houses peep up like irregular teeth. A sail-boat glides up theriver. A silent brown sparrow runs along the stems of the willowthicket, and delicate slender flies now and then alight on me. They willdie to-night. It is too early in the spring for them.
The air is warm and soft. Now, and here, I can write. Utter solitude,warmth, a landscape, and a comfortable seat are the requisites. Thefirst and the last are the chiefest; if but one of the four could behad, I think that (as a writer) I should take the seat. That which, ofall my writing, I wrote with the full