The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 99, January, 1866: A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and PoliticsVarious
General
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 99, January, 1866: A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics
Various
American periodicals
Nobody will use other people's experience, nor has any of his own till
it is too late to use it.
* * * * *
Two lovers to plan the building of a pleasure-house on a certain spot of
ground, but various seeming accidents prevent it. Once they find a group
of miserable children there; once it is the scene where crime is
plotted; at last the dead body of one of the lovers or of a dear friend
is found there; and instead of a pleasure-house, they build a marble
tomb. The moral,--that there is no place on earth fit for the site of a
pleasure-house, because there is no spot that may not have been saddened
by human grief, stained by crime, or hallowed by death. It might be
three friends who plan it, instead of two lovers; and the dearest one
dies.
* * * * *
Comfort for childless people. A married couple with ten children have
been the means of bringing about ten funerals.
* * * * *
A blind man, on a dark nights, carried a torch, in order that people
might see him and not run against him, and direct him how to avoid
dangers.
* * * * *
To picture a child's (one of four or five years old) reminiscences at
sunset of a long summer's day,--his first awakening, his studies, his
sports, his little fits of passion, perhaps a whipping, etc.
* * * * *
The blind man's walk.
* * * * *
To picture a virtuous family, the different members examples of virtuous
dispositions in their way; then introduce a vicious person, and trace
out the relations that arise between him and them, and the manner in
which all are affected.
* * * * *
A man to flatter himself with the idea that he would not be guilty of
some certain wickedness,--as, for instance, to yield to the personal
temptations of the Devil,--yet to find, ultimately, that he was at that
very time committing that same wickedness.
* * * * *
What would a man do, if he were compelled to live always in the sultry
heat of society, and could never bathe himself in cool solitude?
* * * * *
A girl's lover to be slain and buried in her flower-garden, and the
earth levelled over him. That particular spot, which she happens to
plant with some peculiar variety of flowers, produces them of admirable
splendor, beauty, and perfume; and she delights, with an indescribable
impulse, to wear them in her bosom, and scent her chamber with them.
Thus the classic fantasy would be realized, of dead people transformed
to flowers.
* * * * *
Objects seen by a magic-lantern reversed. A street, or other location,
might be presented, where there would be opportunity to bring forward
all objects of worldly interest, and thus much pleasant satire might be
the result.
CASTLES IN THE AIR.
FROM AN UNPUBLISHED POEM.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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