Page images
PDF
EPUB

Nathaniel Hawthorne

225

REFERENCES

Hawthorne and his Wife, a Biography. By Julian Hawthorne. 2 vols,, Boston, 1889.

2 Passages from the French and Italian Notebooks of Nathaniel Hawthorne. 2 vols., Boston, 1880.

3 The Marble Faun, or the Romance of Monte Beni, by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Boston, 1880.

4 Memoirs of Hawthorne. By Rose Hawthorne Lathrop. Boston, 1897.

5 American Men of Letters Series. George Ripley, by Octavius Brooks Frothingham. Boston.

6 American Men of Letters Series. Ralph Waldo Emerson, by Oliver Wendell Holmes. Boston.

7 Letters of James Russell Lowell. Edited by Charles Eliot Norton. Boston.

8 Article on Hawthorne in Encyclopædia Britannica, by E. P. Whipple.

Oliver Wendell Holmes

[graphic][merged small]

[By permission of Houghton, Mifflin & Co., from "Masterpieces of American Literature ".]

AUGUST 29

Oliver Wendell Holmes

I

A contrast could hardly be more complete. than that between Hawthorne and Holmes. Hawthorne was a recluse; Holmes the soul of good fellowship. Hawthorne was a pessimist; Holmes the cheeriest of optimists. Hawthorne was a large and strikingly handsome man; Holmes was in size almost ridiculously insignificant. Hawthorne never had an occupation except literature; Holmes was a physician and a college professor. Hawthorne found no rest for the sole of his feet; Holmes lived his last half-century in Boston. After a weary and disappointed pilgrimage Hawthorne died alone in an obscure country inn; Holmes's life of sunshine ended peacefully in his Beacon street home.

+ His government places were given to him as a literary man, and their duties were performed perfunctorily.

« PreviousContinue »