FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 107 



away to the northward a vast cloud of grey 

 smoke from fiercely burning woods rises in 

 puffs high into the air, and spreads itself in 

 gradually attenuated sheets until we trace 

 it thinly in delicate wreaths, far toward the 

 southern horizon. And anon comes to us a 

 whiff of its agreeable odour, a faint apology 

 for the cruel wound the fire is making upon 

 the distant mountain -side. 



After viewing the kingdoms of the world 

 and the glory of them, we sit upon the 

 weather-worn rock, which is lined here and 

 there with delicate intersecting ridges of 

 harder material, looking, as Phollis says, 

 like the interlaced markings upon the back 

 of a Brobdignagian hand. And from his 

 capacious pocket, the scribe, playing an an 

 cient and familiar trick, familiar at least 

 to him, produces an old-fashioned blue and 

 gold volume. How dainty this style seemed 

 to us, six lustrums ago, before the begin 

 ning of the flood of handsome and handy 

 books with which the publishers have fa 

 voured us in these latter years ! And we 

 prize them yet, and this among the best, 

 this book of dough s, of our poet immigrant 

 of forty years ago, that earnest but restless 

 spirit, whom some loved so much, both those 

 who knew him personally, and those of us 



