"
III. HAWTHORNE.
I am sitting to-day opposite the likeness of the rarest genius America
has given to literature,--a man who lately sojourned in this busy world
of ours, but during many years of his life
"Wandered lonely as a cloud,"--
a man who had, so to speak, a physical affinity with solitude. The
writings of this author have never soiled the public mind with one
unlovely image. His men and women have a magic of their own, and we
shall wait a long time before another arises among us to take his place.
Indeed, it seems probable no one will ever walk precisely the same round
of fiction which he traversed with so free and firm a step.
The portrait I am looking at was made by Rowse (an exquisite drawing),
and is a very truthful representation of the head of Nathaniel
Hawthorne. He was several times painted and photographed, but it was
impossible for art to give the light and beauty of his wonderful eyes. I
remember to have heard, in the literary circles of Great Britain, that,
since Burns, no author had appeared there with a finer face than
Hawthorne's. Old Mrs. Basil Montagu told me, many years ago, that she
sat next to Burns at dinner, when he appeared in society in the first
flush of his fame, after the Edinburgh edition of his poems had been
published.
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