Page:The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18.djvu/545

1866.] which shall be considered by most people as worthless lumber.

An examination of wits and poets at a police court, and they to be sentenced by the judge to various penalties or fines,—the house of correction, whipping, etc.,—according to the moral offences of which they are guilty.

A volume bound in cowhide. It should treat of breeding cattle, or some other coarse subject.

A young girl inhabits a family graveyard, that being all that remains of rich hereditary possessions.

An interview between General Charles Lee, of the Revolution, and his sister, the foundress and mother of the sect of Shakers.

For a sketch for a child:—the life of a city dove, or perhaps of a flock of doves, flying about the streets, and sometimes alighting on church steeples, on the eaves of lofty houses, etc.

The greater picturesqueness and reality of back courts, and everything appertaining to the rear of a house, as compared with the front, which is fitted up for the public eye. There is much to be learned always, by getting a glimpse at rears. Where the direction of a road has been altered, so as to pass the rear of farm-houses instead of the front, a very noticeable aspect is presented.

A sketch:—the devouring of old country residences by the overgrown monster of a city. For instance, Mr. Beekman's ancestral residence was originally several miles from the city of New York; but the pavements kept creeping nearer and nearer, till now the house is removed, and a street runs directly through what was once its hall.

An essay on various kinds of death, together with the just before and just after.

The majesty of death to be exemplified in a beggar, who, after being seen, humble and cringing, in the streets of a city for many years, at length, by some means or other, gets admittance into a rich man's mansion, and there dies, assuming state and striking awe into the breasts of those who had looked down on him.

To write a dream, which shall resemble the real course of a dream, with all its inconsistency, its strange transformations, which are all taken as a matter of course, its eccentricities and aimlessness, with nevertheless a leading idea running through the whole. Up to this old age of the world, no such thing ever has been written.

To allegorize life with a masquerade, and represent mankind generally as masquers. Here and there a natural face may appear.

With an emblematical divining-rod, to seek for emblematic gold,—that is, for truth,—for what of Heaven is left on earth.

A task for a subjugated fiend:—to gather up all the fallen autumnal leaves of a forest, assort them, and affix each one to the twig where it originally grew.

A vision of Grub Street, forming an allegory of the literary world.

The emerging from their lurking-places of evil characters on some occasion suited to their action, they having been quite unknown to the world hitherto. For instance, the French Revolution brought out such wretches.

The advantage of a longer life than is now allotted to mortals,—the many things that might then be accomplished, to which one lifetime is inadequate, and for which the time spent seems therefore lost, a successor being unable to take up the task where we drop it.

George I. had promised the Duchess