Cambridge Neighbors (from Literary Friends and Acquaintance‪)‬

Being the wholly literary spirit I was when I went to make my home in

Cambridge, I do not see how I could well have been more content if I had

found myself in the Elysian Fields with an agreeable eternity before me.

At twenty-nine, indeed, one is practically immortal, and at that age,

time had for me the effect of an eternity in which I had nothing to do

but to read books and dream of writing them, in the overflow of endless

hours from my work with the manuscripts, critical notices, and proofs of

the Atlantic Monthly.