the gate-posts, and were seen no more. The owner was as much a vague
name to me as to any one.

During Hawthorne's first year's residence in Concord I had driven up
with some friends to an aesthetic tea at Mr. Emerson's. It was in the
winter, and a great wood-fire blazed upon the hospitable hearth. There
were various men and women of note assembled, and I, who listened
attentively to all the fine things that were said, was for some time
scarcely aware of a man who sat upon the edge of the circle, a little
withdrawn, his head slightly thrown forward upon his breast, and his
bright eyes clearly burning under his black brow. As I drifted down
the stream of talk, this person, who sat silent as a shadow, looked to
me as Webster might have looked had he been a poet--a kind of poetic
Webster. He rose and walked to the window, and stood quietly there for
a long time, watching the dead white landscape. No appeal was made to
him, nobody looked after him, the conversation flowed steadily on as
if every one understood that his silence was to be respected. It was
the same thing at table. In vain the silent man imbibed aesthetic tea.
Whatever fancies it inspired did not flower at his lips. But there was
a light in his eye which assured me that nothing was lost. So supreme
was his silence that it presently engrossed me to the exclusion of
everything else. There was very brilliant discourse, but this silence
was much more poetic and fascinating. Fine things were said by the
philosophers, but much finer things were implied by the dumbness of
this gentleman with heavy brows and black hair. When he presently
rose and went, Emerson, with the "slow, wise smile" that breaks over
his face, like day over the sky, said, "Hawthorne rides well his horse
of the night."

Thus he remained in my memory, a shadow, a phantom, until more than a