A long letter written by George William Curtis is a bright ray from a beautiful personality, containing these descriptions:—
ROME, January 14, 1847.
MY DEAR FRIENDS,—How often in the long sunny silence of that summer voyage, when in the Atlantic all day the sea rippled as gently about the ship as the waters of Walden pour against their shore, and in the Mediterranean the moon would have no other mirror, but entranced its waves to an oily calmness in which she shone unbroken, did I figure you gliding with us on our fairy way to France, Italy, and in the next summer, Switzerland! One day in our voyage we passed the Straits of Gibraltar—seeing land for the first time in twenty-eight days. We came so near and passed so rapidly, saw so distinctly the dusky gray olive foliage of Spain and the little round towers whence the old Spaniards looked for the Moors; and on the other side, so grim and lonely, the intricate mountain outline of Africa, so distinctly, and at night again, and for many days after, the same broad water; that it lies more dreamily in my memory than anything else. . . . On the forty-fifth day I stepped ashore in France; but not without more regret than I thought possible, for the ship; and one of the crew, of my own age, with whom I had seen the stars fade in the morning during his watch, had become very dear to me. Yet in Marseilles everything was quaint. . . . The same features I had always known in a city,—men, houses, streets, squares; but with an expression unknown before. At night, with my sailor friend, I threaded some of the narrower streets, which were like corridors in an unshapely Titan palace. At the doors of the smallest shops on each side sat the spinsters in the moonlight, gossiping and knitting; while over them bent old French tradesmen, in long yarn stockings and velvet knee-breeches. The street was barely wide enough for a carriage, and they talked across; and all was as gay and happy as Arcadia. Every day [in Florence], I was in the galleries, which are freely open to every one, and here saw the grandest works of Raphael in his middle and best style. Of the wonderful feminine grace and tenderness of these, of which no copy can give an idea, I cannot properly speak. From him only have I received the idea of the Immaculate Mother—the union of celestial superiority with human maternity. The innumerable other Madonnas are beautiful pictures; but they are either mere mothers or mere angels. It is the same union in kind with what you may observe in his portrait, where masculine character is so blended and tempered with feminine grace and flexibility. Raphael is the clear, deep, beautiful eye, in which and through which is seen the undoubted heaven. . . .
How glad I am that I have a right to send you a letter! I have left a small space into which to squeeze a large love, which I send to Mrs. H., with my thanks for her kind letter, which could not come too late, and which I am very sure highly gratified Mr. Crawford. He desires to make his especial regards to Mrs. H., and said that he should write her a note, if it were not too great a liberty, which he would send in a letter to Mrs. Howe. Mention my name to Una; for in some dim remembrance of Concord meadows I may then figure as a shadowy faun. A long, pleasant letter from George Bradford, the other day, gave me the last news from our old home, which is very placid and beautiful in my memory. I should love to see Ellery Channing's new book. But I am sure that he will never forgive himself for coming to Rome for sixteen days. I am sorry to say good-by. G. W. CURTIS.
While on a visit to her mother, Mrs. Hawthorne writes to her husband:—
BOSTON, July.
. . . I received your most precious letter yesterday. I do not need to stand apart from daily life to see how fair and blest our lot is. Every mother is not like me—because not every mother has such a father for her children; so that my cares are forever light. Am I not eminently well, round, and rubicund? Even in the very centre of simultaneous screams from both darling little throats, I am quite as sensible of my happiness as when the most dulcet sounds are issuing thence. I have suffered only for you, in my babydom. You ought not to be obliged to undergo the wear and tear of the nursery; it is contrary to your nature and your mood. You were born to muse, and through undisturbed dreams to enlighten the world. Una mourns for you. "Oh, I must go home to see my papa! Oh, when are we going to Salem?" Her little heart has enough of mine in it to feel widowed without you. Julian does not walk yet; but he understands everything, and talks a great deal.
There was a sharp contrast between Mrs. Hawthorne's earlier life of intercourse with trooping, charming friends, and devotion to art and literature, and the toils of motherhood in poverty which now absorbed her days. She refers to this new order of existence with joyful patience in the following letters to Mrs. Peabody:—
SALEM, September, 1848.