his wife's
youngest sister, shows how, within less than a year previous, his
observation had been again turned towards the American Indians as a
theme.

CAMBRIDGE, October 29, 1837.

MY DEAR MARGARET,--I was very much delighted with your present of
the slippers. They are too pretty to be trodden under foot; yet such
is their destiny, and shall be accomplished, as soon as may be. The
colors look beautifully upon the drab ground; much more so than on
the black. Don't you think so? I should have answered your note, and
sent you my thanks, by Alexander on Wednesday last; but when I last
saw him, I had not received the package. Therefore you must not
imagine from my delay, that I do not sufficiently appreciate the
gift....

There is nothing very new in Boston, which after all is a gossiping
kind of _Little Peddlington_, if you know what that is; if you
don't, you must read the story. People take too much cognizance of
their neighbors; interest themselves too much in what no way
concerns them. However, it is no great matter.

There are Indians here: savage fellows;--one Black-Hawk and his
friends, with naked shoulders and red blankets wrapped about their
bodies:--the rest all grease and Spanish brown and vermillion. One
carries a great war-club, and wears horns on his head; another had
his face painted like a grid-iron, all in bands:--another is all
red, like a lobster; and another black and blue, in great daubs of
paint laid on not sparingly. Queer fellows!--One great champion of
the _Fox_ nation had a short pipe in his mouth, smoking with great
self-complacency as he marched out of the City Hall: another was
smoking a cigar! Withal, they looked very formidable. Hard
customers....

Very truly yours

H. W. L.{45}

Note, again, how this tendency to home themes asserts itself explicitly
in Longfellow's notice of Hawthorne's "Twice-Told Tales" at about the
same time in "The North American Review," (July, 1837):--

"One of the most prominent characteristics of these tales is, that they
are national in their character. The author has wisely chosen his themes
among the traditions of New England; the dusty legends of 'the good Old
Colony times, when we lived under a king.' This is the righ