Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Henry Walcott Boynton, Reader's History of American Literature

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[182] Pythagoras could have done the thing better; and the whole event brought back vividly the appearance of the Gray Champion in one of Hawthorne's tales.

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Nathaniel Hawthorne.

But Alcott now bids fair to be remembered only for the. influence which he had upon greater men. His personality could impose itself upon those who saw him and heard his words, but could find no effective expression in literature. Just the contrary was true of Hawthorne. He was, to be sure, a man of striking presence, and his physical strength and stateliness irresistibly connected themselves in the minds of those who saw him with the self-contained purpose, the large resources, the waiting power, of the great writer. I first met him on a summer morning in Concord, as he was walking along the road near the Old Manse, with his wife by his side, and a noble-looking baby-boy in a little wagon which the father was pushing. I remember him as tall, firm, and strong in bearing; his wife looked pensive and dreamy, as she indeed was, then and always. When I passed, Hawthorne lifted upon me his great gray eyes, with a look too keen to seem indifferent, too shy to be sympathetic — and