Sketches from Concord and Appledore Concord thirty years ago; Nathaniel Hawthorne; Louisa M. Alcott; Ralph Waldo Emerson; Matthew Arnold; David A. Wasson; Wendell Phillips; Appledore and its visitors; John Greenleaf Whittier

He had a fine philosophical mind, and if it had only been trained properly in early life he might have won a distinguished place among metaphysicians. That however was hardly po...

His conversation on art and literature was often so interesting that it is a pity his occasional bursts of eloquence could not have been preserved. But the important matter at t...

As a talker, she was the rival of Carlyle and Coleridge; the best we have ever had on this side of the water, and with such an artistic style that one could hardly decide whethe...

If Thoreau was a recluse, Hawthorne was an anchorite. He brought up his children in such purity and simplicity as is scarcely credible,--not altogether a wise plan. It was said...

The marshal, however, set a trap for him that missed little of being successful. He came to Concord at midnight, and secreted himself in an old barn which was close to the schoo...

He endured the stings of the pro-slavery hornets, as they were called, with stoical dignity and forbearance, but in spite of all good resolutions, they had an effect upon the in...

In politics Wasson was a republican without being a democrat. He hailed the advent of the republican party in 1856 as indicating an improvement in our political consciousness. D...

This was the acme of his career, and alas! how soon he fell away from it. About a year before this time, his friends began to notice certain expressions in his speeches which pu...

Piano recitals and concertos thus became the fashion at Appledore, and classical music was in good demand. Its refining and quieting influence on the little community was quite...

A volume of reminiscences is commonly the last book that an author publishes, if indeed he does not leave the task to his literary administrator. There are not wanting, however,...

He was a modern Stoic, and carried that kind of life to a high degree of perfection. He sometimes smoked a cigar, and sometimes drank a glass of wine, but the only real luxury h...

The colored students of Howard University requested Emerson to give them a conversation on books, and tell them what they had better read; and he, remembering his own maxim, tha...

The whole of Matthew Arnold's essay is thoughtful and interesting, but it has one grand defect. After saying that Emerson's writings constituted the most important prose work of...

His ill-health however did not prevent him from studying and writing. The following autumn he went into the office of a lawyer and member of Congress in Castine and read "Blacks...

His knowledge was prodigious. He was a good linguist, a fine mathematician and versed in all the different schools of philosophy. He knew English literature as well as Macaulay;...

He disliked being lionized and was rarely seen in public. The adoration of young women was of all things the most disagreeable to him. He created quite a sensation by appearing...