Strongly formed, of dark, poetic gravity of aspect, lighted by the
deep, gleaming eye that recoiled with girlish coyness from contact
with your gaze; of rare courtesy and kindliness in personal
intercourse, yet so sensitive that his look and manner can be
suggested by the word "glimmering;" giving you a sense of restrained
impatience to be away; mostly silent in society, and speaking always
with an appearance of effort, but with a lambent light of delicate
humor playing over all he said in the confidence of familiarity, and
firm self-possession under all, as if the glimmering manner were only
the tremulous surface of the sea, Hawthorne was personally known to
few, and intimately to very few. But no one knew him without loving
him, or saw him without remembering him; and the name Nathaniel
Hawthorne, which, when it was first written, was supposed to be
fictitious, is now one of the most enduring facts of English
literature.




RACHEL


One evening in Paris, we were strolling through that most Parisian
spot the Palais Royal, or, as it was called at that moment, the Palais
National. It was after the revolution of February; but, although the
place was full of associations with French revolutions, it seemed to
have no special sympathy with the trouble of the moment, and was as
gay as the youngest imagination conceives Paris to be. There was a
constant throng loitering along the arcades; the cafes were lighted
and crowded; men were smoking, sipping coffee, playing billiards,