ake, with
the deep shadows of the icy hills on either hand. When he found himself
far away from his home and weary with the exertion of skating, he would
sometimes take refuge in a log-cabin, where half a tree would be burning
on the broad hearth. He would sit in the ample chimney and look at the
stars through the great aperture through which the flames went roaring
up. "Ah," he said, "how well I recall the summer days also, when, with
my gun, I roamed at will through the woods of Maine. How sad middle life
looks to people of erratic temperaments. Everything is beautiful in
youth, for all things are allowed to it then."

The early home of the Hawthornes in Maine must have been a lonely
dwelling-place indeed. A year ago (May 12, 1870) the old place was
visited by one who had a true feeling for Hawthorne's genius, and who
thus graphically described the spot.

"A little way off the main-travelled road in the town of Raymond
there stood an old house which has much in common with houses of its
day, but which is distinguished from them by the more evident marks
of neglect and decay. Its unpainted walls are deeply stained by
time. Cornice and window-ledge and threshold are fast falling with
the weight of years. The fences were long since removed from all the
enclosures, the garden-wall is broken down, and the garden itself is
now grown up to pines whose shadows fall dark and heavy upon the old
and mossy roof; fitting roof-trees for such a mansion, planted there
by the hands of Nature herself, as if she could not realize that her
darling child was ever to go out from his early home. The highway
once passed its door, but the location of the road has been changed;
and now the old house stands solitarily apart from the busy world.
Longer than I can remember, and I have never learned how long, this
house has stood untenanted and wholly unused, except, for a few
years, as a place of public worship; but, for myself, and for all
who know its earlier history, it will ever have the deepest
interest, for it was _the early home of Nathaniel Hawthorne_.

"Often have I, when passing through that town, turned aside to study
the features of that landscape, and to reflect upon the influence
which his surroundings had upon the development of this author's
genius. A few rods to the north runs a little mill-stream, its
sloping bank once covered with gras