Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. III.djvu/418

Rh charms nor endowments of soul, and yet who grow old unmarried. I have heard many of these wish for themselves a wider sphere of activity, the opportunity for leading a more cheerful and more generally useful life. The old lament over the stagnation and the heaviness of life, which I heard in Europe, is repeated here also. It ought not to be so in the young New World.

I spent an extremely agreeable day with Miss Sedgewick, and one evening with Hawthorne, in an endeavour in converse. But whether it was his fault or mine, I cannot say, it did not succeed. I had to talk by myself, and at length became quite dejected, and felt I know not how. Nevertheless, Hawthorne was evidently kind, and wished to make me comfortable—but we could not get on together in conversation. It was, however, a pleasure to me to see his beautiful, significant, though not perfectly harmonious head. The forehead is capacious and serene as the arch of heaven, and a thick mass of soft, dark-brown hair beautifully clusters around it; the fine deep-set eyes glance from beneath well arched eyebrows, like the dark but clear lakes of the neighbourhood lying in the sombre bosom of mountain and forest; the nose is refined and regular in form; the smile, like that of the sun smiling over the summer woods; nevertheless, it has a bitter expression. The whole upper portion of the countenance is classically beautiful, but the lower does not perfectly correspond, and is deficient in decided character.

Immediately in front of Hawthorne's house, lies one of those small clear lakes with its sombre margin of forest, which characterise this district, and Hawthorne seems greatly to enjoy the view of it, and the wildly wooded country. His amiable wife is inexpressibly happy to see him so happy here. A smile, a word from him conveys more to her than long speeches from other people. She reads his very soul, and—“he is the best of husbands.”