a custom-house,—­nor, indeed, with Salem, except that it seems to be Hawthorne’s birthplace,—­all my attention was concentrated on the style, which seems to me excellent.

“The most striking book which has been recently published here is ‘Villette,’ by the authoress of ‘Jane Eyre,’ who, as you know, is a Miss Bronte.  The book does not give one the most pleasing notion of the authoress, perhaps, but it is very clever, graphic, vigorous.  It is ‘man’s meat,’ and not the whipped syllabub, which is all froth, without any jam at the bottom.  The scene of the drama is Brussels.

    “I was sorry to hear of poor Willis.  Our critics here were too
    severe upon him....

“The Frost King (vulg.  Jack Frost) has come down upon us with all his might.  Banished from the pleasant shores of Boston, he has come with his cold scythe and ice pincers to our undefended little island, and is tyrannizing in every corner and over every part of every person.  Nothing is too great for him, nothing too mean.  He condescends even to lay hold of the nose (an offence for which any one below the dignity of a King—­or a President—­would be kicked.) As for me I have taken refuge in

       “A SONG WITH A MORAL.

    “When the winter bloweth loud,
    And the earth is in a shroud,
    Frozen rain or sleety snow
    Dimming every dream below,—­
      There is e’er a spot of green
      Whence the heavens may be seen.

    “When our purse is shrinking fast,
    And our friend is lost, (the last!)
    And the world doth pour its pain,
    Sharper than the frozen rain,—­
      There is still a spot of green
      Whence the heavens may be seen.

    “Let us never meet despair
    While the little spot is there;
    Winter brighteneth into May,
    And sullen night to sunny day,—­
      Seek we then the spot of green
      Whence the heavens may be seen.

“I have left myself little space for more small-talk.  I must, therefore, conclude with wishing that your English dreams may continue bright, and that when they begin to fade you will come and relume at one of the white-bait dinners of which you used to talk in such terms of rapture.

    “Have I space to say that I am very truly yours?

    “B.W.  PROCTER.”

A few months later, in the same year (1853), he sits by his open window in London, on a morning of spring, and sends off the following pleasant words:—­

“You also must now be in the first burst and sunshine of spring.  Your spear-grass is showing its points, your succulent grass its richness, even your little plant [?] (so useful for certain invalids) is seen here and there; primroses are peeping out in your neighborhood, and you are looking for cowslips to come.  I say nothing of your hawthorns (from the common May to the classic Nathaniel), except that I trust they are thriving, and like to put forth a world of blossoms soon.

    ’With all this wealth, present and future,
    The yellow cowslip and the pale primrose,’