life; it was as if there were a ghost in the house; and though early
anecdotes of him are few and of little significance, yet in his childish
threat to go away to sea and never come back again, repeated through
years, one can but trace the deep print of that sorrow of the
un-returning ones which was the tragedy of women's lives all along this
coast. His mother cared for him none the less, though she was less his
companion, and there seems to have been no diminution of affection and
kindness between them, though an outward habit of coldness sprang up as
time went on. He had his sisters for playmates at first, and as he grew
up, he was much looked after by his uncles. His first master was Dr.
Worcester, the lexicographer, then just graduated from Yale, who set up
a school in Salem; and, the lad being lamed in ball-playing, the young
teacher came to the house to carry on the lessons. The accident happened
when Hawthorne was nine years old, and the injury, which reduced him to
crutches, continued to trouble him till he was twelve, at least, after
which, to judge by the fact that he attended dancing-school, he seems to
have entirely recovered from it. The habit of reading came to him
earlier, perhaps because of his confinement and disability for sports in
these three or four years; he was naturally thrown back upon himself. He
is seen lying upon the floor habitually, and when not playing with
cats--the only boyish fondness told of him--reading Shakspere, Milton,
Thomson, the books of the household, not uncommon in New England homes,
where good books were as plenty then as all books are now; and on
Sundays, at his grandmother Hathorne's, across the yard, he would crouch
hour after hour over Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress," that refuge of
boyhood on the oldtime Sabbaths. It is recollected that, by the time he
was fourteen, he had read Clarendon, Froissart, and Rousseau, besides
"The Newgate Calendar," a week-day favorite; and he may be said to have
begun youth already well versed in good English books, and with the
habit and taste of literary pleasure established as a natural part of