nd ascend as sweet incense to the beneficent
Giver!

Else, when thou hast carelessly flung them from thee, and seest them
receding on the swift waters of Time, thou wilt cry, in tones more
sorrowful than those of the weeping child, "Bring back my flowers!" And
thy only answer will be an echo from the shadowy Past,--"Bring back my
flowers!"

In the above, a reminiscence of my German studies comes back to me. I
was an admirer of Jean Paul, and one of my earliest attempts at
translation was his "New Year's Night of an Unhappy Man," with its yet
haunting glimpse of "a fair long paradise beyond the mountains." I am
not sure but the idea of trying my hand at a "prose-poem" came to me
from Richter, though it may have been from Herder or Krummacher, whom I
also enjoyed and attempted to translate.

I have a manuscript-book still, filled with these youthful efforts. I
even undertook to put German verse into English verse, not wincing at
the greatest--Goethe and Schiller. These studies were pursued in the
pleasant days of cloth-room leisure, when my work claimed me only seven
or eight hours in a day.

I suppose I should have tried to write,--perhaps I could not very well
have helped attempting it,--under any circumstances. My early efforts
would not, probably, have found their way into print, however, but for
the coincident publication of the two mill-girls' magazines, just as I
entered my teens. I fancy that almost everything any of us offered them
was published, though I never was let in to editorial secrets. The
editors of both magazines were my seniors, and I felt greatly honored
by their approval of my contributions.

One of the "Offering" editors was a Unitarian clergyman's daughter, and
had received an excellent education. The other was a remarkably
brilliant and original young woman, who wrote novels that were
published by the Harpers of New York while she was employed at Lowell.
The two had rooms together for a time, where the members of the
"Improvement Circle," chiefly composed of "Offering" writers, were
hospitably received.

The "Operatives' Magazine" and the "Lowell Offering" were united in the
year 1842, under the title of the "Lowell Offering and Magazine."

(And--to correct a mistake which has crept into print--I will say that
I never attained the honor of being editor of either of these
magazines. I was only one of their youngest contributors. The "Lowell
Offering" closed its existence when I was a lit