HAWTHORNE.

* * * * *

_A hundred years ago Henry Vaughan seems almost to have anticipated
Hawthorne's appearance when he wrote that beautiful line,_

"_Feed on the vocal silence of his eye_."




III. HAWTHORNE.

I am sitting to-day opposite the likeness of the rarest genius America
has given to literature,--a man who lately sojourned in this busy world
of ours, but during many years of his life

"Wandered lonely as a cloud,"--

a man who had, so to speak, a physical affinity with solitude. The
writings of this author have never soiled the public mind with one
unlovely image. His men and women have a magic of their own, and we
shall wait a long time before another arises among us to take his place.
Indeed, it seems probable no one will ever walk precisely the same round
of fiction which he traversed with so free and firm a step.

The portrait I am looking at was made by Rowse (an exquisite drawing),
and is a very truthful representation of the head of Nathaniel
Hawthorne. He was several times painted and photographed, but it was