dark-haired man dwelling in the cottage yonder were simply to put some
sheets of writing-paper in the fire, all of them and Tangle-wood
itself would turn into cinders and vanish in smoke up the
chimney--even the present chronicler saw the point; though, at the
same time, he somehow could not help believing in the reality of
Primrose, Buttercup, Dandelion, Squash-blossom, and the rest. Thus
early did he begin to grasp the philosophy of the truth of fiction.

The House of the Seven Gables and The Wonder-Book were a fair
eighteen-months' work, and in addition to them Hawthorne had, before
leaving Lenox, planned out the story of The Blithedale Romance; so
that after we got to West Newton--our half-way station on the road to
Concord--he was prepared to sit down and write it. Long before we left
Concord for England he had published Tangle-wood Tales, not to mention
the biography of Franklin Pierce. Una and her brother knew nothing
about the romances; they knew and approved the fairy tales; but their
feeling about all their father's writings was, that he was being
wasted in his study, when he might be with them, and there could be
nothing in any books, whether his own or other authors', that could
for a moment bear comparison with his actual companionship. What he
set down upon the page was but a less free and rich version of the
things that came from his living mouth in our heedless playtimes. "If
only papa wouldn't write, how nice it would be!" And, indeed, a book
is but a poor substitute for the mind and heart of a man, and it
exists only as one of the numberless sorry makeshifts to which time
constrains us, while we are waiting for eternity and full communion.

It was a dreary day in the beginning of the second winter that we set
out on our eastward journey; but Hawthorne's face was brighter than
the weather warranted, for it was turned once more towards the sea. We