like the mighty Pan, by covering his chin and breast with long
grass-blades, that looked like a verdant and venerable beard."
The pleasantness and peace of his surroundings and of his modest
home, in Lenox, may be taken into account as harmonizing with the
mellow serenity of the romance then produced. Of the work, when
it appeared in the early spring of 1851, he wrote to Horatio Bridge
these words, now published for the first time:-

"`The House of the Seven Gables' in my opinion, is better than
`The Scarlet Letter:' but I should not wonder if I had refined
upon the principal character a little too much for popular
appreciation, nor if the romance of the book should be somewhat
at odds with the humble and familiar scenery in which I invest it.
But I feel that portions of it are as good as anything I can hope
to write, and the publisher speaks encouragingly of its success."

From England, especially, came many warm expressions of praise,
--a fact which Mrs. Hawthorne, in a private letter, commented on as
the fulfillment of a possibility which Hawthorne, writing in boyhood
to his mother, had looked forward to. He had asked her if she would
not like him to become an author and have his books read in England.

G. P. L.



PREFACE.