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Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 1804-1864

"Sketches and Studies"

He had shabby
slippers on his feet. His hair was black, still unmixed with gray,
stiff, somewhat bushy, and had apparently been acquainted with neither
brush nor comb that morning, after the disarrangement of the pillow; and
as to a night-cap, Uncle Abe probably knows nothing of such effeminacies.
His complexion is dark and sallow, betokening, I fear, an insalubrious
atmosphere around the White House; he has thick black eyebrows and an
impending brow; his nose is large, and the lines about his mouth are very
strongly defined.
The whole physiognomy is as coarse a one as you would meet anywhere in
the length and breadth of the States; but, withal, it is redeemed,
illuminated, softened, and brightened by a kindly though serious look out
of his eyes, and an expression of homely sagacity, that seems weighted
with rich results of village experience. A great deal of native sense;
no bookish cultivation, no refinement; honest at heart, and thoroughly
so, and yet, in some sort, sly,--at least, endowed with a sort of tact
and wisdom that are akin to craft, and would impel him, I think, to take
an antagonist in flank, rather than to make a bull-run at him right in
front.


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