seasons and of detached thoughts to be worked up in fiction. Many of his
later tales are found here in the germ, in 1835 and for the year or two
after; but the diary is not so much a confidant as it afterward became.

The time had now come when he must make some further step in
establishing himself in some means of livelihood. He never showed much
power of initiative, and at every stage was materially aided by his
friends in obtaining employment and position. In this instance it was
Goodrich again who gave him opportunity. It was not a great chance, but
it was doubtless all Goodrich had to offer. He procured for him the
editorship of a small publication which undertook to disseminate popular
information, called "The American Magazine of Useful and Entertaining
Knowledge," and published by the Bewick Company, at Boston, with which
Goodrich had some connection through his interests in engraving. His
salary was to be five hundred dollars, and he entered on his duties
about the beginning of 1836. The change was welcomed by his friends, or
such of them as were still near enough to him to know of his affairs;
and from this time his college mates, Pierce, Cilley, and especially
Bridge, interested themselves in his fortunes. Bridge, writing from
Havana, February 20, 1836, congratulated him, as did also Pierce from
Washington, on the intelligence concerning his "late engagement in
active and responsible business," and particularly on his having got
"out of Salem," which he credits with "a peculiar dulness;" and in later
letters he continues to hearten him, subscribes for his magazine, reads
and praises it, in the most cordial and cheering way. But the event did
not justify these hopes and prognostications of a better fortune. The
magazine was, after all, the merest hack-work. Hawthorne, with the aid
of his sister Elizabeth, wrote most of it, compiling the matter from
books or utilizing his own notes of travel. In it appeared, of such
pieces as have found a place in his works, "An Ontario Steamboat," "The