He spoke of the coldness of somebody and said, “Well, I think he would have felt something if he had been there!” He said he did not think death would be so terrible if it were not for the undertakers. It was dreadful to think of being handled by those men.

He was often wholly overcome by the ludicrous view of something presented to him in the midst of his grief. There was a black servant sleeping in the room that last night, whose name was Peter. Once he snored loudly, when the dying man raised himself with an appreciation of fun still living in him and said, “Well done, Peter!”

In every account of the last week of Hawthorne’s life, the shock he received through the illness and death of his friend and traveling companion, Ticknor, in Philadelphia, is an item of sombre moment. The two men had left Boston together late in March—Hawthorne, sick and broken, writing but once, in a tremulous hand, to his wife during the ill-starred journey; Ticknor, giving himself unstintingly to the restoration of Hawthorne’s health, and stricken unto death before a fortnight was gone. The circumstances are suggested in the entry that has just been quoted from Mrs. Fields’s journal. They stand still more clearly revealed in the last letter written by Hawthorne to Fields, who refers to it in “Yesterdays with Authors,” and adds that the news of Ticknor’s death reached Boston on the very day after this letter was written, all too evidently with a feeble hold upon the pen.

Philadelphia, Continental Hotel

Saturday morning

Dear Fields:—

I am sorry to say that our friend Ticknor is suffering under a severe billious attack since yesterday morning. He had previously seemed uncomfortable, but not to an alarming degree. He sent for a physician during the night, and fell into the hands of an allopathist, who, of course, belabored with pills and powders of various kinds, and then proceeded to cup, and poultice, and blister, according to the ancient rule of that tribe of savages. The consequence is that poor Ticknor is already very much reduced, while the disorder flourishes as luxuriantly as if that were the doctor’s sole object. He calls it a billious colic (or bilious, I know not which) and says it is one of the severest cases he ever knew. I think him a man of skill and intelligence, in his way, and doubt not that he will do everything that his views of scientific medicine will permit.

Since I began writing the above, Mr. Bennett of Boston tells me the Doctor, after this morning’s visit, requested the proprietor of the Continental to telegraph to Boston the state of the case. I am glad of it, because it relieves me of the responsibility of either disclosing bad intelligence or withholding it. I will only add that Ticknor, under the influence of a blister and some powders, seems more comfortable than at any time since his attack, and that Mr. Bennett (who is an apothecary, and therefore conversant with these accursed matters) says that he is in a good state. But I can see that it will be not a very few days that will set him upon his legs again. As regards nursing, he shall have the best that can be obtained; and my own room is next to his, so that I can step in at any moment; but that will be of almost as much service as if a hippopotamus were to do him the same kindness. Nevertheless, I have blistered, and powdered, and pilled him and made my observation on medical science and the sad and comic aspects of human misery.

Excuse this illegible scrawl, for I am writing almost in the dark. Remember me to Mrs. Fields. As regards myself, I almost forgot to say that I am perfectly well. If you could find time to write Mrs. Hawthorne and tell her so, it would be doing me a great favor, for I doubt whether I can find an opportunity just now to do it myself. You would be surprised to see how stalwart I have become in this little time.

Your friend,