Possibly, if you do answer it, and direct it to Herman Melville, you
will missend it--for the very fingers that now guide this pen are not
precisely the same that just took it up and put it on this paper.
Lord, when shall we be done changing? Ah! it 's a long stage, and no
inn in sight, and night coming, and the body cold. But with you for a
passenger, I am content and can be happy. I shall leave the world, I
feel, with more satisfaction for having come to know you. Knowing you
persuades me more than the Bible of our immortality.
What a pity, that, for your plain, bluff letter, you should get such
gibberish! Mention me to Mrs. Hawthorne and to the children, and so,
good-by to you, with my blessing.
HERMAN.
P. S. I can't stop yet. If the world was entirely made up of Magians,
I'll tell you what I should do. I should have a paper-mill established
at one end of the house, and so have an endless riband of foolscap
rolling in upon my desk; and upon that endless riband I should write a
thousand--a million--billion thoughts, all under the form of a letter
to you. The divine magnet is on you, and my magnet responds. Which is
the biggest? A foolish question--they are One. H.
P. P. S. Don't think that by writing me a letter, you shall always be
bored with an immediate reply to it--and so keep both of us delving
over a writing-desk eternally. No such thing! I sha'n't always answer
your letters, and you may do just as you please.
Hawthorne is left alone for a few days, while his wife visits her
mother, which causes the following notes to be written:--
LENOX, August 8, 1851.
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