--

"I wish your epistolary propensities were stronger than they are.
All your letters to me since I left America might be squeezed into
one.... I send Ticknor a big cheese, which I long ago promised him,
and my advice is, that he keep it in the shop, and daily, between
eleven and one o'clock, distribute slices of it to your half-starved
authors, together with crackers and something to drink.... I thank
you for the books you send me, and more especially for Mrs. Mowatt's
Autobiography, which seems to me an admirable book. Of all things I
delight in autobiographies; and I hardly ever read one that
interested me so much. She must be a remarkable woman, and I cannot
but lament my ill fortune in never having seen her on the stage or
elsewhere.... I count strongly upon your promise to be with us in
May. Can't you bring Whipple with you?"

One of his favorite resorts in Liverpool was the boarding-house of good
Mrs. Blodgett, in Duke Street, a house where many Americans have found
delectable quarters, after being tossed on the stormy Atlantic. "I have
never known a better woman," Hawthorne used to say, "and her motherly
kindness to me and mine I can never forget." Hundreds of American
travellers will bear witness to the excellence of that beautiful old
lady, who presided with such dignity and sweetness over her hospitable
mansion.

On the 13th of April, 1854, Hawthorne wrote to me this characteristic
letter from the consular office in Liverpool:--

"I am very glad that the 'Mosses' have come into the hands of our
firm; and I return the copy sent me, after a careful revision. When
I wrote those dreamy sketches, I little thought that I should ever
preface an edition for the press amidst the bustling life of a
Liverpool consulate. Upon my honor, I am not quite sure that I
entirely comprehend my own meaning, in some of these blasted
allegories; but I remember that I always had a meaning, or at least
thought I had. I am a good deal changed since those times; and, to
tell you the truth, my past self is not very much to my taste, as I
see myself in this book. Yet certainly there is more in it than the
public generally gave me credit for at the time it was written.

"But I don't think myself worthy of very much more credit than I
got. It has been a very disagreeable task to read the book. The
story of 'Rappacini's Daughter'