"
But, at the last moment, he was obliged to give it up, being detained by
a cold. And there seemed indeed a fatality which interfered with all
attempts to thwart the coming evil. At the beginning of April, 1864,
completely broken down, yet without apparent cause, he set out southward
with Mr. William Ticknor. On arriving at Philadelphia he began to
improve; but Mr. Ticknor's sudden death overthrew the little he had
gained, and caused him to sink still more. It is not my purpose here to
dwell upon the sad and unbeautiful details of a last illness: these
things would make but a harsh closing chord in the strain of meditation
on Hawthorne's life which we have been following out,--a life so
beautiful and noble that to surround its ending with the remembrance of
mere mortal ailment has in it something of coarseness. But it was
needful to show in what way this great spirit bowed beneath the weight
of its own sympathy with a national woe. Even when Dr. Holmes saw him in
Boston, though "his aspect, medically considered, was very unfavorable,"
and though "he spoke as if his work were done, and he should write no
more," still "there was no failing noticeable in his conversational
powers." "There was nothing in Mr. Hawthorne's aspect," wrote Dr.
Holmes, "that gave warning of so sudden an end as that which startled us
all." He passed on into the shadow as if of his own will; feeling that
his country lay in ruins, that the human lot carried with it more hate
and horror and sorrow than he could longer bear to look at;
welcoming--except as those dear to him were concerned--the prospect of
that death which he alone knew to be so near.
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