E---- passed from the matters of
birth, pedigree, and ancestral pride to give vent to the most arrant
democracy and locofocoism that I ever happened to hear, saying that
nobody ought to possess wealth longer than his own life, and that then it
should return to the people, etc. He says S. I------ has a great fund of
traditions about the family, which she learned from her mother or
grandmother (I forget which), one of them being a Hawthorne. The old
lady was a very proud woman, and, as E---- says, "proud of being proud,"
and so is S. I------.
October 7th.--A walk in Northfields in the afternoon. Bright sunshine
and autumnal warmth, giving a sensation quite unlike the same degree of
warmth in summer. Oaks,--some brown, some reddish, some still green;
walnuts, yellow,--fallen leaves and acorns lying beneath; the footsteps
crumple them in walking. In sunny spots beneath the trees, where green
grass is overstrewn by the dry, fallen foliage, as I passed, I disturbed
multitudes of grasshoppers basking in the warm sunshine; and they began
to hop, hop, hop, pattering on the dry leaves like big and heavy drops of
a thunder-shower.
Pages:
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127