The scene of the tale is laid at Harley College, "in an ancient, though
not very populous settlement in a retired corner of one of the New
England States." This, no doubt, is a reproduction of Bowdoin. Mr.
Longfellow tells me that the descriptions of the seminary and of the
country around it strongly suggest the Brunswick College. The President
of Harley is a Dr. Melmoth, an amiable and simple old delver in
learning, in a general way recalling Dominie Sampson, whose vigorous
spouse rules him somewhat severely: their little bickerings supply a
strain of farce indigenous to Scott's fictions, but quite unlike
anything in Hawthorne's later work. A young lady, named Ellen Langton,
daughter of an old friend of Dr. Melmoth's, is sent to Harley, to stay
under his guardianship. Ellen is somewhat vaguely sketched, in the style
of Scott's heroines; but this sentence ends with a trace of the young
writer's quality: "If pen could give an adequate idea of Ellen Langton's
beauty, it would achieve what pencil ... never could; for though the
dark eyes might be painted, the pure and pleasant thoughts that peeped
through them could only be seen and felt." This maiden the doctor once
took into his study, to begin a course of modern languages with her; but
she "having discovered an old romance among his heavy folios, contrived
by the sweet charm of her voice to engage his attention," and quite
beguiled him from severer studies. Naturally, she inthralls two young
students at the college: one of whom is Edward Wolcott, a wealthy,
handsome, generous, healthy young fellow from one of the seaport towns;
and the other, Fanshawe, the hero, who is a poor but ambitious recluse,
already passing into a decline through overmuch devotion to books and
meditation. Fanshawe, though the deeper nature of the two, and intensely
moved by his new passion, perceiving that a union between himself and
Ellen could not be a happy one, resigns the hope of it from the
beginning. But circumstances bring him into intimate relation with her.