homas Bailey Aldrich, and the other two
distinguished by the residence of William Ellery Channing and Margaret
Deland. Pinckney Street runs parallel with Mount Vernon, and the small,
narrow house at number 20 was one of the homes of the Alcott family. It
seems delightfully fitting that Louisburg Square--that very exclusive
and very English spot which probably retains more of the quaint
atmosphere and customs of an aristocratic past than any other single
area in the city--should have been the home of the well-beloved William
Dean Howells. One also likes to recall that Jenny Lind was married at
number 20. Chestnut Street--which after a period of social obscurity is
again coming into its own--possesses Julia Ward Howe's house at number
13, that of Motley the historian at 16, and of Parkman at 50. In this
hasty map we have gone up and down the hill, but the cross-street,
Charles, although not so attractive, is nevertheless as rich in literary
associations as any in Boston. Here lived, for a short time, at 164,
Oliver Wendell Holmes, and at 131--also for a short time--Thomas Bailey
Aldrich. It is, however, at 148, that we should longest pause. This, for
many rich years, was the home of James T. Fields, that delightful man of
letters who was the friend of many men of letters; he who entertained
Dickens and Thackeray, and practically every foreign writer of note who
visited this country; he who encouraged Hawthorne to the completion of
the "Scarlet Letter," and he, who, as an appreciative critic, publisher,
and editor, probably did more to elevate, inspire, and sustain the
general literary tone of the city than any other single person. In these
stirring days facile American genius springs up, like brush fires, from
coast to coast. Novels pour in from the West, the Middle West, the
South. To superficial outsiders it may seem as if Boston might be
hard-pressed to keep her laurels green, but Boston herself has no
fears. Her present may not shine with so unique a brilliance as her
past, but her past gains in luster with each succeeding year. Nothing
can ever take from Boston her high literary prestige.

While we are still on Beacon Hill we can look out, not only upon the
past, but upon the future. Those white domes and pillars gleaming like
Greek temples across the blue Charles, are the new buildings of the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and surely Greek temples were
never lovelier, nor dedicated to more earnest pursuit of