Procter (father of Adelaide
Procter):--
32 WEYMOUTH STREET, Tuesday morning.
DEAR MR. HAWTHORNE,--It seems almost like an idle ceremony to ask you
and Mrs. Hawthorne to dine here on Friday; but I cannot help it. I
have only just returned from a circuit in the country, and heard this
morning that you were likely to leave London in a few days. Yours
always sincerely,
B. W. PROCTER.
It was desirable to meet such people as Mr. Procter, and I have heard
enthusiastic descriptions, with which later my mother amused our quiet
days in Concord, of the intellectual pleasures that such friendships
brought, and of the sounding titles and their magnificent accessories,
with human beings involved, against whom my parents were now sometimes
thrust by the rapid tide of celebrity. But my father was never to be
found in the track of admiring social gatherings except by the deepest
scheming. In her first English letters my mother had written: "It is
said that there is nothing in Liverpool but dinners. Alas for it!"
The buzz of greeting was constant. It must have been delightful in
certain respects. She sent home one odd letter as a specimen of
hundreds of similar ones which came to my father from admirers. Yet
very soon individuals make a crowd, and the person who attracts their
attention is more nearly suffocated than the rest quite realize. His
attempts at self-preservation are not more than half understood, and,
if successful, are remembered with a dash of bitterness by the
onlookers.
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