"I have been surprised to see that he made severe personal remarks in his journal, for in the three months that I knew him I never heard an unkind word; he was always courteous, gentle, and retiring. Mrs. Hawthorne said she took a wifely pride in his having no small vices. Mr. Hawthorne said to Miss S., 'I have yet to find the first fault in Mrs. Hawthorne.'
"One day Mrs. Hawthorne came to my room, held up an inkstand, and said,
'The new book will be begun to-night.'
"This was 'The Marble Faun.' She said, 'Mr. Hawthorne writes after every one has gone to bed. I never see the manuscript until it is what he calls clothed'…. Mrs. H. says he never knows when he is writing a story how the characters will turn out; he waits for them to influence him.
"I asked her if Zenobia was intended for Margaret Fuller, and she said, 'No;' but Mr. Hawthorne admitted that Margaret Fuller seemed to be around him when he was writing it.
"London, August. We went out for our first walk as soon as breakfast was over, and we walked on Regent street for hours, looking in at the shop windows. The first view of the street was beautiful, for it was a misty morning, and we saw its length fade away as if it had no end. I like it that in our first walk we came upon a crowd standing around 'Punch.' It is a ridiculous affair, but as it is as much a 'peculiar institution' as is Southern slavery, I stopped and listened, and after we came into the house Miss S. threw out some pence for them. We rested after the shop windows of Regent street, took dinner, and went out again, this time to Piccadilly.
"The servility of the shopkeepers is really a little offensive. 'What shall I have the honor of showing you?' they say.
"Our chambermaid, at our lodgings, thanks us every time we speak to her.
"I feel ashamed to reach a four-penny piece to a stout coachman who touches his hat and begs me to remember him. Sometimes I am ready to say, 'How can I forget you, when you have hung around me so closely for half an hour?'
"Our waiter at the Adelphi Hotel, at Liverpool, was a very respectable middle-aged man, with a white neck-cloth; he looked like a Methodist parson. He waited upon us for five days with great gravity, and then another waiter told us that we could give our waiter what we pleased. We were charged £1 for 'attendance' in the bill, but I very innocently gave half as much more, as fee to the 'parson,'
"August 14. To-day we took a brougham and drove around for hours. Of course we didn't see London, and if we stay a month we shall still know nothing of it, it is so immense. I keep thinking, as I go through the streets, of 'The rats and the mice, they made such a strife, he had to go to London,' etc., and especially 'The streets were so wide, and the lanes were so narrow;' for I never saw such narrow streets, even in Boston.