e head was deep--a great distance between the
base of the ear and the wing of the nostril--and was well filled out
behind. Above the blue of the shaven beard the complexion showed clear
white and red, announcing a strong heart and good digestion. My father
shaved himself daily; I was not permitted to see the operation, but
I knew he lathered, and wondered why. He was naturally athletic;
broad-shouldered and deep in the chest, lean about the loins, weighing
never over one hundred and eighty pounds; his height was five feet ten
and three-quarter inches; his legs and feet were slender and graceful,
his gait long and springy, and he could stand and leap as high as his
shoulder. In the house he wore slippers, which seemed always old and
down-at-heel.

In the house, also, he wore a writing-gown, made for him some years
before by my mother; it reached nearly to his heels, and had been a
gorgeous affair, though now much defaced. The groundwork was purple,
covered all over with conventional palm-leaf in old-gold color; the
lining was red. This lining, under the left-hand skirt of the gown, was
blackened with ink over a space as large as your hand; for the author
was in the habit of wiping his pen thereon; but my mother finally
parried this attack by sewing in the centre of the place a penwiper in
the shape of a butterfly.

While story-writing, the door of the study was locked against all the
world; but after noon he became approachable, except during The Scarlet
Letter period, when he wrote till evening. He did not mind my seeing him
write letters; he would sit with his right shoulder and head inclined
towards the desk; the quill squeaked softly over the smooth paper, with
frequent quick dips into the ink-bottle; a few words would be written
swiftly; then a pause, with suspended pen, while the next sentence was
forming in the writer's mind. When he miswrote, instead of crossing out
the word, he would smear it out with his finger, and rewrite over
the smear; so that his page had a mottled appearance. The writing was
accompanied by intermittent nods of the head, as one would say, "Sic
cogito!" So far as he is concerned, the shadows close in on me here.

But I have said that the house was of three stories, and I have
accounted for two of them only. The second was occupied by my
grandmother Hawthorne and her two daughters, Aunt Louisa and Aunt Ebe
(the latter appellation being an infantile version of her name invented
by my fathe