The management of the
property was wholly in the hands of his sons. Mrs. Thaxter had grown to
a bright, self-possessed woman with three small boys to look after, and
with her reputation as a poet now well assured to her both by critics
and the general public. Her face, figure and manner all gave evidence of
a concentrated personality. Her husband, a handsome and full-bearded
man, was now in the prime of life and intellectual vigor. Rev. John
Weiss, their never-failing friend and a constant habitue of the place,
had written the life of Theodore Parker, and received due recognition as
a gifted man and elegant speaker. And there was another, more
distinguished than them all,--a tall figure, more erect than a soldier,
pacing across the long piazza, or watching a game in the billiard-room,
or seated in a retired corner of Mrs. Thaxter's parlor, whose face had
long since been known to Hawthorne as that of John G. Whittier.
Social life at the Shoals has had its incipient childhood, its period of
youthful strength and gaiety, its bright noontide of maturity, and seems
now to be lapsing into a serene and comfortable old age. Many, at least,
of the brilliant men and women who made it what it was, are gone, and
others do not appear to take their places. The Isles of Shoals are
changing as all things change except the rocks and sea. The
south-easterly parlor in Mrs.
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