"If it be so, their wonted fires are not altogether extinguished in their ashes,—in their throats, I might rather say,—for I beheld one of these excellent old men quaffing such a horn of Bourbon whiskey as a toper of the present century would be loath to venture upon.
"But, really, one would be glad to know where these strange figures come from.
"It shows, at any rate, how many remote, decaying villages and country neighborhoods of the North, and forest nooks of the West, and old mansion houses in cities, are shaken by the tremor of our native soil, so that men long hidden in retirement put on the garments of their youth and hurry out to inquire what is the matter.
"The old men whom we see here have generally more marked faces than the young ones, and naturally enough; since it must be an extraordinary vigor and venerability of life that can overcome the rusty sloth of age, and keep the senior flexible enough to take an interest in new things; whereas, hundreds of commonplace young men come hither to stare with eyes of vacant wonder, and with vague hopes of finding out what they are fit for. And this war (we may say so much in its favor) has been the means of discovering that important secret to not a few."
The writer remembers the vivid and untiring pleasure with which, when a child, he read and re-read that marvellous book for little people, "Grandfather's Arm Chair." It opened to him a new world of poetry and beauty—a revelation which close and severest study of the great author's mind and character, as developed in his maturer works, has but made broader and deeper.
With a grateful memory of the first, I write these few lines to recall almost the latest of Hawthorne's writings; the very last indeed, save the charming fragment that gave to the world of letters "Little Pansy"—"The sweetest child," says Alexander Smith, "in English literature."
I cannot close this brief and cursory notice more appropriately than in the words of a dear friend and appreciative admirer of our author, James Russell Lowell:—
"This now 'sacred and happy spirit' was cruelly misunderstood among men. There were those who would have taken him away from his proper and peculiar sphere, in which he has done more for the true fame of his country than any other man, and made him a politician and reformer.