It made me shiver and contract to
look at them,--so haggard, so without hope or faith, or any sign of
humanity. . . . Mr. Hawthorne had a letter from Kossuth to-day.
August 26.
MY DEAR FATHER,--I am just as stupid as an owl at noonday, but it is a
shame that a steamer should go without a letter from me to you, and it
shall not. Mr. Hawthorne wishes to escape from too constant
invitations to dinner in Liverpool, and by living in Rockferry will
always have a good excuse for refusing when there is really no reason
or rhyme in accepting, for the last steamer leaves Liverpool at ten in
the evening; and I shall have a fair cause for keeping out of all
company which I do not very much covet. I have no particular fancy for
Liverpool society, except the Rathbones' and Brights'.
Mr. Hawthorne was obliged the other day to bury an American captain
who died at his boarding-house. He paid for the funeral out of his
private purse, though I believe he expects some brother captains will
subscribe a part of the amount. Mr. Hawthorne was the whole funeral,
and in one of those plumed carriages he followed the friendless
captain. The children are delighted with the aspect of things, and
with the house, which they think very stately and elegant. I have been
racing round the lawn and shrubberies with them. The flowers rejoice.
The scarlet geraniums, the crimson and rose-colored fuchsias, the deep
garnet carnations, the roses, and the enormous variously colored
pansies (pensees) look radiantly in the sun.
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