November.
Mr. Hawthorne's speeches are never "reported," dear father, or I would
send them to you. They remain only in the ear of him who hears them,
happy man that he is.
Oh, these fogs! If you have read "Bleak House," you have read a
description of a London fog; but still you could scarcely have a true
image of it. Out of doors one feels hooded with fog, and cannot see
his own hand. It is just as if one should jump into a great bag of
cotton-wool,--not lamb's wool, for that is a little pervious. Our
fogs here are impervious. Mr. Ogden (the large-hearted western
gentleman whom Elizabeth knows) called at the Consulate upon Mr.
Hawthorne, and Mr. Hawthorne invited him to make us a visit. He is
overflowing with life, and seems to have the broad prairies in him. He
entertained me very much with an account of the Lord Mayor's dinner in
London, and other wonders he had seen. At the dinner he had a
peculiarly pleasant, clever, and amiable group immediately around him
of baronets. He told us about going with Miss Bacon to the old city of
Verulam to see Lord Bacon's estate and his tomb. They went into the
vault of the church where the family is buried, but they could not
prevail upon the beadle to open the brick sepulchre where Lord Bacon
himself is supposed to be interred. The ruins of the castle in which
Lord Bacon lived show that it was very rich and sumptuous; and the
very grove in which he used to walk and meditate and study stands
unmolested,--a grand old grove of stately trees planted by man, for
they are in regular rows.
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