theatrical company, by special engagement, announced by posters, which
also bear on a pasted slip of paper a notice of Eliakim Abbott's
religious meeting. On this occasion he recited with great applause the
tale of "Mr. Higginbotham's Catastrophe." With this the fragment ends.

It is plain that Hawthorne intended by this scheme to unite with his
stories sketches of country life and scenes as he had noticed their
features in his wayside travels, and use the latter as the background
for his imaginative and fanciful work. These were the two sides of his
literary faculty, so far as he had tried his hand, and he would have the
benefit of both in one work, which would thereby gain variety and unity.
The success of the experiment cannot be thought striking, and it is
doubtful how far he carried the actual composition of the intervening
scenes. He confided the plan to Goodrich, who did not encourage it, so
far as can be judged, but took the opening chapters to the editors of
"The New England Magazine" on Hawthorne's behalf. This periodical, which
had three years before absorbed Willis's "Magazine," had been conducted
on somewhat grave and serious lines, as a kind of Boston cousin, as it
were, of the "North American," and was now in a state of change. Mr.
Buckingham relinquished the editorship, and the magazine went into the
hands of Dr. Samuel G. Howe and John O. Sargent. It was at this
favorable moment that Goodrich appeared with Hawthorne's manuscript; the
piece was accepted; and it was published, half in the first and half in
the second number issued by the new editors, in November and December,
1834. The connection proved a fortunate one for Hawthorne, and "The New
England Magazine" [Footnote: In the Riverside edition of Hawthorne's
works a paper, _Hints to Young Ambition_, which appeared in _The
New England Magazine,_ 1832, signed "H.," is included. The piece is
one of several, with the same signature, and there can he little
hesitation in rejecting it, as Goodrich would hardly have needed to