nd Stripes
(streaming from the mast-head) that carried me away to Boston. By
the way, when _will_ you finish the bridge?

"I hear strange hints of you all quarrelling about the slave
question. Is it so? You are so happy and prosperous in America that
you must be on the lookout for clouds, surely! When you see Emerson,
Longfellow, Sumner, any one I know, pray bespeak for me a kind
thought or word from them."

Procter was always on the lookout for Hawthorne, whom he greatly
admired. In November, 1855, he says, in a brief letter:--

"I have not seen Hawthorne since I wrote to you. He came to London
this summer, but, I am sorry to say, did not inquire for me. As it
turned out, I was absent from town, but sent him (by Mrs. Russell
Sturgis) a letter of introduction to Leigh Hunt, who was very much
pleased with him. Poor Hunt! he is the most genial of men; and, now
that his wife is confined to her bed by rheumatism, is recovering
himself, and, I hope, doing well. He asked to come and see me the
other day. I willingly assented, and when I saw him--grown old and
sad and broken down in health--all my ancient liking for him
revived.

"You ask me to send you some verse. I accordingly send you a scrap
of recent manufacture, and you will observe that instead of
forwarding my epic on Sevastopol, I select something that is fitter
for these present vernal love days than the blaster of heroic verse:--

"SONG.

"Within the chambers of her breast
Love lives and makes his spicy nest,
Midst downy blooms and fragrant flowers,
And there he dreams away the hours--
There let him rest!
Some time hence, when the cuckoo sings,
I'll come by night and bind his wings,--
Bind him that he shall not roam
From his warm white virgin home.

"Maiden of the summer season,
Angel of the rosy time,
Come, unless some graver reason
Bid thee scorn my rhyme;
Come from thy serener height,
On a golden cloud descending,
Come ere Love hath taken flight,
And let thy stay be like the light,
When its glory hath no ending
In the Northern night!"

Now and then we get a glimpse of Thackeray in his letters. In one of
them he says:--

"Thackeray came a few days ago and read one of his lectures at our
house (that on George the Third), and we asked about a dozen persons