before the whispered word, with the birth of the first sigh. My glance
comprehends the crowd, and penetrates the breast of the solitary man. I
think better of the world than formerly, more generously of its virtues,
more mercifully of its faults, with a higher estimate of its present
happiness, and brighter hopes of its destiny."

These passages from "The Devil in Manuscript" and "The Journal of a
Solitary Man" may fairly be taken as a contemporary general account of
Hawthorne's secret life in the years before his own "Note-Books" begin.
The latter afford rather a view of his existence, from day to day. The
earliest of them which has survived opens in the summer of 1835, and
while containing scraps of information that he had jotted down as in a
commonplace book, and also brief memoranda of ideas for tales and
sketches, it also keeps record of his observations in his walks and
drives, and thus pictures his outward life. He lived at Salem still, in
the habits of seclusion that had always obtained in the house, and saw
little of mankind. Society, if he sought it at all, was found for him
among common people at the tavern or by the wayside, and was of the sort
that he enjoyed on his summer journeys. But solitude was his normal
state. This was indulged in his own room; or else he took a morning or
afternoon to wander out to the near Salem beaches and points, or to the
pleasant lanes of Danvers or across the river to the upland or seashore
of Beverly. He occasionally drove a dozen miles or more to Ipswich,
Nahant, or Andover. What he saw, however, was only rustic life of the
countryside, or the natural views of wood and sky and sea, with the
nearer objects to attract particular attention, of which he has left so
many minute descriptions. His observation at such times, though without
the naturalist's preoccupation,--rather with the poet's or
novelist's,--was as keen and detailed as Thoreau's. These Note-Books,
however, do not open his familiar life except as a record of changing