How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #10
Still the young Italian's eye turned sidelong upward; and it really seemed as if the touch of genuine, though slight and almost playful, emotion communicated a juicier sweetness to the dry, mechanical process of his minstrelsy. These wanderers are readily responsive to any natural kindness—be it no more than a smile, or a word itself not understood, but only a warmth in it—which befalls them on the roadside of life. They remember these things, because they are the little enchantments which, for the instant, – for the space that reflects a landscape in a soap-bubble, – build up a home about them. Therefore, the Italian boy would not be discouraged by the heavy silence with which the old house seemed resolute to clog the vivacity of his instrument. He persisted in his melodious appeals; he still looked upward, trusting that his dark, alien countenance would soon be brightened by Phoebe's sunny aspect. Neither could he be willing to depart without again beholding Clifford, whose sensibility, like Phoebe's smile, had talked a kind of heart's language to the foreigner. He repeated all his music over and over again, until his auditors were getting weary. So were the little wooden people in his show-box, and the monkey most of all. (19.40)
The only thing we know about the man with the barrel-organ is that he is "foreign." Because he's not from around these parts, he has a long memory for small kindnesses. He remembers both Phoebe and Clifford's faces talking "a kind of heart's language" to him. But how does his yearning for the kindness of home fit with Clifford's idea that we should all be nomads living on trains, with no permanent home? How does Hawthorne's depiction of this wanderer's life contrast with the criticisms he's been heaping on family and inheritance?