Emerson is gone, and nobody here to bore you.

The skating is damned good.

N. B. Pipes and old tobac no end.

-Hawthorne replied that his literary employments and domestic affairs would not allow him to avail himself of Ellery's pipes and Mr. Emerson's absence; whereupon the eccentric poet entered into a more detailed discussion of the situation.

CONCORD, Friday, Dec. 17, 1851.

DEAR HAWTHORNE, Your letter, received tonight, got carried to hell before it got here, and the Prince of Darkness interpolated a polite refusal to my lively invitation. Now, by dint of swearing at the cook, damning the butcher, breaking all the temperance laws of the State, and exerting ourselves, I doubt not I might have passed a profitable week, to me.

But as you are sweating Romances, and have got that execrable bore, a small family, it is all right. I am glad now you did not come. I was afraid you

would be disappointed if you had.

For my own part, I would infinitely rather settle on the icy peak of Mt. Ararat than in this village. It is absolutely the worst spot in the world. There are so many things against it, that it would be useless to enumerate the first. Among others, day before yesterday, at six A. M., the thermometer was ten degrees below nothing. This is enough.

A good climate is a prime consideration to me. Think of the climate of Venice, of Fie-all, of Cuba, of Malaga, the last best. I have been within about six miles of the last city; behind it rise majestic Sierras, before it glitters and dreams the blue Mediterranean, and the thermometer stands at 75° the year round. O God! what a contrast to this d- d

place!

I have never lived in Alcott's place; but I judge the thermometer there goes as low as anywhere else in this country. Of course, that place you were at was colder.

How would it do to have a house at Este, or on the Gulf of Spezzia, as Shelley of drowned memory did? The rents are low, and living is cheap. Shelley made good weather, by the aid of Byron, Hunt, Trelawney, Williams, and others. I fancy it would not do to go alone among the peasantry; and you might retire from the Domzilla with a knife in your guts.

Mr. Lowell, whom I did not know, is somewhere in that ilk, and Mr. Story, etc. But they keep at Rome or Florence; and the climate of Rome, though mild, is aguish. So it is, absolutely, in Venice.

Self-exiled, etc., how would this seem? The American stamp is pretty strong on you, and could you feel at ease in European circumstances? I disliked Europe, alone, beyond description. You are such a domestic affair, you would feel snug with your family, etc.

What do you think of California? Good climate, but lots of blacklegs. I think a villa among the Euganean Hills would be as good as anything. requires a coal-hod of tin to make it work. income was about $20,000 a year.

Affectionately yours,

But it Byron's

W. E. C.

As there was no immediate prospect of realizing the Gulf of Spezzia, or even California, Hawthorne finally decided to buy Mr. Alcott's house in Concord, together with the twenty acres or thereabouts of arable and wooded land belonging to it. But he wisely waited until June before entering on possession of it; for there are days in that month when the climate of Concord seems almost as Paradisiacal as that of Malaga or the Euganean Hills.

CHAPTER IX.

CONCORD.

WHEN Hawthorne went to Lenox, after Madame Hawthorne's death, the household in Mall Street was, of course, broken up; and his two sisters, Elizabeth and Louisa, were established, the latter with her relatives in Salem, the former in lodgings in a farmer's family on the sea-coast not far from Salem, where she lived, in perfect contentment, for more than thirty years, a life the solitude of which would have killed most women in as many days. Beyond the members of the farmer's family (who could be her associates only in the most literal sense) she very seldom saw or communicated with any one. She got up at noon every day, walked or read till two in the morning, and then all was darkness and silence till noon again. Her health was always perfect, both of mind and body; and she not only kept abreast of all that was going on in the great world, but was to the end of her life a keen and sagacious critic of American and European public men and politics. I mention this because, from the purely intellectual point of view, she bore a very striking resemblance to her brother; and this resemblance will be made to appear more fully in a subsequent portion of the present work.

Before Hawthorne left Berkshire, his sister Louisa had spoken of Elizabeth in the letter which follows:

SALEM, August, 1850.

DEAR SOPHIA,... Elizabeth is very pleasantly situated in Manchester. We searched the country round for her, but did not find just the right place till five or six weeks ago. She has a large room, with a good bathing-room, and a very large closet all to herself; two of her windows look to the ocean, and one to a wooded hill. It is very retired, and but a short distance to the beach. They are good and kind people, and the living is very good. You seem in great admiration at Elizabeth's sitting at the table with the family, and ascribe it to Mrs. Dike's persuasion. But it was not even necessary to request it; Elizabeth did it as a matter of course. What should you say to see her go to church? She actually did go several times while she was here. I was afraid she would forget herself and speak in meeting, but she only made up a face at me when I looked at her.

I suppose you know that Mr. Upham is nominated for Congress in the place of Mr. King. The papers are full of his praises, and speak of his public services and private virtues as if such things were! I suppose he will be elected. Give my love to Nathaniel. If he only did know how I want to see him,but it is not to be told how much! How does he look now? I suppose the children are tanned brown: how does it become them? Do you think you shall