Nathaniel Hawthorne: Letter to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, November 21, 1848 I will gladly come on Thursday.
Thoreau is to be at my house, and I shall take the liberty to bring him with me, unless he
has scruples about intruding [p. 28] on you. You would find him well worth knowing, he is
a man of thought and originality, with a certain iron-pokerishness,—an uncompromising
stiffness,—in his mental character, which is interesting, though it grows rather
wearisome on close and frequent acquaintance. |