There are some
things that one cannot say; and I hardly need tell you how much I
value your gift, and how often I shall look at the familiar name on
the blank leaf--a name which, more than any other, links me to my
youth.
I have written a few lines trying to express the impressions of May
23, and I venture to send you a copy of them. I had rather no one
should see them but yourself; as I have also sent them to Mr. Fields
for the "Atlantic." I feel how imperfect and inadequate they are; but
I trust you will pardon their deficiencies for the love I bear his
memory. More than ever I now regret that I postponed from day to day
coming to see you in Concord, and that at last I should have seen your
house only on the outside! With deepest sympathy, Yours truly,
HENRY W. LONGFELLOW.
To go back to our Concord amusements. Mr. Bright caroled out a
greeting not very long after our return:--
WEST DERBY, September 8, 1860.
MY DEAR MR. HAWTHORNE,--Of course not!--I knew you 'd never write to
me, though you declared you would. Probably by this time you've
forgotten us all, and sent us off into mistland with Miriam and
Donatello; possibly all England looks by this time nothing but
mistland, and you believe only in Concord and its white houses, and
the asters on the hill behind your house, and the pumpkins in the
valley below. Well, at any rate I have not forgotten you or yours; and
I feel that, now you have left us, a pleasure has slipped out of our
grasp.
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