The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108,
October, 1866, by Various

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

Title: The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866

Author: Various

Release Date: April 28, 2008 [EBook #25216]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATLANTIC MONTHLY ***

Produced by Joshua Hutchinson, Josephine Paolucci and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net.
(This file was produced from images generously made
available by Cornell University Digital Collections.)

THE

ATLANTIC MONTHLY.

_A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics._

VOL. XVIII.--OCTOBER, 1866.--NO. CVIII.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1866, by TICKNOR AND
FIELDS, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of
Massachusetts.

Transcriber's Note: Minor typos have been corrected and footnotes moved
to the end of the article.

CHILDHOOD: A STUDY.

There is a rushing southwest wind. It murmurs overhead among the
willows, and the little river-waves lap and wash upon the point below;
but not a breath lifts my hair, down here among the tree-trunks, close
to the water. Clear water ripples at my feet; and a mile and more away,
across the great bay of the wide river, the old, compact brick-red city
lies silent in the sunshine. Silent, I say truly: to me, here, it is
motionless and silent. But if I should walk up into State Street and say
so, my truth, like many others, when uprooted from among their
circumstances, would turn into a disagreeable lie. Sharp points rise
above the irregular profile of the line of roofs. Some are church
spires, and some are masts,--mixed at the rate of about one church and a
half to a schooner. I smell the clear earthy smell of the pure gray
sand, and the fresh, cool smell of the pure water. Tiny bird-tracks lie
along the edge of the water, perhaps to delight the soul of some
millennial ichnologist. A faint aromatic perfume rises from the stems of
the willow-bushes, abraded by the ice of the winter floods. I should not
perceive it, were they not tangled and matted all around so close to my
head.