HAPPIEST DAYS. Long ago, when you were a little boy or a little girl,—perhaps not so very long ago, either,—were you never interrupted in your play by being called in to have your face washed, your hair combed, and your soiled apron exchanged for a clean one, preparatory to an introduction to Mrs. Smith, or Dr. Jones, or Aunt Judkins, your mother's early friend? And after being ushered in to... more...

CHRISTOPHER NORTH. Plutarch, when about to enter upon the crowded lives of Alexander and Caesar, declares his purpose and sets forth the true nature and province of biography in these words:—"It must be borne in mind that my design is not to write histories, but lives. And the most glorious exploits do not always furnish us with the clearest discoveries of virtue or vice in men. Sometimes a... more...

ON THE VICISSITUDES OF KEATS'S FAME. [Joseph Severn, the author of the following paper, scarcely needs introduction to the readers of the "Atlantic Monthly"; but no one will object to reperusing, in connection with his valuable contribution, this extract from the Preface to "Adonais," which Shelley wrote in 1821:— "He [Keats] was accompanied to Rome and attended in his last... more...

I. What Southey says of Cottle's shop is true of the little bookstore in a certain old town of New England, which I used to frequent years ago, and where I got my first peep into Chaucer, and Spenser, and Fuller, and Sir Thomas Browne, and other renowned old authors, from whom I now derive so much pleasure and solacement. 'Twas a place where sundry lovers of good books used to meet and... more...

I CHILDREN i Anne Severn had come again to the Fieldings. This time it was because her mother was dead. She hadn't been in the house five minutes before she asked "Where'sJerrold?" "Fancy," they said, "her remembering." And Jerrold had put his head in at the door and gone out again when he saw her there in her black frock; and somehow she had known he was afraid to... more...

THE PURITAN MINISTER. It is nine o'clock upon a summer Sunday morning, in the year sixteen hundred and something. The sun looks down brightly on a little forest settlement, around whose expanding fields the great American wilderness recedes each day, withdrawing its bears and wolves and Indians into an ever remoter distance,—not yet so far but that a stout wooden gate at each end of the village... more...

INTRODUCTION. Grave doubts at times arise in the critical mind as to whether America has had any famous women. We are reproached with the fact, that in spite of some two hundred years of existence, we have, as yet, developed no genius in any degree comparable to that of George Eliot and George Sand in the present, or a dozen other as familiar names of the past. One at least of our prominent literary... more...

DOINGS OF THE SUNBEAM. Few of those who seek a photographer's establishment to have their portraits taken know at all into what a vast branch of commerce this business of sun-picturing has grown. We took occasion lately to visit one of the principal establishments in the country, that of Messrs. E. & H.T. Anthony, in Broadway, New York. We had made the acquaintance of these gentlemen through... more...

CHAPTER I. "OUT OF THE EVERYWHERE INTO THE HERE." On October 1, 1847, I am credibly informed, my baby eyes opened to the light(?) of a London afternoon at 5.39. A friendly astrologer has drawn for me the following chart, showing the position of the planets at this, to me fateful, moment; but I know nothing of astrology, so feel no wiser as I gaze upon my horoscope.   Horoscope of Annie Besant.... more...

ADDRESS. Gentlemen: In a country like ours, whose institutions rest on the popular will, we must rely for our social and literary means and honors, exclusively on personal exertions, springing from the bosom of society. We have no external helps and reliances, sealed in expectations of public patronage, held by the hands of executive, or ministerial power. Our ancestors, it is true, were accustomed to... more...