-comer in the literary world of Boston, the least provincial of
American centres of learning and letters. The gilded covering where the
emblems of hope and aspiration had looked so bright had faded; not
wholly, perhaps, but how was the gold become dim!---how was the most fine
gold changed! Long devotion to other pursuits had left little time for
literature, and the waifs and strays gathered from the old Portfolio had
done little more than keep alive the memory that such a source of supply
was still in existence. I looked at the old Portfolio, and said to
myself, "Too late! too late. This tarnished gold will never brighten,
these battered covers will stand no more wear and tear; close them, and
leave them to the spider and the book-worm."

In the mean time the nebula of the first quarter of the century had
condensed into the constellation of the middle of the same period. When,
a little while after the establishment of the new magazine, the "Saturday
Club" gathered about the long table at "Parker's," such a representation
of all that was best in American literature had never been collected
within so small a compass. Most of the Americans whom educated
foreigners cared to see-leaving out of consideration official
dignitaries, whose temporary importance makes them objects of
curiosity--were seated at that board. But the club did not yet exist,
and the "Atlantic Monthly" was an experiment. There had already been
several monthly periodicals, more or less successful and permanent, among
which "Putnam's Magazine" was conspicuous, owing its success largely to
the contributions of that very accomplished and delightful writer, Mr.
George William Curtis. That magazine, after a somewhat prolonged and
very honorable existence, had gone where all periodicals go when they
die, into the archives of the deaf, dumb, and blind recording angel whose
name is Oblivion. It had so well deserved to live that its death was a
surprise and a source of regret. Could another monthly take its place
and keep it when that, with all its attractions and excellences, had died
out, and left a blank in our periodical literature which it would be very
hard to fill as well as that had filled it?

This was the experiment which the enterprising publishers ventured upon,
and I, who felt myself outside of the charmed circle drawn around the
scholars and poets of Cambridge and Concord, having given myself to other
studies and duties, wondered somewhat when Mr. Low