Since sketching character is the mode, I too take up my pencil, not to make you laugh, though peradventure it may be–to get you to sleep. I am now a tolerably old gentleman–an old bachelor, moreover–and, what is more to the point, an unpretending and sober-minded one. Lest, however, any of the ladies should take […]

SKETCH FROM THE NOTE BOOK OF AN OLD GENTLEMAN. Never shall I forget the dignity and sense of importance which swelled my mind when I was first pronounced old enough to go to meeting. That eventful Sunday I was up long before day, and even took my Sabbath suit to the window to ascertain by […]

The sparkling ice and snow covered hill and valley–tree and bush were glittering with diamonds–the broad, coarse rails of the fence shone like bars of solid silver, while little fringes of icicles glittered between each bar. In the yard of yonder dwelling the scarlet berries of the mountain ash shine through a transparent casing of […]

[1865.] Here comes the First of January, Eighteen Hundred and Sixty-Five, and we are all settled comfortably into our winter places, with our winter surroundings and belongings; all cracks and openings are calked and listed, the double windows are in, the furnace dragon in the cellar is ruddy and in good liking, sending up his […]

“Well, what will you do with her?” said I to my wife. My wife had just come down from an interview with a pale, faded-looking young woman in rusty black attire, who had called upon me on the very common supposition that I was an editor of the “Atlantic Monthly.” By the by, this is […]

“What do you think of this Woman’s Rights question?” said Bob Stephens. “From some of your remarks, I apprehend that you think there is something in it. I may be wrong, but I must confess that I have looked with disgust on the whole movement. No man reverences women as I do; but I reverence […]

Our Chimney-Corner, of which we have spoken somewhat, has, besides the wonted domestic circle, its habitues who have a frequent seat there. Among these, none is more welcome than Theophilus Thoro. Friend Theophilus was born on the shady side of Nature, and endowed by his patron saint with every grace and gift which can make […]

“Papa, do you see what the ‘Evening Post’ says of your New Year’s article on Reconstruction?” said Jenny, as we were all sitting in the library after tea. “I have not seen it.” “Well, then, the charming writer, whoever he is, takes up for us girls and women, and maintains that no work of any […]

“The fact is, my dear,” said my wife, “that you have thrown a stone into a congregation of blackbirds, in writing as you have of our family wars and wants. The response comes from all parts of the country, and the task of looking over and answering your letters becomes increasingly formidable. Everybody has something […]

One of our recent writers has said, that “good health is physical religion;” and it is a saying worthy to be printed in golden letters. But good health being physical religion, it fully shares that indifference with which the human race regards things confessedly the most important. The neglect of the soul is the trite […]

“The fact is,” said Marianne, “we must have a party. Bob don’t like to hear of it, but it must come. We are in debt to everybody: we have been invited everywhere, and never had anything like a party since we were married, and it won’t do.” “For my part, I hate parties,” said Bob. […]

“One, two, three, four,–this makes the fifth accident on the Fourth of July, in the two papers I have just read,” said Jenny. “A very moderate allowance,” said Theophilus Thoro, “if you consider the Fourth as a great national saturnalia, in which every boy in the land has the privilege of doing whatever is right […]

The door of my study being open, I heard in the distant parlor a sort of flutter of silken wings, and chatter of bird-like voices, which told me that a covey of Jenny’s pretty young street birds had just alighted there. I could not forbear a peep at the rosy faces that glanced out under […]

The conversation on dress which I had held with Jenny and her little covey of Birds of Paradise appeared to have worked in the minds of the fair council, for it was not long before they invaded my study again in a body. They were going out to a party, but called for Jenny, and […]

“I am going to build a cathedral one of these days,” said I to my wife, as I sat looking at the slant line of light made by the afternoon sun on our picture of the Cathedral of Milan. “That picture is one of the most poetic things you have among your house ornaments,” said […]

When the first number of the Chimney-Corner appeared, the snow lay white on the ground, the buds on the trees were closed and frozen, and beneath the hard frost-bound soil lay buried the last year’s flower-roots, waiting for a resurrection. So in our hearts it was winter,–a winter of patient suffering and expectancy,–a winter of […]

“My dear, it’s so cheap!” These words were spoken by my wife, as she sat gracefully on a roll of Brussels carpet which was spread out in flowery lengths on the floor of Messrs. Ketchem & Co. “It’s so cheap!” Milton says that the love of fame is the last infirmity of noble minds. I […]

I am a frank-hearted man, as perhaps you have by this time perceived, and you will not, therefore, be surprised to know that I read my last article on the carpet to my wife and the girls before I sent it to the “Atlantic,” and we had a hearty laugh over it together. My wife […]

It is among the sibylline secrets which lie mysteriously between you and me, O reader, that these papers, besides their public aspect, have a private one proper to the bosom of mine own particular family. They are not merely an ex post facto protest in regard to that carpet and parlor of celebrated memory, but […]

Talking to you in this way once a month, O my confidential reader, there seems to be danger, as in all intervals of friendship, that we shall not readily be able to take up our strain of conversation just where we left off. Suffer me, therefore, to remind you that the month past left us […]