. Such behavior on the mother's part could not
fail to have its effect upon the children. They had no opportunity
to know what social intercourse meant; their peculiarities and
eccentricities were at least negatively encouraged; they grew to
regard themselves as something apart from the general world. It is
saying much for the sanity and healthfulness of the minds of these
three children, that their loneliness distorted their
judgment--their perception of the relation of things--as little as
it did."

The sister is described as having in many respects an intellect as
commanding and penetrating as that of her brother, and yet she followed
in the way of her mother and passed her life in almost complete
seclusion, caring for nothing but the reading of books and the taking of
long walks, sleeping always until noon, and sitting up until two or
three o'clock in the morning in perfect solitude. She boarded for many
years after her mother's death at a farm-house on the seashore, and
could not be induced to come out, even to attend the funeral of her
brother at Concord, although he was her pride and idol throughout life.

Had Hawthorne himself been less fortunate in his marriage, there is
little doubt that his own peculiarities would have become exaggerated,
perhaps even to the extent of those of his sister. But he married a
woman who both understood and appreciated him, and whom he idolized.
From this union grew all the happiness and success of his life. His son
says:--

"To attempt to explain and describe his career without taking this
event into consideration would be like trying to imagine a sun
without heat or a day without a sun. Nothing seems less likely than
that he should have accomplished his work in literature
independently of her sympathy and companionship. Not that she
afforded him any direct and literal assistance in the composition
of his books and stories: her gifts were wholly unsuited to such
employment, and no one apprehended more keenly than she the
solitariness and uniqueness of his genius, insomuch that she would
have deemed it something not far removed from profanation to have
offered to advise or sway him in regard to his literary
productions. She believed in his inspiration, and her office was to
promote, as far as in her lay, the favorableness of the conditions
under which it should manifest