rtfolio which would be not
unacceptable in the new magazine. I looked at the poor old receptacle,
which, partly from use and partly from neglect, had lost its freshness,
and seemed hardly presentable to the new company expected to welcome
the new-comer in the literary world of Boston, the least provincial of
American centres of learning and letters. The gilded covering where
the emblems of hope and aspiration had looked so bright had faded; not
wholly, perhaps, but how was the gold become dim!---how was the most
fine gold changed! Long devotion to other pursuits had left little time
for literature, and the waifs and strays gathered from the old Portfolio
had done little more than keep alive the memory that such a source of
supply was still in existence. I looked at the old Portfolio, and said
to myself, "Too late! too late. This tarnished gold will never brighten,
these battered covers will stand no more wear and tear; close them, and
leave them to the spider and the book-worm."

In the mean time the nebula of the first quarter of the century had
condensed into the constellation of the middle of the same period.
When, a little while after the establishment of the new magazine, the
"Saturday Club" gathered about the long table at "Parker's," such a
representation of all that was best in American literature had never
been collected within so small a compass. Most of the Americans whom
educated foreigners cared to see-leaving out of consideration
official dignitaries, whose temporary importance makes them objects of
curiosity--were seated at that board. But the club did not yet exist,
and the "Atlantic Monthly" was an experiment. There had already been
several monthly periodicals, more or less successful and permanent,
among which "Putnam's Magazine" was conspicuous, owing its success
largely to the contributions of that very accomplished and delightful
writer, Mr. George William Curtis. That magazine, after a somewhat
prolonged and very honorable existence, had gone where all periodicals
go when they die, into the archives of the deaf, dumb, and blind
recording angel whose name is Oblivion. It had so well deserved to live
that its death was a surprise and a source of regret. Could another
monthly take its place and keep it when that, with all its attractions
and excellences, had died out, and left a blank in our periodical
literature which it would be very hard to fill as well as that had
filled it?

This was the experi