JAMAICA PLAIN.

BY W. H. CHANNING.

“ Quando Lo raggio della grazia, onde s'accende

Verace amore, e che poi cresce amando, Multiplicato in te tanto risplende,

Che ti conduce su per quella scala,

U? senza risalir nessun discende,
Qual ti negasse 'l vin della sua fiàla

Per la tua sete, in libertà non fòra,
Se non com’acqua ch' al mar non si cala.”

DANTE

ss Weite Welt und breites Leben,

Langer Jahre redlich Streben,
Stets geforscht und stets gegründet,
Nie geschlossen, oft geründet,
Aeltestes bewahrt mit Treue,
Freundlich aufgefasstes Neue,
Heitern Sinn und reine Zwecke :
Nun! man kommt wohl eine Strecke.”

GOETHE.

“My purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down ;
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles.”

NYSON.

“Remember how august the heart is. It contains the temple not only of Love but of Conscience; and a whisper is heard from the extremity of one to the extremity of the other.”

LANDOR.

“If all the gentlest-hearted friends I knew

Concentred in one heart their gentleness,
That still grew gentler till its pulse was less
For life than pity, - I should yet be slow
To bring my own heart nakedly below
The palm of such a friend, that he should press
My false, ideal joy and fickle woe
Out to full light and knowledge.”

ELIZABETH BARRETT.

VI.

JAMAICA PLAIN.

I.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS.

It was while Margaret was residing at Jamaica Plain, in the summer of 1839, that we first really met as friends, though for several years previous we had been upon terms of kindest mutual regard. And, as the best way of showing how her wonderful character opened upon me, the growth of our acquaintance shall be briefly traced.

The earliest recollection of Margaret is as a schoolmate of my sisters, in Boston. At that period she was considered a prodigy of talent and accomplishment; but a sad feeling prevailed, that she had been overtasked by her father, who wished to train her like a boy, and that she was paying the penalty for undue application, in nearsightedness, awkward manners, extravagant tendencies of thought, and a pedantic style of talk, that made her a butt for the ridicule of frivolous companions. Some seasons later, I call to mind seeing, at the “Commencements” and “Exhibitions” of Harvard University, a girl, plain in appearance, but of dashing air, who