He is a real chestnut. We are all wonderfully happy, and I can
conceive of no greater peace and content. Last Sunday afternoon we all
went to the Lake, and Una and I wove a laurel wreath, and Una crowned
her father. For mountain-laurel grows about us. We have now twelve
hens. Twice a day we all go and feed them. We go in single file. Mr.
Hawthorne called it to-day the procession of the equinoxes. The hens
have some of them been named: Snowdrop, Crown Imperial, Queenie, and
Fawn. Snowdrop is very handsome and white.
Mrs. Hawthorne's mother writes to her in this manner:--
June 8, 1850.
MY BELOVED,--Esther Sturgis brought me your letter yesterday. . . . I
hope you have time to enjoy this fine weather. I please myself with
imagining various enjoyments for you all in the peaceful scenes around
you, maugre the household cares that must fall to your lot. May the
spirit of inspiration drive all petty cares from your husband, and
fill his soul with thoughts that shall bear blessings to ages yet
unborn!' He must write--therefore you must court the love of the
humble, whose destiny it is to lighten the labors of the gifted ones
of the earth. I feel ashamed when I detect myself in thinking that a
kitchen-maid is lower in the scale of being than I am. What would the
learned and the gifted do if there was no humble one to make the bread
that supports life? Kiss your precious little ones, and tell them that
grandmamma thinks of them daily; that in spirit she joins in their
charming walks, in their search for flowers, in their admiration of
the woods, mountains, and fields, and in their holy inspirations while
gazing at the glories of the starlit heavens, or the rising or setting
sun.
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