He undoubtedly had a large store of inherited experiences to draw
upon; he was richly endowed with these, and could sit and walk alone,
year after year (except for occasional warm reunions with friends of
the cleanest joviality), and feel the intercourse with the world, of
his ancestors, stirring in his veins. He tells us that this was
ghostly pastime; but it is an inheritance that makes a man well
equipped and self-sustained, for all that. When too late, the great
men about him realized that they had estimated his presence very
cheaply, considering his worth. Should he frequently have sought them
out, and asked if they were inclined to spare a chat to Hawthorne; or
should they have insisted upon strengthening their greatness from his
inimitably pure and unerring perception and his never weary
imagination? It is impossible to ignore the superiority of his
simplicity of truth over the often labored searchings for it of the
men and women he knew, whose very diction shows the straining after
effect, the desire to enchant themselves with their own minds, which
is the bane of intellect, or else the uneasy skip and jump of a wit
that dares not keep still. As time ripens, these things are more and
more apparent to all, as they were to him. In a manner similar to
Emerson's, who spoke of his regret for losing the chance of
associating fully with my father, Longfellow wrote to my mother:--
CAMBRIDGE, June 23, 1864.
DEAR MRS. HAWTHORNE,--I have long been wishing to write to you, to
thank you for your kind remembrance, in sending me the volume of
Goldsmith, but I have not had the heart to do it.
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