Those early days in Salem,--how interesting the memory of them must be
to the friends who knew and followed the gentle dreamer in his budding
career! When the whisper first came to the timid boy, in that "dismal
chamber in Union Street," that he too possessed the soul of an artist,
there were not many about him to share the divine rapture that must have
filled his proud young heart. Outside of his own little family circle,
doubting and desponding eyes looked upon him, and many a stupid head
wagged in derision as he passed by. But there was always waiting for him
a sweet and honest welcome by the pleasant hearth where his mother and
sisters sat and listened to the beautiful creations of his fresh and
glowing fancy. We can imagine the happy group gathered around the
evening lamp! "Well, my son," says the fond mother, looking up from her
knitting-work, "what have you got for us to-night? It is some time since
you read us a story, and your sisters are as impatient as I am to have a
new one." And then we can hear, or think we hear, the young man begin in
a low and modest tone the story of "Edward Fane's Rosebud," or "The
Seven Vagabonds," or perchance (O tearful, happy evening!) that tender
idyl of "The Gentle Boy!" What a privilege to hear for the first time a
"Twice-Told Tale," before it was even _once_ told to the public! And I
know with what rapture the delighted little audience must have hailed
the advent of every fresh indication that genius, so seldom a visitant
at any fireside, had come down so noiselessly to bless their quiet
hearthstone in the sombre old town. In striking contrast to Hawthorne's
audience nightly convened to listen while he read his charming tales and
essays, I think of poor Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, facing those
hard-eyed critics at the house of Madame Neckar, when as a young man and
entirely unknown he essayed to read his then unpublished story of "Paul
and Virginia." The story was simple and the voice of the poor and
nameless reader trembled. Everybody was unsympathetic and gaped, and at
the end of a quarter of an hour Monsieur de Buffon, who always had a