me! it is Donatello, in his tower of Monte Beni, contemplating with
doubtful interest the field upon which the flower of men are dying for
an idea. Do you wonder, as you see him and hear him, that your heart,
bewildered, asks and asks again, "Is he human? Is he a man?"

Now that Hawthorne sleeps by the tranquil Concord, upon whose shores
the Old Manse was his bridal bower, those who knew him chiefly there
revert beyond the angry hour to those peaceful days. How dear the Old
Manse was to him he has himself recorded; and in the opening of the
_Tanglewood Tales_ he pays his tribute to that placid landscape, which
will always be recalled with pensive tenderness by those who, like
him, became familiar with it in happy hours. "To me," he writes,
"there is a peculiar, quiet charm in these broad meadows and gentle
eminences. They are better than mountains, because they do not stamp
and stereotype themselves into the brain, and thus grow wearisome with
the same strong impression, repeated day after day. A few summer weeks
among mountains, a lifetime among green meadows and placid slopes,
with outlines forever new, because continually fading out of the
memory, such would be my sober choice." He used to say, in those
days--when, as he was fond of insisting, he was the obscurest author
in the world, because, although he had told his tales twice, nobody
cared to listen--that he never knew exactly how he contrived to live.
But he was then married, and the dullest eye could not fail to detect
the feminine grace and taste that ordered the dwelling, and perceive
the tender sagacity that made all things possible.

Such was his simplicity and frugality that, when he was left alone for
a little time in his Arcadia, lie would dismiss "the help", and, with
some friend of other days who came to share his loneliness, he cooked
the easy meal, and washed up the dishes. No picture is clearer in the