It is a sombre, brooding day, and begins to rain as the cars pass onward. In a little more than two hours we find ourselves in Boston surrounded by eager hackmen.
Yesterday I went to the Athenaeum, and, being received with great courtesy by Mr. Folsom, was shown all over the edifice from the very bottom to the very top, whence I looked out over Boston. It is an admirable point of view; but, it being an overcast and misty day, I did not get the full advantage of it. The library is in a noble hall, and looks splendidly with its vista of alcoves. The most remarkable sight, however, was Mr. Hildreth, writing his history of the United States. He sits at a table, at the entrance of one of the alcoves, with his books and papers before him, as quiet and absorbed as he would be in the loneliest study; now consulting an authority; now penning a sentence or a paragraph, without seeming conscious of anything but his subject. It is very curious thus to have a glimpse of a book in process of creation under one’s eye. I know not how many hours he sits there; but while I saw him he was a pattern of diligence and unwandering thought. He had taken himself out of the age, and put himself, I suppose, into that about which he was writing. Being deaf, he finds it much the easier to abstract himself. Nevertheless, it is a miracle. He is a thin, middle-aged man, in black, with an intelligent face, rather sensible than scholarlike.
Mr. Folsom accompanied me to call upon Mr. Ticknor, the historian of Spanish literature. He has a fine house, at the corner of Park and Beacon Streets, perhaps the very best position in Boston. A marble hall, a wide and easy staircase, a respectable old man-servant evidently long at home in the mansion, to admit us. We entered the library, Mr. Folsom considerably in advance, as being familiar with the house; and I heard Mr. Ticknor greet him in friendly tones, their scholarlike and bibliographical pursuits, I suppose, bringing them into frequent conjunction. Then I was introduced, and received with great distinction, but yet without any ostentatious flourish of courtesy. Mr. Ticknor has a great head, and his hair is gray or grayish. You recognize in him at once the man who knows the world, the scholar, too, which probably is his more distinctive character, though a little more under the surface. He was in his slippers; a volume of his book was open on a table, and apparently he had been engaged in revising or annotating it. His library is a stately and beautiful room for a private dwelling, and itself looks large and rich. The fireplace has a white marble frame about it, sculptured with figures and reliefs. Over it hung a portrait of Sir Walter Scott, a copy, I think, of the one that represents him in Melrose Abbey.
Mr. Ticknor was most kind in his alacrity to solve the point on which Mr. Folsom, in my behalf, had consulted him (as to whether there had been any English translation of the Tales of Cervantes); and most liberal in his offers of books from his library. Certainly, he is a fine example of a generous-principled scholar, anxious to assist the human intellect in its efforts and researches. Methinks he must have spent a happy life (as happiness goes among mortals), writing his great three-volumed book for twenty years; writing it, not for bread, nor with any uneasy desire of fame, but only with a purpose to achieve something true and enduring. He is, I apprehend, a man of great cultivation and refinement, and with quite substance enough to be polished and refined, without being worn too thin in the process, — a man of society. He related a singular story of an attempt of his to become acquainted with me years ago, when he mistook my kinsman Eben for me.
At half past four, I went to Mr. Thompson’s, the artist who has requested to paint my picture. This was the second sitting. The portrait looked dimly out from the canvas, as from a cloud, with something that I could recognize as my outline, but no strong resemblance as yet. I have had three portraits taken before this, — an oil picture, a miniature, and a crayon sketch, — neither of them satisfactory to those most familiar with my physiognomy. In fact, there is no such thing as a true portrait; they are all delusions, and I never saw any two alike, nor hardly any two that I would recognize, merely by the portraits themselves, as being of the same man. A bust has more reality. This artist is a man of thought, and with no mean idea of his art; a Swedenborgian, or, as he prefers to call it, a member of the New Church; and I have generally found something marked in men who adopt that faith. He had painted a good picture of Bryant. He seems to me to possess truth in himself, and to aim at it in his artistic endeavors.
May 6th. — This morning it is an easterly rain (southeasterly, I should say just now at twelve o’clock), and I went at nine, by appointment, to sit for my picture. The artist painted awhile; but soon found that he had not so much light as was desirable, and complained that his tints were as muddy as the weather. Further sitting was therefore postponed till tomorrow at eleven. It will be a good picture; but I see no assurance, as yet, of the likeness. An artist’s apartment is always very interesting to me, with its pictures, finished and unfinished; its little fancies in the pictorial way, — as here two sketches of children among flowers and foliage, representing Spring and Summer, Winter and Autumn being yet to come out of the artist’s mild; the portraits of his wife and children; here a clergyman, there a poet; here a woman with the stamp of reality upon her, there a feminine conception which we feel not to have existed. There was an infant Christ, or rather a child Christ, not unbeautiful, but scarcely divine. I love the odor of paint in an artist’s room; his palette and all his other tools have a mysterious charm for me. The pursuit has always interested my imagination more than any other, and I remember before having my first portrait taken, there was a great bewitchery in the idea, as if it were a magic process. Even now, it is not without interest to me.
I left Mr. Thompson before ten, and took my way through the sloppy streets to the Athenaeum, where I looked over the newspapers and periodicals, and found two of my old stories (Peter Goldthwaite and the Shaker Bridal) published as original in the last London Metropolitan! The English are much more unscrupulous and dishonest pirates than ourselves. However, if they are poor enough to perk themselves in such false feathers as these, Heaven help them! I glanced over the stories, and they seemed painfully cold and dull. It is the more singular that these should be so published, inasmuch as the whole book was republished in London, only a few months ago. Mr. Fields tells me that two publishers in London had advertised the Scarlet Letter as in press, each book at a shilling.
Certainly life is made much more tolerable, and man respects himself far more, when he takes his meals with a certain degree of order and state. There should be a sacred law in these matters; and, as consecrating the whole business, the preliminary prayer is a good and real ordinance. The advance of man from a savage and animal state may be as well measured by his mode and morality of dining, as by any other circumstance. At Mr. Fields’s, soon after entering the house, I heard the brisk and cheerful notes of a canary-bird, singing with great vivacity, and making its voice echo through the large rooms. It was very pleasant, at the close of the rainy, east-windy day, and seemed to fling sunshine through the dwelling.
May 7th. — I did not go out yesterday afternoon, but after tea I went to Parker’s. The drinking and smoking shop is no bad place to see one kind of life. The front apartment is for drinking. The door opens into Court Square, and is denoted, usually, by some choice specimens of dainties exhibited in the windows, or hanging beside the doorpost; as, for instance, a pair of canvasback ducks, distinguishable by their delicately mottled feathers; an admirable cut of raw beefsteak; a ham, ready boiled, and with curious figures traced in spices on its outward fat; a half, or perchance the whole, of a large salmon, when in season; a bunch of partridges, etc., etc. A screen stands directly before the door, so as to conceal the interior from an outside barbarian. At the counter stand, at almost all hours, — certainly at all hours when I have chanced to observe, — tipplers, either taking a solitary glass, or treating all round, veteran topers, flashy young men, visitors from the country, the various petty officers connected with the