[Boston—Saturday, 20 July 1867]
Today Saturday we had intended to go to Marblehead but a fierce easterly storm has set in so have determined to enjoy these few days longer at home with our books.
Have seen Mrs Hawthorne, Rose & Julian this week I fear the latter is going to the ________. Mrs H. seems to become daily more powerless over her children—I suppose for the same reason Mr Giles assigned when a poor idiot in the country town where he lived said to him one day, why Mr Giles it seems to me you grow littler & littler every day—“great looking” said the poor little man to me “it was because he was growing bigger & bigger.” Rose Hawthorne within two months has become beautiful, that is has developed and waked up to beauty, & has learned to be utterly sophisticated. She has lost all her childish self forgetfulness at one fell swoop and I fear she may never find it again. Can one class-day have done it? If so education becomes a more fearful responsibility to confront than ever, but I do not believe it. There was no interior governor or anchor & the person was all ready to shout. Now she will be obliged to live through ages of experience before she can come back to the beauty of childhood and go forward to the beauty of womanhood.
Jamie had a busy day yesterday—receiving perpetually—everybody from Mr Emerson to the drunkard who followed him home to beg. Indeed he forgot his promise to dine out in the pressure of affairs and I had to go without him & trust he would come to himself which he did three quarters of an hour after the time.
