Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1865, 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.
WITH THE BIRDS.
GOLD EGG.—A DREAM-FANTASY.
OUT OF THE SEA.
MY STUDENT LIFE AT HOFWYL.
THE GRAVE BY THE LAKE.
ICE AND ESQUIMAUX.
NOTES OF A PIANIST.
DIPLOMACY OF THE REVOLUTION.
OUR BATTLE-LAUREATE.
DOCTOR JOHNS.
THE CHIMNEY-CORNER.
NEEDLE AND GARDEN.
CASTLES.
FAIR PLAY THE BEST POLICY.
REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES.
RECENT AMERICAN PUBLICATIONS.
Not in the spirit of exact science, but rather with the freedom of loveand old acquaintance, would I celebrate some of the minstrels of thefield and forest,—these accredited and authenticated poets of Nature.
All day, while the rain has pattered and murmured, have I heard thenotes of the Robin and the Wood-Thrush; the Red-Eyed Flycatcher haspursued his game within a few feet of my window, darting with a low,complacent warble amid the dripping leaves, looking as dry and unruffledas if a drop of rain had never touched him; the Cat-Bird has flirted andattitudinized on my garden-fence; the House-Wren stopped a momentbetween the showers, and indulged in a short, but spirited, rehearsalunder a large leaf in the grape-arbor; the King-Bird advised me of hisproximity, as he went by on his mincing flight; and the Chimney-Swallowshave been crying the child's riddle of "Chippy, chippy, cherryo,"about the house-top.
With these angels and ministers of grace thus to attend me, even in theseclusion of my closet, I am led more than ever to expressions of loveand admiration. I understand the enthusiasm of Wilson and Audubon, andsee how one might forsake house and home and go and live with them thefree life of the woods.
To the dissecting, classifying scientist a bird may be no more perfector lovable than a squirrel or a fish; yet to me it seems that all theexcellences of the animal creation converge and centre in this nymph ofthe air; a warbler seems to be the finishing stroke.
First, there is its light, delicate, aërial organization,—consequently,its vivacity, its high temperature, the depth and rapidity of itsinspirations, and likewise the intense, gushing, lyrical character of