The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 94, August, 1865

The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 94, August, 1865 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics

AMONG THE HONEY-MAKERS. COUNTESS LAURA. STRATEGY AT THE FIRESIDE. AROUND MULL. JOHN BRIGHT AND THE ENGLISH RADICALS. NEEDLE AND GARDEN. THE WILLOW. MY SECOND CAPTURE. DOCTOR JOHNS. LETTER TO A SILENT FRIEND. THE CHIMNEY-CORNER. PEACE. RECONSTRUCTION AND NEGRO SUFFRAGE. REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES. RECENT AMERICAN PUBLICATIONS. The luxury of all summer's sweet sensation is to be found when one lies at length in the warm, fragrant grass, soaked with sunshine, aware of regions of blossoming clover and of a high heaven filled with the hum of innumerous bees. It is that happy humwhich seems to the closed eyes as if the silent sunbeams themselves had found a voice and were brimming the bending blue with music as they went about their busy chemistrythat gives the chief charm to the moment; for it tunes the mind to its own key, the murmuring expression of all pleasant things, the chord of sunshine and perfume and flowers. And it is, indeed, the sound of a process scarcely less subtile than the sunbeams' own, of that alchemy by which the limpid drop of sweet insipidity at the root of any petal is transformed to the pungent flavor and viscid drip of honey. A beautiful woman, weary of her frivolities, once half in jest envied the fate of Io, dwelling all day in the sun, all night in the starshine and dew, and fed on pasturage of violets; but there is the morning beam, the evening ray, the breeze, the dew, the spirit of the violet and of the cowslip, all gathered like a distillation and sealed into the combs, and this is the tune to which it is harvested. Beyond doubt there is no such eminent sound of gladness in all the world. The cricket seems to speak of more spiritual things than those of this sphere. As to bird-song, poets differ. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 32232
Author: Various
Release Date: May 3, 2010
Format: eBook
Language: English