* * *

A modern magician to make the semblance of a human being, with two laths
for legs, a pumpkin for a head, etc., of the rudest and most meagre
materials. Then a tailor helps him to finish his work, and transforms
this scarecrow into quite a fashionable figure. At the end of the story,
after deceiving the world for a long time, the spell should be broken,
and the gray dandy be discovered to be nothing but a suit of clothes,
with a few sticks inside of them. All through his seeming existence as a
human being there shall be some characteristics, some tokens, that to
the man of close observation and insight betray him to be a thing of
mere talk and clothes, without heart, soul, or intellect. And so this
wretched old creature shall become the symbol of a large class.

* * * * *

The golden sands that may sometimes be gathered (always, perhaps, if we
know how to seek for them) along the dry bed of a torrent adown which
passion and feeling have foamed, and passed away. It is good, therefore,
in mature life, to trace back such torrents to their source.

* * * * *

The same children who make the little snow image shall plant dry sticks,
etc., and they shall take root and grow in mortal flowers, etc.

* * * * *

_Monday, September 17._--Set out on a journey to Temple, N.H., with E.F.
M----, to visit his father. Started by way of Boston, in the half past
ten train, and took the Lowell and Nashua Railroad at twelve, as far as
Danforth's Corner, about fifty miles, and thence in stage-coach to
Milford, four miles farther, and in a light wagon to Temple, perhaps
twelve miles farther. During the latter drive, the road gradually
ascended, with tracts of forest land alongside, and latterly a brook,
which we followed for several miles, and finally found it flowing
through General M----'s farm. The house is an old country dwelling, in
good condition, standing beside the road, in a valley surrounded by a
wide amphitheatre of high hills. There is a good deal of copse and
forest on the estate, high hills of pasture land, old, cultivated
fields, and all such pleasant matters. The General sat in an easy-chair
in the common room of the family, looking better than when in Salem,
with an air of quiet, vegetative enjoyment about him, scarcely alive to
outward objects. He did his best to express a hospitable pleasure at
seeing me; b