The 'cat prefers the rain to me'

TIME Magazine cover from March 2, 1925 featuring Amy Lowell.

The vine leaves against the brick walls of my house,
Are rusty and broken.
Dead leaves gather under the pine-trees,
The brittle boughs of lilac-bushes
Sweep against the stars.
And I sit under a lamp
Trying to write down the emptiness of my heart.
Even the cat will not stay with me,
But prefers the rain
Under the meagre shelter of a cellar window.

— “November,’’ by Amy Lowell (1874-1925), very eccentric, cigar-smoking Boston-based Imagist poet

To read how she helped save The Boston Athenaeum, please hit this link. (The article contains the error that she died in 1920.)

The formidable Boston Athenaeum

'Bostonistis'

Seal of the Boston Athenaeum, one of the centers of the city’s high culture, and, some might say, its intellectual snobbery

"No doubt the Bostonian has always been noted for a certain chronic irritability _ a sort of Bostonistis — which, in its primitive puritan form, seemed due to knowing too much of his neighbors, and thinking too much of himself.''

— Henry Adams (1838-1918), writer, historian and member of the storied Massachusetts dynasty that started with American Founding Father John Adams

An old library's 'creature comfort'

Inside the Boston Athenaeum.

"The high-ceilinged rooms, the little balconies, alcoves, nooks and angles all suggest sanctuary, escape, creature comfort. The reader, the scholar, the browser, the borrower is king.''

-- David McCord, about the Boston Athenaeum

'New England on paper'

"A Playful Sea II '' (monotype) by Elizabeth A. Goddard, at the show "New England on Paper,'' at the Boston Athenaeum.

The exhibition displays contemporary prints, drawings and photographs by New England artists. The Athenaeum (a private library) says that the works -- drawings, watercolors, linocuts, lithographs, hand-toned silver gelatin prints, digital photographs, and more— "reflect artistic interpretations of New England’s built and natural environment.''