The daily morning journal and courier., 1894-08-07
A Talk With Hawthorne.

In the face that confronted me there
 was nothing of keen alertness, but only
 a sort of quiet. patient intelligence. for
 which seek the right word in vain.
 It was very regular face. with beau
 tiful eyes; the moustache, still entire
 ly dark, was dense over the fine mouth
 Hawthorne was dressed in black and
 he had certain effect which I remem-
 Der, of seeming to have on a black
 cravat with no visible collar. He was
 such a man that if had ignorantly
 met him anywhere I should instantly
 have felt him to be parsonage.
 After a few moments of the demoral-
 ization which followed his hospitable
 attempts in me, he asked if would
 not like to go up on his hill with him
 and sit there, where he smoked in the afternoon. He offered me a cigar and
 when I said that I did not smoke he lighted it for himself and we climbed the hill together. At the top, where there was an outlook in the pines over the Concord meadows, we found a log,
 and he invited me to place beside so he talked while he smoked. Heaven preserved me from the folly of trying to tell him how much his books had
 been to me, and though we got on rap idly at no time, I think we got on bet ter for this interposition. He asked me about Lowell, dare say, for told him of my joy in meeting him and Dr.
 Holmes. and this seemed greatly to in terest him. Perhaps because he was so lately from Europe, where our great men are always seen through the
 wrong end of tine telescope. he ap- peared surprised at my devotion, and asked me whether cared as much for meeting. them as l should care for meeting the famous English authors.
 professed that I cared much more though whether this was true, I now have my doubts, and I think Haw- thorne doubted it at the time. But he said nothing in comment and went on to speak generally of Europe and America. He was curious as to the west, which he seemed to fancy much more purely American, and said he would like to see some part of the coun- try on which the shadow, or if must be precise, the damned shadow, of Europe had fallen. told him that the west must finally be characterized by the Germans, whom we had in great numbers, and, purely from my zeal for German poetry. tried to allege some proofs of their present influence, though could think of none outside of politics, which I thought. they affected whole somely. I knew Hawthorne was a democrat, and felt 1t well to touch pol itics lightly, but he had no more to say about the Hateful election then pending than Holmes or Lowell had.
 Hawthorne decanted . little upon the landscape. and said certain of the pleasant fields below us belonged to him; but he preferred his hilltop, and if he could have his way those arable fields should be grown up to pines too. He smoked fitfully and slewIy, and in the hour that we spent together, his whiffs were of the desultory and un- final character of his words When we went down, he asked me in his house again, and would have me stay to tea, for which we found the table laid But there was 8 great deal of silence in it alE and at times, in spite of his shad- owy kindness, felt my spirits sink. After tea, he showed mo a bookcase, where there were a few books toppling about on the half-flled shelves, and said, coldly, This Is my library.">>I knew that men were. his books, and though I myself cared for books 50 much, found 1t fit and fine that he should care so little, or seem to care so little. Some of his own. .romances were about the volumes on these shelves, and when put my finger on the Blithedale Romance and said I pre- ferred that to the others, his face lighted up, and he said that he be- lieved the Germans liked that best too. From My First Visit to New Eng land" by William Dean Howells, in -{ Ao>s A.~-