a
broad bottom. The baby-linen, &c. of Governor Bradford of Plymouth
colony. Old manuscript sermons, some written in shorthand, others in a
hand that seems learnt from print.

Nothing gives a stronger idea of old worm-eaten aristocracy--of a family
being crazy with age, and of its being time that it was extinct--than
these black, dusty, faded, antique-dressed portraits, such as those of
the Oliver family; the identical old white wig of an ancient minister
producing somewhat the impression that his very scalp, or some other
portion of his personal self, would do.

* * * * *

The excruciating agonies which Nature inflicts on men (who break her
laws) to be represented as the work of human tormentors; as the gout, by
screwing the toes. Thus we might find that worse than the tortures of
the Spanish Inquisition are daily suffered without exciting notice.

* * * * *

Suppose a married couple fondly attached to one another, and to think
that they lived solely for one another; then it to be found out that
they were divorced, or that they might separate if they chose. What
would be its effect?

_Monday, August 27th._--Went to Boston last Wednesday. Remarkables:--An
author at the American Stationers' Company, slapping his hand on his
manuscript, and crying, "I'm going to publish."--An excursion aboard a
steamboat to Thompson's Island, to visit the Manual Labor School for
boys. Aboard the steamboat several poets and various other authors; a
Commodore,--Colton, a small, dark brown, sickly man, with a good deal of
roughness in his address; Mr. Waterston, talking poetry and philosophy.
Examination and exhibition of the boys, little tanned agriculturists.
After examination, a stroll round the island, examining the products, as
wheat in sheaves on the stubble-field; oats, somewhat blighted and
spoiled; great pumpkins elsewhere; pastures; mowing ground;--all
cultivated by the boys. Their residence, a great brick building, painted
green, and standing on the summit of a rising ground, exposed to the
winds of the bay. Vessels flitting past; great ships, with intricacy of
rigging and various sails; schooners, sloops, with their one or two
broad sheets of canvas: going on different tacks, so that the spectator
might think that there was a different wind for each vessel, or that
they scudded across the sea spontaneously, whither their own wills led
them. The farm boys rema