“A Portrait,” also, which Willis did not republish, contained an effective passage, beginning
“I go away like one who’s heard,
In some fine scene, the prompter’s word,” etc.
There were two more scriptural pieces, and the remainder of the book was of no importance. Many of its contents were written before those of the earlier volume of “Sketches.”
The “American Monthly” proved a failure financially, owing, doubtless, to a lack of the right business management, for which Willis had no faculty, and with which, in truth, he had nothing to do. At the close of the summer of 1831 the magazine suspended publication, and its editor, shaking off the dust of his feet against the New England metropolis, fled to more genial climes. He left behind him the squibs of his brother journalists, the cackle of the tea-tables, and some $3,000 of debts incurred through the failure of his enterprise. He never quite forgave Boston. In a letter to his mother from England, September 12, 1835, he wrote:—
“They have denied me patronage, abused me, misrepresented me, refused me both character and genius, and I feel that I owe them nothing. I have never suffered injustice except from my countrymen, and I have in every other land found kindness and favor. I would not write this for another human eye, but you know how unjustly I have been treated, and can understand the wound that rankles even in so light a heart as mine. The mines of Golconda would not tempt me to return and live in Boston.”
The “New York Mirror” of September 10, 1831, contained the following item: “We take much pleasure in announcing to our readers that the ‘American Monthly Magazine’ has been united to the ‘New York Mirror,’ and that Nathaniel P. Willis, Esq., will, from this period, be an associate editor of the joint establishment.” This announcement was followed in the next week’s issue by “A Card to the Public,” in which the new editor promises that, “having transferred the only literary undertaking in which he has any interest to the proprietor of the ‘Mirror,’ his whole time and attention will hereafter be given to this work.” The “Mirrors” of September 10th and 17th published, furthermore, two letters from Saratoga, written by Willis in August, and containing some characteristic verses, “The String that tied my Lady’s Shoe,” and “To——,”—
“’Tis midnight deep: I came but now
From the bright air of lighted halls;”
as also a “Pencilling by the Way,” descriptive of Providence and Brown University, where he had just been delivering a Commencement poem. On September 25th the editorial page for the first time bore the heading, “Edited by George P. Morris, Theodore S. Fay, and Nathaniel P. Willis.”