way on Wednesday as a friend; but with his experienced, acute
observation, to look at him also as a physician, to note how he is
and what he judges of him comparatively since he last saw him. It
almost deprives me of my wits to see him growing weaker with no aid.
He seems quite bilious, and has a restlessness that is infinite. His
look is more distressed and harassed than before; and he has so
little rest, that he is getting worn out. I hope immensely in regard
of this sauntering journey with General Pierce.

"I feel as if I ought not to speak to you of anything when you are
so busy and weary and bereaved. But yet in such a sad emergency as
this, I am sure your generous, kind heart will not refuse me any
help you can render.... I wish Dr. Holmes would feel his pulse; I do
not know how to judge of it, but it seems to me irregular."

His friend, Dr. O.W. Holmes, in compliance with Mrs. Hawthorne's desire,
expressed in this letter to me, saw the invalid, and thus describes his
appearance in an article full of tenderness and feeling which was
published in the "Atlantic Monthly" for July, 1864:--

"Late in the afternoon of the day before he left Boston on his last
journey I called upon him at the hotel where he was staying. He had
gone out but a moment before. Looking along the street, I saw a form
at some distance in advance which could only be his,--but how
changed from his former port and figure! There was no mistaking the
long iron-gray locks, the carriage of the head, and the general look
of the natural outlines and movement; but he seemed to have shrunken
in all his dimensions, and faltered along with an uncertain, feeble
step, as if every movement were an effort. I joined him, and we
walked together half an hour, during which time I learned so much