During the heavy easterly gales of winter seaweed and kelp are washed ashore in great quantities.  This is carted off by the farmers, who find it valuable as a fertilizer, and they are indebted to the sea for thousands of dollars’ worth of this product every year.  Nantasket in winter presents a gloomy contrast to its life and gayety in the summer.  The winds are cold and fierce.  The pretty cottages are deserted, and the sea moans with a sound betokening peril to the craft that ventures to tempt the waves.  The nearly buried timbers of old vessels that are seen in the sands are relics of disaster in years gone by.

But in the summer months, Nantasket must ever remain a sea-side paradise to those who know its attractions.

* * * * *

IDLENESS.

By Sidney Harrison.

  A flutter ’mid the branches, and my heart
    Leaps with the life in that full chirp that breathes;
  The brown, full-breasted sparrow with a dart
    Is at my feet amid the swaying wreaths
  Of grass and clover; trooping blackbirds come
    With haughty step; the oriole, wren and jay
    Revel amid the cool, green moss in play,
  Then off in clouds of music; while the drum
  Of scarlet-crested woodpecker from yon
  Old Druid-haunting oak sends toppling down
  A ruined memory of ages past;
  O life and death—­how blended to the last!

* * * * *

THE GRIMKE SISTERS.

THE FIRST AMERICAN WOMEN ADVOCATES OF ABOLITION AND WOMAN’S RIGHTS.

By George Lowell Austin.

This is an era of recollections.  The events of twenty and twenty-five years ago are being read and reconsidered anew with as much interest as though they were the fresh and important events of the present.  It was long claimed by those who believed that they thought and wrote with authority that not only was slavery the main cause of the civil war in America, but that the abolition of slavery was its chiefest object.  A more sober criticism of the motives and deeds of those who were the prime actors in that inglorious struggle has tended somewhat to alter this opinion.  It will, however, be again called to mind by a forthcoming biography,—­that of Sarah and Angelina Grimke, better known as “the Grimke Sisters.”  The task of preparing this biography was intrusted to Mrs. Catherine H. Birney, of Washington, who knew the sisters well, and who lived for several years under the same roof with them.

There need be no hesitation in saying this book is one of the most interesting and valuable contributions to the history of abolitionism ever published.  From first to last, during that momentous struggle, the phrase “the Grimke Sisters” was familiar to everybody, and the part which they enacted in the struggle was no less familiar.  Mr. Phillips often spoke of them in his public addresses; they were prominent members of the anti-slavery societies; they themselves frequently appeared before large audiences on public platforms.  Indeed, no history of the great moral cause would be complete that was not, in large part, made up of their noble deeds; and no less valiantly did they contend for Woman’s Rights.