the rate at which it grew. For five or six years the rate was
slow, - then rapid for twenty years. A little before the year 1550

it began to grow very slowly, and so continued for about seventy
years. In 1620 it took a new start and grew fast until 1714 then

for the most part slowly until 1786, when it started again and grew
pretty well and uniformly until within the last dozen years, when

it seems to have got on sluggishly.
Look here. Here are some human lives laid down against the periods

of its growth, to which they corresponded. This is Shakspeare's.
The tree was seven inches in diameter when he was born; ten inches

when he died. A little less than ten inches when Milton was born;
seventeen when he died. Then comes a long interval, and this

thread marks out Johnson's life, during which the tree increased
from twenty-two to twenty-nine inches in diameter. Here is the

span of Napoleon's career; - the tree doesn't seem to have minded
it.

I never saw the man yet who was not startled at looking on this
section. I have seen many wooden preachers, - never one like this.

How much more striking would be the calendar counted on the rings
of one of those awful trees which were standing when Christ was on

earth, and where that brief mortal life is chronicled with the
stolid apathy of vegetable being, which remembers all human history

as a thing of yesterday in its own dateless existence!
I have something more to say about elms. A relative tells me there

is one of great glory in Andover, near Bradford. I have some
recollections of the former place, pleasant and other. [I wonder

if the old Seminary clock strikes as slowly as it used to. My
room-mate thought, when he first came, it was the bell tolling

deaths, and people's ages, as they do in the country. He swore -
(ministers' sons get so familiar with good words that they are apt

to handle them carelessly) - that the children were dying by the
dozen, of all ages, from one to twelve, and ran off next day in

recess, when it began to strike eleven, but was caught before the
clock got through striking.] At the foot of "the hill," down in

town, is, or was, a tidy old elm, which was said to have been
hooped with iron to protect it from Indian tomahawks, (CREDAT

HAHNEMANNUS,) and to have grown round its hoops and buried them in
its wood. Of course, this is not the tree my relative means.

Also, I have a very pretty letter from Norwich, in Connecticut,
telling me of two noble elms which are to be seen in that town.

One hundred and twenty-seven feet from bough-end to bough-end!
What do you say to that? And gentle ladies beneath it, that love

it and celebrate its praises! And that in a town of such supreme,
audacious, Alpine loveliness as Norwich! - Only the dear people

there must learn to call it Norridge, and not be misled by the mere
accident of spelling.

NorWICH.
PorCHmouth.

CincinnatAH.
What a sad picture of our civilization!

I did not speak to you of the great tree on what used to be the
Colman farm, in Deerfield, simply because I had not seen it for

many years, and did not like to trust my recollection. But I had
it in memory, and even noted down, as one of the finest trees in

symmetry and beauty I had ever seen. I have received a document,
signed by two citizens of a neighboring town, certified by the

postmaster and a selectman, and these again corroborated,
reinforced, and sworn to by a member of that extraordinary college-

class to which it is the good fortune of my friend the Professor to
belong, who, though he has FORMERLY been a member of Congress, is,

I believe, fully worthy of confidence. The tree "girts" eighteen
and a half feet, and spreads over a hundred, and is a real beauty.

I hope to meet my friend under its branches yet; if we don't have
"youth at the prow," we will have "pleasure at the 'elm."

And just now, again, I have got a letter about some grand willows
in Maine, and another about an elm in Wayland, but too late for

anything but thanks.
[And this leads me to say, that I have received a great many

communications, in prose and verse since I began printing these
notes. The last came this very morning, in the shape of a neat and

brief poem, from New Orleans. I could not make any of them public,
though sometimes requested to do so. Some of them have given me

great pleasure, and encouraged me to believe I had friends whose
faces I had never seen. If you are pleased with anything a writer

says, and doubt whether to tell him of it, do not hesitate; a
pleasant word is a cordial to one, who perhaps thinks he is tiring

you, and so becomes tired himself. I purr very loud over a good,
honest letter that says pretty things to me.]

- Sometimes very young persons send communications which they want
forwarded to editors; and these young persons do not always seem to

have right conceptions of these same editors, and of the public,
and of themselves. Here is a letter I wrote to one of these young

folks, but, on the whole, thought it best not to send. It is not
fair to single out one for such sharp advice, where there are

hundreds that are in need of it.
DEAR SIR, - You seem to be somewhat, but not a great deal, wiser

than I was at your age. I don't wish to be understood as saying
too much, for I think, without committing myself to any opinion on

my present state, that I was not a Solomon at that stage of
development.

You long to "leap at a single bound into celebrity." Nothing is so
common-place as to wish to be remarkable. Fame usually comes to

those who are thinking about something else, - very rarely to those
who say to themselves, "Go to, now, let us be a celebrated

individual!" The struggle for fame, as such, commonly ends in
notoriety; - that ladder is easy to climb, but it leads to the

pillory which is crowded with fools who could not hold their
tongues and rogues who could not hide their tricks.

If you have the consciousness of genius, do something to show it.
The world is pretty quick, nowadays, to catch the flavor of true

originality; if you write anything remarkable, the magazines and
newspapers will find you out, as the school-boys find out where the

ripe apples and pears are. Produce anything really good, and an
intelligent editor will jump at it. Don't flatter yourself that

any article of yours is rejected because you are unknown to fame.
Nothing pleases an editor more than to get anything worth having

from a new hand. There is always a dearth of really fine articles
for a first-rate journal; for, of a hundred pieces received, ninety

are at or below the sea-level; some have water enough, but no head;
some head enough, but no water; only two or three are from full

reservoirs, high up that hill which is so hard to climb.
You may have genius. The contrary is of course probable, but it is

not demonstrated. If you have, the world wants you more than you
want it. It has not only a desire, but a passion, for every spark

of genius that shows itself among us; there is not a bull-calf in
our national pasture that can bleat a rhyme but it is ten to one,

among his friends, and no takers, that he is the real, genuine, no-
mistake Osiris.

QU'EST CE QU'IL A FAIT? What has he done? That was Napoleon's
test. What have you done? Turn up the faces of your picture-

cards, my boy! You need not make mouths at the public because it
has not accepted you at your own fancy-valuation. Do the prettiest

thing you can and wait your time.
For the verses you send me, I will not say they are hopeless, and I

dare not affirm that they show promise. I am not an editor, but I
know the standard of some editors. You must not expect to "leap