fabled to climb
into at sight of the coming guest, and pull the ladder up after him; and
I wondered whether he would fly before me in that sort, or imagine some
easier means of escaping me.

The door was opened to my ring by a tall handsome boy whom I suppose to
have been Mr. Julian Hawthorne; and the next moment I found myself in the
presence of the romancer, who entered from some room beyond. He advanced
carrying his head with a heavy forward droop, and with a pace for which I
decided that the word would be pondering. It was the pace of a bulky man
of fifty, and his head was that beautiful head we all know from the many
pictures of it. But Hawthorne's look was different from that of any
picture of him that I have seen. It was sombre and brooding, as the look
of such a poet should have been; it was the look of a man who had dealt
faithfully and therefore sorrowfully with that problem of evil which
forever attracted, forever evaded Hawthorne. It was by no means
troubled; it was full of a dark repose. Others who knew him better and
saw him oftener were familiar with other aspects, and I remember that one
night at Longfellow's table, when one of the guests happened to speak of
the photograph of Hawthorne which hung in a corner of the room, Lowell
said, after a glance at it, "Yes, it's good; but it hasn't his fine
'accipitral' [pertaining to the look of a bird of prey; hawklike. D.W.]
look."

In the face that confronted me, however, there was nothing of keen
alertness; but only a sort of quiet, patient intelligence, for which I
seek the right word in vain. It was a very regular face, with beautiful
eyes; the mustache, still entirely dark, was dense over the fine mouth.
Hawthorne was dressed in black, and he had a certain effect which I
remember, of seeming to have on a black cravat with no visible collar. He
was such a man that if I had ignorantly met him anywhere I should have
instantly felt him to be a personage.

I must have given him the letter myself, for I have no recollection of
parting with it before, but I only remember his offering me his hand, and
making me shyly and tentatively welcome. After a few moments of the
demoralization which followed his hospitable attempts in me, he asked if
I would not like to go up on his hill with him and sit there, where he
smoked in the afternoon. He offered me a cigar, and when I said that I
did not smoke, he lighted it for himself, and we climbed the hill
together. At the t