Hawthorne and His Circle

It seemed as if the world of the occult were making a determined attack upon us during this Florentine sojourn; whichever way we turned we came in contact with something mysteri...

Early in the winter of the following year (1855), Mr. James Buchanan, appointed Minister to the Court of St. James, found his way to my father's retreat in Rock Park. The Englis...

Our villa, within, was close and comfortable enough, for its era and degree; but the furniture was ponderous and ugly to the point of nightmare. The chairs, tables, and sofas wo...

At this time the reverberations of the European revolutionary year, 1848, were still breaking upon our shores. President Polk had given mortal offence to Austria by sending over...

The railroad which now unites Rome with Florence defrauds travellers of some of the most agreeable scenery in Italy, and one of the most time-honored experiences; and as for the...

Some of them would bring their wives with them for the voyage; uniformly rather pretty women, a trifle dressy, somewhat fragile in appearance, but really sound enough; naive, si...

But the passion for Rome (unless one be a Byron) is not a plant of sudden growth, and I dare say that, during those first frigid weeks, I may have shared my father's whimsical a...

Of the regular daily routine was the journey to Luther Butler's, quarter of a mile up the road, for milk and butter. I generally accompanied my father, and saw placid Luther's c...

Venerable Mrs. Jameson, author of a little library of writings on Italian art, was likewise of our company occasionally; and she evinced a marked liking for my father, which was...

But I have said that the house was of three stories, and I have accounted for two of them only. The second was occupied by my grandmother Hawthorne and her two daughters, Aunt L...

It was in Leamington that we were joined by Ada Shepard. She was a graduate of Antioch, a men-and-women's college in Ohio, renowned in its day, when all manner of improvements i...

It seems to me that I must have been a pretty constant visitor at St. Peter's. The stiff, heavy, leathern curtain which protects the entrance having been strenuously pushed asid...

We went quite often to the studio of William Story, whom my father had slightly known in Salem before he became a voluntary exile from America. Mr. Story was at this time a smal...

Many well-known persons passed across our stage here; and London, with all its wonders, was at our doors, the wide expanse of its smoke-piercing towers visible in our distance....

"Though I am fond of writing and of public speaking," said Emerson, "I am a very poor talker, and for the most part prefer silence"; and he went on to compare himself in this re...

Value of dates--My aunt Lizzie's efforts--My father's decapitation--My mother's strong-box--The spirit of The Scarlet Letter--The strain of imaginative composition--My grandmoth...

Bailey, the amiable mystical poet, whom my father mildly liked, was another man my glimpses of whom came at a date much later than this. He was a small, placid, gently beaming l...

Sunshine on the pale, smooth acclivities of France, and half a dozen bluff-bowed fishing-boats, pitching to the swell, were all that was notable on our trip across; and of Boulo...

I am not arranging this narrative in chronological sequence; but I think it was in this year that we went to Manchester to see the exposition. The town itself was unlovely; but,...

Richard Monckton Milnes, who was afterwards Lord Houghton, was greatly attracted towards my father, who liked him; but circumstances prevented their seeing much of each other. M...

Another chief friend of his was Francis Bennoch. England would never have seemed "our old home" to my father, without the presence and companionship of these two men. Both had l...

I next find myself in a coach, with four horses harnessed to it, trundling along the road from Civita Vecchia to Rome; for of Monaco I recall nothing, nor of Leghorn; and though...

The steamship Niagara was, in 1853, a favorable specimen of nautical architecture; the Cunard Company had then been in existence rather less than a score of years, and had alrea...

From Liverpool we explored the strangeness of the land in all directions. Bennoch or Bright sometimes took off my father alone; sometimes my father and mother would go with me,...

Inheritance of friendships--Gracious giants--My own good fortune--My father the central figure--What did his gift to me cost him?--A revelation in Colorado--Privileges make diff...

We got into a little steamer and made the trip up the lake, the mountains all about us. Up to this time I had imagined that the acclivities in the north of England and in Scotla...