Hawthorne’s Humor Through Quotes: #2
By: Rae Padilla Francoeur
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s boy, Julian, was a world-class talker. But then, aren’t most 5-year-olds?
The weary father records this brief episode of exhausting verbosity: “The old boy is now riding on his rocking-horse, and talking to me as fast as his tongue can go. Mercy on me, was ever man before so be-pelted with child’s talk as I am! It is his desire of sympathy that lies at the bottom of the great heap of his babblement. He wants to enrich all his enjoyments by steeping them in the heart of some friend.”
As we now know, no one in that talented family was at a loss for words!