A Mortal Antipathy

In the year 1857, towards its close, the "Atlantic Monthly," which I had the honor of naming, was started by the enterprising firm of Phillips & Sampson, under the editorship of Mr. James Russell Lowell. He thought that I might bring something out of my old Portfolio which would be not unacceptable in the new magazine. I looked at the poor old receptacle, which, partly from use and partly from neglect, had lost its freshness, and seemed hardly presentable to the new company expected to welcome the new-comer in the literary world of Boston, the least provincial of American centres of learning and letters. The gilded covering where the emblems of hope and aspiration had looked so bright had faded; not wholly, perhaps, but how was the gold become dim!---how was the most fine gold changed! Long devotion to other pursuits had left little time for literature, and the waifs and strays gathered from the old Por