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 grass, now so worn and washed by the
rains as to show but little except yellow sand. Less than half a
mile to the west, this stream empties into an arm of Sebago Lake.
Doubtless, at the time the house was built, the forest was so much