ony I could not endure it
another moment. But I am well now. I have wrestled and won, and now
I think I shall not fail again. Your most generous kindness of
hospitality I heartily thank you for, but Mr. Hawthorne says he
cannot leave home. He wants rest, and he says when the wind is
_warm_ he shall feel well. This cold wind ruins him. I wish he were
in Cuba or on some isle in the Gulf Stream. But I must say I could
not think him able to go anywhere, unless I could go with him. He is
too weak to take care of himself. I do not like to have him go up
and down stairs alone. I have read to him all the afternoon and
evening and after he walked in the morning to-day. I do nothing but
sit with him, ready to do or not to do, just as he wishes. The
wheels of my small _menage_ are all stopped. He is my world and all
the business of it. He has not smiled since he came home till
to-day, and I made him laugh with Thackeray's humor in reading to
him; but a smile looks strange on a face that once shone like a
thousand suns with smiles. The light for the time has gone out of
his eyes, entirely. An infinite weariness films them quite. I thank
Heaven that summer and not winter approaches."

[Footnote *: As I write this paragraph, my friend, the Reverend James
Freeman Clarke, puts into my hand the following note, which Hawthorne
sent to him nearly thirty years ago:--

54 PINCKNEY STREET, Friday, July 8, 1842.

MY DEAR SIR,--Though personally a stranger to you, I am about to
request of you the greatest favor which I can receive from any man.
I am to be married to Miss Sophia Peabody; and it is our mutual
desire that you should perform the ceremony. Unless it should be
decidedly a rainy day, a carriage will call for you at half past
eleven o'clock in the forenoon.

Very respectfully yours,

NATH. HAWTHORNE.

Rev. JAMES F. CLARKE, Chestnut Street.]

On Friday evening of the same week Mrs. Hawthorne sent off another
despatch to us:--

"Mr. Hawthorne has been miserably ill for two or three days, so that I
could not find a moment to speak to you. I am most anxious to have him
leave Concord again, and General Pierce's plan is admirable, now that
the General is well himself. I think the serene jog-trot in a private
carriage into country places, by trout-streams and to old farm-houses,
away from care and news, will be very restorat