printed card, for which the whole function had been created, had not
been presented. At the last moment, in an agony of apprehension, the
boy pulled at his mother's skirt and whispered piteously, "But my
card!" She heard and remembered; but need was for haste; we had
already passed the vantage-point. She snatched it from the tightly
gripping fingers of the bearer, handed it to Kossuth, and at the same
moment, with a gesture, directed his attention to her small companion.
The Hungarian read the inscription at a glance, looked me in the eyes
with a quick smile of comprehension, and, stepping towards me, laid
his hand upon my head. It was a great moment for me; but as I went
away I suddenly dissolved in tears, whether from the reaction of
emotion, or because I had not myself succeeded in delivering my gift,
I cannot now determine. But Kossuth thereby became, and for years he
continued to be, the most superb figure in my political horizon.

All this while The Blithedale Romance was being written. Inasmuch as
it was finished on the last day of April, 1852, it could not have
occupied the writer more than five months in the composition. Winter
was his best time for literary work, and there was winter enough that
year in West Newton. In the middle of April came the heaviest
snowstorm of the season. Brook Farm (modified in certain respects to
suit the conditions) was the scene of the story, and Brook Farm was
within a fair walk of West Newton. I visited the place some thirty
years later, and found the general topographical features
substantially as described in the book. In 1852 it was ten years since
Hawthorne had lived there, and though he might have renewed his
acquaintance with it while the writing was going on, there is no
record of his having done so; and considering the unfavorable weather,
and the fact that the imaginative atmosphere which writers seek is
enhanced by distance in time, just as the physical effect of a