loathing to every well-thinking man.  But what have I to do with politics, or you?  Our ‘pleasant object and serene employ’ are books, books.  Let us return to pacific thoughts.

“What a number of things have happened since I saw you!  I looked for you in the last spring, little dreaming that so fat and flourishing a ‘Statesman’ could be overthrown by a little fever.  I had even begun some doggerel, announcing to you the advent of the white-bait, which I imagined were likely to be all eaten up in your absence.  My memory is so bad that I cannot recollect half a dozen lines, probably not one, as it originally stood.

“I was at Liverpool last June.  After two or three attempts I contrived to seize on the famous Nathaniel Hawthorne.  Need I say that I like him very much?  He is very sensible, very genial,—­a little shy, I think (for an American!)—­and altogether extremely agreeable.  I wish that I could see more of him, but our orbits are wide apart.  Now and then—­once in two years—­I diverge into and cross his circle, but at other times we are separated by a space amounting to 210 miles.  He has three children, and a nice little wife, who has good-humor engraved on her countenance.

“As to verse—­yes, I have begun a dozen trifling things, which are in my drawer unfinished; poor rags with ink upon them, none of them, I am afraid, properly labelled for posterity.  I was for six weeks at Ryde, in the Isle of Wight, this year, but so unwell that I could not write a line, scarcely read one; sitting out in the sun, eating, drinking, sleeping, and sometimes (poor soul!) imagining I was thinking.  One Sunday I saw a magnificent steamer go by, and on placing my eye to the telescope I saw some Stars and 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.