he and Dr. Holmes say the same thing touching the slavish
regard to opinion which prevails in America. Lord Carlisle is by
many degrees the most accomplished of our nobles. Another
accomplished and cultivated nobleman, a friend of my own, we have
just lost,--Lord Nugent,--liberal, too, against the views of his
family.

You must make my earnest and very sincere congratulations to your
friend. In publishing Gray, he shows the refinement of taste to be
expected in your companion. I went over all his haunts two years
ago, and have commemorated them in the book you will see by and
by,--the book that is to be,--and there I have put on record the
bride-cake, and the finding by you on my table your own edition of
Motherwell. You are not angry, are you? If your father and mother in
law ever come again to England, I shall rejoice to see them, and
shall be sure to do so, if they will drop me a line. God bless you,
dear Mr. Fields.

Ever faithfully and gratefully yours, M.R.M.

Three-mile Cross, July 20, 1851.

You will have thought me most ungrateful, dear Mr. Fields, in being
so long your debtor for a most kind and charming letter; but first I
waited for the "House of the Seven Gables," and then when it
arrived, only a week ago; I waited to read it a second time. At
sixty-four life gets too short to allow us to read every book once
and again; but it is not so with Mr. Hawthorne's. The first time one
sketches them (to borrow Dr. Holmes's excellent word), and cannot
put them down for the vivid interest; the next, one lingers over the
beauty with a calmer enjoyment. Very beautiful this book is! I thank
you for it again and again. The legendary part is all the better for
being vague and dim and shadowy, all pervading, yet never tangible;
and the living people have a charm about them which is as lifelike
and real as the legendary folks are ghostly and remote. Phoebe, for
instance, is a creation which, not to speak it profanely, is almost
Shakespearian. I know no modern heroine to compare with her, except
it be Eugene Sue's Rigolette, who shines forth amidst the iniquities
of "Les Mysteres de Paris" like some rich, bright, fresh cottage
rose thrown by evil chance upon a dunghill. Tell me, please, about
Mr. Hawthorne, as you were so good as to do about that charming
person, Dr. Holmes. I