in metaphysical communion. "It was good nevertheless to meet him in the
wood-paths, or sometimes in our avenue, with that pure intellectual
gleam diffused about his presence, like the garment of a shining one;
and he so quiet, so simple, so without pretension, encountering each man
alive as if expecting to receive more than he could impart!" One may
without indiscretion risk the surmise that Hawthorne's perception, of
the "shining" element in his distinguished friend was more intense than
his friend's appreciation of whatever luminous property might reside
within the somewhat dusky envelope of our hero's identity as a collector
of "mosses." Emerson, as a sort of spiritual sun-worshipper, could have
attached but a moderate value to Hawthorne's cat-like faculty of seeing
in the dark.

"As to the daily coarse of our life," the latter writes in the spring
of 1843, "I have written with pretty commendable diligence, averaging
from two to four hours a day; and the result is seen in various
magazines. I might have written more if it had seemed worth while, but
I was content to earn only so much gold as might suffice for our
immediate wants, having prospect of official station and emolument
which would do away with the necessity of writing for bread. These
prospects have not yet had their fulfilment; and we are well content
to wait, for an office would inevitably remove us from our present
happy home--at least from an outward home; for there is an inner one
that will accompany us wherever we go. Meantime, the magazine people
do not pay their debts; so that we taste some of the inconveniences of
poverty. It is an annoyance, not a trouble." And he goes on to give
some account of his usual habits. (The passage is from his Journal,
and the account is given to himself, as it were, with that odd,
unfamiliar explicitness which marks the tone of this record
throughout.) "Every day I trudge through snow and slosh to the