bearer strikes us as a too transparent device. Yet there are such names
in contemporary real life. That of our worthy Adjutant-General Drum
may be instanced. Neal and Pray are a pair of deacons who linger in the
memory of my boyhood. Sweet the confectioner and Lamb the butcher are
individuals with whom I have had dealings. The old-time sign of Ketchum
& Cheetam, Brokers, in Wall Street, New York, seems almost too good to
be true. But it was once, if it is not now, an actuality.

I HAVE observed that whenever a Boston author dies, New York immediately
becomes a great literary centre.

THE possession of unlimited power will make a despot of almost any man.
There is a possible Nero in the gentlest human creature that walks.

EVERY living author has a projection of himself, a sort of eidolon, that
goes about in near and remote places making friends or enemies for him
among persons who never lay eyes upon the writer in the flesh. When he
dies, this phantasmal personality fades away, and the author lives only
in the impression created by his own literature. It is only then that
the world begins to perceive what manner of man the poet, the novelist,
or the historian really was. Not until he is dead, and perhaps some long
time dead, is it possible for the public to take his exact measure.
Up to that point contemporary criticism has either overrated him or
underrated him, or ignored him altogether, having been misled by the
eidolon, which always plays fantastic tricks with the writer temporarily
under its dominion. It invariably represents him as either a greater or
a smaller personage than he actually is. Presently the simulacrum
works no more spells, good or evil, and the deception is unveiled. The
hitherto disregarded author is recognized, and the idol of yesterday,
which seemed so important, is taken down from his too large pedestal and