Under his library table, too, was a little box,
furnished with a jig-saw, lathe, etc. It ran in
and out on grooves, like a car on a railway.
He showed it one day with triumph.
" I contrived that I " he said. " But only

[53]



Bits of Gossip

my friends know about it People think I
am shut in here, hard at work, writing poetry
or lectures. And I am making jim-cracks.
But if any of the dunces make their way in,
I give it a shove — so! Away it goes under
the table and I am discovered — Poet or
Professor, in character — pen in hand!" and
he chuckled like a naughty boy over his
successful trick.
Holmes, Longfellow, Emerson, and George
Ticknor, all chiefs of differing literary clans,
formed a fraternity then in New England
which never since has found its parallel in
America.
There can be no doubt that their success
as individuals or as a body in influencing
American thought was largely due to their
friend and neighbor, James T. Fields, the
shrewdest of publishers and kindest of men.
He was the wire that conducted the light-
ning so that it never struck amiss.
His little house in Charles Street, with the
pretty garden sloping to the river, was then
the shelter to which hied all wandering men
of letters, from Thackeray and Dickens down

[54]



Boston in the Sixties

to starving poets from the western prai-
ries.
