In the mean time the nebula of the first quarter of the century had condensed into the constellation of the middle of the same period.  When, a little while after the establishment of the new magazine, the “Saturday Club” gathered about the long table at “Parker’s,” such a representation of all that was best in American literature had never been collected within so small a compass.  Most of the Americans whom educated foreigners cared to see-leaving out of consideration official dignitaries, whose temporary importance makes them objects of curiosity—­were seated at that board.  But the club did not yet exist, and the “Atlantic Monthly” was an experiment.  There had already been several monthly periodicals, more or less successful and permanent, among which “Putnam’s Magazine” was conspicuous, owing its success largely to the contributions of that very accomplished and delightful writer, Mr. George William Curtis.  That magazine, after a somewhat prolonged and very honorable existence, had gone where all periodicals go when they die, into the archives of the deaf, dumb, and blind recording angel whose name is Oblivion.  It had so well deserved to live that its death was a surprise and a source of regret.  Could another monthly take its place and keep it when that, with all its attractions and excellences, had died out, and left a blank in our periodical literature which it would be very hard to fill as well as that had filled it?

This was the experiment which the enterprising publishers ventured upon, and I, who felt myself outside of the charmed circle drawn around the scholars and poets of Cambridge and Concord, having given myself to other studies and duties, wondered somewhat when Mr. Lowell insisted upon my becoming a contributor.  And so, yielding to a pressure which I could not understand, and yet found myself unable to resist, I promised to take a part in the new venture, as an occasional writer in the columns of the new magazine.

That was the way in which the second Portfolio found its way to my table, and was there opened in the autumn of the year 1857.  I was already at least

     ‘Nel mezzo del cammin di mia, vita,’

when I risked myself, with many misgivings, in little-tried paths of what looked at first like a wilderness, a selva oscura, where, if I did not meet the lion or the wolf, I should be sure to find the critic, the most dangerous of the carnivores, waiting to welcome me after his own fashion.

The second Portfolio is closed and laid away.  Perhaps it was hardly worth while to provide and open a new one; but here it lies before me, and I hope I may find something between its covers which will justify me in coming once more before my old friends.  But before I open it I want to claim a little further indulgence.

There is a subject of profound interest to almost every writer, I might say to almost every human being.  No matter what his culture or ignorance, no matter what his pursuit, no matter what his character, the subject I refer to is one of which he rarely ceases to think, and, if opportunity is offered, to talk.  On this he is eloquent, if on nothing else.  The slow of speech becomes fluent; the torpid listener becomes electric with vivacity, and alive all over with interest.