The history of a small lake from the first, till it was drained.
An autumnal feature,—boys had swept together the fallen leaves from the elms along the street in one huge pile, and had made a hollow, nest-shaped, in this pile, in which three or four of them lay curled, like young birds.
A tombstone-maker, whom Miss B——y knew, used to cut cherubs on the top of the tombstones, and had the art of carving the cherubs' faces in the likeness of the deceased.
A child of Rev. E. P——— was threatened with total blindness. A week after the father had been informed of this, the child died; and, in the mean while, his feelings had become so much the more interested in the child, from its threatened blindness, that it was infinitely harder to give it up. Had he not been aware of it till after the child's death, it would probably have been a consolation.
Singular character of a gentleman (H. H———, Esq.) living in retirement in Boston,—esteemed a man of nicest honor, and his seclusion attributed to wounded feelings on account of the failure of his firm in business. Yet it was discovered that this man had been the mover of intrigues by which men in business had been ruined, and their property absorbed, none knew how or by whom; love-affairs had been broken off, and much other mischief done; and for years he was not in the least suspected. He died suddenly, soon after suspicion fell upon him. Probably it was the love of management, of having an influence on affairs, that produced these phenomena.
Character of a man who, in himself and his external circumstances, shall be equally and totally false: his fortune resting on baseless credit,— his patriotism assumed,—his domestic affections, his honor and honesty, all a sham. His own misery in the midst of it,—it making the whole universe, heaven and earth alike, all unsubstantial mockery to him.
Dr. Johnson's penance in Uttoxeter Market. A man who does penance in what might appear to lookers-on the most glorious and triumphal circumstance of his life. Each circumstance of the career of an apparently successful man to be a penance and torture to him on account of some fundamental error in early life.
A person to catch fire-flies, and try to kindle his household fire with them. It would be symbolical of something.
Thanksgiving at the Worcester Lunatic Asylum. A ball and dance of the inmates in the evening,—a furious lunatic dancing with the principal's wife. Thanksgiving in an almshouse might make a better sketch.
The house on the eastern corner of North and Essex Streets [Salem], supposed to have been built about 1640, had, say sixty years later, a brick turret erected, wherein one of the ancestors of the present occupants used to practise alchemy. He was the operative of a scientific person in Boston, the director. There have been other alchemists of old in this town,—one who kept his fire burning seven weeks, and then lost the elixir by letting it go out.