Next him followed Mr. Hawthorne who, wrapped in his cloak,
moved like a self-impelled Greek statue, stately and grave. Mr.
Emerson closed the line, evidently too weary to hold himself erect,
pitching headforemost, half lying on the air. He came in to rest
himself, and said to me that Hawthorne was a tiger, a bear, a
lion,--in short, a satyr, and there was no tiring him out; and he
might be the death of a man like himself. And then, turning upon me
that kindling smile for which he is so memorable, he added, "Mr.
Hawthorne is such an Ajax, who can cope with him!"
After the first snowstorm, before it was so deep, we walked in the
woods, very beautiful in winter, and found slides in Sleepy Hollow,
where we became children, and enjoyed ourselves as of old,--only more,
a great deal. Sometimes it is before breakfast that Mr. Hawthorne goes
to skate upon the meadow. Yesterday, before he went out, he said it
was very cloudy and gloomy, and he thought it would storm. In half an
hour, oh, wonder! what a scene! Instead of black sky, the rising sun,
not yet above the hill, had changed the firmament into a vast rose! On
every side, east, west, north, and south,--every point blushed roses.
I ran to the Study, and the meadow sea also was a rose, the reflection
of that above. And there was my husband, careering about, glorified by
the light. Such is Paradise.
In the evening we are gathered together beneath our luminous star, in
the Study, for we have a large hanging astral lamp, which beautifully
illumines the room, with its walls of pale yellow paper, its Holy
Mother over the fireplace, and pleasant books, and its pretty bronze
vase, on one of the secretaries, filled with ferns.
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