Hawthorne Gossips about Salem

Abstract

FELT it almost as a destiny to make Salem my home, wrote Nathaniel Hawthorne in his introductory sketch for The Scarlet Letter. Yet of those early years in Salem the world knows very little. The man whose art distilled the essence of the spirit of New England from that memory-haunted sea town passed his early manhood so quietly there, that few letters or other records have been preserved. Biographers have tried, with such as they had, to sketch in hazy outlines of those days, to convey some definite impression of young Hawthorne's tastes and disposition. In the possession of Mrs. Edward B. Hall, of Winnetka, Illinois, are three hitherto unpublished letters from Hawthorne, written in the years 1830 and I83I, full of gossip about Salem, -his family, and himself. These letters are not only amusing but important, for they fill up many gaps in the story of his life. They unlatch the long-closed shutters of that Salem house where, as Hawthorne said, sat myself down to consider what pursuit in life I was most fit for.