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surprise them all. So, at one, I began my journey. I felt so grand and elated, as I found myself actually on the way, that I could not help laughing to myself. I went quite fast, because it was cool, and, slyly entering the avenue gate, burst upon the family, all unforeseen. They were duly astonished, and seemed glad to see me. . . . I have been reading Combe; I admire the book exceedingly, and feel very much inclined to believe in Phrenology. Just before five, the beauty of the scene outdoors so worked upon me that, unwilling as my body was, Ideality led me out. I went to my noble wood, where the shadows were overwhelmingly beautiful. At a corner of the road I found a cedar that had been felled, and I stopped and sung a requiem over it after this fashion, " It is a shame abominable — wicked!" I came home and read Combe, and manufactured a terrific headache; and just then Lydia came in, and her hurried manner so completed the discumgarigumfrigation of my wits that she said I looked perfectly crazy, and so I felt. She wanted me to come the next day and see old Mr. and Mrs. Howes; and at the appointed time we walked to their most picturesque and convenient cottage. They are two patriarchs, of unsullied simplicity and purity. We found them in the midst of exquisite neatness. The old man, originally tall, was now bowed and thin, obliged to walk with crutches, his venerable head nearly bald, only a few gray locks lying on his shoulders; his face was placid as an infant's. He was dressed in primitive style, — small

Hers

clothes and buckled shoes, with perfect nicety. But the old lady called upon my admiration, as well as respect and love. There was an ease, dignity, and graciousness in her air and manner that might become a queen. The majesty of spotless virtue gave it to her. Her large eyes were full and tender and bright, and her whole countenance had an open, beaming expression of benevolence and sweetness which melted my whole heart. They both and she especially were once remarkable for personal beauty. must have been captivating, since age and the smallpox have not obliterated it; but nothing could obliterate such a divine expression,- for what is it but the soul looking out of its prison-house? How my heart bows down before the virtuous old and the innocent young! There is a sympathy in the emotions. She is very lame, but there is nothing infirm or feeble in her appearance. Her strong and sweet spirit sits enthroned above decay. When we left them, I instinctively went to the old man and took his hand, feeling as if I had always known him; and he gently pressed it with a smile and a broken " Goodby, I hope ye'll get better." "God bless you!" was on my lips, but unuttered. I took her hand, and she cordially shook mine, and said with such grace and so affectionately that she hoped I should be benefited by the country, that I was in a confusion of the purest pleasure. I left them with a lesson learned that I shall not soon forget, a good lesson to be learned on my birthday.

In the evening we all went over to see the new Court House by moonlight. Just as we were near it, I called to Kate to tell her of a little circumstance about Dr. Boyle, when Sam said he was immediately behind us! My very heart stopped beating; and I felt at once all my wrongfulness, my want of thought and delicacy and consideration. All my happiness faded, and tears thronged to my eyes, remorse to my heart. But I believe Sam was mistaken, and that it was Judge Ware instead of Dr. Boyle. This comforted me only as it spared him. My trouble was the same. O Heaven! how hard it is to follow the straight and narrow way that leads to Life Eternal! I never can forget this warning.

... Sam Haven told us to-day about a Mr. Lovering, a most singular being. He thought it was of great importance to REFLECT, and so set about systematically to cultivate his reflection; and whenever the simplest question was proffered to him, he would immediately wrinkle his brow and screw up his eyes and shake his head, in the agony of exercising his whole powers of reflection.

I have written a long letter to Miss Loring this evening, with the moon all the while in my face. This is revelry!

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CHAPTER III.

BOYHOOD AND BACHELORHOOD.

A CERTAIN mystery invests the early life of Nathaniel Hawthorne. There is a difficulty in reconciling the outward calm and uneventfulness of his young manhood with the presence of those qualities which are known to have been in him. It is not his literary or imaginative qualities that are now referred to; he found sufficient outlet for them. But here was a young man, brimming over with physical health and strength; endowed (by nature, at all events) with a strong social instinct; with a mind daring, penetrating, and independent; possessing a face and figure of striking beauty and manly grace; gifted with a stubborn will, and prone, upon occasion, to outbursts of appalling wrath; - in a word, a man fitted in every way to win and use the world, to have his own way, to live throughout the full extent of his keen senses and great faculties;- and yet we find this young engine of all possibilities and energies content (so far as appears) to sit quietly down in a meditative solitude, and spend all those years when a man's blood runs warmest in his veins in musing over the theories and symbols of life, and

in writing cool and subtle little parables apposite to his meditations. Had he been a fanatic or an enthusiast; had he been snatched into the current of some narrow and overpowering preoccupation, whose interests filled each day, to the exclusion of all other thoughts and interests; had he been a meagre and pallid anatomy of overwrought brain and nerves,— such behavior would have been more intelligible. But he was many-sided, unimpulsive, clear-headed; he had the deliberation and leisureliness of a wellbalanced intellect; he was the slave of no theory and of no emotion; he always knew, so to speak, where he was and what he was about. His forefathers, whatever their less obvious qualities may have been, were at all events enterprising, active, practical men, stern and courageous, accustomed to deal with and control lawless and rugged characters; they were sea-captains, farmers, soldiers, magistrates; and, in whatever capacity, they were used to see their own will prevail, and to be answerable to no man. True, they were Puritans, and doubtless were more or less under dominion to the terrible Puritan conscience; but it is hardly reasonable to suppose that this was the only one of their traits which they bequeathed to their successor. On the contrary, one would incline to think that this legacy, in its transmission to a legatee of such enlightened and unprejudiced understanding, would have been relieved of its peculiarly virulent and tyrannical character, and become an object rather of intellectual or imaginative curiosity than of moral

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