Carlyle's laugh, and other surprises

1. CHEERFUL YESTERDAYS. 2. CONTEMPORARIES. 3. ARMY LIFE IN A BLACK REGIMENT. 4. WOMEN AND THE ALPHABET. 5. STUDIES IN ROMANCE. 6. OUTDOOR STUDIES; AND POEMS. 7. STUDIES IN HISTO...

“Touch it,” said Leigh Hunt, when he showed Bayard Taylor a lock of brown silky hair, “and you will have touched Milton’s self.” The magic of the lock of hair is akin to that re...

These were the words in which Fitz-Greene Halleck designated Cooper’s substantial precedence in American novel-writing. Apart from this mere priority in time,—he was born at Bur...

It is true that Thoreau had Emerson as the editor of four of his posthumous volumes; but it is also true that he had against him the vehement voice of Lowell, whose influence as...

The power of early sectarian training is apt to tell upon the later years even of an independent thinker, and so it was with Alcott. In his case a life-long ideal attitude passe...

A fault far more serious than this is one which Mr. Bancroft shared with his historical contemporaries, but in which he far exceeded any of them,—an utter ignoring of the very m...

One most agreeable result of Norton’s Cambridge boyhood has not been generally recognized by those who have written about him. His inherited estate was so large that he led a li...

Stedman came from Mount Auburn to my house after the funeral of Aldrich, with a look of utter exhaustion on his face such as alarmed me. A little rest and refreshment brought hi...

The portion of this honorable life upon which his personal fame will doubtless be founded is that from 1862 to 1865, when he was military governor of the Department of the South...

His cheerful courage, however, was absolutely unbroken, and he came forward to meet every guest with a look of sunshine. His voice and manner, always animated and cheerful, rema...

He elsewhere turns from viewing the factory system with business eyes alone to the consideration of it from the point of view of the laborer. There is no want of sympathy, we so...

He was married on September 28, 1857, to Elizabeth Dwight, daughter of Edmund Dwight, Esq., a woman of rare qualities and great public usefulness, who singularly carried on the...

I found you were gone, by accident, as I find systems are, or seasons of the year, and obtain no cause, but suppose it a treason of progress that dissolves as it goes. Carlo sti...

She lived to refute much early criticism or hasty judgment, and this partly from inward growth, partly because the society in which she moved was growing for itself and understo...

Since I am here engaged upon a mere sketch of Mrs. Howe, not a formal memoir, I have felt free to postpone until this time the details of her birth and parentage. She was the da...

As you have talked a good deal in your letter about the college and its prospects, I suppose I may be allowed to say a few words about it in reply, though to be sure I have alre...

You must not laugh at me for proceeding to business the first thing, and informing you in some sort as an argument, that, if I have been unreasonable in prolonging my stay here,...

“This quite ignored Mr. Bryant’s poetic side, which Sherman possibly may not have quite enjoyed. Far more interesting than this, I thought, was a naval reception where Farragut...

It is sometimes said that there was never yet a great migration which did not result in some new form of national genius; and this should be true in America, if anywhere. He who...