When Mr. Hawthorne came home the next
evening, he brought me a superb bouquet of flowers, which he said was
a parting gift to me from Mr. Ogden, who actually followed him to the
boat with them. They are a bright and fragrant memory of that
agreeable and excellent gentleman.
From the "Westminster Review" which lies on the table I will extract
for you one passage: "Few have observed mankind closely enough to be
able to trace through all its windings the tortuous course of a man
who, having made one false step, finds himself thereby compelled to
leave the path of truth and uprightness, and seldom regains it. We
can, however, refer to at least one living author who has done so; and
in 'The Scarlet Letter' by Hawthorne, the greatest of American
novelists, Mr. [Wilkie] Collins might see the mode in which the moral
lesson from examples of error and crime ought to be drawn. There is a
tale of sin, and its inevitable consequences, from which the most pure
need not turn away." In another paper in the same number the reviewer
speaks of some one who "writes with the pure poetry of Nathaniel
Hawthorne." As I have entered upon the subject of glorification, I
will continue a little. From London an American traveler writes to
Mr. Hawthorne: "A great day I spent with Sir William Hamilton, and two
blessed evenings with De Quincey and his daughters. In De Quincey's
house yours is the only portrait. They spoke of you with the greatest
enthusiasm, and I was loved for even having seen you.
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